SimonSaysSmallScreen

Watching the first one I slipped through the sappy dialogue to get to the action scenes, and if I missed a little action, it was worth it to avoid inflicting the hackneyed, maudlin dialogue on myself. It seemed to me that in the final action scenes of that popcorn distraction, Theron was actually just praying that she would never have to be involved in that franchise ever again. But, here we are and somehow they've roped her in again, hopefully with absolute mountains of money. As one would expect, the relative thrill of novelty now having been used up on the first movie, there is no air at all left in this cartoon.

We.

John Krasinsky, out shilling for his big pay day, says, "Well, they don't make movies like this anymore..." The truth, unfortunately, is that "they" certainly do. In fact, the big studios make sad, empty, low-risk money-makers like this all the time, now. Movies based on IP they already own, like computer games or sequels, are a nicely yielding formula they've pounced on like jackals on a corpse.

This plodding, pointless video is anything but an "adventure." It is an unfunny wannabe sendup of an old favorite, being almost insulting in the formulaic story points we the audience are asked to swallow.

Beside the money, which I truly hope is considerable, this is a horrible nadir in Krasinsky's acting career. He really needed to be part of something with a good script, this time, and this is not that. He risks becoming a Jack Black or Kevin Hart, relegated to things like Jumanji and A Minecraft Movie. Portman already has a reputation, so she'll be fine. John runs the risk of always having the single highlight of his career in the rear view. Here's looking at you, Jim.