The Jungle Book

A VFX army delivers Hollywood’s digital flower in The Jungle of Pi, thoroughly burning location shooting to the ground.  Mowgli meanwhile rejects admittance to the man club, choosing instead to be wooed by Her and kidnapped by Deerhunter Kurtz (Christopher Swingen) before ignoring wise feline wisdom and stumbling to victory.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

Useless Wayne cleverly finds fault in Man of Steel’s failings, so after some batmanipulation from Mark Jokerburg and a franchise Flash-forward, he does the 300 workout and borrows Bridges’ Iron Man suit. Fortunately, Martha Martha Martha brings the Justice Bunch together. Wonder-Why-I’m-Here Woman arrives in time for ludicrous laser-light show.

Dracula Untold

Title should burst into flames upon completion of film.  Aside from clashing bat-talions nothing is particularly good, but except for Papa Lannister’s exposition Dance, nothing is terribly bad either.  Well-executed if extremely formulaic and somewhat clichéd origin story even if nobody got their accents right in this game of bones.

Seventh Son

Awful expository voiceover.  Contrived Romeo & Juliet subplot.  Badly spelled-out plot twists. Semi-plagiarized Howard score. Jon Snow knowing less than nothing. Julianne’s a-moore-al cliché of a villainess.  And Jeff Bridges as Aldo Raine as Gandalf is seventh sign of film’s colossal failure. Brilliant writers expand mediocre book into awful film.

Short Term 12

The Larsonist strikes again, burning brilliantly bright in this tragically uplifting dive into a world that desperately needed exploration.  Electrifying TV stars barely avoid being outshone by their exceptional juvenile charges.  Chases down and tackles difficult taboo topics without ever feeling exploitative or sugarcoated.  Where’s Soderbergh for Short Term 13?

Dark Places

Charlize is the only bright spot amidst an otherwise dismal display.  Unrewarding Hoult leads a painfully inept and overdue investigation that somehow successfully proves that several small coincidences are all actually just… one ridiculously massive coincidence.  Dissatisfying plot resolution and disappointing failure to get as dark as it should.