film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
A disaster of a kids’ fantasy caper; feels like it’s making up the plot as it goes. A mishmash of manufactured wonder: characters barely sketched, action seemingly setting up future DisneyWorld rides.
A spectacularly scattershot, pandering mess of pulp junk, cheap-looking animation, and poisonous gender dynamics. A charmless cash-grab that can’t be bothered with the slightest stab at originality.
Love and life are pain, the glitz and sparkle of Christmas are but a momentary reprieve from it, and everything is pretty much unrelentingly awful. But Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding are adorable!
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.
Nothing matters in this literal adolescent-male power fantasy, a cheesy mishmash of nonsense and low stakes. Anyone who needs at least a bit of meat in their superhero tales will be disappointed.
It certainly is MORE than the first movie: more incoherent, more confused about who its protagonist is, more crammed with contrivance and coincidence. Even the title is more nonsensical this time.
Charming entry-level spookiness and nicely old-fashioned eeriness for budding fright fans. A disarmingly goofy Jack Black and a vamping-it-up Cate Blanchett meet in a comic middle that is perfectly pitched.
A nightmare of nothingness, of empty, soulless wankery, that serves only to reassure male dorks that their pop-culture obsessions make them special, and will make cute girls like them.
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.
