Shazam! Don’t Think Too Much

I’m often asked why I bother going to movies when it seems like I don’t enjoy them, or when I tear down their mistakes and nitpick the little flaws. Well, part of me enjoying my time at the movies is actually doing that, but it’s also a mistake to say I don’t enjoy movies when I notice the flaws. It’s fully possible to have fun at a movie and to also recognize that it’s not necessarily a good one. Take, for example, the newest addition to the DC lineup, Shazam!. Despite the fact that it is not a great movie by any means (it’s not even the best DC movie, though granted that’s not a high bar to reach either), that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy a few hours out of your day with it. Sometimes Shazam! feels longer than the 2 hours that it actually is, and sometimes you can’t help but wonder how much better it would be if elements other than humor had been given a bit more of a chance. Despite that, however, there are worse ways to spend your time, and worse superheroes to spend that time with.

Mamma Mia 2’s the Real Dancing Queen

I sat down to watch the original Mamma Mia! (2008) before seeing the cast dance back on screen. I’d seen the musical on stage before, but it amazed me how much cheesier the movie was in comparison, and I started to worry that I wouldn’t enjoy the sequel at all. It seems, however, that the ten years have taught the moviemakers some important lessons. The most important? That a movie can be fun and a little ridiculous without being cheesy at the same time. Sure, there is less of a plot in this movie than the original (after all, once they decide never to find out who the dad is, there isn’t a whole lot left to talk about), and sure, there’s just as much dancing and singing, but there’s more effort put into it all, and it falls together in a way that you can both dance and cry to. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is still a love letter to ABBA, but there’s absolutely no reason you can’t dance and jive, having the time of your life (I promise I’m done).

Passengers Takes You Nowhere

We’ve entered the span of time where the popular movies (that aren’t part of sagas or cinematic universes) are the ones based in outer space. In the last three years alone, I’m counting fourteen of them (not including franchise films, which could have easily pushed it to twenty). Now the ones that probably come to mind first are films like Gravity (2013), Interstellar (2014), The Martian (2015) – thrillers, mostly, filled pretty heavily with science and big, life-altering questions that the characters would face before posing them to the audience. Passengers decided to sidestep the landmine of trying to figure out how much science its audience could take (real or imaginary) and marketed themselves as an adventurous, almost action-style trip thousands of miles into space. Unfortunately, not only is the film not an action-packed adventure, it’s not even much of a thriller or a drama. It is what seems to be a half-written script that relies on the star power of its two cast members to get people in the theater.