film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Ten years of Marvel superheroism culminates in a battle for the universe itself. Exhausting, bitterly humorous, and gripped in a stunning finality, it’s almost too much to take in, yet somehow not enough.
A descent into the muddy trenches of World War I that is intimate and immediate, melancholy and profoundly moving. An experience as visceral as it is intellectual.
Tom Hardy is fab, but this is GoodFellas-lite, depicting violent sociopaths as glamorous, even amusing, and lacking all understanding of what made them tick.
This painfully unfunny spoof of teddibly British nonsense couldn’t be less amusing if it were actually calculated to be totally laugh-free.
The neo-luddite attitude is bad, but this commits a far worse sin: it’s dull. If only it worked as a schlocky pile of pulp nonsense, that’d be something…
Wily humor and sly observations about the lives of these high rollers are the highlights. It’s when those give way to issues of morality that the film disappoints, just a little…
Hey! It’s a supernatural horror flick about the clash between the power of the institution of The Church and the power of personal faith and belief. Oh, and also about kicking vampire ass.
It looks like a joke, something invented to poke fun at the excesses and ludicrousies of comic book storytelling…
Continuing the motif of Awesome Guys in the Terrible Tourist, herewith Paul Bettany…
This gentle movie is about science as a human endeavor, as noble and contradictory and sometimes as wrenching a thing as making great art or journeying to unknown lands.
