Earlier this year, Chris Pine suffered a major blow in the neverending (and probably mostly imaginary) battle of the Hollywood Chrises. Weighed down by neither weird overtones nor mid-career malaise, and as the only major Chris unencumbered by a long history with Marvel, Pine has cultivated a nontoxic cool-guy rep. In recent years, he’s happily played second fiddle to Wonder Woman, had some fun in the Dungeons & Dragons movie, and made some unabashedly grown-up-targeted pictures like Don’t Worry Darling and All the Old Knives. But when presented with the opportunity to communicate his broader vision of the world, or at least of Hollywood, Pine belly-flopped. Poolman, the movie he directed, co-wrote, produced, and starred in, received savage reviews in its Toronto Film Festival debut last fall. The movie was nonetheless released in theaters this spring, making all of $131,000 on its opening weekend before tracking its financial performance stopped
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