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comedy

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part movie review: everything is still (mostly) awesome

Thu, Feb 07, 2019
16 comments

Our expectations are a lot higher now after the unexpectedly wildly inventive first movie… and this sequel delivers, digging with witty subversion into Hollywood’s glorification of its male heroes.

| 16 Comments

The Grinch movie review: he’s not much of a mean one, actually

Thu, Nov 08, 2018
14 comments

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.

| 14 Comments

Johnny English Strikes Again movie review: the spy who was a complete doofus

Thu, Oct 11, 2018
17 comments

Better than the unfunny first one, not as witty as the clever second one. But it has a bit of sly Brexit bite that is very welcome right now. Laugh until you cry!

| 17 Comments

Venom movie review: no teeth, no bite

Fri, Oct 05, 2018
12 comments

A dull, dated comic-book clunker that is somehow even smaller and lesser than the sum of its noisy, junky, clichéd bits. So perfunctory that it saps even its excellent cast of all their charisma.

| 12 Comments

The House with a Clock in Its Walls movie review: good witches and not-so-good witches

Tue, Sep 18, 2018
10 comments

Charming entry-level spookiness and nicely old-fashioned eeriness for budding fright fans. A disarmingly goofy Jack Black and a vamping-it-up Cate Blanchett meet in a comic middle that is perfectly pitched.

| 10 Comments

Destination Wedding movie review: reality bites

Thu, Aug 30, 2018
13 comments

A dark, bitter bonbon of an anti-romcom: so marvelously unromantic, so beautifully catty and witty. Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder were born to play these roles.

| 13 Comments

The Happytime Murders movie review: schlock puppets

Tue, Aug 28, 2018
26 comments

Ugly, sordid, and proud of it, with less than no justification. “Meet the Feebles meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit” conveys a far greater sense of dignity, cohesion, and purpose than this witness movie deserves.

| 26 Comments

Dog Days movie review: a mangy mongrel of a movie

Wed, Aug 08, 2018
17 comments

Two rom-coms, a grossout comedy, a family drama, and a platonic May-December melodrama, all connected by stilted humor, sloppy schmaltz, implausible human interaction, and — least convincingly — dogs.

| 17 Comments

Teen Titans Go! To the Movies movie review: the last action heroes (to get a movie)

Thu, Aug 02, 2018
12 comments

The superhero movie we need, and also the one we karmically deserve. A riot of hilariously zippy animation that gleefully shreds the clichés of the genre while also lovingly embracing its self-referential geek experience.

| 12 Comments

Ocean’s Eight movie review: revenge of the women

Thu, Jun 14, 2018
26 comments

Breezy fun that sticks a shiv into Hollywood’s — and the larger culture’s — disdain for women. Wonderfully subtle comic performances from a great cast having a ball make for a perfectly suitable light diversion from the world right now.

| 26 Comments
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