Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates: lazy title, some good gags

 

Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates is the type of film that needs no introduction — well, maybe a brief one.

Two lovably amped-up bros, Mike (Adam DeVine) and Dave Stangle (Zac Efron), roped into bringing dates to their sister’s wedding to keep them out of trouble, are tricked into bringing along supposed “nice girls” Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick) on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.…

REVIEW: The Shallows is a lean, mean tale of survival

Just when you thought you were safe from shark movies being genuinely scary…

Forty years after since Steven Spielberg first chummed the waters, those feeding grounds are now mostly patrolled by bottom-feeders, like the made-to-be-so-bad-it’s-good Sharknado franchise. What Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Shallows does is provide a good argument against that next beach holiday.…

Batman V Superman is a flaming bag of shit left on the doorstep of cinema

SPOILERS!

Say what you want about Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice — and I have — it’s a film that demands critical analysis.1

A reported passion project of so-called visionary director Zack Snyder,2 the film he helped birth from development hell is in dire need of an exorcism.…

Suicide Squad is a toxic mess, but at least it’s more palatable than the last DC outing

Let me get the obvious comparison out of the way (at least for the first time): Suicide Squad, the latest addition to the DC Cinematic Universe, is a mess; choppy and lurid counterpart where Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice — God help us — was muggy and self-serious.

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Finding Dory is a whale of a time – at least two of them, in fact (sorry)

 

The second box-office smash out this past week starring an amnesiac, Pixar’s Finding Dory shows how to find new and affecting resonances in an old story. Fish gets separated from family, fish goes in search of family, fish makes friends along the way.

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Jason Bourne AKA The Bourne Variations AKA Bourne… Again?

 

After almost a decade off the grid, Jason Bourne has returned in a film titled, somewhat unimaginatively, Jason Bourne.

No identities, supremacies, ultimatums, or legacies; just the man himself, played once again by Matt Damon. With Paul Greengrass back directing, too, it’s almost like he never went away.…

Pete’s Dragon is a golden, timeless folktale

 

What is it with Disney and orphans?

It’s an age-old adage in storytelling that if you want to create a sense of danger you stick a kid somewhere dark and scary, possibly a forest, and take away all parental supervision.…

Nerve: a flashy but risk-averse techno-thriller for the Pokemon Go crowd

 

With most of the world dividing its time between Pokemon Go and sharing viral videos on Facebook, there’s never been a better time for a film like Nerve.

Based on a book by Jeanne Ryan, adapted by Jessica Sharzer of American Horror Story, and directed by Catfish’s Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, the film quickly establishes its technological mojo.…

Steve Spielberg’s The BFG is a mid-sized disappointment

 

When perhaps the greatest living filmmaker takes on the favorite story of one of the most belovec children’s authors of the 20th Century, you hope for a truly magic adventure. Instead Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG is charming but slight.

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