It: Chapter Two movie review: it doesn’t float
A bigger misfire than its predecessor, and a waste of a great cast. Unsupportably overlong, with a feel-good self-care denouement that’s almost dangerous. The only terrifying thing here is the tedium.
fantasy
The Angry Birds Movie 2 movie review: seeing red seeing Red
Painfully stupid faux-woke slapstick that wants to have its idiot male hero and its nods to feminism at the same time. Kids are listening, they are absorbing this garbage, and they deserve better. (now with a brief review of short “Hair Love”)
Dora and the Lost City of Gold movie review: archeology is her religion
Raiders of the Lost Ark lite for kids, but juvenile humor and a derivative plot limit its appeal for adults. Teen Dora is really cool, though, and a great role model for girls and boys alike.
In Fabric movie review: retail shock therapy
A murderous dress and creepy shop clerks add up to nothing more than exhausting nonsense full of fetishizing of women and weirdness for weird’s sake alone. Consumerism is killing us, or something.
Yesterday movie review: imagine there’s no Beatles…
It’s not interested in a world absent the incalculably enormous impact of the Beatles. It’s just a lazy comedy of one running joke, a regular schmoe enjoying unwarranted success, and a blah romance.
Toy Story 4 movie review: recycled playthings… again
The series’ saving grace is that, with humor and heart so beautifully wise and stunningly rendered (CGI pun intended), even as returns diminish, a new chapter is still warm and smartly entertaining.
The Secret Life of Pets 2 movie review: gone to the dogs
Underwhelming: episodic, a random collection of unconnected vignettes rather than one cohesive story. Inoffensive, but missing the first movie’s fantastical animals’ perspective on the human world.
Aladdin (2019) movie review: cave of blunders
The romance lacks chemistry, and the villain lacks bite. It seems embarrassed to be a musical, failing to embrace the necessary ineffable daydreaminess. Somehow even more cartoonish as live-action.
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum movie review: symphony in order and chaos
Modern noir god Keanu Reeves again stalks a fantasy(ish) world of exhausting, inventive violence. But this time, the curtain is drawn back on the sham of seeming orderliness in its world (and ours).
A Dog’s Journey movie review: Does the Dog Die? The Movie
Pure rerun of A Dog’s Purpose: Pooch Bailey returns again and again (again) in different bodies to love and serve his humans. A sappy tail, pleasantly daydreamy. I’m not crying you’re crying.
