Less kiddie fare than cultural landmark, PAW Patrol seemed almost to leap from obscurity to phenomenon overnight when in launched in 2013. You may not know their names but there can be few left who don’t recognise the pups from Adventure Bay on sight. Now graduating to the big screen, Chase, Skye, Ryder and crew show no signs of slowing their domination. It’s not hard to see why. They’re cute, likeable and kinda cool. While youngsters will lap up the film’s slapstick humour and derring-do, parents may find comfort in the pups’ more thoughtful approach to saving the world.
Strange as it may seem to be launching a new era of storytelling with a forgotten episode from the last one, Black Widow is as solidly entertaining as they come in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The direction is as creative as it is assured. The visuals are aptly bombastic and the cast terrific. If the film doesn’t quite overcome the colossal embarrassment that is Marvel’s failure to give Scarlett Johansson a stand-alone feature in over a decade of contractual availability, it does evidence how much she will be missed moving forward.
There’s a scene some forty minutes into Space Jam: A New Legacy that sees Bugs Bunny outline the film. With a twitch of those iconic ears, the octogenarian toon then looks to camera and asides that it all sounds ‘awfully familiar’. He’s not wrong. Space Jam 2 is less new legacy than fusty rehash. Worse still, the gag doesn’t even land. It’s a wink and a nudge entirely lacking in heart. The fourth wall ain’t broken because it’s beyond repair, courtesy of a barrage of so called ‘in jokes’ that serve no purpose other than to advertise Warner Bros. as a rival to the Disney empire. It’s boring for the kids and baffling for the parents. In the era of the cinematic universe, A New Legacy is the lamest launch pad yet.
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