We’ve had genies of the playful, wish-granting “Thief of Baghdad” type, and more recently quite a number of evil djinn in horror movies. But it’s hard to recall a prior screen portrait of the same malleable Arabic mythological creatures quite like “HWJN,” which takes the cuddlesome, anthropomorphic “They’re just like us, only magical!” view of Pixar animations and such in depicting modern-day jinn (the term’s more accurate translation) who invisibly live alongside humans.

Yasir Alyasiri’s visually appealing fantasy, which kicked off the Red Sea Film Fest, is at times too innocuous in tone and pedestrian in story ideas. But it’s nonetheless a slick, pleasant diversion that should attract viewers eager for an approximation of CGI-heavy western family entertainments, albeit with up-front Arabic cultural and Muslim religious emphases. The Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates coproduction opens commercially in S.A. on Jan. 4.

Drawn from sci-fi author Ibraheem Abbas’ popular (if sporadically banned) series of novels, which began publishing a decade ago, this amiable whimsy starts off its world-building immediately in the most straightforward terms. Our narrating protagonist Hawjan (Baraa Alem) is introduced watching a traditional “evil genie” film in a cinema. He protests such stereotypes, insisting that real jinn “have jobs, families and family drama,” just like the humans they co-exist with. Only the humans don’t know it, because “God separated our worlds for a reason of which He knows best,” rendering jinn capable of seeing humans but not vice versa. Interaction between the two is difficult, and forbidden by the “jinn creed,” anyway. 

Nonetheless, it becomes hard to maintain that detachment once the abandoned home that young doctor Hawjan (at 92, he looks 20) shares with his mother and grandfather on Jeddah’s outskirts is refurbished, then inhabited by the well-off Abdulraheems. Only daughter Sawsan (Nour Alkhadra), a med school student herself, senses the presence of the preexisting supernatural residents even faintly. Our hero is quickly smitten, so he works assiduously to create a communication bridge with her — which takes the form of a shameless plug for iPads. But their inter-dimensional relationship is problematic, to say the least. For one thing, she’s already got a nice, safely human beau in classmate Eyad (Mohsen Mansour). For another, she has a brain tumor that may render any romantic or marital prospects moot.

But worse still is that fatheress Hawjan, whose paternal background (and reasons for being “trapped” living alongside people) have been kept from him, is in fact jinn royalty sought for nefarious purposes by minions of the wicked King Hayaf. Chief among them is chrome-domed Master Xanaam (Naif Al Daferi), a cousin who to save his own neck must persuade our hero to marry his sister, the beauteous Jumara (Alanoud Saud). In order to do so, he and his flunkies cast a spell on Sawsan, using her already vulnerable health as an instrument of blackmail. To save her life, and fulfill his own destiny, Hawjan must journey to the fantastical lands of two warring jinn tribes.

Even if these desert realms recall the various versions of “Dune” in their tawny look, it is in sequences set there that “HWJN” is most enjoyable. Indeed, these flights of visual fancy — handsomely realized by production designer Khaled Amin, costumer Hassan Mustafa and DP Nemanja Veselinovic’s frequently amber-hued cinematography — prevent the rather banal Earth-bound conflicts from dragging “HWJN” into tearjerking melodrama. 

The pacing sometimes plods a bit, but likewise is juiced enough by regular infusions of eye candy to maintain interest. Even human interiors are granted a colorfully inviting warmth, and some spectacular desert exteriors were shot in Egypt. Less distinctive is Khaled Alkamaar’s original score, which is a little too squarely faithful to the John Williams school of triumphal, fully orchestrated western mall-flick soundtrack themes. 

Well-cast performers ably fulfill the demands of their fairly one-note roles, from our puppyish protagonist to various concerned parental figures and an assortment of comical or sinister grotesques. Unsurprisingly, the door is left wide open for sequels, with supervillain Hayaf — his ghoulish countenance glimpsed only at the fadeout — not about to take everybody else’s happy endings like a good sport.

Conclusion

Many movies and shows have, of course, depicted and embellished the biblical story of the Israelites exodus from Egypt. And now we can add The Prince of Egypt: The Musical to that catalog.

This enjoyable stage production bases its view of Moses’ tale on Dreamwork’s acclaimed 1998 animated film The Prince of Egypt. And it features five of composer Stephen Schwartz’s songs from that movie (“Deliver Us,” “All I Ever Wanted,” “Through Heaven’s Eyes,” “The Plagues” and “When You Believe”) along with 10 other brand-new tunes.

It’s easy to suggest that if you loved the 1998 movie, you’ll likely enjoy this live production with its talented cast, lively staging, state-of-the-art stage projections and soaring musical themes. The show is well constructed and worthy of all the praise that its London cast and orchestra has received.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t at least touch on that story “embellishment” I mentioned above. This version takes the tale’s conclusion even further than its Dreamworks inspiration.

The Prince of Egypt: The Musical isn’t so much a story about God using a reluctant man to powerfully lead His people out of slavery anymore. In fact, it’s not really focused on God and His people at all.

Instead, this is more a tale of two men, two brothers, who clash and find a way—through the use of godly power—to move their respective people toward a better future. The musical ends with Moses leading his people off into the wilderness and having a vision of Ramses becoming “a great ruler who stretches the reign of Egypt.”

That’s a distinctly humanistic difference worth noting. It definitely fits our contemporary desire for mankind to find a way to get along in a world full of strife. God’s power is a part of the equation here, but His hand, His biblical purpose, is less evident. And some may find that story turn disappointing.

That said, the production itself is very good. And if it leads fans to seek out the whole biblical truth, all the better.

It becomes apparent early on that Fast Charlie is not going to be your typical crime drama. Featuring not one but two brutal deaths in its opening minutes that are as hilarious as they are graphically gory, Phillip Noyce’s thriller starring Pierce Brosnan in the title role has the irreverence of an Elmore Leonard tale, leavened with generous doses of sentiment. We’ve seen plenty of cinematic aging hitmen looking to retire to a more peaceful life before, but thanks to Brosnan’s ageless charm and a subtly rendered love story underpinning the proceedings, we’ve never rooted for one quite as much.

Based on Victor Gischler’s more crudely titled novel Gun Monkeys, the mostly Mississippi-set film revolves around Charlie, who likes to think of himself less as a killer for hire than a “concierge” — a “problem solver,” if you will. And as this story unfolds, Charlie’s got a lot of problems to solve. First, he botches the killing of a target thanks to his clueless new partner, who uses too much explosive and renders the body unidentifiable. That one is solved easily enough when the hapless accomplice accidentally shoots himself dead and serves as a substitute corpse.

A bigger problem emerges in the form of rival gangster Beggar (Gbenga Akinnagbe), who kills Charlie’s elderly, dementia-addled boss Stan (the late James Caan, affecting in his final screen appearance) and most of Stan’s gang. The remaining target is Charlie, who teams with his latest victim’s embittered ex-wife Marcie (Morena Baccarin, Deadpool) to try and stay alive, with her skills as a professional taxidermist coming in unexpectedly handy.

The fairly conventional storyline is enlivened by the many doses of wry humor peppered throughout the tight script (Fast Charlie comes in at 90 minutes, a welcome exception to the bloated running times of so many actioners these days) by Richard Wenk (the Equalizer films, The Magnificent Seven). When Charlie shows up at Marcie’s door only to discover the dead bodies of two would-be assassins she’s managed to dispatch on her own, he sardonically inquires, “This a bad time?” 

Which is not to say the film is without thrills. Those include a tense sequence in which Charlie hides from an assassin in a hotel laundry chute, only barely managing to prevent himself from falling and finding the task considerably more difficult after the killer shoots his gun randomly up the chute and hits him in the leg; and a final stand-off in which Charlie seems destined to become Beggar’s latest victim until, of course, he’s not.

Employing a spotty Southern drawl that never proves remotely convincing in a way that somehow doesn’t matter, the still fit 70-year-old Brosnan delivers the kind of assured, low-key commanding performance befitting a former James Bond. His Charlie is the sort of ruthlessly skilled operative who easily gets the goods on a pair of would-be killers thanks to a Ring Doorbell but also treats his longtime boss Stan’s increasing memory loss with gentle care, including thoughtfully labeling the Italian dishes he’s cooked for him and left in his refrigerator. His dream for retirement is living in one of those run-down homes in Italy that you can buy for a dollar if you renovate it. The main reason he hasn’t gone yet is the lack of a partner. It’s a situation that may be remedied thanks to his growing rapport with the significantly younger Marcie (Brosnan and Baccarin play the subtle flirtations perfectly).

Veteran director Noyce, here working on a fairly modest scale, orchestrates the proceedings with his typical skill, capitalizing on the smarter-than-usual script and his star’s effortless charisma. He also provides a welcome opportunity for Sharon Gless to pull out all the stops in an uproarious cameo as the sort of profane, white-trash Southerner whose idea of an insult is to call someone a “testicle sucker.”