film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
Finds something fresh and gently feminist in the tropes and claptrap of an overbaked genre. Stewart and Davis have terrific chemistry, and the supporting cast of modern legends of funny is to die for.
This exasperating movie is so obnoxious it could be deliberately trolling us. Wants to have its ambiguous cake and eat it, too, smothered in a gloomy frosting. *extremely pinches nose in despair*
Love and life are pain, the glitz and sparkle of Christmas are but a momentary reprieve from it, and everything is pretty much unrelentingly awful. But Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding are adorable!
A zombie musical comedy set at Christmas should be a can’t-miss. But this one isn’t scary or funny; its characters are one-note, and the whole shebang — blah songs included — is emotionally flat.
Kurt Russell’s hot biker Santa is naughty and nice, but this otherwise discount holiday schmaltz is only half onboard with him.
Candy-colored slapstick and kindergarten-level humor make this perfectly suitable for small children, and perfectly bland and inoffensive to the adults accompanying them. Somehow, I don’t think Dr. Seuss would entirely approve.
Goes well beyond the typical mindless array of slapstick and humiliation to reach disgusting new depths of coarseness. Not just appalling, but actually dangerous.
There’s charm and wit in its fanciful depiction of the creative process, but the film downplays the social activism that Dickens fully embraced in his work.
This rushed sequel is an insult to its progenitor movie. A cheap knockoff that doesn’t understand what made Bad Moms so smart, funny, and feminist-wise.
Appalling and sadistic. How can anyone who is not a sociopath look at this horrible attempt at feel-good fantasy and say, “This is fine, this is healthy”?
