Pressure (Peacock)

Andrew Scott would probably be fascinating reading the phone book. 

I do know he’s incredibly watchable predicting the weather, which many would say is almost as boring. Proof of that can be found in “Pressure,” the WWII movie adapted from the stage play of the same name. Though the script provides minimal backstory for his character, and has no interest in making him likable, Scott is deeply nuanced and engaging the entire movie. He even makes the weather sound fascinating, and brings real drama to what should be simple historical fact. The rest of the cast is good, and director Anthony Maras does a lot to move past the limitations of the stage, but Scott is the real star.

The movie focuses on the days leading up to the D-Day invasion, starting with a flashback to a D-Day training exercise gone horribly wrong. To make sure that doesn’t happen again, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) needs perfect weather on the day they schedule the invasion itself. Though American meteorologist Irving Krick (Chris Messina) assures him the weather will be great on the planned day, British meteorologist James Stagg (Scott) disagrees. 

Fraser does a good job as Eisenhower, both communicating the man’s intensity and sprinkling in moments of vulnerability. Messina is an excellent foil for Scott’s Stagg, keeping his character fun and jovial while matching Scott’s stubborn certainty. Kerry Condon is a breath of fresh air as Eisenhower’s personal secretary Kay Summersby.

Still, it’s Scott’s performance that will linger longest in your memory. 

Grade: Three stars

Cold Storage (Kanopy)

Which is the most important part of a horror comedy – horror, comedy, or how likable the protagonists are?

“Cold Storage” bets the answer is likability, and stars Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell make a surprisingly good argument for that. Their interplay is one of the best parts of the movie, low-key and charming even when they’re fighting zombies. You’re always invested in what’s happening onscreen, simply because you need these two idiots to be OK. 

It doesn’t leave people with different opinions hanging, either. If you would vote comedy, the movie also offers Liam Neeson’s surprisingly excellent comic timing. If you would vote horror, it has Neeson’s action chops and a premise that modern government incompetence only makes more frightening. Even if you’re not scared by what’s happening onscreen, you’ll get chills thinking about it later. 

The movie is set at a public storage facility that used to belong to the government. It just happens to have a mind-controlling murder space fungus in frozen storage, but with global warming that isn’t working anymore. Unfortunately, only two storage employees and a government official with a bad back are on hand to save the day. 

The special effects are CGI, but they look like they come straight out of a B horror movie. There isn’t the corresponding sense of wackiness, which might disappoint some people, but it leads to some nice moments between the characters. 

If you’re really missing the horror, though, wait until the last few minutes of the movie. Then think about how many bacterial and disease outbreaks happen every single day, and how bad the government is at stopping them. 

Grade: Two and a half stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society and the Utah Film Critics Association. Drop her a line at [email protected].