
Abominable movie review: a bit of a snow job
Lovely animation and gentle, kid-pitched life lessons can’t quite overcome the familiar feel of this E.T. retread, nor the forced sense of wonder that is more convenient crutch than anything organic.
film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
Lovely animation and gentle, kid-pitched life lessons can’t quite overcome the familiar feel of this E.T. retread, nor the forced sense of wonder that is more convenient crutch than anything organic.
An anxious moan, a looming disquiet of a reckoning coming for America. This is horror as weird, funny, damning, and more disconcerting the more you think about it, finding fear right in front of us.
Nostalgic without being mindlessly retro; a sweet, heartfelt girl-and-her-alien-robot-car action-adventure buddy dramedy that hits all the right notes. Hailee Steinfeld is terrific, and there’s not a whiff of Michael Bay to be found.
Garbage. A bad excuse for a movie, even for the pulpy disposable popcorn nonsense it wants to be. Incoherent and illogical, cheap and shoddy. Wannabe sci-fi action horror that can’t pull off any of it.
Crackles with life and energy, depicting a grand adventure in journalism from almost half a century ago with vigor, suspense, and an urgent relevance for today.
The Goonies, Stand by Me, and Poltergeist went into a blender with a pinch of E.T. and John Hughes to smush into a mess of retro 80s mush.
What if “monster trucks” actually meant — wait for it — that there were monsters in the trucks? From an idea by a four-year-old (really), and it shows.
More like a pleasant walk in a redwood forest with a boy and his dragon than a rollicking adventure, but its serenity and warm heart are infectious.
Fantasy meandering twists into something more action-oriented, and there’s little magic in it. This is not what we expect from a master cinematic fantasist.
Leaden and witless, though it obviously believes there is humor in its loud, chaotic juvenility. It would be an insult to cartoons to call this cartoonish.