Disenchanted (2022)

Massively disappointing. This reeks of straight-to-video sequel, simultaneously overegging and misunderstanding all the strengths of the first movie in a contrived 'well, guess that happy ending wasn't so happy after all but here comes another adventure to bring it back again' story and with pedestrian visuals and even a bunch of crummy fade-to black scene-enders.

There are too many songs, now there 'just because' rather than their judicious use in the Enchanted, and they're all forgettably bad. Returning characters are mostly wasted or Flanderised and the new characters are blandly cliched in a way the first movie managed to avoid or play with. The glorious 2D animation of the original has taken a big step down here: it's fine, but noticeably less attractive and seems to be a mix of rigged puppets and cel-shaded 3D. The story is a convoluted mess that around half an hour in makes the bizarre decision to change all the characters and continuity to a confusing degree, and generally comes off as a less clever version of Once Upon A Time. And Alan Tudyk does an Ed Wynn impression again.

Amy Adams is good, of course, but doesn't have much to work with.

Rating: Dreadful.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

The joke is 'it's a music biopic that treats him like a genius when actually he's a silly parody guy", but they *also* do it as a spoof of biopics, so it's double-cooked. If you've seen Walk Hard, Hot Rod, Spinal Tap etc, you've seen this, except a lot of it is run through an Epic Movie filter.

Rating: Not good.

See How They Run (2022)

SPOILERS BELOW

Lots of distracting decisions, like Rockwell's ropey accent, half the characters being real-life famous people but with elements of their lives changed, and many many instances of the 'we talked about this thing happening in stories and now it's happening in ours!' joke rammed down the viewer's throat. There was no way to guess the solution, though I spotted the red herring culprit very quickly, and it wasn't funny at all. Complete waste of so many comedy actors.

Rating: Bad.

The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent (2022)

SPOILERS BELOW

Cage is legitimately fantastic, Pascal is really good, and it starts out strong. But the story is muddled and the action is bland, and they both distract from the comedy and take over the film more as it goes. Also, there's barely anything surprising here at all, it even ends with the same gag as Get Shorty and Goldmember. The thing that really stood out was the Wogan Interview Cage alter-ego. Not necessarily the most original idea but it's such a specific use of Cage lore, executed really well and the one time they really go wild. It's a shame that, outside of some smart use of Face/Off and its imagery and themes, the rest of the movie took such little advantage of its own setup.

Rating: Fine but disappointing.

Morbius (2022)

Utterly hollow and dull, no structure, no one talks like an actual person, and when it finished I was surprised because I thought it had like another hour to go. 

Rating: Dreadful