DreamWorks’ latest feature comes billed as John Hughes for kids but delivers Pixar for amnesiacs. That’s not to say the film is bad by any means. Heck, word vomit title aside, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken even boasts bursts of fleeting brilliance. And yet, where it stumbles is in comparison to the better offerings it recalls. From Turning Red is plundered a somewhat clunky metaphor for puberty. From Luca comes the notion of sea monsters living on land and the down low. If all you can add is a bland pop soundtrack, why bother? It’s almost tragic to note that, owing to pandemic restrictions, Ruby Gillman will easily surpass its superior forebears’ stringent box office returns.
Remember that aura of dissatisfaction that haunted the multiplex as the credits rolled on 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? It was in the mutterings of malignancy that decried Shia LaBeouf’s irritating Mutt and ridiculed the risible extraterrestrial final act. You weren’t alone. Dial of Destiny, the fifth and final in the franchise, arrives lobbied by Harrison Ford himself and the screen icon’s personal penchant for an emotional encore. See also: The Force Awakens and Blade Runner 2049. Though seemingly unshared by Steven Spielberg, who steps back from directorial duties for the first time in the series, Ford’s passion is infectious. This one boasts some thunderously entertaining fun.
While Wes Anderson’s recent rebuttal of a TikTok trend for style homage smacked of good will deficiency, the opening scenes of Asteroid City belie a wicked flair for the self aware. This is all very typical, Russian Doll material from the cinema’s most textbook auteur. An obdurately rectilinear repository for the whimsical, sometimes irksome and unfailingly meticulous. There’s no more emotion here than pretence. Asteroid City, we are told from the off, does not exist: ‘it is an imaginary drama created expressly for this broadcast’. Many a true word is said in jest and right back and smack a few.
The Film Blog 