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‘UNDERWATER’ is Peak Incoherent January Hollywood Flotsam 

The first month of every year may start with resolutions about self-improvement, working out more, sleeping more, eating better and the like, and yet the new offerings at the movie cineplexes are more reliably junky than any other time of year. Underwater is peak January movie; a bungled poof of a plot, shoddy direction, feckless characters, unimpressive production work. It’s movie empty carbs, devoid of any nutritional value or artistic takeaway. The kind of movie you can throw in the pile with the other countless shameless impressions of Alien (alongside 2017’s super lame Life) that fundamentally misunderstands what makes that movie oh-so-great. Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘THE LEGEND OF TARZAN’

An unmitigated, excitement-bereft disaster, The Legend of Tarzan marries the very worst tenets of spectacle-based blockbuster entertainment to a wholly abominable ringer of a script in this haphazard attempt to jump-start a franchise whose existence should never have made it past the very first boardroom meeting. Unconvincing characterization and stupendously dull scene work are overwhelmed by eye-pestering CGI with no conviction to call its own that assaults the viewer, who is turn is already forced to reckon with a dramatically barren, entirely overblown, infuriatingly retread plot. The result is a vine-swinging affront to adventure cinema that fails to even once justify why it was made and who it was made for. Read More