I don't really know what The Lazarus Effect was trying to do. On one hand, it raises some very interesting questions about what happens when we die. On the other, it completely ignores those questions and goes straight to cheap jump scares. The film tries to build a philosophical debate about religion and science, about messing with nature and playing god, then in just throws up its arms and says “Forget it, lets start killing stuff!”

In an attempt to prolong the period of time when the human body dies and the brain is still viable for resuscitation, a team of medical researchers, led by Frank (Mark Duplass) and his fiancee Zoe (Olivia Wilde) have created a serum that they believe can actually revive a recently dead brain. After many many years and failure after failure, they succeed and reanimate a dead dog. Shortly thereafter, Frank is called into the Dean's office and told he violated the terms of the grant contract. As a result of the violation, all of their work is owned by the company that provided the grant. They no longer retain any intellectual rights to the serum, the research, any of it. Seeing all his hard work stolen from him is more than Frank can handle, so he convinces the group to break into the lab and recreate and document the experiment, so they can prove that they were actually responsible. Something goes wrong, of course, and Zoe dies. Frank can't handle it, of course, and brings her back to life, of course. But, something isn't right with Zoe when she wakes up, because of course.

While the premise is marginally interesting, albeit at its core a little cliché, the film just doesn't really do much with it. Tension is key in horror movies, and all the tension in this film comes from flickering lights and “BOO!” moments. Nothing was built organically through the story; the movie tells us, “Hey, I'm being scary now--look at the flickering lights and jump cuts!” and we're supposed to just react accordingly. It's kind of like a haunted house attraction. A walk through one of those haunts is only a few minutes, so they have to just hit you hard with the obvious visual stuff. Scary masks, low light, cramped spaces, and monsters doing the old jack-in-the-box and shouting “A-BLOOGY-WOOGY-WOOO!”

There just isn't the time to build up tension in those few minutes. And sure, we know a monster is going to jump out and yell at us, we just don't know when and how, and that is enough tension in the context. A film, however, has quite a bit of time to slowly build that tension, and give us a much better pay off, something The Lazarus Effect has no interest in doing.

The film introduces ideas and plot threads, explores them for a couple minutes, then just drops them and moves on. Possible spoilery things ahead, so if you're really excited about this movie probably stop here. Before they reanimate the dog, it had really bad cataracts. After it comes back, boom, cataracts gone. The characters make a “well, that's weird” statement then never address it again. The dog itself is being intensely strange and creepy, at one point standing on the bed and just staring at a sleeping Zoe, and at another exploding the refrigerator. So, "what happens to the dog," you ask? No idea. I think it was killed off screen, but I'm not sure. The serum causes extreme brain activity in both Zoe and the dog, and maybe that is causing the all the weird stuff. But Zoe says she was in hell for years in the moments when she was gone, so did she bring back something evil with her and maybe that is causing all the weird stuff?

Throughout the film there is a science versus religion question about what happens when we die and all that, which never resolves. Maybe it's the serum, maybe it's the DMT released by the brain at death interacting with the serum, maybe it's demons and hell is real or maybe Zoe is just evil and terrible all on her own, augmented by the serum.

I am not expecting a horror film to settle the science versus religion debate once and for all, but I expect to explore the questions a little further than introducing them and immediately dropping them for strobe light effects and spooky contacts. I envision the filmmakers being asked to answer the question if it was all science or was it religion and demons, and they just answer “Yep! NNNEEOOOOOWWW” and speed away on a scooter.

--Eric Harrelson

Depending on where you set your expectations, you laugh as much as you need to. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is a sequel, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is a comedy, and beyond those two plain facts, there is no outsized ambition. What did you like about the first one? Was it the boy’s wasted romp back to the 80's? The unexpected earnestness? Comedic riffing to no end? Determine your tolerance for each and you’ll know about how much you want to see this movie.

Lou Dorchen (Rob Corddry), Nick Webber (Craig Robinson), and Jacob “Dorchen” (Clark Duke) are reaping the fruits of their ill got future. In this alternate present, the sweetness of everyone’s perfect life offered up at the end of the last installment has proved fleeting. Where this may come a terrible shock to fans of the first HTTM, getting what you want by way of manipulating time and space can ring hollow.

Lou, toggling between hair metal icon and Internet tycoon, is a singular piece of shit. Really, a pretty good approximation of what happens when the bad, well, awful guy wins. Nick has amassed Grammys and a fortune with terrible iterations of stolen pop hits he half-remembers. A certain horn-rimmed songstress makes a cameo, and it made this Buzz Bin reared 90’s child smile. Jacob is…Jacob is pretty much still Jacob. But in being shiftless and un-bangable, he does express some conscience when it comes to their phony circumstances. Adam Jr (Adam Scott) is added to the mix as Adam’s (John “I will not be in the sequel” Cusak) son. Why? Spoiler alert and whatnot.

HTTM2 is funny. It’s broad and juvenile and unceasingly referential, both to self and pop culture.  We see naked human parts of different varieties in comedic context. The cast enjoys a deep cohesion, up to the point of being downright obnoxious. Bits are offered up early and often. There are lines you might quote on the way to the parking lot. With 2014 offering fewer laughs than the slate of comedic talent might suggest, HTTM2 keeps the funny percolating. The commitment to audience laughter (or at least a cringe and a grin) is paramount. Where this may be enough—and who would begrudge you that simple joy—the film offers almost nothing else.

HTTM2 is extremely sloppy. It’s hard to define what requires less than an afterthought, but that word is the only descriptor for the story. Half-assed seems too complimentary. They indulge in some mind wrinkling time travel hijinks, otherwise there are no brains in this plot. And I mean plot in the loosest sense of the word. Reentrance to the titular hot tub time machine is manufactured, our reveal is predictable, and the half-hearted growth each character shares at the end is flimsy. Story serves as little more than framework for extended gags, but to reiterate, they’re pretty damn funny gags.

I don’t want to seem overly tepid. HTTM2 made me laugh, and as far as this genus of comedy goes, it had more chuckles per square inch than a Neighbors or 22 Jump Street. If you want to dig deeper, I miss the sincerity of the first picture. Where none of the lessons gleaned the first go round were unexpected, they resonated. Here, they feel tacked on. When the bittersweet genius of “Once in a Lifetime,” is replaced by the saccharine “Anything Could Happen,” as the soundtrack for our climactic emotional awakening, the depth is apparent.

So, yeah, what matters to you? If solid jokes delivered with an almost sketch comedy looseness is enough to wet your cinematic whistle, count yourself among HTTM2’s box office returns. If a complete story and a pinch of warmth won you over the first time, you won’t find any great satisfaction in part two. I’m of two minds about this picture. If you crave a misanthropic, lowbrow jaunt through space time, go see it in a packed house opening weekend. If you're after a good movie, well, you can look straight in my dead eyes and know HTTM2 isn't after such an accomplishment. 

—Monte Monreal

You cannot make a B-movie on purpose. As hard as a Sharknado may try, it is, in actuality, a, “piece of crap.” A good B-movie is a piquant mixture of cock-eyed optimism, irrational belief, and complete lack of execution. All of this, of course, speaks to a movie as ‘B’ in the philosophical. Increasingly rare gems that are ‘B’ in spirit and demeanor, not necessarily budget. The danger, the thrill of a B-movie is its balancing act on the knife’s edge of being a complete turd. It’s part of the fun. Jupiter Ascending, the newest boondoggle from the Wachowskis, is—for better and worse—every inch a B-movie.

So it’s good? Meh. Then it’s bad? Well…meh… It is certainly a Wachowski picture, and you can set your expectations accordingly. One thing worth noting is the picture itself, it’s relegation from summer primetime to February hell, and the dismissiveness surrounding the final product. It all makes for a fascinating comment on the state of Nerd Culture™. Nerd Culture hasn’t suffered only from codification, but something much more severe, it’s been cool-kid-ized. Where knowing the name of Thor’s Hammer (Mjolnir for those keeping track) was once grounds for an ass kicking, now it’s a conversation starter.

The unified front is gone. There’s no collective of outsiders left to rally behind these unknown geek properties as social glue. Marvel deep cuts have become blockbusters, and Star Wars is more mainstream then McDonalds. As a result of this trend, there is no one left to foam at the mouth over the blanket prospect of a space opera. To give it a chance on that merit alone. In 2015, it has to be as good or better than Guardians, and it needs to wear the right references, but not in an obvious way. A new “nerd” movie is now held to standards genre devotees once eschewed. And if anything, Jupiter Ascending shows the Wachowski’s are among the last believers.

Jupiter Ascending is the Wachowskis climbing into their oh-so-very-dorky sandbox, clutching their action figures, and play-acting their sci-fi fantasy. Where this may seem to drip with some romance, and it does, the characters, scenes, settings, and story are as broad and dimensionless as plastic toys. They still imbue these plasticized caricatures with the kind of fervor and excitement you’d expect, but it’s not profound in any way. And much like a story an overexcited child would tell you, it's riddled with holes, logic and narrative. At best, so many of the film’s elements feel as though they began with the words, “wouldn’t it be cool if…”

Wouldn’t it be cool if Mila Kunis was named after a planet and was this, uh, exact genetic replication of some space queen? Wouldn’t it be cool if Channing Tatum was, like, this half albino wolf-man with anti-gravity rollerblades? Wouldn’t it be so cool if the Legionnaires of this world had crazy bio-tech wings, because, yeah, symbolism and stuff? Wouldn’t it be cool if Sean Bean? And then you set all that on the well worn tracks of the archetypal hero myth and you’ve pretty much got your picture.

There are some clever moments, a journey through the world of intergalactic bureaucracy in particular, but so much of the story is totally boneheaded. Try as they might to instill Game of Thrones style familial politics, alternate versions of Earth’s purpose, commentary on resource exploitation, it all amounts to, “duurrr.” We’re plied with the same sequence of events three times in a row, there’s no tension or surprises, and the film ends with a shot almost identical to the one found at the end of The Matrix.

So why bother with the foreground if I’m just going to pan the film? Because I’m glad this movie exists, and I had a damn good time watching it. It’s fun, it’s campy, it’s downright tacky, but it’s earnest. It's slapped together with moralizing, platitudes, a myriad of genre considerations, and then spun on a carousel of outer space hijinks. Call me crazy, but isn’t that what we bargained for?

Jupiter Ascending is no great film, but I enjoyed it. Shallow, frenetic, unfocused, clichéd, in this case, these are noble qualities.  Though, more than anything, it’s a genuine B-movie and that’s an extremely special lineage. I don’t love Jupiter Ascending. But what I do love is the kid who loves this movie, watches it 100 times, cherishes it like a dirty little secret, and makes a movie of their own someday.

--Monte Monreal