Free Guy (2021)

Ideally, this movie would have understood video game mechanics, culture and development, and cleverly  skewered (or at least poked fun at) them all. Unfortunately, it's more of a "tighten up the graphics on level 3" type deal. Nothing makes sense judged by real world logic, and there's no internal logic to speak of either. It panders to the more obnoxious and ignorant subsections of gamers - making the villain someone who is in favour of *gasp!* IPs and sequels, and hazily referring to his purchase of the hero coders' work then not making the game they would have with it as theft - but simultaneously makes tired jokes about gamers all being virgins in their twenties who live with their parents and wank into socks. The lead character has no personality outside of being the literal personification of a coder's creepy secret crush, brought to life by seeing her bum in tight leather trousers. Ryan Reynolds is on autopilot, Taika Waititi has somehow been turned into an off-brand Jim Carrey, and everyone else is a cipher or a greek chorus of painfully unconvincing YouTubers. There is no dramatic impetus or structure.

I gave up with half an hour left to go. 

Rating: Very bad.

The Peanuts Movie (2015)

Having never really read Peanuts or watched the previous movies, and so only picked up on the key elements and tone of it via cultural osmosis, I enjoyed this adaptation. They use a bunch of clever tricks to retain the 2D imagery (having characters always standing 3/4 on to the camera in the classic Peanuts pose, flipping their noses to match the camera angle, low animation rates etc), and they don't have the town invaded by aliens or anything awful like that. It's just a gentle slice-of-life comedy-drama, with some sitcom tropes (crush on the new girl, misunderstanding leads to high social standing), light slapstick and fantasy sequences thrown in.
It's not quite as melancholy as it could be, and you could ask why the need to go 3D at all if they're going to put so much work into making it feel 2D, of course, but assuming that these were unavoidable decisions for a big Western theatrical release animated movie in this day and age, this is the best adaptation you could hope for.

Rating: Good.