Category: humor

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bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Hot Pursuit: “It’s actually, actively worse than you think it’s going to be.” — Christy Lemire, christylemire.com

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2: “If you find yourself in front of a screen where Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is playing you only have yourself to blame.” — Greg Wakeman, cinemablend.com

The Longest Ride: “You probably think The Longest Ride is about some mixture of young love and bull riding. If you think that, you are about half right.” — Mike Ryan, Uproxx

Get Hard: “The oft-repeated gags about prison rape and the frequent racial stereotypes become such a drag that solitary confinement might be a welcome break.” — Travis Hopson, Examiner.com

Little Boy: “A confused mess of Christian morality parading as entertainment, and one that no benevolent God would wish upon the world.” — Collin Brennan, Consequence of Sound

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bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Unbroken: “Somehow, in searching for the most photogenic, dramatically harrowing and heroic scenes from Zamperini’s life, the movie ‘Unbroken’ gives short shrift to the most interesting parts.” — Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune

Annie: “Leapin’ lizards! The evergreen Broadway musical ‘Annie’ strays far from its Depression-era roots with truly dismaying results in this crass, charmless, tineared and lead-footed update.” — Lou Lumenick, New York Post

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb: “Let the dust finally settle on these museum pieces.” — Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Exodus: God and Men: “Now obviously the Voice of God is a tough role for any performer, let alone one who has not yet hit puberty. But where Scott detected innocence and purity, I confess I saw mostly an irritable petulance. (Moses: “Where have you been?” God/boy: “Watching you fail.”) This is the first portrayal of God I’ve ever encountered who looked like he could use a good spanking.” — Christopher Orr, The Atlantic

Horrible Bosses 2: “The new, decidedly inferior sequel has its share of chuckles, but it’s got none of that edge or anger. In fact, I’m not even sure why it’s called Horrible Bosses 2. It’s not really about bosses or office politics. Its only allegiance seems to be to the law of the sequel: It puts the same characters into a vaguely familiar situation, with diminishing, tepid returns. They should have just called it 2.” — Bilge Ebiri, vulture.com

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bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles doesn’t so much provide brainless enjoyment as it pummels the viewer into submission. ‘Shell-shocked’ is a reasonable description of the experience.” — James Berardinelli, ReelViews

The Expendables 3: “You need ‘The Expendables 3’ like you need a kick in the crotch, and while this running-on-fumes sequel may not be quite as painful a thing to experience, it will waste considerably more of your time.” — Justin Chang, Variety

Let’s Be Cops: “It’s just. awful. for most of its run time, content to squirm and squeal instead of explode with absurdities.” — Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com

Into the Storm: “Don’t get me wrong, I’m as willing to check my brain at the door and submit to an idiotic late-summer spectacle as the next person. But this funnel-cloud fiasco tries to suck up everything in its path, and just winds up sucking.” — Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly

Planes: Fire and Rescue: “This Disney cartoon is running on empty.” — Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

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bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Rage: “If you are going to make a B-grade exploitation piece you need to go for excess and insanity. Tokarev commits the ultimate movie sin: it makes a Nicolas Cage revenge thriller simply boring.” — Richard Haridy, Quickflix

A Long Way Down: “Four characters meet while planning to commit suicide and decide to annoy one another instead in this tacky Nick Hornby adaptation.” — Peter Debruge, Variety

Transformers: Age of Extinction: “Preferable to syphilis.” — Matt Brunson, Creative Loafing

Tammy: “Here, the jokes hit with the accuracy of bullets in a Michael Bay movie.” — Dann Gire, Daily Herald (IL)

Deliver Us from Evil: “A pretty routine and occasionally silly demonic-possession flick, which distinguishes itself by making us wait so long for the exorcism that heads may be spinning in the audience as well.” — Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

Earth to Echo: “It does not reveal too much to say that road leads to something otherworldly, and that the something otherworldly is kind of cute. But considering the whole story rests on it, it’s also not all that much to phone home about.” — Carla Meyer, Sacramento Bee

Think Like a Man Too: “You want eye-rolling moments? This movie will detach your corneas.” — Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com

Categories
bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Blended: “Most of ‘Blended’ has the look and pacing of a three-camera sitcom filmed by a bunch of eighth graders and conceived by their less bright classmates.” — A.O. Scott, New York Times

The Love Punch: “A romantic comedy as painfully unfunny as a sock in the jaw.” — Claudia Puig, USA Today

The Angriest Man in Brooklyn: “Every scene between two people comes off like drunkenly shot video of a play rehearsal gone horribly wrong.” — Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

The Amazing Spider-Man: “Despite the efforts of Electro, the franchise is running shockingly low on juice.” — Anthony Lane, New Yorker

The Other Woman: “This film, on the other hand, seems so desperate for laughs that you can practically see the flop sweat appear on its performers as they flail from one obnoxiously, uncomfortable scene to the next.” — Jeff Vice, Cinephiled

Heaven Is for Real: “The earnest performances aren’t enough to elevate the vanilla narrative from a faith-based film that will only preach to the choir.” — David Blaustein, ABC News Radio

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humor

Laughing Wild – by Christopher Durang

A second monologue (“Seeking Wild”) from the play Laughing Wild by Christopher Durang.

MAN: I used to be a very negative person. But then I took this personality workshop that totally turned my life around. Now when something bad or negative happens, I can see the positive. Now when I have a really bad day, or when someone I thought was a really good friend betrays me, or maybe when I’ve been hit by one of those damn people riding bicycles the opposite way on a one-way street, so, of course, one hadn’t looked in that direction and there they are bearing down on you, about to kill or maim you — anyway, I look at any of these things and I say to myself: this glass is not half full, it’s half empty.

No — I said it backwards, force of habit. This glass is not half empty, it is half full.

Of course, if they hit you with the stupid bicycle your glass won’t be half full or half empty, it will be shattered to pieces, and you’ll be dead or in the hospital.

But really I’m trying to be positive, that’s what I’m doing with my life these days. I was tired of not being joyful and happy, I was sick of my personality, and I had to change it.

Half full, not half empty. I had to say to myself: you do not have cancer—at least not today. You are not blind. You are not one of the starving children in India or China or in Africa. Look at the sunset, look at the sunrise, why don’t you enjoy them, for God’s sake? And now I do. Except if it’s cloudy, of course, and you can’t see the sun. Or if it’s cold. Or if it’s too hot.

I probably need to take a few more personality workshops to complete the process. It’s still not quite within my grasp, this being positive business.

But I’m making great strides my friends don’t recognize me.

And it’s hard for me to be positive because I’m very sensitive to the vibrations of people around me, or maybe I’m just paranoid.

Categories
bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Divergent: “Barely diverting” — Bruce Diones, The New Yorker

Sabotage: “This is the type of movie best enjoyed as a late-night indulgence on cable. Really late at night, when your eyes are still partially open, but your brain has called it quits.” — David Hiltbrand, philly.com

Need for Speed: “Need for Speed is so busy and loud that, if not watched vigilantly, it could be mistaken for something fun. But it is a shambling lemon.” — Dan Schindel, filmschoolrejects.com

Non-Stop: “The problem is that Non-Stop tries to be something it’s not. It has one too many scenes that border on ludicrous, and the big reveal barely makes sense.” — Dave McGinn, Globe and Mail

God’s Not Dead: “God may not be dead, but I’d be willing to wager this movie at least gave him a faint wave of nausea.” — Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress

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bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Grown Ups 2: “Adam Sandler scrapes the bottom of the barrel” and then he pukes into it with Grown Ups 2, a lazily cribbed-together swamp of pointless and unfunny sketches that makes 2010;s Grown Ups look like Citizen Kane.” — Linda Barnard, Toronto Star

Pawn Shop Chronicles: “By the time it winds to a conclusion, the film seems to have tired itself out, like a toddler who screeches nonsensically for hours, then falls asleep in a fetal ball in the corner.” — Nathan Rabin, The Disolve

The Lone Ranger: “Somewhere, around the hour-and-a-half mark, The Lone Ranger makes the fateful decision not to end. Worse, the movie keeps not-ending for another full hour.” — Christopher Orr, The Atlantic

White House Down: “It follows the Emmerich template: a spectacle-tinged, compelling setup; a dumb, disappointing midsection; and a cheese-topped denouement that veers so close to self-parody that one is tempted to call it funny.” — James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Man of Steel: “For all its ambition, Man Of Steel fails to soar, instead crash landing in a humourless, melodramatic mess of explosions.” — Matt Neal, The Standard

Categories
bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

The Great Gatsby: “Why didn’t the maestro didn’t just go the whole hog and rename it ‘Jazz Hands: A Love Story’? A bottle of your best champagne says he thought about it.” — Ed Whitfield, The Ooh Tray

After Earth: “The only value in watching it is to see an expensive disaster slowly unfold.” — Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Now You See Me: “It takes a certain dark magic to make the talent of a top cast disappear right before your eyes. Now You See Me does just that.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone Magazine

The Hangover Part III: “If only what happened in Vegas had stayed in Vegas.” — Tom Charity, CNN.com

Oblivion: “Was Cruise trying to beat out fellow Scientologist John Travolta for the honor of starring in the dumbest sci-fi epic ever?” — David Edelstein, Vulture

Categories
bad review revue

The Bad Review Revue

Wrath of the Titans: “Even the most skilled actors in the cast mainly look like they’re struggling to stay awake.” — Jeffrey M. Anderson, Common Sense Media

The Three Stooges: “For the Farrellys, The Three Stooges is a labor of love. For non-believers, it’s merely a labor.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Lockout: “I suspect many people will be on board, as I was, with Lockout for about 5 minutes. Fortunately, anyone can go to YouTube and see them without seeing what comes next: 85 minutes of shoddy plotting, direction and full-on boredom.” — Erik Childress, eFilmCritic.com

John Carter: “The reported $250 million price tag for John Carter gives one pause. I suppose one could argue that masterpieces have no price. Then again, John Carter is no masterpiece.” — Peter Rainer, CS Monitor