Minions & Monsters: Almost overwhelming

Minions & Monsters (2026) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); rated PG, for animated violent action and rude/macabre humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.5.26

Minions features always have felt less like a coherent film, and more like a randomly assorted collection of sight gags, but this one is particularly scattershot.

 

(It’s no accident that the Minions work best in cartoon shorts.)

 

Although the slyly duplicitous Goomi (the little green guy) has promised Minions James,
Henry and Ed that they'll find their desired monsters in a long-abandoned island cave,
getting there proves ... a bit hazardous.

On top of which, contrary to expectations raised by its title, the crucial monsters don’t appear until way past the halfway point.

Prior to that, writers Pierre Coffin and Brian Lynch have fun dumping the little yellow troublemakers into silent-era Hollywood, where they skewer — or reference — every iconic moment made famous by the likes of George Méliès, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and countless others.

 

(I do wonder, though ... will such material resonate with today’s moviegoers?)

 

The stage is set when the current Universal Pictures logo halts during mid-presentation, scrolls backwards, and then zips through its previous versions until arriving at the late 19th century dawn of cinema, with crudely animated, monochromatic Minions dancing on the screen.

 

The story proper begins as perky tour guide Olivia (voiced by Allison Janney) leads a group through a vast display of movie memorabilia. Sight gags abound even here, as a glass booth honoring George Lucas unexpectedly contains Lucas himself, trapped without his phone (and gamely voiced by Lucas).

 

Olivia builds to her big reveal of the two most famous figures in the entire museum: Minions James and Henry ... wholly unrecognized by anybody in the group. Appalled by this display of ignorance, Olivia begins an incredible saga that reveals how the official history of cinema is much weirder than what anybody has been taught.

 

The story begins in territory lifted from 2015’s Minions, as tribes of Minions voyage the Earth in prehistoric times, seeking to serve the world’s most despicable masters. One group, led by the disciplined and impatient Dick, has brief encounters with a massive, home-stomping cyclops and a Renaissance-era wizard.

 

Alas, in each case the impish, unfocused and invariably destructive Minions accidentally kill their temporary masters.

 

The imaginative James can’t keep his head in the game; much to Dick’s annoyance, he’s too busy drawing fantastical pictures of encounters with lurid monsters. (James doesn’t know it yet, but he’s in the process of inventing storyboards.) James therefore is shunned by the other Minions, with the exception of the loyal Henry, and the warm-hearted, hearing-impaired Ed, both of whom become best friends. (One struggles to imagine the finer points of Minion sign language.)

Miss You, Love You: Captivating character study

Miss You, Love You (2026) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five); rated TV-MA, for profanity

Available via: HBO

By Derrick Bang

Two-handers are a challenge on film, because they often feel like plays that wandered into the wrong medium, losing some of their live-on-stage intensity in the process.

 

That isn’t an issue when one of the performers is Oscar winner Allison Janney.

 

As time passes, Diane (Allison Janney) and Jamie (Andrew Rannells) learn a lot about
each other, including the fact that they're both wounded sparrows.

We expect great work from her, and she certainly delivers. This film’s biggest surprise is that co-star Andrew Rannells matches her, line for line, and scene for scene.

Their shared energy is nurtured by writer/director Jim Rash, who grants them a beguiling premise, plenty of tart dialogue, and numerous revelatory exchanges that ramp up the emotional intensity.

 

We’re dumped into the story without preamble, as Jamie Simms (Rannells) parks in the driveway of an attractive New Mexico suburban home, adjacent to nearby desert land. He drags out luggage for what we assume will be a lengthy stay, knocks on the door, and confronts Diane Patterson (Janney), who doesn’t know him from Adam.

 

What initially seems like rude hostility actually is a blend of anger, disappointment and crippling grief. She’s mourning her recently deceased husband, whose departure was preceded by a lengthy battle with Parkinson’s. She hoped that her estranged son Tyler would help her handle the necessary details; instead, he sent Jamie, his assistant.

 

Which, yes, feels coldly insensitive.

 

Jamie, wide-eyed and inappropriately prepped, visibly shrinks under her withering verbal explosion of dismay. She doesn’t shout or screen — Diane is too refined for that — but Janney employs plenty of perfectly articulated, pent-up spite in order to intimidate her visitor.

 

“Am I a lot?” she scathingly asks, after pausing for breath.

 

“No,” Jamie politely lies.

 

“That’s a shame,” she snaps back, “because I’m trying to be.”

 

Resignation eventually sets in; Diane does need help, and the solicitous Jamie won’t be cowed into retreat. He explains that Tyler wanted to help, but is hung up waiting to interview a former POW in Khartoum; he has promised to come as soon as he can. Tyler and Jamie text each other relentlessly, which also annoys Diane. (How could it not?)

 

Jamie notices that Diane seems to be killing the potted succulents that her late husband Henry left behind. (That’ll prompt a smile from gardeners, who know full well that one must work very hard to kill a succulent.)

Everything's Going to Be Great: Well ... not quite

Everything's Going to Be Great (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for partial nudity, sexual candor and frequent profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other video-on-demand options

By Derrick Bang

Folks passionate about All Things Theater — amateur or professional — are guaranteed to adore this modest Canadian dramedy.

 

Everybody else ... likely not. 

 

After a particularly trying day at school, Les (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) receives some
encouraging — if typically quite unusual — advice from his father, Buddy (Brian Cranston).

Director Jon S. Baird’s flamboyant touch approaches burlesque at times, and mainstream folks may find star Bryan Cranston’s character totally annoying. It’s also hard to forgive the unexpected midpoint hiccup in Steven Rogers’ script, after which the film loses considerable steam, never to be regained.

The year is 1989, the initial setting Akron, Ohio. Carefree Buddy Smart (Cranston) has led his family through a series of temporary theater management jobs ever since marrying his wife, Macy (Allison Janney), two decades ago. Everybody pitches in, whether serving as stage manager, prop handler, ticket seller or accepting roles in the current production.

 

Trouble is, they’ve never been successful enough to remain in one place for long, after which it’s on to the next small-town theater seeking new management.

 

The indefatigable Buddy is a relentless cheerleader nonetheless, insisting that this time will be different; they’ll finally make it; and so forth. Every time the clearly overwhelmed Macy points to the grim result from their failure to put enough warm bodies in theater seats, Buddy brushes her off by insisting, “Everything’s going to be great.”

 

In a word, he’s exhausting ... but Cranston, so adept at body movement and well-timed dialogue, makes him endearingly exhausting. Most of the time.

 

Younger son Les (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), who worships his father, is fully on board; he’s a pretentious kid given to exaggerated outfits, with a tendency to quote lines from plays. During moments of confusion or crisis, he receives advice from dead thespians and playwrights such as Noël Coward, Ruth Gordon, Tallulah Bankhead and William Inge (each amusingly played by, respectively, Mark Caven, Chick Reid, Laura Benanti and David MacLean).

 

To say that Les stands out from his classmates is the worst of understatements; he may as well have the word “nerd” tattooed on his forehead.

 

“They don’t get me,” he glumly says to his father, at one point. No kidding.

The Creator: Half-baked

The Creator (2023) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for profanity, bloody images and relentless action violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

The more I think about this film, the more my opinion dwindles.

 

Its vision cannot be faulted. This is a stunning depiction of future Earth every bit as jaw-dropping as was — for its time — the 2019 Los Angeles envisioned by 1982’s Blade Runner. The work by production designer James Clyne and visual effects supervisors Julian Levi and Jay Cooper is wholly immersive; this feels like an authentic — and credible — glimpse of technology and cityscapes, further into our 21st century.

 

The more time Joshua (John David Washington) spends with the simulant he has
christened Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), the less he's able to view her as
anything but a human child ... her unusual abilities notwithstanding.

The performances are equally fine, with persuasive work coming from stars John David Washington, Allison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Gemma Chan and — in a highly unusual role — young Madeleine Yuna Voyles.

No, the problem lies entirely with sluggish pacing and the clumsy storyline by director Gareth Edwards and co-scripter Chris Weitz. It simply doesn’t gel. Following a fascinating prologue and solid first act, continuity cracks become increasingly obvious, along with progressively unbelievable behavior and emotional responses by key characters.

 

The colossal environmental devastation and cold-blooded loss of human life — on a massive scale — also is quite unpalatable. 

 

Finally, the physical punishment and hair’s-breadth escapes endured by our sorta-kinda-hero become ludicrous. This isn’t a superhero movie, and he’s a plain-vanilla human being.

 

A newsreel-style prologue provides background on how rudimentary, first-gen robots — akin to what we have today — evolve, during subsequent decades, to become life-size AI “servants” capable of independent thought and action. 

 

Everybody throughout the world embraces this technological revolution … until AI triggers a nuclear explosion that destroys Los Angeles. In the wake of this catastrophe, the U.S. government ban all AI, and embark on a campaign of mass destruction throughout the world.

 

This puts the United States at odds with Eastern nations, which continue to develop the technology to the point where these simulants become human-like, and are embraced as equals. Some AIs continue to look like machines; others have bodies and faces, the latter only the front half of a “head” backed by an intricate cylindrical power and intelligence gizmo.

 

The result: all-out war between the United States and Asia.

 

(The film’s press notes make a point of involving “Western nations” in the AI purge, but only the United States is on display here: no indication of Europe, Canada or Australia, not to mention Eastern Europe and Russia. That feels sloppy.)

 

Bad Education: Actually, it's terrific!

Bad Education (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated TV-MA, for considerable profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.1.20

Boy, this one couldn’t be better timed.

As we continue to be astonished by the actions of the wealthy, arrogant twits who conspired with Rick Singer to cheat their children into top-flight universities — and the additional hubris of the few parents who blithely insist that they didn’t know their actions were wrong — it’s essential to be reminded that such behavior is nothing new.

School superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) and faithful colleague Pam Gluckin
(Allison Janney) always look like cats who've swallowed a particularly tasty canary. One
wonders who they might be torturing, in the high school basement.

Director Cory Finley’s Bad Education isn’t merely a marvelously scathing piece of filmmaking, anchored by top-flight performances from Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney; it’s also a crafty cautionary tale lifted from actual events. Mike Makowsky’s script is impressively faithful to what actually went down at a prestigious Long Island high school in 2002.

The HBO original film airs many times during the next few weeks, starting Sunday and Monday evenings (and also is available to stream, via HBO Go or HBO Now). 

But do yourself a favor: Don’t investigate until after watching this film. Much of its fun comes from the way Finley and Makowsky tease, hint and beguile us during their initial two acts, with a subtly snarky tone that often belies the atmosphere of impending doom — of what sort, we initially can’t imagine — that hangs over these proceedings.

Considerable credit goes to Jackman, for his (typically) charismatic portrayal of Frank Tassone, the capable, extraordinarily successful and much-revered superintendent of New York’s Roslyn school district. Finley opens the film on tight close-ups of Frank, as he primps and dresses in tailored CEO apparel for another typical day at work: at first blush, a sequence of disarming banality.

But Frank’s glance in the mirror lingers perhaps half a beat too long, his satisfied smile perhaps just a shade too narcissistic.

Jackman’s performance throughout is laden with such subtle tics, twitches and gestures, slyly suggesting that — at all times — Frank, himself, is adjusting, modulating and refining a performance.

Or maybe the man is simply vain, physically fit and fastidiously diet-conscious, forever swilling health drinks that resemble liquid charcoal. Nothing wrong with that, as long as he delivers. And Frank definitely has delivered during his tenure, building Roslyn High School into the state’s fourth-highest performer for seniors admitted to prestigious universities.

With that has come a corresponding rise in property values and community wealth, delighting realtors, the school board, and all the rest of Roslyn’s movers and shakers. As far as they’re concerned, Frank walks on water.

It’s hard to argue, particularly as Jackman radiantly portrays him.

Bombshell: Provocatively outFoxed

Bombshell (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and (often unpleasant) sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.3.20

It’s hard to be completely satisfied, when a disgraced sexual predator departs his high-profile corporate job with an eight-figure severance package.

Despite her ongoing spat with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump having
become very public, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) is assured by
boss Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) that he still has her back.

Director Jay Roach’s new film, a scorching slice of recent history, depicts Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes’ fall from grace, following the brave revolt of numerous female employees who finally said enough is too much.

The frequently snarky script comes from Charles Randolph, who adopts an approach similar to that he took with his Academy Award-winning screenplay for 2015’s The Big Short. Thus, these events unfold against ongoing break-the-fourth-wall narration from Charlize Theron’s Megyn Kelly, who frequently addresses us viewers directly, in order to offer essential back-story. The resulting tone shifts wildly from dark humor to painful intimacy; we chuckle ruefully one moment, recoil in aghast consternation the next.

Stars Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie are backed by equally compelling performances from a wealth of supporting players, some seen only fleetingly but no less memorably (as with Malcolm McDowell’s fleeting appearance as Rupert Murdoch). Theron and Kidman play real-world Fox News anchors Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson; Robbie’s Kayla Pospisil is a composite character drawn from Ailes’ lesser-profile victims.

No surprise, then — since Pospisil is constructed for maximum dramatic impact — that Robbie has both of the film’s standout acting moments.

But they come later. Our introductory crash course in Fox News-style “journalism” comes from Kelly, when she trots us through the bullpen and newsroom, her observations peppered with deliciously acerbic remarks. Theron’s wholly immersive transformation is frankly startling; makeup designer Kazu Hiro and costume designer Colleen Atwood — both Oscar winners — have essentially turned their star into Kelly. Theron completes the illusion by flawlessly replicating Kelly’s walk, stance and manner of speech.

The first act is dominated by Kelly’s unexpected feud with then-Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, in the summer of 2015: a headline-generated spat that climaxed with the latter’s tasteless accusation that the Fox News host had “blood coming out of her wherever” during the early August Republican candidates’ debate. Conscious of not wanting to “become the story,” Kelly absents herself for a bit, with Ailes’ support.

John Lithgow, barely recognized beneath the makeup and padding required to convey Ailes’ massive weight, is almost fatherly and sympathetic here … but that’s part of the man’s two-faced abuse of power. Given that Lithgow is an inherently sympathetic actor, it’s easy to think of Ailes benevolently, in these early scenes.

The Addams Family: Appropriately ookie and spooky

The Addams Family (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for macabre and suggestive humor
By Derrick Bang

This new Addams Family film definitely catches the vibe that cartoonist Charles Addams established so well, during a run that lasted from 1938 to his death in ’88.

Then again … not entirely.

Newly arrived in the postcard-perfect community that has been built in the lowland beneath
their dilapidated hilltop mansion, the Addams Family — from left, Morticia, Wednesday,
Gomez, Pugsley and Uncle Fester — prepare to greet their neighbors in their own
inimitable fashion.

These animated Addamses certainlylookright; directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon have faithfully followed the character template established within so many magazine covers and single-panel New Yorker cartoons. The resulting film moves along at a brisk, gag-laden clip; Tiernan, Vernon and editors Kevin Pavlovic and David Ian Salter pack their 87-minute romp with plenty of entertainment. I’ve no doubt today’s audiences will find it gleeful good fun.

And yet … scripters Matt Lieberman, Pamela Pettler and Erica Rivinoja have made a major change that would have prompted a frown from dear ol’ Charles, were he still with us. His cartoons always derived their humor from what dire deed was about to take place, generally executed by the gleefully macabre children, Wednesday and Pugsley; our imaginations filled in what would happen in the next few seconds, thereby making us collaborators in the punch line.

This film, in great contrast, too frequently completes the gag: often at the expense of poor Uncle Fester. Wednesday’s casually aimed arrows repeatedly penetrate his flesh, in a manner more reminiscent of Kenny’s recurring deaths, in television’s South Park. Many would excuse this as the dictates of modern humor, but I lament the absence of subtlety … particularly because subtlety — even if gruesome — was Charles Addams’ forté.

But times change, and it’s not really fair to judge this film by standards dated by more than half a century. Particularly because Lieberman, Pettler and Rivinoja have concocted a story quite decidedly Addams-esque, while taking a few cheeky digs at contemporary real-world behavior. 

It’s impossible to make too much fun of the narcissistic social media generation. On top of which, this film takes some perceptive shots at the gullibility of small-minded adults too easily swayed by libelous tweets and emails (a message likely overlooked by guilty parties who’d never, for a moment, think they behaved like that).

A brief prologue follows the nuptials that unite Gomez (voiced by Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) in unholy matrimony, after which they and all their bizarre friends and relations are driven away by angry/terrified “normal” townsfolk. Gomez and Morticia wind up at a mansion-esque, long-deserted asylum that comes with a vengeful resident ghost and hulking, shambling lunatic; the latter becomes their butler, Lurch (Vernon), when they turn this “perfect” estate into a happy home.

The Girl on the Train: Runaway directorial excess

The Girl on the Train (2016) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for violence, nudity, sexual content and profanity
By Derrick Bang

90 MINUTES IN:

“One more close-up,” I grumble, to Constant Companion, “and I’m gonna throw something through the screen.”

Wanting to help an increasingly confused Scott (Luke Evans), Rachel (Emily Blunt) explains
what she saw one recent morning commute, when she glanced out the train window. But
in truth Rachel isn't certain herself, and this indecision will come back to haunt her.

Truly, by now I can catalog every pore on Emily Blunt’s face. Rarely has a cinematographer been ordered to provide so many tight-tight-tight close-ups, to the serious detriment of his film.

Nor is this the only one of director Tate Taylor’s transgressions. He also relies on lengthy pregnant pauses, as if worried that we viewers are unable to keep up with the story.

Then there’s the matter of the changing first-person narratives, and the frequent flashbacks, all of which are labeled in portentous capital letters (i.e. SIX MONTHS EARLIER). This technique may have worked in Paula Hawkins’ best-selling novel — “the thriller that shocked the world,” the film poster modestly proclaims — but it’s a serious hassle on the big screen.

Employing flashbacks or alternating points of view would have been fine; doing both simultaneously was beyond Taylor’s ability. At times, it’s difficult to determine whether we’re experiencing flashbacks belonging to Rachel, Megan or Anna.

All of which is a shame, because these intrusive directorial tics and hiccups detract from star Emily Blunt’s impressive performance. Her Rachel is a tapestry of disorientation, shame, fear and uncontrolled bursts of fury. Blunt persuasively handles Rachel’s many moods and transformations, making this poor woman, by turns, despicable, vulnerable and heartbreaking.

And by this point in the film, things are beginning to make sense; Rachel’s savage mood swings no longer seem random.

Which, sadly, points to Taylor’s most serious miscalculation. His pacing is so leaden, his extended takes so prolonged, all those pregnant pauses so protracted, that he telegraphs the story’s “big reveal” by giving us too much time to deduce it.

In a nutshell, Taylor has destroyed the suspense present in Hawkins’ book. He made the story boring.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: Enchanting fantasy

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and quite scary fantasy violence
By Derrick Bang

It would be difficult to imagine a more perfect marriage of imaginative picto-fiction and eccentric filmmaking sensibilities.

All dressed up and ready for ... we know not what: from left, Olive (Lauren McCrostie),
Claire (Raffiella Chapman), the invisible Millard (Cameron King), the Twins (Thomas and
Joseph Odwell) and Emma (Ella Purnell).

Author Ransom Riggs’ neo-gothic Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was released to acclaim in the summer of 2011, spending well over a year on The New York Times’ Children’s Best Sellers list. It occupies a niche that blossomed with the 2007 arrival of Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, brought to the big screen with panache by director Martin Scorsese.

Tim Burton has just done the same with Miss Peregrine, and if the results aren’t quite as impressive, it’s a beguiling near-miss. This new film also plays to one of Burton’s career themes: the importance of responding with kindness and grace to the misfits in our world, as opposed to shunning or fearing them.

Scripter Jane Goldman — boasting oodles of fan cred for her handling of Kingsman, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and two of the X-Men films — has faithfully retained both the core plot of Riggs’ unusual narrative, as well as its mythical, off-kilter and slightly morbid atmosphere.

That’s no small feat: As with The Invention of Hugo Cabret, much of Miss Peregrine’s appeal lies in the manner in which the story unfolds, and how Riggs chooses to tell it.

Both books also cleverly exploit actual world history, transporting readers to pivotal eras that are both simpler and more dangerous.

And, perhaps best of all, both books evoke the imaginative blend of words and images that was much more common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, led by fantasists such as Lewis Carroll, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. It would be nice if modern readers — of all ages — grew more tolerant of books with pictures.

Rather drolly, both film adaptations share the same young star.

Miss Peregrine begins in present-day Tampa, Florida, as teenage Jake (Asa Butterfield) discovers that his beloved grandfather, Abraham (Terence Stamp), has died — or been killed — under sinister circumstances. Jake finds the body in the woods near Abraham’s house, and is horrified to discover that his grandfather’s eyes are missing. Worse yet, Jake briefly glimpses a huge something lurking nearby, in the mist.

Minions: Banana-rama!

Minions (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for cartoon action and brief rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.10.15

Thrusting supporting players into their own starring vehicle rarely succeeds.

Rarely ... but not never. In five short years, the Twinkie-hued, overalled lab subordinates in Despicable Me have gone from screwball second bananas to a genuine world-wide phenomenon ... and they more than hold their own, in the absolutely delightful Minions.

Having won a coveted spot as Scarlet Overkill's new henchbeings, our Minion heroes —
from left, Stuart, Bob and Kevin — eagerly await their first dastardly mission. Sadly,
they've no idea how shallow their new employer's loyalty is destined to be.

But their success remains an anomaly.

Although a more frequent phenomenon on television — where we (briefly) suffered through, among many others, Beverly Hills Buntz (from Hill Street Blues) and Joey (Friends) — the big screen has seen its share of sidekick disasters.

The reason is obvious, although it seems to elude studio execs. A successful ensemble character dynamic is as fragile as a soufflé: Each element is essential, creating a whole that is, to everybody’s delight, greater than the sum of its talented parts. You simply can’t remove one of those pieces, toss it into an under-written spin-off, and expect good results.

Steve Carell’s Evan Baxter was hilarious, supporting Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston and Nora Dunn in Bruce Almighty. On his own, in the follow-up Evan Almighty ... not so much. Dwayne Johnson’s Scorpion King may have set up the action in The Mummy Returns, but he couldn’t manage the heavy lifting in his own film, a year later.

Jennifer Garner’s Elektra was the best part of the otherwise awful Daredevil — notwithstanding Colin Farrell’s maniacal villain — but no amount of fancy swordplay could have helped her starring vehicle, two years later. And let’s just try to pretend that Halle Berry’s toothless turn as Catwoman never happened.

(This phenomenon is far from recent. Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne’s Charters and Caldicott, the cricket-loving supporting players in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 classic, The Lady Vanishes, wound up in their own feature three years later. Nobody remembers Crook’s Tour today ... which is probably just as well.)

Why, then, have the Minions broken the curse?

It always comes down to the same basic element: the script. In this case, Brian Lynch — who had a hand in 2011’s droll Puss in Boots (another rare spin-off success) — has delivered a story that’s both clever and witty, granting these well-intentioned but disaster-prone subordinates both an origin story and their first chaotic adventure within the ranks of would-be super-villains.

Lynch doesn’t miss a trick. The results are cute, hilarious and wisely episodic: mini-escapades shrewdly stitched together in a manner that feels like a long single storyline. Co-directors Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda keep things moving at a lively clip, with editor Claire Dodgson also ensuring that this 91-minute film doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Spy: Should have been kept under cover

Spy (2015) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for violence, gore, fleeting graphic nudity, and relentless profanity and coarse dialogue
By Derrick Bang 

Only in Hollywood could somebody get paid big bucks to write this sort of puerile swill.

Only in Hollywood could several levels of (presumably) savvy studio execs have seen any merit in this limp-noodle secret agent spoof.

With another mission behind them, debonair CIA agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law) and his
desk-bound handler, Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy), enjoy a celebratory dinner. Alas,
Bradley has no idea how much his colleague secretly pines for him ... even thought her
overtures couldn't be more obvious.

Only in Hollywood could a reasonably talented comedian have been “promoted” from successful supporting status, and stuffed into a string of starring roles, where she flails helplessly.

Only in Hollywood would such an individual keep getting additional shots in the barrel, abusing her fans with junk such as Identity Thief and Tammy.

And, just to spread the blame evenly, only in America would such fans continue to reward her efforts by buying tickets. An overall U.S. gross of $84.4 million for Tammy? $134.4 million for Identity Thief?

Seriously?

I guess H.L. Mencken’s 1926 observation remains even truer today: No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

Or, to quote Walt Kelly’s comic strip character Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Melissa McCarthy has been a valued member of ensemble productions such as Bridesmaids and television’s Gilmore Girls. She and Billy Gardell continue to be a great team on television’s Mike & Molly. She was refreshingly sympathetic in a straight supporting part, in last year’s St. Vincent.

But a little of McCarthy goes a very long way, which is why she’s best used in measured, intermittent doses. When forced to carry an entire film, her extremely narrow acting range becomes glaringly visible; she huffs and puffs from one scene to the next, angrily spitting out her lines, as if daring us to find her anything less than hilarious.

So okay, Melissa; I took that dare a few films back, and I’ll take it anew. You’re still not funny. Your go-to movie persona has become a mean-spirited, potty-mouthed shrike. Your recent work isn’t merely un-funny; it’s sad and pathetic. I cannot imagine why you don’t demand better material, but hey: As long as the money keeps rolling in, I guess it doesn’t matter, right?

Granted, you’re not wholly at fault in this case. Most of the blame for this new film belongs to writer/director Paul Feig, who apparently did this work all by his widdle self. I’m sure he spent at least 15 minutes concocting this twaddle. Strip away the profanity from every character’s lines, remove the juvenile vulgar humor — the sort of coarse one-upsmanship exchanged by 12-year-old boys while surfing for porn behind closed bedroom doors — and we’d be left with a mostly silent movie.

Which would have been a vast improvement.

Tammy: Rude, crude and booed

Tammy (2014) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Melissa McCarthy’s vulgar fat slob shtick is wearing very thin.

Believing that she needs some quick cash in order to help with her grandmother's impending
medical bills, Tammy (Melissa McCarthy, right) dons a minimal "disguise" and holds up a
fast-food joint ... with a "weapon" that's no more than her pointing fingers in a papr bag.
Yep, that's the level of humor in this bomb.

Tammy isn’t even a rough approximation of a film; it’s merely a series of disconnected scenes and encounters, clumsily stitched together in a limp effort at storytelling. McCarthy charges through the resulting mess like a bull in a china shop, as if daring us not to find her so-called antics funny.

I’ll take that dare, Melissa. You’re not funny.

Neither is your film.

Well, wait ... in fairness, I did laugh once, at a quick shot involving a raccoon and a doughnut. McCarthy had nothing to do with it.

I find it completely bewildering that an actress of McCarthy’s talent and timing, having established her comic chops with TV’s Mike & Molly (winning an Emmy) and the big screen’s Bridesmaids (Oscar nomination), would debase herself with material this puerile, sloppy and slapdash. I’m inclined to believe that even the Three Stooges would have rejected this script as beneath them.

Hollywood actresses have long struggled to achieve a level of equality, credibility and respect akin to their male co-stars ... and this is the path to success? Is demonstrating an ability to out-gross Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow and Farrelly brothers comedies really a sign of progress?

If so, that’s pretty sad.

McCarthy has nobody to blame but herself, since she shares scripting credit — if such a term even applies — with off-camera husband Ben Falcone, who also makes his directorial debut with this train wreck.

Note to Ben: Don’t lose your day job.

Falcone makes every rookie mistake in the book, starting with his tendency to frame his wife in tight close-ups, so that we can count every sweaty pore. And he clearly didn’t “direct” McCarthy in any sense of the word; he simply points the camera and waits while she stumbles and bumbles through whatever she concocts from thin air. Which ain’t much.