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Friday, February 10, 2017
Movie Reviews: Lego Batman Movie, John Wick Chapter 2, Paterson
I Am Not Your Negro, Love Everlasting, Oscar Shorts, Fifty Shades Darker
Posted By Scott Renshaw on February 10, 2017, 7:45 AM
If you've been putting off that trip to the movies, you can stop putting it off. This week's group of new releases make for one of the best weekends at Utah cinemas in recent memory.
Amazingly, that includes a pair of sequels. The LEGO Batman Movie (pictured) spins off the supporting character from the first movie into an adventure that celebrates kids' anarchic sense of play with savvy, pop culture-skewering wit. Keanu Reeves returns for John Wick Chapter 2, delivering another beautifully choreographed action spectacle built on a foundation of its mythology about hit-man subculture. The Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro applies the incendiary words of author James Baldwin to a study of race in America with a brutally honest perspective on how little has changed in 40 years. Oscar nominees are also showcased in the 2017 Oscar Nominated Live-Action Short Films, including entries from the predictably "important" to the satisfyingly frivolous. The locally-made teen romance melodrama Love Everlasting rides solid performances and an effectively-realized formula until an overly drawn-out coda.
Eric D. Snider finds Fifty Shades Darker maintaining the tedium and bland smut of Fifty Shades of Grey.
In this week's feature review, Jim Jarmusch delivers one of 2016's best films in Paterson, a paean to the poetry in everyday life.
Amazingly, that includes a pair of sequels. The LEGO Batman Movie (pictured) spins off the supporting character from the first movie into an adventure that celebrates kids' anarchic sense of play with savvy, pop culture-skewering wit. Keanu Reeves returns for John Wick Chapter 2, delivering another beautifully choreographed action spectacle built on a foundation of its mythology about hit-man subculture. The Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro applies the incendiary words of author James Baldwin to a study of race in America with a brutally honest perspective on how little has changed in 40 years. Oscar nominees are also showcased in the 2017 Oscar Nominated Live-Action Short Films, including entries from the predictably "important" to the satisfyingly frivolous. The locally-made teen romance melodrama Love Everlasting rides solid performances and an effectively-realized formula until an overly drawn-out coda.
Eric D. Snider finds Fifty Shades Darker maintaining the tedium and bland smut of Fifty Shades of Grey.
In this week's feature review, Jim Jarmusch delivers one of 2016's best films in Paterson, a paean to the poetry in everyday life.
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