'Destroyer' doesn't enhance the Nicole Kidman renaissance

Nicole Kidman has been on a real roll lately. It arguably all started with her terrific turn as a victim of domestic abuse on this hit HBO series Big Little Lies. She had long been an A-list, critically acclaimed actress, but a few flops, tabloid headlines and some distracting plastic surgery had made audiences take her for granted.

But now it seems like she's everywhere -- in big blockbusters like Aquaman and in powerful, smaller dramas like The Beguiled and Boy Erased (for which she deserves, but probably won't get, Oscar consideration). And her new film Destroyer feels like a bit of a victory lap.

Or at least the trailer did. This is the second film I've seen in the last few weeks (the other was Vice) where the trailer feels like a mini little masterpiece but the actually a lot more of a dour letdown.

It's not that Kidman is bad in the movie -- she gives a strong, gritty performance which requires a jarring physical transformation (largely achieved through makeup) that allows her to convincingly play the same character over a 17-year span and evolve from a stunning undercover cop to a burnout undercover cop on a not exactly legal mission of personal revenge.

And the trailer promises a riveting, emotionally charged story in which this character operates -- but in reality its a bit of one-note movie, which covers terrain we've seen many times before in much better movies.

The director Karyn Kusama employs a tactic I'm really growing tired of -- the time jump narrative -- what is meant to achieve a kind of puzzle piece tension, instead creates a story and characters we never get invested in (Sebastian Stan is totally wasted as her love interest).

We see the big moments coming from a mile away -- and while the last act reveal is fairly satisfying -- I didn't feel like the movie really had anything to say. For instance, late in the film there is a prolonged scene between Kidman and her wayward, estranged teenager daughter that plays like it is supposed to be this big Oscar moment -- and it totally falls flat.

Part of the problem is Kidman's scene partner doesn't have the chops she has, but also her character has been so sketchily drawn (she basically hurls insults at her mother and brazenly dates a scummy, much older man) that you will likely feel nothing for her.

That said, there are some very effective sequences -- a wildly unrealistic but kinetic bank heist shoot out, a run-in with a comically indifferent Bradley Whitford -- but the whole enterprise feels a little bit like a 90s or early-2000s era thriller, rather than a fresh new take on this kind of cops and robbers genre picture.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised by some of the rapturous reviews this and the Kidman performance have received especially when they are so many powerhouse movies that came out this year and one in particular -- Widows -- which covers some of the same ground, but much more effectively and kinetically.

I still like seeing Kidman getting big roles again, she's doing some really interesting work lately and taking some chances with her persona, which I like, but unfortunately Destroyer is not the movie I was hoping for.