Review – Penguins of Madagascar: The Movie

The highlight of this movie was listening to Benedict Cumberbatch mispronounce the word “penguin.” The filmmakers bet pretty much their whole pitch on snarky little inside jokes like that. The rest is a tale of penguin high jinks dumb even by kids movie standards. See if desperate

Review – Inside Out

To my great surprise, I genuinely enjoyed this movie. The premise – five personality parts cooperating inside a girl’s mind – seemed kinda contrived. But the picture managed to tell a compelling story and make some interesting points about psychology at the same time. The characters were likable (even the obnoxious ones), and the animation was good. Worth seeing

Review – Inherent Vice

Make a movie out of a Thomas Pynchon novel and this is bound to happen: “serious” actors drawn in a bug-zapper-esque swarm to a ponderous, meandering borefest that ran easily double the length such indie crap could possibly remain tolerable. See if desperate

Review – The Purge: Anarchy

This is what I was hoping for from the first Purge movie: more overview of how a night of unbridled violence would affect society as a whole. The premise is still ludicrous, but at least this time around the characters are a bit more interesting and the action moves around the city rather than getting bottled up in a house in the suburbs. Still not great, but at least a step in the right direction. Mildly amusing

Review – American Sniper

The parts of this movie that are actually about what snipers do for a living are actually interesting and well-assembled. Director Clint Eastwood has a gift for gritty, realistic action scenes. Not so much with the mopey redneckery that occupies the majority of the screen time in this offering. Mildly amusing

Review – Ouija

If I told you that a group of young folks use a Ouija board to summon an evil spirit, would I be telling you anything you couldn’t have inferred from the single word in the title? Sorry to have wasted your time. At least I helped spare you from wasting any more of it. See if desperate

Review – San Andreas

Dwayne Johnson action movies deserve room to be at least a little stupid, but this one goes well beyond reasonable leeway. My favorite bit of completely unnecessary dumbness was the repeated insistence that the catastrophic destruction of Los Angeles and San Francisco might somehow have been averted if only the powers-that-be had listened to a small cadre of scientists (led by the perpetually-annoying Paul Giamatti). Exactly how a device that detects major quakes a few minutes before they occur would have saved the entire West Coast … well, the whole movie was pretty much like that. Still, I saw it in the company of an old friend who enjoys watching movies about LA being demolished, so on that point at least mission accomplished. Mildly amusing