Oktay Ege Kozak

It’s not as grotesque and convoluted as the first Trolls, and it does offer a simple, streamlined plot that the very young target audience can easily follow while being distracted by the acid-flashback-color-explosion aesthetic, but don’t expect anything remotely resembling a fresh and inventive sequel.

The movie’s real joy, if there is any, lies with Carrey fully embracing his ’90s rubberface days. Director Jeff Fowler makes the right decision by letting Carrey’s signature madness loose on such a vanilla scoop of family entertainment.

While not quite a complete experience that sticks the landing, The Sound of Silence is nevertheless an impressive debut from a fresh new filmmaker.

Even though it suffers from tonal and narrative inconsistencies, Dora and the Lost City of Gold deserves just enough praise for working as a gateway action/adventure exotic exploration movie for kids to eventually get into Indiana Jones, while sporting a central performance that’s effortlessly charming and instantly lovable enough to almost carry the entire project.

Stuber, although supported by the odd-couple chemistry between its two leads, ends up as stale as if it was made 20 years ago.

There was no good reason to resurrect this property. To quote Jud, “Sometimes, dead is better.”

The premise of a bunch of 1919 circus freaks whimsically conspiring to save an elephant from captivity should be an easy layup for Burton, but he just goes through the motions here with a paint-by-numbers Disney climax.

For fans of futuristic sci-fi/action, it should provide an initially engaging but ultimately forgettable experience. Still, coming from Cameron and Rodriguez, even “forgettable” deserves a look.

I can imagine and understand it receiving all kinds of passionate feedback, from intensely negative to downright infuriated, but I doubt anyone will claim it is boring.

It’s endearing to see Burger change his typically harsh tone to create a story awash with such positivity. And just like its French original, The Upside is fairly superficial, but warm enough for the studio dumping ground known as January. One could do a lot worse.

There are some individual moments and elements to like here, but taken as a whole, Bohemian Rhapsody is mostly a flatline with occasional blips of life here and there—and not nearly enough to bring the whole body back from the dead.

Carrey commits one hundred and ten percent, fluctuating accent notwithstanding. It’s only a matter of time before his newfound artistic intensity will be matched to suitable material to create something special.

There doesn’t seem to be any insidious motivation behind writer/director Deon Taylor’s vision for his film, no purposeful undermining of the real impact of sex slavery by coating it in a veneer similar to what can modestly be described as a highly eroticized, run-off-the-mill basic cable home invasion thriller. It’s misguided, not nefarious.

It bears an overall feeling that we’re watching a work in progress.

The reason such a colorful mainstream family time-waster should exist is to string together a bunch of zippy PG-rated action set-pieces. In that sense, the film succeeds at the basest level, thanks primarily to the beautifully crisp animation, a big step-up from the first film’s overtly plastic CG look.

In many ways, The Hurricane Heist’s lack of self-awareness regarding just how dated it feels plays to its advantage. If you’re looking for that 1997 big-budget CG showcase experience without the wink-wink self deprecating irony of The Lonely Island or Deadpool, then you should be fairly satisfied with this cinematic time capsule.

This is a standard vigilante/revenge fantasy too plodding to deliver the base genre goodies, and too simplistic to work as a character study on how a sudden life of violence can irredeemably disrupt an average citizen’s psyche, the way the original film at least half-heartedly attempted to do.

Bateman and McAdams have some fun with the gonzo goofiness of the project, and milk a couple of comedy set-pieces—like one about a gunshot wound and a squeaky toy—but the flatness of their characters leaves no room for relatability.

Chances are that if you’re a big fan of the book series, you’ll be satisfied with this halfway competent but way overlong resolution to the saga.

Kasdan isn’t known for pulling off big budget action properties. He does his best here to create a kinetic pace, but the execution is always flat and dull.

As much as I love to harp on Despicable Me 3’s lazy and cynical execution, this is a fairly inoffensive, zippy and colorful time-waster for the little ones.

Even though it’s far from perfect, “Danny Says” is recommended to fans of punk and rock history.

Moonwalkers takes a brilliant idea and runs it to the ground thanks to a confused and illogical screenplay, an atonal execution, and a bizarre addiction to Tarantino-level gleeful ultra-violence awkwardly crammed into what was obviously supposed to be a biting satire.

An unremarkable but solid genre exercise, one that shows off Jackie Earle Haley’s chops as a director.