The law of diminishing returns strikes big-time in Avengers: Age of Ultron, an overstuffed mess of one-note characters, gaudy, incomprehensible CGI, and really, really bad one-liners. It’s so unexpected that you almost forget how fresh The Avengers was three short years ago, and what a welcome reprieve it was from the… Continue reading
In a sea of sameness, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World emerges as a fine work of originality and energy. It merges everything that twenty-to-early-thirty-something men have ever loved in life: video games, crazy action, humor, and the pursuit of women. While the core story is hardly anything special, director Edgar… Continue reading
It’s going to take a mound of evidence to convince me that Street Kings isn’t a parody. The film is entertaining, yes, but that often comes with police dramas laced with over-the-top tough-guy dialogue, brute violence, and a penchant for implausible plot twists. We know that director David Ayer and… Continue reading
The original Fantastic Four had very little to offer, and this sequel has even less. That the first film was such a box office success came as a surprise to me at the time, but in hindsight 2005 was probably the apex of the comic book adaptation craze. The past… Continue reading