Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Spaceships idle infinitely along while wonderfully diverse heroes meander about on meaningless missions, diving through plotholes to find silly set-pieces like the Dobby-horse race and 50 shades of Rey’s red room of pain. Mediocre choreography and weak story compete for worst place with Poe’s deadly stupidity and Kylo’s aim-all-guns strategy.

Looper

Pseudo-intellectual time travel flick writes off logic with dismissive dialogue, but can’t talk itself out of pacing problems.  Levitt’s Willis and Johnson’s clever cinematic tricks shine through a story that borrows notes from a bad Frequency, then travels from coincidental and emotionally dissatisfying to physically and psychicly unbelievable and unacceptable.

The Brothers Bloom

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels gets fake Wes Anderson treatment. Irritatingly dark and twisty plot weighs down what feels like a light film. Runs into problem of ‘If it’s a con, we called it. If not, lame.’ Aside from brooding Brody, quirky characters are the highlight, especially Rinko Kikuchi and Robbie Coltrane.