I certainly have issues with TRoS, but this is neither better nor worse, just different.

For my part, the film didn’t seem too long. I saw Part II as the second half of an “It” drive-in double-bill, and even though it didn’t wrap up until 2:00 am, I didn’t notice it dragging.* If anything, the truncation of the more cosmic portions of the story had me feeling that it was galloping to the conclusion.

At first, I was like “Really? They’re ripping off ‘The Thing?’” Then Bill Hader said “You gotta be f***ing kidding,” and I realized that they knew exactly what they were doing.

And honestly, I was happy about the nods to “The Shining,” “Psycho” and “The Thing.” One aspect of the book that was lost in Part 1 was It…

You beat me to it! It helped that I was at an “It” double-bill and had therefore just rewatched Part 1, but I loved the callback. 

The Universal Monsters were less of a shared universe than people remember. Yes, there was typically some continuity between direct sequels—the Frankenstein films, for example—but you didn’t have characters crossing over until late in the cycle. It was really just “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” (1943); “House of…

I recall it being quite enjoyable, even if Tommy Lee Jones is sidelined for most of it.

Absolutely right, vbfan and MegaBlastoise. The original “Men in Black” manages to cram a ton of world-building, superlative buddy comedy and a solid plot into a mere 98 minutes of screentime. It even worked in a sad, sweet ending (shamefully undone by the sequel) and a “cosmic zoom” tag that put our Universe in…

I thought that this film would be fun from the trailers, and it did not disappoint. Lots of nervous chuckling throughout as Sue Ann edged ever closer to revenge.

I too got an Annie Wilkes vibe from Ma. She does a lot of bad things, but she is sympathetic to the end.

I liked the teens in this film. As you note, the new…

Killed, no. Some blood is drained from an animal, but it happens off-screen and the animal is fine (if anemic) afterwards.

My horror movie companion is a vet, so she had the same concerns as you.

Can’t disagree there. John C. Reilly and Samuel L. Jackson were fun. And I wouldn’t disagree that Kong is the best of the Monsterverse films overall.

Still, I don’t get the bile being directed at KOTM. It’s a perfectly entertaining destructo-fest, and plot-wise a complete throwback to the ‘60s Toho Studios films.

What I don’t understand are the reviewers who felt that the human drama in G’14 was far superior to that of KOTM. Can anyone name one memorable human interaction in G’14 that wasn’t related to Bryan Cranston’s brief performance? Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character had no story arc beyond “reunite with family,” and…

I am impressed. I am a 54-year-old geek, and I have never, ever heard of this. Appears to be less a TV movie than one of the failed pilots that the networks used to burn off during the summer.

Sure, it was pandering, but for the audience I saw the movie with, it worked. I’m happy any time I see a little girl pretending to be a superhero, so if any of them come away from the film thinking of that moment and how cool it would be to be the Wasp, Valkyrie or Scarlet Witch, I gotta say that I’m cool with that.

I fully appreciate why Black Panther was a cultural landmark, and am glad that it enjoyed such success. That said, I think it’s generally overpraised. I’d place it with Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Dr. Strange and Captain Marvel as a perfectly cromulent superhero film. (Honestly, my biggest problem with ranking the MCU…

I like this ranking much more than the AV Club’s. I’d move Ultron and Spider-Man up a few, and Black Panther down a couple, but otherwise this is more or less how I’d place them.

Iron Man 3 is *by far* the best of the IM films. The Mandarin bait-and-switch subverted expectations; addressed a deeply-problematic…

I’ve never understood the complaints about the cave scene. It’s literally 32 seconds long. It’s over before you have time to dwell on it.

And I suppose that I was more attuned to the MCU than the average moviegoer, but it was obvious it was table-setting for the big story arc. By that point, we’d already been…

Haven’t read the book or seen the previous films, so I didn’t come into the remake with preconceptions. Perhaps that’s why it largely worked for me.

I think it was a very smart move to change the focus to the young girl, as she had both the ability to comprehend what had happened and to say the things that would hurt…

I like this idea a lot. Manchester’s supposed death struck me as abrupt and poorly-motivated.

And while once I wouldn’t have thought the production team interested in that sort of long game, that was before it was revealed that they’d planted a Lex-mole IN PLAIN SIGHT two years ago.

I am so fucking sick of complaints about “social justice” issues being forced into fantasy/sci-fi pop culture, as if they weren’t there from the start. For example, the third-ever appearance of Superman (Action Comics #3, 1938) was about confronting a corrupt mining operator whose carelessness had endangered the lives…

I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t meet Eve’s mom from Hackensack.