Apparently there was a longer cut which premiered at TIFF which was much worse-paced than this, which is weird because this new, "better" cut still feels uneven and weird in how it advances its story.

Anyway, it's fine: shot gorgeously, the battle scenes are vicious, the dialogue is naturalistic but also mostly entertaining as needed, Chris Pine is good, Florence Pugh is great, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is believably psychotic, Stephen Dillane makes Edward I almost sympathetic, and Billy Howle is a…

I would call this "an inoffensive piece of sci-fi" but the bit where it's about a black kid who uses a magic gun to solve problems definitely makes it at least a touch problematic, even if I wouldn't go so far as to call it straight-up offensive per se. Just one of those times where you're watching the movie and you're all "...man, they use the magic gun a whole lot to solve their problems with crimes" and it's clear…

As Hollywood studio comedies go, it's harder to manage better than what GAME NIGHT achieves at this point. By this I mean that there's nothing terribly surprising about it - I mean, Jason Bateman at one point actively references how studio comedies like GAME NIGHT always throw in callbacks to the main characters' personal crises that run alongside the plot of the film to distract viewers from the fact that they're running that same formula again - but it's really…

It's probably the single best Walt Disney Studios animated film (as opposed to Pixar) since MULAN, which is an odd thing to say about what is essentially a talking animal buddy-comedy, but it's true.

Mostly this is because what the story is actually about is - and this bears stressing - racial profiling and intersectional racism. Yes, this is a talking animal buddy comedy which metaphorically discusses some of the most pressing and divisive social issues of our time, and…