Just because you know you’re a lame retread doesn’t mean you’re not a lame retread. Such is the lesson to be learned from 22 Jump Street, a self-aware sequel to the very good 2012 original that earns some early laughs before disintegrating into screaming matches and just plain unfunny, repetitive… Continue reading
Ride Along is about as close as you can get to being a cartoon without being animated. It’s a pretty exhaustive vehicle for funny man Kevin Hart, who can be very funny in smaller doses, but here expends all goodwill by the end of the second act by just never… Continue reading
Rampart faces the age-old dilemma where the lead performance is better than the film itself. This is, perhaps, Woody Harrelson’s best performance, but he’s stuck in a narrative that’s never in a big hurry to get anywhere. Just when you think it’s about to come to a dynamite resolution, it… Continue reading
A SNL skit stretched out by about eighty-five minutes, First Sunday is a comedy of the most desperate type. It goes for slapstick. When that doesn’t work it tries one-liners. When that doesn’t work it goes for sentimentality. Stuck in the middle are Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan, two occasionally… Continue reading
Even the tagline to Are We There Yet? is wrong. Now that may be a first. Throughout the film we are constantly reminded that Nick and the woman he hopes to date by driving her kids from Portland to Vancouver, Suzanne, are not boyfriend and girlfriend. Consider this error foreshadowing… Continue reading