film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
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.
A Star Wars–flavored juice drink* of a movie (*contains 10% real juice) that tells us nothing of significance we didn’t already know about Han Solo, in an incarnation that lacks his essential charisma and precarious danger.
A peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate movie, this Die Hard meets Twister monster is so ludicrous it comes all the way back around to being awesome and hilarious.
Psychologically risible and paranormally inconsistent heist horror gives us not a single character to like or root for, or even to cheer dying.
Fun enough and diverting enough while you’re in the middle of it, but hints of something much richer and more satisfying dangle just out of its reach.
More plot holes than plot, this overly convoluted, deeply stupid Fast and Furious wannabe is crammed with clichés and memorable only when it’s laughable.
Hard to believe it took 13 years to get a sequel to our screens and still have it show not a hint of Bad Santa’s inspiration or subversion.
Alongside plenty of heist-movie humor and suspense is a bleak fatalism grounded in depressing reality and resignation to the miserable necessity it demands.
The delicately balanced foolishness of Now You See Me gives way to impossibly supernatural magic tricks aimed at thwarting the least menacing villain ever.
How did a genre-smashing director make a heist thriller so generic, with characters too unlikable to be engaging but not twisted enough to be intriguing?
