Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Fun, but not much of the magic of the original. Kids will still get a kick out of it, though.

Everything is no longer awesome in Legoland. It has become a wasteland where things are destroyed faster than they can be built. Alien Legos from space routinely come down to smash anything pretty that is built. Emmet (Chris Pratt) is still happy as can be, though. Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) is just trying to survive this apocalyptic Legoscape. They soon go off world to attempt to confront Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish).

It is very difficult to recapture something as magical as the first Lego Movie. It was pretty perfect and it spawned a series of less than perfect sub-genre movies. None of them were bad, per se, but neither could they capture the essence of the first. “The Lego Movie 2” is similar, though it should have a leg up on the others since it draws from the same delightful characters of the original. There is still fun to be had in the movie, but it is more just your average children’s movie fun versus genre busting fun and wonder.

Movie number two falls back on its catchy “Everything Is Awesome” song from the first movie to somewhat lackluster effect. There are a couple of new songs that are pretty good, thankfully. First is the wonderful Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi song “Not Evil” and the aptly named synth-dance song “Catchy Song”. In general, the whole soundtrack is pretty good, but those two stand out.

One weird thing that I’m sure has an explanation for it is the mysterious disappearance of Will Ferrell. His voice is still in the movie, both as President Business and as Dad, but Dad speaks from off camera all the time. The good news behind that is we are treated to the delightful Maya Rudolph as Mom in his place. I wonder if it was just a scheduling thing and Will could get to a sound studio but couldn’t get to the film studio.

Judging from the general audience reaction, kids will still like this movie despite its not living up to the first. It was a high bar to achieve and should not be faulted for not making it. It’s still a fun movie with a decent amount of delightful moments interspersed.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: Easily the best Transformers movie. Not a compliment.

I saw “Bumblebee” because nothing else was showing and Michael Bay was in no way associated with the creation of the movie except in the amorphous “producer” bucket which also contained Stephen Spielberg. I lie. I want to never see a Michael Bay movie ever again, but I know I will go back no matter how much he hurts me. I can’t quit you Michael!

Here’s what you get in “Bumblebee”: bad acting, John Cena having some decent John Cena moments, lots of schlocky scenes, a generic but ok enough story, action you can actually follow. The latter is huge if you’ve ever seen another Transformers movie where you are treated to scene after scene of Baysian nightmares as indistinguishable movements of metal morph and clash and boom. Unlike those other films, “Bumblebee” seems to put at least some thought into not trying to make the audience motion sick.

The worst part is the acting is just atrocious. I mean there wasn’t much material to work with, but it was sometimes painful watching what was happening on screen. This includes John Cena’s role though he was entertaining at points when he cranked the Cena to eleven. The only props I’ll give is to Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie. It’s not easy when the most charismatic actor you have to work with is a CGIed car that morphs into a robot and she did a good job of making you believe she was talking to the robot instead of the thin air of real life.

I read somewhere that people were comparing “Bumblebee” to “E.T.”. I can only assume that all those people were secretly Stephen Spielberg because aside from the whole “young person accidentally finds alien and tries to hide him from the government who wants to do tests on him and young person finds friendship and acceptance from alien” thing going on, there’s nothing similar at all. Oh. That was all “E.T.” was about. This movie is exactly like “E.T.”. “E.T.” wasn’t that good either.

There was a bit of oversexualization of Hailee Steinfeld throughout the movie as is fairly typical for the franchise and Steinfeld is an adult, I guess, but she’s supposed to be playing a high schooler which always makes it creepy. Good news is someone actually had the sense to make it much less creepy by having her wear bike shorts underneath her short shorts so the questionably chosen camera angles were more modestly revealing than they otherwise would be. Or maybe that’s just a style kids are wearing these days? Regardless, either hurray for the adult in the room or hurray for teen fashion sense!

If you’ve liked previous Transformers movies you should really get your head checked, you might have a tumor or something, but you will also probably like “Bumblebee”. Nostalgic Transformers fans will look wistfully upon the initial Cybertron fight as they see a handful of fairly loyal representations of some classic toys from back in the day. Other than that, best to stay away from this film.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A reasonably entertaining Odd Couple movie. Kevin Hart did not annoy me. Bryan Cranston is still a better comedic actor.

I will see Bryan Cranston in anything. I will avoid Kevin Hart like the plague. What is one to do when a movie like “The Upside” comes along starring both? See the movie, apparently.

“The Upside” is an occasionally endearing American remake of a, I have heard, much much better French film called “Les Intouchables” which broke box office records in France. I would like to see that movie instead. It is not that “The Upside” is bad. There are plenty of good laughs and the chemistry between Cranston and Hart is pretty good most of the time. It’s just that it’s formulaic. Worth seeing, just not worth seeing again. Or wasting your time writing a review about. Ok, perhaps that’s a bit too harsh. The basic premise is a quadriplegic billionaire named Phillip Lacasse (Bryan Cranston) hires an ex-con named Dell Scott (Kevin Hart) to be his caregiver and they learn important life lessons from each other. And because it’s an American movie, you also have to shoehorn in a love interest in the form of Phillip’s former business partner, Yvonne Pendleton (Nicole Kidman).

Bryan Cranston is always awesome and so is Nicole Kidman even if her role is limited. I was also happy to see Julianna Margulies show up in a small part as a pen pal of Phillip. Then there’s Kevin Hart. I dislike his shtick. Even before his recent homophobic non-apology apology tour that lost him the Oscars hosting gig. His shtick appears for brief moments in this movie, but thankfully not much. When he turns that off, he’s a decent actor. I mean he’s no Bryan Cranston or Nicole Kidman or Julianna Margulies, but there is definitely some potential there. I hope he explores it more.

Anyone know of a way to see “Les Intouchables”? Go see that instead. Take me with you. If not, “The Upside” is an enjoyable enough movie to fill your time. It has a little bit of soul and a little bit of comedy and a little bit of Hart. See what I did there?

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Notorious RBG in the house! An informative look at the young career of your favorite Supreme Court Justice and mine, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) is not a superhero, but if she were, this would be her origin story. “On the Basis of Sex” follows her life from entering Harvard Law and encountering sexism through trying to find a job and encountering sexism and up to her first major case where she fought sexism. That isn’t to say the entire movie is about sexism. Women would say it’s starts with daily life, and continues about daily life and ends with a major case about sexism. So it goes.

I was disappointed to find that some of the parts of the movie aren’t true. For instance, when Ruth’s husband, Martin (Armie Hammer *swoon*), gets testicular cancer in his third year at Harvard Law, the movie portrays Ruth taking over his classes and teaching him. In reality, it was more of a group effort between her and Martin’s classmates to help him out. What I was happy to find was true is that Martin did indeed hand Ruth the tax law case upon which the movie is based. When it happened in the movie I said to myself, “Oh, this better be true!” And it was. What I wondered most how true to life the movie was is the relationship between Ruth and her daughter, Jane (Cailee Spaeny). Much of the movie takes place when Jane was a teenager and, well, you know teenagers. Jane is a stubborn daughter of a stubborn mom and there is this one moment as they are leaving Dorothy Kenyon’s (Kathy Bates) office where mom sees daughter in a different light and sees how much more freedom and independence her daughter has than she did. It’s a very touching moment that is a bit too perfect for real life, but I hope it sums up their real relationship because it’s just beautiful.

Legal dorks will be happy to know that there is a fair amount of legal dork-ese in the film. Probably about as much as they could get away with without scaring away the normals. This is also a movie that celebrates Ruth Bader Ginsburg more than it analyzes here, but that’s alright with me. I am not a role model person. People are people and all do great and not so great things. The great things should be emulated, but the people who do those great things should not because it tends to lead to idolatry wherein the worshipers cast aside the not so great things. But since we are a role model society, you’d be hard pressed to find someone more worth it than she.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Whimsical and fun and everything you expect Mary Poppins to be. Also completely forgettable, unfortunately.

“Mary Poppins Returns” is a bit of an enigma to me. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and in many ways captured the magic of the original. Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) was everything Mary Poppins should be: prim and proper with a strong undertone of frivolity and mischief. The lamplighter Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) was a wonderful go-between bridging the real to the fantastic. The songs were fun and evoked the mood of each scene exactly as they should. Costuming and design were colorful and delightful. The movie played homage to the original while still carving a path of its own. I exited the theater with the lightness and joy that you want from a children’s movie. Why then do I feel like “Mary Poppins Returns” will be relegated to the trash bin of children’s movies? I think the main culprit is the soundtrack. It is without a doubt good and even great technically and I expect many of the songs to be nominated for awards. The problem is that none of them are memorable in the way that children’s songs are usually memorable. The songs were all great but not a single one is rolling around in my memory and there is nary a hum on my lips. Perhaps “Mary Poppins Returns” will be remembered as the Modern Jazz of children’s movies.

There are some delightful cameos by Dick Van Dyke as the banker, Mr. Dawes Jr. and I guess not a cameo since she wasn’t in the original, but Angela Lansbury plays the balloon lady at the end and sings us out to the credits. Both of them are 93 years old. Lansbury still has an amazing voice and Dick Van Dyke can still sing pretty decently and has some mean tap dancing movies for a 93 year old.

This is still a good movie to take the kiddies to. It’ll keep them entertained and it’ll keep you entertained. And maybe it’s a good thing for parents that their kids won’t incessantly request “Mary Poppins Returns” to be replayed over and over and over again like that horrid “Frozen” song “Let It Go”.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: More fun than I’ve had in a long time at the movies. Daring animation. Rich background. Wonderful character development. I will see this movie again and again.

Oh, delight of delights! What a wonderful movie “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is! I will start by saying that this isn’t a perfect movie. There are small things here and there that don’t quite make sense if you think about it and I also really wish that the movie delved more into Uncle Aaron’s (Mahershala Ali) and Jefferson Davis’ (Brian Tyree Henry) relationship, but these complaints are nothing compared to the sheer joy of watching this film. Let’s sling some praise, shall we?

First off, the animation is both ground-breaking and familiar. Comic book fans will recognize it immediately for the style borrows heavily from the original source material. The style is a little hard on the eyes at first because of its unusual nature, but the brain quickly takes over and everything starts to blend seamlessly into a comic book come to life. This allows the animators to play with all sorts of comic book tropes like thought-bubbles and onomonapoedic special effects worded on the screen. I don’t want to make it sound like this is a cartoon version of a comic book, though, because the animation is so much more than that. It’s kind of like those flip book animations you created as a kid if instead of a flip book you had ninety million dollars.

It is also amazing how rich and complete the backgrounds of all the characters are, given both how many characters there are and the two hour movie time limitation. All of them are complete human beings by the end of the movie. This is quite an accomplishment given that they are all cartoon characters. You know enough about them to feel for them, from Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) to Aunt May (Lily Tomlin) to Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) and the rest. This speaks volumes for the talent of the people behind the cameras, the writers and the director and the editors.

Do you want to go see “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” again? I want to see “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” again! It had a decent enough opening weekend, but give it some love so they make more movies like this! It is certainly better than most of the Superhero movies out there. If it doesn’t win every Best Animated Movie awards this year, I shall pout.