2016

Posted on August 5, 2016 by bofca

SUICIDE SQUAD

“Sure, the film throws in some contractual cameos and obligated pandering, but the majority of its running time is injected with the fuel of screw-it-all abandon.” – Greg Vellante, Edge Boston

“SUICIDE SQUAD had the ingredients to be something truly unique; but once again it seems the suits at Warner Brothers and DC have no idea how to make their own characters work on screen.” – Tim Estiloz, El Mundo Boston

“What does writer/director David Ayer do with all this? He gives us extended fight scenes… What he does not do is give us any reason to care about the results.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“What prevents SUICIDE SQUAD from being as epic as it should be is the story and the film’s overall structure.” – Jaskee Hickman, Cinematic Essential

GLEASON

“…a two-hour chronicle of how terminal illness consumes its victims and overwhelms their loved ones, a portrait of what it is like to be helpless, in visceral terms, to your own mortality, and what it is like to watch the person you care about most in the entire world die slowly while you can only stand and watch.” – Andy Crump, Paste Magazine

BOFCA REVIEW ROUND-UP: 07/29/2016

Posted on July 29, 2016 by bofca

JASON BOURNE

“One would think that after more than a century of cinematic car chases we would have seen it all, but Greengrass and company have a few tricks up their sleeves.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“The last great serious spy series has become tedious.” – Norm Schrager, Meet in the Lobby

“For reasons I can only assume involve giant piles of money, Damon and Greengrass have returned at this late date to at long last make their own BOURNE REDUNDANCY, and I’m still a bit taken aback by how lousy it is.” – Sean Burns, Spliced Personality

“The times certainly are a-changin’. Now, the identity crisis seems focused less on the main character and more-so the film he resides within.” – Greg Vellante, Edge Boston

NERVE

“You don’t ask if a roller coaster has a coherent plot or well-developed characters. You just get on and enjoy the thrills. If you can do that, you can take the dare.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“NERVE may be too safe for its own good, and too ignorant of its subject matter to be taken fully seriously, but at least it knows how to show us a good time.” – Andy Crump, Paste Magazine

“NERVE is a good movie that provides thrills as long as you’re like me and had no idea what was about to happen. It would also help if you’re the kind of person who is fine with it being as safe as it is.” – Jaskee Hickman, Cinematic Essential

PHANTOM BOY

“…the movie’s magic fantasy is gentle and childlike instead of brawny and authoritarian. Here, might does not make right. Compassion does.” – Andy Crump, The Playlist

BOFCA REVIEW ROUND-UP: 07/08/2016

Posted on July 8, 2016 by bofca

MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES

“Mike and Dave may need wedding dates, but their narrative pursuit exists in a movie that’s in need of so much more to even consider it worthy of your time.” – Greg Vellante, Edge Boston

“The plot doesn’t really make sense, and the characters are forgettable.” – Deirdre Crimmins, Cinematic Essential

“In a year where a Presidential candidate brags about his genital size in the midst of a debate it’s quite possible we have not yet hit bottom.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS

“Although, as in the TOY STORY films, the main premise is that the characters have complicated lives when the humans aren’t around, what we really learn from THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS is that they need us as much as we need them.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“There’s no inspiration here, just prosaism. Not every animation outfit can be Pixar, of course, but they should have more imagination than this.” – Andy Crump, Paste Magazine

BOFCA REVIEW ROUND-UP: 07/01/2016

Posted on July 1, 2016 by bofca

THE LEGEND OF TARZAN

“THE LEGEND OF TARZAN fails to inspire or even engage.” – Jaskee Hickman, Cinematic Essential

“What we get is something cobbled together by a committee—earnest and admirable but flaccid in execution.” – Sam Cohen, Substream Magazine

“…a bland and unoriginal adaptation.” – John Hanlon, John Hanlon Reviews

“It’s a movie so painfully bloated, misguided and built upon empty money, that you may as well run it for the GOP ticket and call it the presumptive nominee.” – Greg Vellante, Edge Boston

“Think of Brewer and Cozad’s screenplay as a chore list instead of a blueprint for visual storytelling. That’s the viewing experience of THE LEGEND OF TARZAN in a nutshell.” – Andy Crump, Paste Magazine

“…was this really a movie worth making at our particular moment?” – Sean Burns, Spliced Personality

“It’s all rather flat and predictable, a story we’ve seen many times before even if you’ve never seen a TARZAN movie.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

THE BFG

“Thankfully Disney and Steven Spielberg decided to tackle the giant story, and the results are magical.” – Deirdre Crimmins, Cinematic Essential

“…the film marks a reunion of Spielberg and Mathison, the team behind E.T. Their new collaboration is an emotionally powerful one — a classic tale of childhood, fantasy, innocence and adventure.” – Greg Vellante, Edge Boston

“Every single moment of THE BFG is characterized by contrasts of scale (like a giant wearing a circus tent as a shirt) and contrasts of appearance (like a digital monster trading fart jokes over tea with a flesh-and-blood Queen).” – Jake Mulligan, Dig Boston

“Many of Dahl’s darker edges have been sanded off by Mathison and Spielberg, who’s working with Disney for the first time. But if you loved the fart jokes in Dahl’s book, well, Spielberg apparently did too!” – Brett Michel, The Improper Bostonian

“THE BFG will undoubtedly find an audience, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to pretend this giant is less big and friendly than boring and flat.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR

“THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR does hint at a sequel, and given what’s going on in the real world, sadly, there should be plenty of inspiration for it.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

BOFCA REVIEW ROUND-UP: 06/17/2016

Posted on June 17, 2016 by bofca

FINDING DORY

“FINDING DORY is a solid effort and a nice comeback from last year’s THE GOOD DINOSAUR, but make no mistake––unlike last year’s brilliant “Inside Out,” this is not the best American animated feature we’ve seen this year.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“The best parts of the film are the too few occasions when it pauses for long enough to let us drink in the majesty of what we’re being shown.” – Sean Burns, Spliced Personality

“FINDING DORY is a weird entry for Pixar in that it feels like it should actually be a lot darker than it is.” – Bob Chipman, MovieBob

“Overall, there is a good movie for kids here that more than likely will not disappoint.” – Jaskee Hickman, Cinematic Essential

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

“Thanks in no small part to these two lead performances, the movie has a heart as big as its Johnson.” – Sean Burns, Spliced Personality

“Hart and Johnson both have a real gift for effortlessly grooving with other performers, so giving them a stage to groove on naturally lends itself to easy viewing.” – Andy Crump, Paste Magazine

“In the end, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE works mainly because it knows what it is, but it still manages to try a few new things.” – Jaskee Hickman, Cinematic Essential

“CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE is a buddy comedy done right. For a change, there was some intelligence on both sides of the camera.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

DE PALMA

“One of the best movies ever made about making movies, DE PALMA s not a film for those who wish to retain romantic notions about an artist’s process.” – Sean Burns, The ARTery

“De Palma is a great artist, but the greatest pleasure of DE PALMA is that he never speaks like one.” – Jake Mulligan, Dig Boston

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The Boston Online Film Critics Association was established in May of 2012 to foster a community of web-based film critics.

Tag Archives: Review Round-Up

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