film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Fight the future. Change the future. Watch the future reset itself so that everything ends up much the same way anyway. Repeat. This time-travelling franchise is, ironically, stuck in the past.
Devoid of personality and soul, this hellish Frankenstein monster of processed entertainment product wallows in a stew of borrowed ideas and imagery and does absolutely nothing fresh with them.
Like the book it’s based on, the worldbuilding is intriguing, but the characters and story are strictly cliché. A lazy, confused, and derivative disaster, with plot points and visual and thematic motifs shamelessly stolen from far better movies.
The cinematic equivalent of Trump and Brexit as awfulness brought upon ourselves. Incoherent and cheap-looking. There are no heroes, and everything is broken.
An action masterpiece newly remastered in gorgeous 4K (and rejiggered for superfluous 3D) reveals how fresh it remains not only technically but thematically.
I have a terrible feeling of deja vu. I have a terrible feeling of deja vu. I have a terrible feeling of deja vu. I have a terrible feeling of deja vu.
Not so much a movie as a mismatched mix of dick jokes and rampant homophobia. I’m kidding: There aren’t any actual jokes here.
There are things in which horny teenaged boys were not meant to meddle. Like we needed the warning.
In the vast conspiracy of stupidity that has overtaken pop culture, the disparagement of this movie by a film critic becomes an endorsement of a sad sort.
With its time-twisting plot, sci-fi soapiness, powerful humanism, and to-die-for cast, this is the summer blockbuster done with elegance and heart.
