Mother! (2017)

A fleeting shot at the start hints very strongly at Darren Aronofsky's movie's whole but even so the movie goes on to tell its story three times; the first iteration, in which a young homemaker is too polite to ask two unwanted visitors to leave her house, is the most restrained, gleefully sinister and enjoyable, with the subsequent retellings just becoming noisier, more extreme, more crowded, and more unnecessary, not adding much to the parable that has already been determined by that opening moment.

★★★☆☆

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Sausage Party (2016)

Food fetishists and stoners will enjoy the antics of this brazen exercise in bad taste, an adult-themed animation about supermarket produce items searching for the meaning of shelf-life, while everyone else can marvel at how such a temporally weak premise is so creatively stretched to full movie feature length.

★★☆☆☆

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Ghostbusters (2016)

It is serviceable and on a few occasions nostalgically recalls the classic by way of cameos and great ghost effects, and it doesn't matter that the men have been replaced by women and vice versa - what matters is this is a too cartoony, childish exercise constructed without the original's connection to time and place, and has more product placement than ghosts lurking in a story about as complex as a themepark ride.

★★☆☆☆

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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Despite its worthwhile message and the fact it is based on the beloved James Thurber character, this ill-conceived, ponderous Ben Stiller vanity project is the pits, unsuccessfully melding comedy (wet), adventure (daft), sudden, unexpected pop culture spoof (bewildering), and endless product placement (shameless), and made even more unbearable by its cast of adults playing adults who act like children, all of them, from cloying start to maudlin finish.

☆☆☆☆☆

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Bridesmaids (2011)

A bridesmaid's problem-filled life isn't going to let up for the impeding nuptials of her best friend and her problems are compounded by the presence of a rival overachieving maid of honour in this extremely funny if slightly unevenly paced comedy depicting a faaaar from perfect lead up to a wedding.

★★★★★

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