Here’s what’s happening in Episode #12 (download .mp3) of the Cinema Squabble Podcast. This week, the Squabblers find time to dig into the films Spy with Melissa McCarthy, the drama Love & Mercy, horror sequel Insidious 3, and the return of dino mania in Jurassic World. Further into the show, guests Carl Spence and Beth […]

It does nothing with any of the high school movie clichés it’s supposedly mocking while at the same time has trouble developing its characters. Additionally, [Barely Lethal] pulls ideas and inspiration from a variety of sources ranging from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to Heathers to She’s All That to Mean Girls to D.E.B.S. yet fails to make a single one of them its own, the lack of urgency downright perplexing.

Bonello’s movie looks terrific, and it certainly goes out of its way to craft an intoxicating ambience that’s beguiling, but it’s so ungainly, unfocused and flat-out long, sticking with it beginning to end is frustratingly difficult. It all feels uncomfortably unfinished, the resulting motion picture just not ready to walk down the runway with anything approaching confidence.

Fast-paced, character-driven, filled with spectacle and heart, Jurassic World is a surprisingly intimate coming of age saga for both its adult and adolescent characters alike, building to a suitably heart-pounding bit of creature-based carnage that is almost certain to illicit cheers from the majority of the audience.

As I get older, my love for The Last Unicorn only seems to grow.

Thank Your Lucky Stars might not be a great musical, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful, and as an old Hollywood artifact of a bygone era of big screen entertainment that’s disappeared forever it’s a fantastically fun smorgasbord of silliness worthy of celebration.

Far more cerebral than you initially expect it to be, this intimate, claustrophobic thriller takes its time to explode into the expected violence and mayhem involving the titular creatures, and as such becomes far more meaningful, and memorable, than it otherwise would have been had the filmmaker chosen a different path.

I like the aggressive machismo fueling the film, a trait Dujardin isn’t afraid of embracing. He’s a tornado tearing through the proceedings with fearless ferocity, becoming some sort of carnivorous, chain-smoking combination of Humphrey Bogart, Gene Hackman and Jean-Paul Belmondo all rolled into one.

Fans of that sort of thing, and of the characters themselves, will certainly rejoice. As for everyone else, while not going to hate their time sitting in the theater, they’re certainly going to wonder what all the fuss is about because, as far as I can tell, this is much ado about nothing, nothing at all.