Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie review: a brief look at the long and the shorts of it
Sweet, subversive, and absolutely hilarious, at once a snarky superhero sendup and an unironically joyful celebration of friendship and imagination.
fantasy
Wish Upon movie review: be careful what movies you see about wishes you should be careful about
Simple, yet stupid. A magic box grants a teen wishes… that don’t come free. Apparently they’re not making eighth graders read “The Monkey’s Paw” anymore.
Cars 3 movie review: road to nowhere
Three movies in, and this world of sentient driverless cars still creeps me out, and still does nothing except advertise a mountain of related merch for kids.
Wonder Woman movie review: women’s work
Everything about this joyful, sincere origin story feels like a retort — a very welcome and much needed one — to traditional male-centered superhero stories.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge (aka Dead Men Tell No Tales) movie review: yo ho no
The franchise finally overstays its welcome with this cacophony of CGI spectacle, a contrived and confusing plot, and a newly cruel and stupid Jack Sparrow.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword movie review: well I didn’t vote for him
Derivative, rote, devoid of heart and hope. Guy Ritchie has found no reason to retell Arthur’s story, or to render a mythic hero as a self-serving thug.
Colossal movie review: becoming the monster
Wonderfully strange and weird and funny and dark and bitter. A deliciously geek-flavored metaphor for how damaged people heedlessly spread around their damage.
Smurfs: The Lost Village movie review: how do you solve a problem like Smurfette?
An adventure crammed with junky slapstick and garish animation that seems to believe it is feminist, but only doubles down on Smurfily regressive notions of gender.
Dig Two Graves movie review: and bury this deep
Muddy and muddled 70s-style backwoods gothic Americana only comes to life when it rises to the accidentally silly. Little more than an incoherent showreel.
Personal Shopper movie review: shadows of sorrow
Strange and melancholy, this genre-defying portrait of grief and loneliness puts Kristen Stewart’s onscreen persona of restive reluctance to very effective use.
