film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997
A stew of “hilarious” toxic masculinity and nonstop violence as the solution to all problems. Sexist, stupid nonsense, tediously familiar and wholly predictable. Even the cartoonish action falls flat.
The Ice Age flicks are the cinematic equivalent of drive-through nuggets of reconstituted chicken slurry served by a bored teenager in a cardboard hat.
Plays with hierarchies and rivalries of women’s lives that often aren’t seen onscreen, and embraces women as powerful. But it’s just not very funny about it.
Gloriously bonkers. Like, Looney Tunes levels of cartoon madness. You will laugh your homo sapiens head off.
A viciously cynical dark fantasy that fashions a new mythos of post-9/11 New York unlike anything we’ve seen, a bleak but all too plausible world of the Russian mob and the Chinese Triads… and the NYPD as just one more gang vying for supremacy.
Crams three times the hoo-hah of the first film into a 3D CGI theme-park ride, yet reduces itself to one-third the fun…
Found this tee-hee T-shirt at TeeFury too late for us to grab it. But it’s still hugely amusing and worth marveling at…
It’s all absurd and overblown and — most importantly — consistently so through to the end.
It’s not so much *Dinner for Schmucks* as it is *Waiting for Dinner for Schmucks.* You know, like *Waiting for Godot,* only in reverse. Because the schmucks start showing up right as the damn movie starts, and they never go away.
