Hotel Transylvania 3 Is the Best Monster Vacation Yet Thanks to Its Zany Comedy

The first two Hotel Transylvania movies have come off as contradictory features, a tug-of-war between the artistic ambitions of director Genndy Tartakovsky, an animation legend most well-known for his work on The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack, and the obligations of conventional 21st-century animated family movie filmmaking. In both of these films, one can clearly see Tatakovsky trying to push computer-animation in a more zany direction akin to the kind of wacky animation seen in the Flash hand-drawn animation he used on his earlier projects. While their computer-animation had flashes of being something special, their generic celebrity voice-over casts, contemporary music needle drops and rote gags felt like something you could find in any number of other animated films.

Bo Burnham Makes A Strong Directorial Debut With The Harrowingly Awkward Eighth Grade

Imagine going back in time five years ago and telling someone "By 2018, one-half of Key & Peele, the lead vocalist of The Coup and Bo Burnham will all have directed acclaimed indie movies." It would sound beyond nuts, but then again, so are the majority of things in 2018 America, at least this is a more pleasant variety of nuts. Yes, Bo Burnham has made a smooth transition from music-heavy stand-up comedy over into directing motion pictures with Eighth Grade, which is the rare motion picture to dare to center a story around those legendarily bad years in one's life when you're trapped in the tail end of your Middle School career.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies And Score Some Hyperactive Laughs

There isn't a frame of Teen Titans Go! To The Movies that isn't marked by manic energy, the whole thing is just rambunctious as all heck, it's the cinematic manifestation of a six-year-old who just gobbled up all the sugary treats they could stomach. If that sounds like a grating experience that would leave you more tired than entertained, somehow, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies manages to upend expectations and make such high levels of hyperactivity actually pretty humorous. Kids movies that want to be just about all the laughs are a dime-a-dozen, but unlike, say the recent Illumination Entertainment efforts, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies is one such kids movie that's actually (*GASP*) funny enough to justify it concentrating solely on the yuks.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot Is Erratic And Messy But Also Frequently Affecting

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot, the newest motion picture from director Gus Van Sant, looks to separate itself from conventional biopic dramas in a number of ways, most notably in its adoption of a non-linear form of storytelling to tell the tale of John Callahan (Joaquin Phoenix), a man dealing with alcoholism who loses the ability to walk after a horrific car accident. We flash forward and backward throughout Callahan's adult life as the feature covers numerous events in the man's adult life, most notably him adapting to the process of regularly attending an AA group led by Donnie Green (Jonah Hill) as well as Callahan discovering his talent for drawing humorous though frequently controversial cartoons.

Blindspotting Is A Beautifully-Realized And Richly-Detailed Achievement

Collin Hoskins (Daveed Diggs) is, like any human being, complex and full of layers, but to society at large, he's a felon first and foremost, he's always having to work overtime to prove his humanity to people that don't even know him. As he muddles through the last three days of his probation, during which he must adhere to strict rules including an 11:00 PM curfew he struggles with managing to re-establish his own identity beyond just being a guy who spent time in jail. This becomes especially challenging since the story of the fight that led to his felony charge in the first place has become something of a local legend and being a black man in Oakland, California means local police officers tend to think of you as only a criminal.

Extinction Is Dreadful Science-Fiction Fare That Puts Dumb Twists Before Everything Else (SPOILERS)

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR EXTINCTION

I assume Extinction is the result of two people having very different ideas for science-fiction thrillers, with one idea being about a guy who sees's visions of an impending disaster and the other concerning a family trying to survive an alien attack. So taken away with both of these ideas, the two people decided to merge them into one movie without figuring out first if the two separate ideas would actually work together properly as a singular property. Turns out, mushing these two concepts into one movie, along with shoving in a nonsensical climax overstuffed with big twists, results in a total dud of a movie, one that just gets worse the longer it drags on.

The Spectacle Is Pushed Into Overdrive In The Exceptionally Exciting Mission: Impossible - Fallout

22 years after the first Mission: Impossible came out, you'd think this series would have run out of creative reasons for Tom Cruise to run really fast, but not only is this franchise still going on, its last two entries have been its strongest. Christopher McQuarrie's Rogue Nation and especially Brad Bird's Ghost Protocol were the two strongest installments in the Mission: Impossible saga yet with both carrying all kinds of inventive action sequences that put one at the very edge of their seat. The newest Mission: Impossible entry, Fallout, see's McQuarrie back in the director's chair and while the results aren't quite as good as Rogue Nation and Ghost Protocol, Fallout still finds this series in superb form and delivering the kind of thrills so many blockbusters can only dream about.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Exceedingly Delivers On What It Needed To Get Right: Eccentric And Fun Musical Numbers

The most important question one must ask when making a follow-up to 2008's musical movie Mamma Mia! is simply this: will it have enough nuttiness and fun, frequently at the same time? A huge part of what made that original movie work was how often it just swung for the fences in terms of bringing to life eccentric musical fun, such as in sequences where men in scuba gear belted out ABBA tunes or Pierce Brosnan trying to harmonize his way through a rendition of S.O.S. By the time Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again was concluding one of its very first musical numbers with a crowd of people in graduation caps and gowns on bicycles crooning I Kissed The Teacher, well, I knew this follow-up was keeping its predecessors gonzo sense of entertainment alive and well.

Skyscraper Is A Forgettable & Generic Die Hard Knock-Off

Skyscraper is very obviously being made in the mold of the iconic 1988 movie Die Hard and who can blame writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber for wanting to make a film in that mold considering both how good Die Hard is and how there's a surprisingly large number of Die Hard emulators that have turned out to be awesome, most notably Roland Emmerich's criminally underappreciated 2013 gem White House Down. Unfortunately, Skyscraper will go down in history as one of the more middling Die Hard knock-off's, one that's shockingly bland considering its central premise is all about the leading man from Faster trying to break into a massive skyscraper that's on fire.

Sorry To Bother You But Sorry to Bother You Is Excellent

It's always a treat to watch a movie that feels so much like it's own one-of-a-kind creation, a movie that wears its own unique personality as proudly as one might do showing off an Olympic gold medal. Sorry To Bother You is one such movie, with Boots Riley, previously known for his vocal work in bands like The Coup, making his debut as a director here on this satirical dark comedy to remarkable results. Riley's exceptional work as a writer and a director here echoes numerous past great satirists, most notably cinematic satirists like John Carpenter and Paul Verhoeven, in how he uses the most absurd off-the-wall storytelling details to prop up thoughtful explorations of weighty social issues.

We Finally Get A Good Purge Movie With The First Purge

It took them four movies, but we finally got a good Purge movie. Not a great one, certainly, and it still feels like the full potential of this franchise's basic premise has yet to be tapped, but this is the very first Purge movie to actually work for me. Going back to the very first night of The Purge could have been a recipe for a fan-service heavy prequel, but aside from a laughable explanation behind where the name Purge comes from in the opening scene (still not as bad as that explanation we got for Han Solo's last name at least), The First Purge avoids the worst tendencies of the worst prequels, like shoehorned in cameos from younger versions of characters from prior movies.

There's Lots of Well-Done Fun To Be Had With Ant-Man and the Wasp

As the great mid-20th century philosopher The Cat In The Hat once proclaimed "It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how." That's oh so true under any circumstance, but it's especially relevant when talking about making movies that are supposed to be just light-hearted fun. If you make these kinds of films well, they can be oh so enjoyable, but if you make them in a rushed or otherwise subpar manner, you end up with something empty that's grating rather than entertaining. Just compare the best Will Ferrell comedy vehicle like The Other Guys to his worst comedy vehicle like Daddy's Home, both movies are aiming to be entertaining yukfests, but one shows craftsmanship in creating its comedy, whereas the other is a lazily constructed cash-grab that just bores rather than delights you. Both are aiming for fun, but only the one that's actually well-made hits that target.