New in Home Entertainment
June 13, 2017
The Lego Batman Movie
Rated PG for rude humor and some action
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%
Batman was so popular in 2014’s The LEGO Movie that Warner Brothers immediately gave him his own movie. The story, inconsequential as it is, follows the caped crusader as he both attempts to stop The Joker from taking over Gotham City and becomes more awkwardly social as he befriends and adopts the young Robin. The voice talent here is as good as it gets with Will Arnett as Batman, Michael Cera as Robin and Zach Galifianakis as The Joker. In addition, the movie is extremely funny, most of the time. I think if it were any longer than 90 minutes it might start to get stale, but the pacing is almost perfect and you can’t help but walk away smiling. It helps that these new Lego movies are actually concerned with keeping the adults engaged, thus making everyone in the audience happy rather than just the youngins. B+
John Wick: Chapter 2
Rated R for strong violence throughout, some language and brief nudity
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%
No one could have predicted that Keanu Reeves could have made such an impressive comeback in a project like the hitman thriller John Wick, but indeed he did, and the filmmakers once again put out some extremely creative violence in this crazy sequel which finds Reeves going further down the rabbit hole as pretty much the entire planet is out to kill him. While the action and violence are highly stylized and fun to watch, the villains could have been much stronger and much more worthy of our time. That being said, the movie is engaging and weird and full of surprises. And although its violence comes at a bad time in regard to current world events, the killing in this film seems so distant from the world we live in that somehow it manages to be enjoyable rather than upsetting. Coming from a non-violent, pacifist film critic, that is saying something. B