Movie Reviews

Movie Review: ‘Origin’ is Ava DuVernay’s ambitious magnum-opus linking racism to global caste system – WTOP News

Published

2 years ago

January 22, 2024

Movie Review: ‘Origin’ is Ava DuVernay’s ambitious magnum-opus linking racism to global caste system – WTOP News

Ava DuVernay delivers her magnum opus “Origin,” which opened in movie theaters nationwide over the weekend just before Oscar nominations are announced on Tuesday.

WTOP’s Jason Fraley reviews Ava DuVernay’s ‘Origin’ (Part 1)

This image released by Neon shows Jon Bernthal, left, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in a scene from “Origin.” (Atsushi Nishijima/Neon via AP)

In her biopic “Selma” (2014), she depicted Martin Luther King Jr.’s quest to pass the Voting Rights Act. In her documentary “13th” (2016), she chronicled institutional racism in the U.S. prison system. And in her miniseries “When They See Us” (2019), she defended the falsely accused Central Park Five.

Now, Ava DuVernay delivers her magnum opus “Origin,” which opened in movie theaters nationwide over the weekend just before Oscar nominations are announced on Tuesday (more on that release strategy later).

Based on the 2020 book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” the film follows author and scholar Isabel Wilkerson as she brainstorms her next book idea after the success of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.” As the first Black journalist to win the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, she embarks on her most ambitious project yet: a book linking racism in the U.S. to a larger global concept of the caste system.

Wilkerson is warmly portrayed by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (Oscar nominee, “King Richard”) with deeply human interactions, including an interracial marriage to her loving husband (Jon Bernthal), her ailing mom (Emily Yancy) and confiding cousin (Niecy Nash-Betts). She even has personable interactions with a plumber (Nick Offerman) wearing a red “MAGA” hat as she remodels her home in an allegory for repairing cracks in America’s foundation.

DuVernay opens the film with the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin (played by Maryland native and Broadway Tony winner Myles Frost) by Florida neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, who stalked the hooded teen despite police dispatchers telling him not to tail him. The way DuVernay films the scene, we know we’re in the hands of a filmmaking force, capturing window reflections and ominously showing a pack of Skittles.

She next shows Wilkerson traveling to Germany to visit the sites of former concentration camps before having dinner-table conversations comparing and contrasting the experiences of Jews in Germany during the Holocaust and Black folks in America during slavery. Here, the script is smartly written to draw vital parallels, but also where Wilkerson commits unforced errors, lamenting regrets in a phone call after dinner for key character growth.

Finally, Wilkerson visits India for the film’s most educational moment teaching audiences about the Dalits (“untouchables”), the lowest class in a nation ironically founded by a Dalit man, B.R. Ambedkar, who wrote the Indian Constitution and advocated for abolishing the caste system. DuVernay focuses on a statue of Ambedkar as a symbolic familiar image, while playing audio of MLK’s 1959 visit to India, relating to the Dalit struggle.

It’s super ambitious to try to tie historical and current events across different nations together into one cohesive film, but our reach should always exceed our grasp. It won’t work for everyone, especially if you favor a more traditional narrative structure, but I was on the film’s wavelength the entire time and admired the ambitious thesis as DuVernay’s magnum opus, combining the best of her skills both narrative (“Selma”) and documentary (“13th”).

Of course, we have to address the elephant in the room that “Origin” will be slammed by Rotten Tomatoes review bombers who don’t share the film’s political views. If you share the mindset of recent political candidates that racism never existed in America and can’t admit that slavery caused the Civil War, this movie isn’t for you. This is a film for open hearts and minds hoping to grow, learn and change to make America live up to its original promise.

It’s a shame that the film is being released so late. DuVernay is an awesome director consistently let down by a baffling release strategy. “Selma” was an instant classic destined to be shown in schools for decades, but the various guild screeners weren’t sent out in time, meaning many voters didn’t see it until it opened nationwide on Jan. 9. Thus, it earned a Best Picture nomination but missed for David Oyelowo as MLK and DuVernay as director.

Similarly, “Origin” just arrived last Friday, Jan. 19 after Oscar voting had already ended Jan. 16. Perhaps it’s following the strategy of “One Night in Miami” (2020) releasing Jan. 8 and “Judas and the Black Messiah” (2021) releasing Feb. 12, but I’m seeing less momentum from awards pundits. Local critics who saw it at the Middleburg Film Festival have been raving about it since October — I watched it on a Neon awards screener over the holidays — but I’ve had to hold my review until now when our WTOP listeners can actually see the movie here in D.C.

The fact that I can so vividly remember so much of “Origin” this many weeks after seeing it says a lot about the film’s power. And yet, I still think an October release like “13th” would have kept it in the awards conversation (“13th” would have won an Oscar that year if not for “O.J.: Made in America” being incorrectly classified in a movie category instead of the episodic television event that it was, a rule that was changed immediately afterwards).

Surely, Ellis-Taylor deserves a nomination for Best Actress, Bernthal deserves a nomination for Supporting Actor and DuVernay deserves nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, but I have a feeling that “Origin” will be snubbed in most every category when Oscar nominations are announced on Tuesday morning. Voters can’t vote on what they barely have time to see, an unfortunate self-fulfilling prophecy of snubbing.

The reaction to this is predictable. Left-leaning cinephiles will say it’s proof that the Academy is biased, while right-leaning detractors will insist that the movie just wasn’t good enough — which isn’t the case at all. “Origin” is a thoughtful, thought-provoking, award-worthy film that is a fascinating companion piece to “American Fiction.”

WTOP’s Jason Fraley reviews Ava DuVernay’s ‘Origin’ (Part 2)

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Movie Reviews

Sisu: Road to Revenge

Published

5 hours ago

November 21, 2025

Press Room

The lethal and tenacious Aatami Korpi returns in this sequel to 2022’s Sisu. Like its predecessor, Sisu: Road to Revenge offers up nonstop, gory hyper-violence as the old soldier shoots and stabs his way through the Soviet Union’s Red Army to avenge his family’s murder. Paired with all the bloodshed is a handful of f-words and some drinking, as well.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “Sisu: Road to Revenge” takes a Wrong Turn or Three

Published

23 hours ago

November 21, 2025

Press Room

Movie Review: “Sisu: Road to Revenge” takes a Wrong Turn or Three

I am an audience of one at a late afternoon “preview” matinee of “Sisu 2,” aka “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” the sequel to the savage sleeper hit by Finnish carnage Jalmari Helander.

Do the locals know something I don’t? Or are the good folks in “The Last Capital of the Confederacy” showing their red ball cap displeasure at a movie about mowing down Russians by staying home?

I’m guessing it’s the fact that Screen Gems’ marketing didn’t spend enough to move the needle even a centimeter that dampened enthusiasm, as nobody knows about it.

That’s no big deal, because this sequel is inferior in pretty much every way to the original “Sisu,” which came out of nowhere back in 2023 and which takes its title from a Finnish word that more of less means unfettered rage. It’s not on a par with Helander’s “Rare Exports” Santa-horror splatter film either. He’s due for a misstep. Here it is.

“Road to Revenge” brings back our non-speaking, unstoppable and unkillable Finnish commando Korpi (Jorma Tommila), this time out to haul the pieces to his house across the Russian border after the end of World War II.

When your anti-hero is “unstoppable” and “unkillable,” that lowers the stakes. A lot.

Throw in feeble pacing and thus no urgency to its story of driving, shooting, stabbing and missle-launching his way through legions of belligerant Russians, fresh from their triumph in “The Great Patriotic War,” and you’ve got a thriller whose only creative bits are random moments of Russian-mutilating and murdering.

Remember, the vodka/borscht-folk and their dictator sided with the Nazis at the beginning of WWII, only to F-around and find out you can never trust a Nazi. And the Russians further earned their history’s bad-guys status by invading Finland at the start of the war, and paying dearly for their miscalculation, at least for a time.

The Soviet Russians annexed Finnish territory at war’s end, and that’s where Korpi lived. So he’s got his passport and his battered, oversized military truck and he’s aiming to move the logs of his old homestead, where his family was slaughtered, to a new location across the new border.

Ivan doesn’t want him to get away with it.

The stages of his quest are broken into superfluous “chapters” like “Old Enemies,” “Motor Mayhem:” and “Incoming.” The dialogue, almost all of it by a Russian tormentor (Stephen Lang) who commanded the troops who failed to finish off the Finn in the first film, is every bit as pointless.

“Unleash Hell,” like they haven’t already. “Keep your eyes open,” the most worthless command cliche of them all. And “Look at me,” served up as if he isn’t looking at you.

Duels against armored commandos on motorcycles (!?), airborne fighter bombers and the like ensue. Our hero takes another licking and keeps on ticking. The Russians? Let the body count commence, Comrades!

I laughed at a few of the more audacious butcherings, but that was early on. The narrative settles into a slog in the middle acts and no pull-out-the-stops train ride finale could drag it out of the mud.

Rating: R, graphic violence, pretty much start to finish, profanity

Cast: Jorma Tommila, Richard Brake and Stephen Lang.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Jalmari Helander. A Screen Gems release.

Running time: 1:29

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine

Movie Reviews

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Ariana Grande Shines In A Solid But Weaker-Than-The-Original Finale!

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2025

Press Room

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Ariana Grande Shines In A Solid But Weaker-Than-The-Original Finale!

Wicked: For Good Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, and Michelle Yeoh.

Director: Jon M. Chu

Wicked: For Good Movie Review Out: Solid Performances But Underwhelming Conclusion (Photo Credit – Instagram)

What’s Good: Wicked: For Good is definitely a showpiece when it comes to production values, and so, every single frame is beautiful to look at and the ultimate Wizard of Oz experience when it comes to visuals.

What’s Bad: The film is slower than the first, and it feels, especially when the new songs don’t hit like the ones in the previous instalment ,and dialogue feels like a lot of filler.

Loo Break: Anywhere in the first act, as the film moves so slowly that you can probably go and come back and not miss anything.

Watch or Not?: If you loved the first one, then yes, you need to see this and close the cycle.

Language: English (with subtitles).

Available On: Theaters

Runtime: 137 Minutes

User Rating:

Opening:

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Ariana Grande Shines (Photo Credit – YouTube)

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Script Analysis

Wicked: For Good is a solid film, there is no doubt about that, you just have to look at the powerful visuals, and the entire production value, but the script might be the weakest aspect of the film, especially when it comes to structure and dialogue, which affects the pacing, making the first two acts of this musical epic feel like it could do with a couple more drafts to make the story tighter, and the flow a lot more natural.

As it is, the first two acts move a snail’s pace, and the songs simply don’t match the quality and catchiness of the songs in the first two acts of the first film, here, the songs feel like they are there just to make the film longer, and it is hard to remember one that is simply memorable enough to sing along. Fans of the original musical will probably have a lot more fun with this aspect of the film, but as a newcomer, I did feel a drop in quality on the musical side.

The dialogue also does a lot of damage to the film, as it feels like everything is delivered in two or three lines that are too long, when it could have been conveyed in a simpler and more efficient way. It just doesn’t work, and while the actors do their best, the material doesn’t hold up. Nevertheless, some jokes here and there truly land, and the film does tell a compelling, complete story, which is a lot more than many other films do today.

The third act also feels quite rushed, and the connections to the original Wizard of Oz film, and the characters from that story deserved a lot more, because they are so legendary and iconic, that for some reason this movie feels like it should just move away from them as fast as it can, hurting the overall impact of the story, and the character growth.

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Star Performance

Cynthia Erivo is quite solid in here, and she is plotwise, the main character, but let’s be real, this is the Ariana Grande show, who basically steals the show in every single scenes she is in, not only with her powerful voice but also with her solid acting abilities, she just has it, when it comes to presence, delivery and charisma.

The rest of the cast is quite good. Bailey does some terrifying things in the film and effectively creates all the darkness it needs, while Goldblum’s Oz is just right – nothing to talk about, but definitely his performance, along with the rest from all the other actors, doesn’t hurt the film; it elevates it.

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Movie Lacks Crisp Editing At Places (Photo Credit – YouTube)

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Direction, Music

Jon M. Chu started as a relatively standard director. Still, he has definitely graduated to the big leagues with these two films, as the scale of everything just goes out of the window when it comes to the visuals and the camera’s placement, which is always in the perfect spot to show it. Really, the world-building that Chu and his team have created here is outstanding.

The music, as we said before isn’t as good or memorable as the first film which really hurts the experience because this is a musical and I thought the best was being safe for last in the song department, of course, it will be a matter of taste, as it is everything but this is definitely one of the biggest negative points for the film. Nevertheless, the performers are truly going out of their way to create something extraordinary, so there is really nothing to criticize regarding the actors, dancers and singers themselves.

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Takes Viewers On An Atmospheric Ride (Photo Credit – YouTube)

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: The Last Word

Wicked: For Good closes this adventure in a solid manner, although the overall package feels weaker than the first film, which is disappointing. However, Jon. M. Chu, his team, and his cast demonstrate that they truly care about the project, and it shows on the screen as the film finally delivers on being entertaining, grandiose, and visually stunning. It could have been better, but what is there is truly remarkable.