film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
An old-fashioned kiddie adventure, sweetly earnest, equal parts scary, funny, exciting, sad, and happy, with only a bit of uncanny valley in its CGI doggo star. Definitely had something in my eye.
A sad retread of The Fugitive. Dumb, pointless, confused, full of contempt for its audience, and laughably unable to convince us that Gerard Butler is an acceptable stand-in for Harrison Ford.
Meet the “nerdy engineer” who dreamed of a life in aviation… and landed a tin can on the Moon. A deeply moving portrait of the modest man who seems to have been destined for his historic voyage.
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.
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.
Visually, this dying future world is immersively hellish. Intellectually, though, its ideas haven’t kept up with the rapidly evolving science-fictional conversation.
An adventure of the intellect and of the heart with the real-life explorer who inspired Indiana Jones, one more about the journey than the destination.
Hilariously, casting white Westerners as mortals and deities of the ancient Nile is the least offensive thing about this crime against goofball cinema.
[This post is not behind the paywall.]
[This post is not behind the paywall.]
