Summer Camp, 2024.

Written and Directed by Castille Landon.
Starring Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, Eugene Levy, Beverly D’Angelo, Victoria Rowell, Maria Howell, Dennis Haysbert, Nicole Richie, Josh Peck, Betsy Sodaro, Tom Wright, Ray Santiago, Taylor Madeline Hand, Kensington Tallman, Gabe Sklar, Lindsey Blanchard, Artemis Davis, Gabrielle Days, and Zachary Connor.

SYNOPSIS:

Follows Nora, Ginny, and Mary, three childhood best friends who used to spend every summer at a sleep away camp together. After years, when the opportunity to get back together for a summer camp reunion presents itself, they all seize it.

There is value in exploring time-tested friendships in old age, but for whatever reason, movies like Summer Camp are less concerned with depicting characters who feel human navigating believable drama and more fixated on going for cheap, lazy laughs that typically play up the silliness of elderly shenanigans.

These movies almost always seem to feature Diane Keaton, who is arguably the worst offender when it comes to playing characters over the top. Naturally, this is frustrating since co-stars Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, and Eugene Levy are at least bringing something authentic and relatable to their roles even if, at the end of the day, this is a ridiculous film about someone who secretly spends a quarter-million to reunite with cherished childhood friends who have struggled to stay in touch across the 50 years since they aged out of the titular summer camp.

That would be Jenny, a successful author of aggressively forward self-help books, now going by Ginny. Since childhood, she was always the one eager to live life freely whilst saving her new friends at summer camp from being bullied by the pretty girls, coming out of their shells, and trying out various activities like archery (which doesn’t go well and immediately gets a supervisor injured as a lame attempt at comedy.) Those friends are Diane Keaton’s Nora, who would go on to become a highly educated biochemist putting work before life, and Mary (Alfre Woodard), a nurse who gave up on more ambitious dreams of becoming a doctor to settle on married life that grew loveless and more like a second job over time.

Everyone is coming to the summer camp reunion, including past crush Stevie D (Eugene Levy, playing a likable wise gentleman) and even the bullies led by Beverly D’Angelo’s Jane. There is also an overexcited guard (Betsy Sodaro) put to the test as this is a movie where intended comedy comes from food fights breaking out, among other eye-rolling set pieces. Then there is a bumbling counselor, played by Josh Peck, who keeps getting reassigned to monitor different activities, constantly screwing things up in ways that, apparently, are also meant to be funny.

Written and directed by Castille Landon, the lessons shoved in one’s face throughout Summer Camp are nothing new for this subgenre and, unfortunately, come with the same flaws that generally sink these types of movies. Nora needs to be reminded how to ignore work and have fun (not happy about handing over all electronic devices at the camp, unable to check work-related emails). Mary needs to realize that her husband is nothing more than a dependent manchild who has deprived her of enjoying time with friends, and Ginny must realize that her readers are not the only ones who could use some reflection and self-help.

Smartly, there doesn’t appear to be a true primary character focus here, allowing the three friends ample time to reveal more about their lives while hanging out with others. Castille Landon doesn’t perceive them as more important to someone else. There are also a small handful of effective moments, whether it be from Mary arguing with her husband as he shows up to forcibly bring her home or Stevie vulnerably detailing how an obsessive dedication to work wasn’t worth it and how he now enjoys regularly spending time with his family even if he doesn’t necessarily like what they are doing for fun on any given day.

Summer Camp has nuggets of wisdom buried under atrocious humor, sometimes made more groan-worthy by the corniest needle drops. With a rewrite or two taking the material more seriously (which doesn’t mean eliminating jokes entirely), there is an interesting, refreshing story about old-age friendship to be told here. Instead, we get jokes about deer shit, Diane Keaton cluelessly using technology (which makes no damn sense considering how intelligent the character is supposed to be), and ham-fisted messaging. 

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

NOW STREAMING ON:

Artificial Intelligence is out to nuke the world, but not if a (checks notes) data analyst has anything to say about it in Atlas, now streaming on Netflix worldwide. This should be both topical and fun, and star Jennifer Lopez and director Brad Peyton (San Andreas, Rampage) initially seem up to the task. But they fail to shoulder the burden of a incredibly dull and shockingly unimaginative script.

Atlas opens in an unspecified future where interstellar travel is now possible, and the Los Angeles skyline has a few new skyscrapers, including Prague’s TV Tower. Three decades back, an artificial being named Harlan (a robotically over-the-top Simu Liu) became sentient and attempted to wipe out humanity, killing three million people before taking it on the lam across the galaxy, Roy Batty-style.

Lopez is the titular Atlas Shepherd, who has a special connection to Harlan: she’s his sister! Yes, mom (Lana Parrilla) “invented” Harlan before he went genocidal, and so Atlas now bears her burden, hunting the robot across the universe. In an early scene, she finally locates him after tricking AI associate Casca Decius (Abraham Popoola) into giving up the intel using this one simple trick all robots and 9-year-old children hate.

Harlan’s hiding out in the Andromeda Galaxy, just a short 2.5 million light year ride from Earth. So here’s the plan, formulated by stodgy General Jake Boothe (Mark Strong) and gung-ho Colonel Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown): fly a planet-destroying nuclear payload to Harlan’s hideout… but only as Plan B. Instead, capture Harlan alive for, uh, reasons. Nevermind that by the time you need to employ Plan B, Harlan will have his hands on a nuclear payload capable of destroying Earth.

We have questions. It’s established in the early scenes with Casca that you cannot “kill” AI. You can kill their physical form, but not the intelligence that forever lives on a cloud. And even the physical form can be easily replicated. So what’s the point of the mission? Isn’t the threat AI sentience itself, and not the physical Simu Liu robot?

Anyway, Atlas herself, the Jack Ryan in this sci-fi Clancyverse, joins the mission as the world’s foremost Harlan expert. Despite a deep mistrust of AI, she soon discovers that her only chance of survival will be to bond with an AI operating system named Smith (voiced by Gregory James Cohan) that operates her giant mech suit.

Helpfully, this AI bond between Atlas and Smith is displayed for the audience in a LED bar that slowly rises during the course of the movie, reaching the crucial 100 percent when Atlas opens up via climactic expository dialogue. Even though, we assume, the AI can read her mind at all times. What’s the point of the neural link if she needs to tell Smith everything verbally?

Atlas is at its modest best during scenes with Lopez alone in the mech, slowly forming a bond with the artificial intelligence. Smith asks her whether she likes pie or cake, and harvests an alien flower for her. Awww. Nevermind that the last AI system she bonded with ended up killing millions of people. They must have patched the genocide bug with this newest update.

There is some fun to be had in a big, schlocky would-be sci-fi epic like this, but Atlas takes itself way too seriously with big teary-eyed speeches and emotional swells on the soundtrack. Lopez is more than capable of carrying something like this, but she doesn’t seem to know what kind of movie she’s in; one could imagine frequent Peyton collaborator Dwayne Johnson bringing the right kind of self-awareness to the role.

Atlas looks mostly great, with a certain car commercial slickness, though even the high production values seem to abandon the film as it climaxes in a hopelessly pedestrian nondescript warehouse on this strange new alien world. Netflix spent an alleged $100 million on this movie, but by the finale, it might as well be Cosmic Sin.

Worst of all, Atlas fails to capitalize on the topical subject that supposedly drives its narrative. AI can be both bad and good, it seems to be saying, as it argues for acceptance of the technology. Of course, when the bad is the deaths of millions and the good is the preservation of a flower and a friendly how-do-you-do, we wonder if JLo isn’t too hasty in learning stop worrying and love the algorithm.

You’re almost certainly not prepared for Robot Dreams. Even after it getting the Best Animated Feature nomination at the Academy Awards, most of you who see the film are going to be walking in cold. That’s good, too, as it will be similar to how I approached the movie. Do it that we and this beautiful bit of emotional animation will wash over you in a very special way. Robot Dreams is one of my favorite works of late, easily representing some of 2024’s best cinematic bits (yes, I’m mostly counting it for this year).

Robot Dreams takes a very simple premise and executes it magnificently. Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, it’s a tribute to the power of emotions, the need to be close to others, and how a true connection is not impacted by time. The movie is timeless and universal in its themes, while also being hyper specific in its style, as well as choice of characters. For me, it basically all worked.

Set in a version of 1980s New York City with anthropomorphized animals, we’re introduced to Dog, who lives alone in Manhattan. He’s clearly lonely and one day, while watching television, sees an ad for a robot friend. Ordering it and building it, he suddenly has a companion in Robot. An inseparable friendship blossoms, as they galavant all around the city. Towards the end of the summer, they go to the beach in Coney Island. There, a moment in the water, followed by sleeping in the sand, will change them both forever.

When Dog discovers that Robot has rusted and is unable to move it, he has to head home that night, planning to return in the morning with tools. Unfortunately, that plan does not work, so Robot has more or less been abandoned. Without hope, at least until the beach reopens next season, Dog goes about his life, trying to fill the void. While he’s attempting to make new connections, Robot dreams about being reunited, as well as what could be happening in those scenarios. Will they ever meet again? Plus, if they even can, will they still have what was so special to them once before?

While this film has no dialogue, the emotions speak volumes. Whether it’s the joy of the opening section, the sadness of the middle, or the mix of hope and melancholy that dominates the back end, we don’t need to hear Dog or Robot to completely understand them. That’s incredibly rare and one of the big triumphs of Robot Dreams.

Filmmaker Pablo Berger executes his vision with aplomb. The beginning is about as adorable and fun as anything you’ll see this year, while his ending ranks up there with La La Land (in more ways than one). Berger knows exactly how to make Robot Dreams never boring, always beautiful, and constantly compelling. It’s a home run.

Robot Dreams is worth the wait. Whether you heard about it before its Oscar run, during the awards season, or just here in 2024, you’re in for a treat. It’s one of the best films of the year so far, animated or otherwise, and demands your attention!

SCORE: ★★★1/2

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