If you lament the absence of original stories at the movies, and the further failure of audiences to show up for original content when it’s offered, then any original movie with a big-name star and director rapidly racking up $200 million at the box office is cause for celebration. Even if it isn’t quite the movie you might make, even if it’s got third-act problems and a lot of high silliness and a dubious theological message, in this Hollywood environment there’s no arguing with success.
The success story here is Sinners, which is the work of Ryan Coogler, lately one of the most talented servants — as the director of the Black Panther and Creed movies — of the Hollywood sequel/spin-off machine. His new movie takes the principle of “one for me” and runs with it to a pretty unexpected destination: a story about twin brothers, nicknamed “Smoke” and “Stack” (both played by Michael B. Jordan), coming back from service in Al Capone’s Chicago to set up a juke joint in their native Mississippi Delta, where they think they’ll be navigating Jim Crow and fending off the Ku Klux Klan . . . only to discover that the real threat is Irish vampires promising undead racial harmony and crooning “Wild Mountain Thyme.”
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