Ready Player One movie review: trivial pursuit*
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.
James Bond
Pitch Perfect 3 movie review: pitch, please…
The slim charms of the previous movies have been tossed away in favor of cringe-inducing cattiness and a ridiculous plot. There’s barely even any music. Aca-palling.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle movie review: deliver us from “edgy”
Save us from male artists who think they are dangerously, uniquely innovative. This stew of toxic masculinity and CGI-cartoon violence is nothing but tediously mundane.
American Assassin movie review: we’ve CIAn it all before
It’s tormented hotheads all around with a hero and villain who are almost indistinguishable and same-old spy stuff racing to a seen-it, been-there ticking-clock finale.
still disappointed by Sherlock (“The Six Thatchers” open thread)
Sherlock! Now with more James Bond than Sherlock Holmes. [This post is not behind the paywall.]
X-Men: Apocalypse movie review: everyone knows the third movie is always the worst
About precisely nothing other than pure pulp comic-book soap-opera rigmarole, overshadowed by clichés, implausibilities, and missed opportunities.
Bastille Day (aka The Take) movie review: French toast
A fake movie busted out into reality! But this not-even would-be jokey riff on Hollywood doesn’t know how to fill the air between car chases and punchups.
Do You Believe? movie review: nope
Crash, but Jesus-y. Scoffers and doubters will get their smackdown, but even believers should be skeptical at how this ridiculous roundrobin plays out.
Spectre movie review: Bond goes backward
After a truly spectacular and fresh opening sequence, everyone might as well be enacting a Bond puppet show, which is sometimes unpleasantly retro-icky.
Barely Lethal movie review: hidden in plain sight
Charming and funny, a wonderfully sweet and silly mashup of spy stuff and high-school comedies, like if John Hughes made a James Bond movie.
