‘The Life of Chuck’ Reveals All the Lives Within That Life of Chuck

June 4, 2025

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The Spontaneous Choreography of Chuck (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, Chiwetel Ejifor, Karen Gillan, Mark Hamill, Annalise Basso, Mia Sara, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly, Samantha Sloyan, Harvey Guillén, Kate Siegel, Nick Offerman, Q’Orianka Kilcher, David Dastmalchian, Rahul Kohli, Heather Langenkamp, Violet McGraw

Director: Mike Flanagan

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for Language, Apparently (Nothing Overly Outrageous)

Release Date: June 6, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Told in three acts unfolding in reverse order, Act Three of The Life of Chuck opens on a future on the verge of apocalypse: the internet is becoming ever more unreliable, natural disasters are an everyday occurrence, and soon enough the stars are being wiped from the sky. Everyone is despairing, and the only sign of hope are literal signs popping up all around town thanking some guy named Chuck Krantz for his 39 years of service. But nobody has any idea who Chuck is! But then we step back to Act Two, taking place on one of the most memorable days of Chuck’s (Tom Hiddleston) life, when he spontaneously decides to start dancing in front of a busking drummer and quickly draws an enraptured crowd. And finally, Act One introduces us to a middle school-age Chuck (Benjamin Pajak), who’s living with his grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara) following the tragic death of his mom and dad.

What Made an Impression?: The King’s English: Mike Flanagan is currently our foremost adapter of Stephen King, with The Life of Chuck based on a novella that was published in 2020. I’ve never read a single story written by King, but it’s impossible to avoid him if you’ve been watching movies for the past 50 years. While I’ve enjoyed plenty of those big screen versions, they’ve never made me want to dive into the source. There’s something that’s just a little bit uncanny about the worlds that King weaves. It’s like he’s speaking a language that’s ever so slightly different from the one I’m speaking. And when that language is filtered through the lens of someone who’s clearly as much of a fan as Flanagan is, that uncanniness is a rather strong flavor.
Voice Overlord: I’ve enjoyed the narration in plenty of movies that feature it, and I’ve also enjoyed Nick Offerman in pretty much everything he’s ever done. But the narration narrated by Nick Offerman in The Life of Chuck? Well, that had me going “Huh.” It’s blunt, literal, and near-constant. But it also felt completely necessary if this movie was going to be the movie that it wants to be. Does that make sense?
One Life: The whole idea underlying The Life of Chuck seems to be that there’s an entire universe living within Chuck’s brain (and by extension, everyone else’s brain). To get mildly spoiler-y, he’s dying of cancer, and that universe is dimming in his final moments. Is Chuck truly worthy of this biographical treatment? Yes, insofar as every single individual is worthy of such treatment. If The Life of Chuck didn’t fully work for any of us, well, then perhaps we could respond by crafting our own The Life of (Whoever the Hell We Want).
All He Wants to Do Is…: Despite all my misgivings, I’ve got to give it up for that dance scene. Actually, there are multiple dance scenes, but I’m talking about that busking one right in the middle. Damn, Hiddleston-as-Chuck gives it his all. And you know what else this scene underscored me? I really love drumming. Taylor Gordon just pounds away on the skins, and it goes straight to my core. And then Annalise Basso plays Chuck’s impromptu partner, who’s wearing the perfect dress to accentuate all of their spins and dips. It’s one of the best scenes of the year.

The Life of Chuck is Recommended If You Like: Hanging upside-down while reading a book all day until the sun sets

Grade: 3 out of 5 Chucks

This Is A Movie Review: Aardman Kicks It Stone Age-Style with ‘Early Man’

February 13, 2018

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CREDIT: Lionsgate

This review was originally posted on News Cult in February 2018.

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Richard Ayoade, Selina Griffiths, Johnny Vegas, Mark Williams, Gina Yashere, Simon Greenall, Rob Brydon, Kayvan Novak, Miriam Margoyles, Nick Park

Director: Nick Park

Running Time: 89 Minutes

Rating: PG for Stone/Rock/Boulder-Based Cartoon Physical Humor

Release Date: February 16, 2018

Early Man is the sort of film that delivers exactly what you expect and hope it would deliver. It is the latest stop-motion animated effort from Aardman, and it is just as understated, British, and charming as Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, and Shaun the Sheep. There might be a bit more physical humor this time around, though. It does take place in the Stone Age, after all, so it makes sense that it would feature a significant number of conks on the head.

This is one of those movies that presupposes that subsequent historical periods existed side by side against each other as opposing tribes. It may be true that the Bronze Age followed the Stone Age, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t go down with bronze-toting brutes declaring to a tribe of cavemen, “The Stone Age is SO OVER! Bronze is where it’s at now!” Of course, historical accuracy is not the point here, so these are not complaints, just descriptions of goofiness. It is worth noting, though, that ahistorical larks like Early Man like to pretend that they are historically accurate, thus why we get very precise setting-establishing subtitles like “neo-Pleistocene Age, near Manchester, around lunchtime.” It’s all in good fun!

Early Man is essentially an underdog sports movie, as the fight between the Stonies and the Bronzers comes down to a soccer match (or football, since we’re in England). After a Bronze Age army overruns the Stone Age village, caveman Dug (Eddie Redmayne) bumbles his way into the Bronze city and then brokers a deal with Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) in which the two societies will face off on the pitch to determine who gets to retain residence of the village. As the caveman are totally unfamiliar with the sport, this leads to a predictably silly training montage. Also fitting in with the tropes of the genre is Goona (Maisie Williams), a Bronze Age vendor who defects to help the caveman, since she is not a fan of the big bad team winning all the time without emphasizing teamwork or allowing women into its ranks.

The character design would be grotesque if it were live action, but the Aardman style renders it cute, though still weird, but adorably so. The cavemen are all buck teeth and porcine snouts, while the Bronzers sport skinny heads and exaggerated midsections. The biggest fun comes from the puns based in hindsight and the retrofitted modern technology. Noting that their tribe are early risers, Dug reminds his chief (Timothy Spall) “we’re early men,” and for all you hooligans out there, there is indeed a team named “Early Man United.” But bringing me the most joy has got to be the “instant replay,” in which plays are reenacted with crude figures on a board along the sideline. Obviously this is not the actual origin of replay, but it is fun to spend an hour and a half within a world in which it is.

Early Man is Recommended If You Like: Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep Movie

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Buck Teeth

This Is a Movie Review: The God of Thunder Gets Stranded in the Louche ‘Thor: Ragnarok’

October 27, 2017

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CREDIT: Disney/Marvel

This review was originally posted on News Cult in November 2017.

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins

Director: Taika Waititi

Running Time: 130 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Colorfully Stylized Action Violence and a Glimpse of Hulk Butt

Release Date: November 3, 2017

Even in its stronger outings, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has consistently exemplified the distressing 21st century trend of “franchise film as trailer for its upcoming sequels.” But putting at the helm Taika Waititi, the New Zealand director behind vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows and coming-of-age charmer Hunt for the Wilderpeople, would perhaps signal a willingness to kick back with an idiosyncratic one-off effort. And indeed, Thor: Ragnarok is not particularly burdened by setting up the next “phase” for all the other Marvel heroes, save for the mandatory post-credits scene as well as an early rendezvous with Doctor Strange that at least has the courtesy to be completely ridiculous. But as Waititi is not creating something out of whole cloth, it is still a bear of a job to wrap his sensibility around Thor’s personal history and Asgard’s extensive mythology.

One of the biggest disappointments of most MCU films, and what made Doctor Strange so satisfying when it bucked this trend, is their lack of imagination in design and music. Their craft is far from ugly, but it is no more than workmanlike. Ragnarok has plenty of personality, but it kind of gets in the way of itself. Mark Mothersbaugh’s prog-rock synth score is entirely fitting, but it never really fully rocks out until the end credits. All the new supporting characters make a convincing case to be the breakout star, but there is only room for so much of that in a busy 2 hours. I would never willingly sacrifice Cate Blanchett’s evil diva goddess Hela, or Jeff Goldblum’s eccentric sensualist Grand Master, or Tessa Thompson’s hard-drinking and unapologetic Valkyrie, or the most hedonistic version of the Hulk we have yet seen on screen. But this is a series of solo acts, not a supergroup. They play nice together, but they only intermittently gel as a unit greater than the sum of its parts.

The plot of Ragnarok is fairly straightforward, but a little overwhelming in its climax, due to the surfeit of moving parts. The titular end of Asgardian days is threatening to come to pass with the return of Hela, the long-imprisoned goddess of death and sister of Thor. Thor and Loki broker one of their many peaces to team up and save their home realm, but they are first waylaid onto the Grand Master’s home planet, where they get caught up in some gladiatorial combat.

By the end of it all, I found myself confused about who was defeated and who was victorious, and how much so on either count. Frankly, I am perfectly willing to forgo any prosaic interpretation for the sake of embracing a more expressionistic experience. This is not hard to do, as there are plenty of blasts of pure imagination (punneriffic reference perfectly intended). Trouble is, the story does matter to the people who made this movie, and even if it did not, it is too imposing to disregard. By the end of all these affairs, Ragnarok is the type of feast that overloads you with deliciousness but leaves you crashing instead of the kind that fills you up and floods you up with endorphins. It is adequately cromulent, but not very transcendent.

Thor: Ragnarok is Recommended If You Like: Doctor Strange, ’70s Glam Rock Stars, Kiwi accents

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Nonsense Circles

This Is A Movie Review: Thor: The Dark World

March 10, 2014

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Thor-The-Dark-World-Movie-2013-Review-Official-Trailer-Release-Date-1
While I surely enjoyed Thor: The Dark World, I also felt anxious for it to end for most of its running time, although that may have had to do with all the TV I was missing and would have to catch up on later.  But it may also have to do with the fact that at this point in the superheroic cinema game, the existence of each new movie like this feels so perfunctory.  In a weird way, The Dark World was one of the most encouraging and most discouraging entries in the genre.