News of the World

It’s a tried and true, through-and-through Western. There’s good guys and bad guys. There’s an orphan in trouble. There’s a land grab. There’s Indians. There’re gunfights. There’s a runaway wagon. It checks all the “western” boxes and succeeds in entertaining, despite all of the conventions. I mean: it’s Hanks. It’s gotta be at least decent, right?

Justice League: The Snyder Cut

This long-awaited opus runs about four hours, but is never boring, thanks to the clippy action and sagacious plot. With the subtlety of a flying brick, it hammers in Zach Snyder’s humorless, operatic version and does everything to erase the Joss Whedon version. There were things about Joss’s version that I liked. The Danny Elfman music, the occasional light-heartedness, and, believe it or not, Affleck’s performance as Batman. It’s not that this version is better or worse, it’s just different. Once you mentally prepare yourself for the four-hour running time, it’s never dull, even though the story is almost incomprehensible. Apparently, there’s a horned-demon who’s in trouble with his boss for not conquering enough worlds, and he needs to step-up his game. So, he hastily rushes into conquering Earth, not delving into the volumes and volumes of comic-book research chronicling that Earth’s mightiest heroes can and will kick his ass. It’s admirable and clear that Zach Snyder and his team love movies. They love heroes, they love visuals, they love action. But they’re trying TOO hard to impress. There’s no real point in criticizing a film for being bloated and self-indulgent. What’s the alternative? Especially if it’s exactly what the audience asked for?

Coming 2 America

It’s nice to see some of these characters again after 30 years, but it’s rarely laugh-out-loud funny. Part of what made the original funny was a kind of over-the-top goof of the fish-out-of-water trope. Those gags about how “different” Africa was don’t really hold up in the modern era. So, it’s now more about a class struggle. How rich is too rich? It’s always nice to see Eddie Murphy doing his thing, but it’s lazy and ham-fisted compared to Dolemite is My Name.