22 Jun 2017

Camelot? Camelot. I Know. It Sounds a Bit Bizarre: “Transformers: The Last Knight”

By Mike Schulz
Transformers: The Last Knight

It can’t be easy directing solely with your middle finger, but somehow Bay has pulled it off; in one fell swoop here, he’s turned his humans into robots, his robots into pests, and his worldwide audiences into saps whose goodwill, patience, and money he appears all too willing to waste.

18 Jun 2017

Lightning Strikes Thrice: “Cars 3” and “Rough Night”

By Mike Schulz
If asked to list Pixar features I felt more deserving of a second sequel than 2006’s Cars, I’d offer a simple “all of ’em except The Good Dinosaur.” So maybe it was low expectations that allowed me to find Cars 3 the best of its bunch, and by a considerable margin, to boot.
18 Jun 2017

A Bum Rap: “All Eyez on Me” and “47 Meters Down”

By Mike Schulz
Why do bad bio-pics happen to good people?
11 Jun 2017

E-gypped: “The Mummy,” “It Comes at Night,” and “Megan Leavey”

By Mike Schulz
Director Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy aims to be an action blockbuster, a supernatural freak-out, a tongue-in-cheek comedy, a tentpole-starter, and the ultimate Tom Cruise vehicle all at once, and I have to give it a weird kind of credit, because I never imagined a film could fail so spectacularly on quite so many levels.
05 Jun 2017

Breastplate Armor and Cotton Briefs: "Wonder Woman" and "Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie"

By Mike Schulz
Obviously, the summer months – by which I mean Hollywood’s May through August – bring with them superhero movies. On some weekends, they bring with them only superhero movies. But I can honestly say I never planned on a superhero two-fer quite as delightful, unexpected, and satisfying as this past weekend’s debuts of Wonder Woman and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Despite their shared release date and origin-story setups, you wouldn’t think that much would connect director Patty Jenkins’ live-action blockbuster and director David Soren’s featherweight animated comedy. In truth, though, the works are nearly identical in basic yet crucial ways that too many costumed-crime-fighter sagas aren’t: They’re blessedly unpretentious, they’re (mostly) angst-free, and they’re entertaining as hell.
27 May 2017

The Beach Is Back: “Baywatch” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”

By Mike Schulz
Well, there’s at least some good news regarding the TV-to-film reboot Baywatch: It’s only about 40 minutes long. The bad news, however, is that its maniacally employed slow-motion stretches those already-empty minutes to almost two full hours. Of course, it wouldn’t be Baywatch without slow-mo, and in a couple of instances – with the arrival of the movie’s title and the climactic cameo by a series favorite that’s spoiled for us in the opening credits – the effect is even handled with tongue appropriately in cheek. Mostly, though, its use just serves to elongate what is already a pretty endless affair. Bad is bad; this thing is bad cubed.
21 May 2017

Xenomorphin’-Power Dangers: “Alien: Covenant,” “Everything, Everything,” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul”

By Mike Schulz

It may not be particularly great sci-fi horror, but for the series’ devotees, Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant is certainly a first-rate exercise in nostalgia. Look! There’s the title gradually appearing in vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines! There’s the futuristic “burial at sea” with a mummy-wrapped corpse! There’s the derelict spacecraft! The face-hugger! The drinking-bird tchotchke! The heroine with the Sigourney-in-combat ’do who shouts, “We’ll blow this f----- out into space!”

14 May 2017

Maternal Sunshine of the Spotless Kind: “Snatched” and “T2 Trainspotting”

By Mike Schulz
Director Jonathan Levine’s Snatched, which finds Amy Schumer’s and Goldie Hawn’s daughter-mother duo evading thugs and kidnappers during an Ecuadorian vacation, is one of those one-joke, sentimental slapsticks that you somehow just know isn’t going to be nearly as funny as you want it to be. That’s why it was something of a shock to return to the recorded notes I took during my Friday screening, and to hear all of one critique (“the music is doing way too much”) in the midst of loads of compliments, many of them made while chuckling.
14 May 2017

Ritchie Riches: “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” and “The Wall”

By Mike Schulz
With its domestic gross of less than $15 million against a reported $175-million budget, Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword tanked at the box office this weekend, an outcome that should surprise exactly no one. Just how many treks to Camelot is one expected to make in a single lifetime?
07 May 2017

A Rogue, a Raccoon, and a Tree Stump Walk into a Sequel ... : "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and "The Dinner"

By Mike Schulz
After a brief prelude set in 1980 Missouri, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 flash-forwards 34 years, catching up with our motley crew of space travelers not long after we last saw them. This may be the film’s single most-unexpected aspect, because with the action unfurling over the course of only a few days, it’s the first time since 2011’s Captain America: Winter Soldier that a Marvel Studios movie is also a period piece. Granted, three-years-ago may not scream “period.” But in this case, it definitely is, given that writer/director James Gunn’s continuation feels so 2014 that it’s almost as if its audience has been in hyper-sleep for the past 33 months, and is awakening just in time for a new Guardians to start. I really wish I meant that as a compliment.

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