Mean Girls
SimilarAustin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Bring It On (2000), Chicago (2002), Enchanted (2007), Italian for Beginners (2000), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Mary Poppins (1964), Paris Can Wait (2016), Shall We Dance? (2004), Shrek (2001), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), The Holiday (2006), The Party (1980), The Party 2 (1982), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
Watch afterPoor Things (2023), Saltburn (2023), Society of the Snow (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Wonka (2023),
StarringJon Hamm,
The Broadway adaptation defangs its best characters in a misguided effort to appeal to a new generation of viewers.
Paramount’s new version of Tina Fey’s cult classic Mean Girls boasts a tagline many Millennials found downright offensive upon debut: “This ain’t your mother’s Mean Girls!” The movie, based on the Broadway musical adapted from the original 2004 film, makes it abundantly clear that it’s aimed directly at Gen Z from its very opening moments, which look like a vertical phone video straight out of TikTok. Fey, the writer of both versions of Mean Girls, hasn’t been without her fair share of controversies over the twenty years since the first film premiered. In a clear effort to avoid upsetting younger audience members who have grown up with more sensitive media, Fey kneecaps many of her own best jokes. The updated script is a wobbly attempt to satisfy fans of the original without offending newcomers. The set-ups where there used to be jokes still remain, but they’re empty husks strung together by mostly forgettable songs. Though not without its unique charms, the musical Mean Girls is glaringly unfunny.
The music, written by Fey’s husband and frequent creative collaborator Jeff Richmond, does little to make up for the chasms where cutting punchlines have been removed. Richmond can write excellent, hilarious songs like the ones in 30 Rock and Girls5eva, but his compositions here are basic and feel uninspired. Most of the sincere songs revolve around bland messages about self-esteem that lack any insight into the actual emotional experiences of teenage girls. Emo outcast Janis ‘Imi’ike (Auli’i Cravalho, Moana), formerly a supporting character, gets what feels like four separate songs about the power of Being Yourself. Only “Sexy,” a playful number about Halloween costumes performed by ditzy beauty Karen Shetty (Avantika), stands out. Continue Reading →
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
SimilarArmageddon (1998), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Godzilla Raids Again (1955),
Jackie Brown (1997) Jaws: The Revenge (1987),
Live and Let Die (1973) Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Ocean's Twelve (2004), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Superman Returns (2006), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) The Equalizer 3 (2023), The Flash (2023), The Nun II (2023),
One of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One's earliest pieces of marketing was a trailer-by-way-of-behind-the-scenes featurette. In that clip, Tom Cruise, strapped to a motorcycle, rockets off the edge of a cliff in the Swiss Alps. He lets the bike drop away before popping his parachute and sailing into the horizon. It's one of the most death-defying sequences ever captured on film and, as we now know, it's one Cruise himself did again and again and again. The sequence, even devoid of context, sums up exactly what director Chris McQuarrie and Cruise (the two are also co-producers) hoped to achieve in Dead Reckoning: grade A movie spectacle. Continue Reading →
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
SimilarA.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Aliens (1986), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Face/Off (1997), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Shrek the Third (2007),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), The Flash (2023),
StarringColman Domingo, Cristo Fernández,
The blockbuster landscape shifted with Michael Bay's 2007 Transformers movie. It fit his directing style, with his love of explosions and male gazing, but what it amounted to was a guy playing with big, expensive cinematic toys. There was knowledge gained from those five previous installments when the 2018 spin-off Bumblebee had more personality and excitement than any of its predecessors. Continue Reading →
Top Gun: Maverick
SimilarApocalypse Now (1979), Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Mississippi Burning (1988), Superman Returns (2006),
Watch afterJurassic World Dominion (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022),
StarringJon Hamm,
Navy Captain Peter "Pete" Mitchell, callsign "Maverick" (Tom Cruise) is a living legend. He is the only man to have shot down multiple enemy planes in the modern era of combat aviation. From the F-14 Tomcat to bleeding-edge skunkworks stealth plane prototypes, there is nothing he cannot fly, nothing he cannot (or more accurately will not) push past the fabled Danger Zone. Continue Reading →
The Portrait of a Lady
Campion followed The Piano with a Henry James adaptation dedicated to the magnificently fraught question of desire or duty.
Artwork: Felipe Sobreiro
In the wake of the critical success of The Piano, Jane Campion’s 1996 adaptation of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady barely made a splash at the box office, grossing only a fraction of The Piano’s $140 million US earnings. It too seemed to puzzle critics. Some called it “claustrophobic” and “stifling,” and to be fair–they’re not wrong. The world that James creates in his masterful 600-page novel is at once lush and chilling, thrillingly intimate and so frustratingly tragic that as a whole it’s nearly impossible to quantify. James’s Portrait is not necessarily Campion’s, and vice versa. But few authors have had such a clear-eyed view of the inner lives of women, so it’s fitting that Campion–a director who has always portrayed women as they are, without pretense or romanticization–should be the one to adapt James’s greatest work. Continue Reading →
The In Between
Young love: Sometimes it crashes into us like lapping waves hitting a picturesque beach. Other times, it’s a car wreck, leaving a mess in its wake. The In Between, Paramount+’s new teen supernatural romance, is the latter - a subpar film that can’t be resuscitated, even at the best attempts of Joey King and a solid supporting cast. Continue Reading →
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I've been told that at Christmas Time, we are honest, so in that spirit, allow me to start this look back review with my own bit of honesty. I've seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button twice before watching it for this review. The first time I hated it. The second time, I hated it until I fell asleep about 20 minutes in. Continue Reading →