Noisy, dumb, and bloated — but phenomenal spectacle. The broad characters work just well enough, and the effects that matter (the exploding buildings) are real good.
The problem with choosing “intolerance” as a theme for your time-sprawling opus is that it is so shapeless and blunt as to lose all meaning.
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The Vampires (Les Vampires) (1915)
The film serial was an early cinema format that is, honestly, more familiar today than ever, though through a different mechanism:
This Australian coming-of-age flick is far too quirky and disjointed, proud of its satire and flipping of tropes, but certainly unique and powerful in moments. Leads are quite good and non-generic
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The Last Day of Summer (2007)
I declare that “Jansen” shall be my measurement unit for annoying child actors. Jansen Panettiere comes in at 1.0 Jansens in this film, the yardstick of shittiness.
Baymax steals the show, and the grief is handled seriously, but the characters lack depth and the story is a bit by-the-numbers as a comic book adventure.
New peaks for Swanberg’s naturalistic direction and Johnson’s flawed-heroic charisma (though not quite my favorite). The story of a recovering gambling addict stuck in a bad situation is tense and empathetic.
The ending is downer drama for the sake of it, but otherwise it teases out the dramatic synergies of teenage angst and time loops marvelously.
The self-deprecating/ironically inane banter gets old, and it’s as formulaic a rom-com as can be. But it’s well-executed and charming and so watchable. Adam Driver & Mackenzie Davis steal the show.
A remake that has no reason to exist and has cheap TV-movie dourness to it. There is some fun casting, though.