‘Novocaine’ Reviewed, ‘Mickey 17’ Earns Not So Fine $8M Friday, ‘Anora’ Gets Oscar Bump and ‘Thunderbolts’ Goes Arthouse
Plus - 'Ne Zha 2' has passed $2 billion globally, but Sony's upcoming honest-to-goodness 'Demon Slayer' movie could place in the annual worldwide top ten.
In today’s “not enough Friday box office news to justify a whole column” newsletter…
Novocaine review (free)
Mickey 17 Friday box office
Anora’s post-Oscar win upswing
Ne Zha 2 becomes top-earning non-Disney or Disney-adjacent grosser ever
Sony dates an *actual* Demon Slayer movie sequel
Marvel’s Thunderbolts marketing goes arthouse
Review: Novocaine is painless fun.
Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen from a screenplay courtesy of Lars Jacobson, Novocaine (opening courtesy of Paramount next weekend) is precisely what it promises in terms of its concept and execution. It’s one of a surprisingly robust slate of early-year studio programmers that are just content to tell a single story and tell it well. The one-and-done saga of Nathan Caine – a sheepish bank executive who can feel no pain, has concern about franchise-building, sequel set-up or placating the fans of a decades-old IP. It’s what we used to call, and frankly should once again call “just a movie.” It offers some fun “movie stars” (relatively speaking) amid a clever high concept with a commitment to the bit in terms of placing our otherwise ordinary protagonist in circumstances where his one “superpower” can be of specific value. It’s a successful execution of a fun idea.
Nathan (as much of an actual nice guy as Jack Quaid’s Companion protagonist was cosplaying the part) is an ordinary assistant manager at a retail bank with one odd “disability.” He cannot feel pain, which is less “awesome” than it might initially seem. This also leaves him vulnerable to being unaware of serious injury. At the same time, his inability to feel specific nerve signals means that he has to remind himself to empty his bladder and generally avoids hard food lest he improperly swallow it or unknowingly bite his tongue. Such a “whoopsie, I’m horribly injured actually” workplace mishap concurrently becomes a meet cute between himself and a teller he’s – accurately, since she’s played by a cheerfully flirtatious Amber Midthunder – crushing on. It’s all post-date smiles between Nathan and Sherry until masked men storm into the bank, start a gunfight and whisk her away as a hostage.
Novocaine does two things well. First, it offers action sequences and perilous set pieces that cleverly and logically allow Nathan to utilize his “Can’t feel pain!” gimmick without turning him into a full-fledged action superhero. He’s still scared of getting killed and facing the legal consequences of his go-it-alone hero quest. Second, while I can roll my eyes at Midthunder’s “reward” for her breakout turn in Prey being cast as an imperiled damsel-in-distress, the picture carefully balances the need to not just have Sherry be tearfully quivering and/or begging for mercy (there’s no sexual peril, natch) with not unrealistically turning her into an action bad-ass and still allowing for the “Your princess is in another castle” hero fantasy. It helps that the central characters, including the main bank-robbing baddie (Ray Nicholson) are at least as intelligent as your average moviegoer.
While cops initially think he’s in league with the bank robbers, since he begins his quest by stealing a wounded police officer’s gun and a squad car (after taking steps to save that officer’s life, natch), the two investigating detectives (a game Betty Gabriel and Matt Walsh) figure out the circumstances faster than the movie requires. How Nathan can survive and overcome only sometimes stretches the bounds of medical plausibility. Still, the 110-minute picture offers of-the-moment character-focused entertainment (including eventually – a bemusing Jacob Batalon as the closest thing Nathan has to a friend) even when bones and organs aren’t being grotesquely injured. Yes, the film earns its R-rating not just from cops-n-robbers violence (slightly less so than Baby Driver) but via grisly injury and up-close gore. And, since Nathan isn’t in pain, the audience can just enjoy his passion-play carnage.
The second act has a “running in place” issue, but the third act over delivers. Considering the number of high-concept flicks that peak in the second act (when the established premise gets milked accordingly), it’s refreshing that Novocaine ends on a high note. There are no mind-blowing twists or last-minute turns, but the film gets the job done in terms of emotional catharsis and nuts-and-bolts resolution in expected and slightly surprising ways. Novocaine, courtesy of FilmNation and SafeHouse, is a clever, enjoyable and (when applicable) sexy and exciting bit of Hollywood showmanship that looks, feels and breathes like a “real movie” even if it feels “smaller” than Sony’s not-dissimilar Baby Driver. In a creative sense, the Paramount release is the kind of movie that used to sustain studios and create stars. In a commercial sense, it’s from a time when “good enough” was “good enough.”