I read an article this past weekend devoted to our current, collective state of franchise fatigue, with the disappointing domestic box office for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The Secret Life of Pets 2, and Dark Phoenix cited as proof that audiences are getting tired of seeing the same ol' things in newfangled packaging. What that “Are franchises finally over?!” piece failed to suggest, though, was that maybe these particular sequels weren't making major bank because they're just not good. And the third sequel to 1997's Men in Black might be the not-good-est of them all – an exhaustingly manic and just-plain-exhausting reboot to a series that should have ended with 2012's surprisingly clever Men in Black 3. The only real surprise here is that cleverness is in such depressingly slim supply.

Given the relatively close proximity of their release dates, to say nothing of their both being about gay rock icons of the '70s, Rocketman is almost inevitably going to be compared to last fall's Oscar-winning Freddie Mercury salute Bohemian Rhapsody. If the latter was a musical bio-pic, though, the former is most definitely a bio-pic musical, and as such, it's sentimental, corny, kind of silly, and frequently campy beyond belief. It is, in other words, exactly what you want from a celebration of the early life and music of Elton John – an explosive pop fantasia of deep tenderness, unapologetic shamelessness, and unbridled love for its subject.

Coincidence is one thing. Yet what are we to make of the fact that, this past weekend, Hollywood released two sequels to movies released within 15 days of each other in 2017, both of which were about men almost slavishly devoted to their dogs? Last Sunday was Mother's Day, but was this most recent Sunday some kind of canine-centric holiday I was unaware of?

In many ways, Long Shot is a traditional rom-com to its teeth: there are slapstick antics and getting-to-know-you montages and familiar pop tunes aplenty; the supporting figures include sensible besties and backstabbing rivals and foolish authority figures; our heroine, when depressed, consumes a pint of Häagen-Daaz in her bathrobe. But it's been a long, long time since a Hollywood feature made me as thunderously happy as I was during director Jonathan Levine's showcase for Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, and the nearly forgotten pleasure of old-school, grown-up screen romance. And yes: I just referenced “Seth Rogen” and “grown-up” in the same sentence. I also referenced “Seth Rogen” and “Charlize Theron” in the same sentence. We can argue later about which seemed less likely.