Curtis and Lohan reprise their roles as Tess and Anna Coleman. Other returning cast members from the original film include Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Christina Vidal Mitchell, Haley Hudson, Lucille Soong, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Rosalind Chao. They are joined by Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan.

The film is directed by Nisha Ganatra. The producers are Kristin Burr, Andrew Gunn, and Jamie Lee Curtis, with Nathan Kelly, Ann Marie Sanderlin, and Lindsay Lohan serving as executive producers.

A sequel to the beloved 2003 film with a multigenerational twist, the film picks up years after Tess (Curtis) and Anna (Lohan) endured an identity crisis. Anna now has a daughter of her own and a soon-to-be stepdaughter. As they navigate the myriad challenges that come when two families merge, Tess and Anna discover that lightning might indeed strike twice.
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It’s all up to GB once again to save God, no I mean Morgan Freeman from harms way. The first threat upon the US President’s life is a drone attack that is staged in a most impressive way with the flying bombs clustering together like a swarm of angry bees. This is just the start of the action.

The attack is blamed on Butler’s character, Secret Service agent Mike Banning who is assigned to the President’s security detail and so he goes on the run to clear his name. The film has so few surprises (other than some interesting casting choices) and the good guys and bad guys are so transparent, you dispense with the story altogether and just enjoy the show.

Things get blown up (an entire wing of a hospital) shot at (just about everybody) and crashed into and it all makes very little sense. It’s just unadulterated action and the brain disconnects is most enjoyable way. Serious? No. Serious fun? Most definitely.

Rob Hudson
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What the sequel lacks in character development, is more than made up for in sheer craziness. You really have to see the film to experience how over the top a current generation comedy can be. It’s also great to see that the women in the film are the comic legends and almost all the male cast members play the straight man in this comic stew.

The basic story line is one of the connections between mothers and daughters and each of these relationships strike a different tone. It’s this variety that makes it relatable to a wide selection of the audience. If nothing else, it makes you happy your own relationship with your parents was never quite this dysfunctional.

Seen back to back, the two films play well together. Bad Moms 2 will definitely be added to many people’s list of unconventional Christmas films that will be watched every holiday season. It fits nicely alongside other non traditional fare like Rare Export and the original Bad Santa and Die Hard.

Rob Hudson
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The plague created by Will Rodman’s Alzheimer’s ‘cure’ has spread throughout the globe and decimated the human population and, presumably, empowered ape populations worldwide. Caesar’s simian refugees build a growing community in the redwood forest while a splinter group of human survivors eke out an existence within the ruins of San Francisco. The diminishing fuel supply the human’s require for electricity generation inevitably bring them into contact with Caesar’s community who presides over a derelict hydroelectric facility.

This loose remake of Battle for the Planet of the Apes (the final film in the original franchise) betters its already excellent predecessor in most respects with more frequent action, intriguing plot and admirably balanced political themes. It’s a grown up film which accepts the complicated reality that good guys and bad guys are not divided along social, racial or indeed special lines; that, despite the best intentions of our heroes for peace, there is an inevitability of conflict in the world and an, albeit reluctant, place for violence within it.

We all know this, of course, but in movie land we like to believe that all issues are in simple black and white. At least that’s what the money men behind the movies tend to think. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is here to show us that audiences are indeed capable of, and will happily digest, complicated real world issues as forms of high end entertainment and that it can be done to a high degree of quality.

Quality films require quality performances and the key roles deliver here. It’s nice to see Jason Clarke in a hero role and be effective in it. Andy Serkis is, as always, amazing with the physicality of his performance as Caesar and, as usual, you would never know it was him were his name not in the credits. Gary Oldman is sleep walking through this but even a slumberous Oldman is rarely worth complaining about. No mention of the performances would be complete without commenting on the apes in the film which are amazingly realistic. Whether they be real, make-up or CGI (likely a mixture of all three, I suspect), the effect is phenomenally convincing.

The film does fall down a tad in its overblown climactic battle which is incommensurate with the intelligent plotting and action within the film thus far. But despite this tendency towards Transformers in the final act, the film remains, on the whole, a highly entertaining blockbuster with an intelligent social commentary.

Stuart Jamieson
www.dawnoftheplanetoftheapes.com.au

The fish out of water theme has returned but this time the background has changed to college life (as opposed to high school) and the roles are reversed with Schmidt (Hill) being the outcast and Jenko (Tatum) being the stud/jock who fits in. It’s also slightly less of a challenge in the suspension of disbelief while seeing these two thirty something actors in college instead of high school.

The story line taps into drugs on campus (this time of the performance enhancing variety) and involves the usual layers of deceit and conspiracy. It’s competently told and does little to get in the way of the laughs. You will not need much gray matter to keep up.

In the comedy department, this is a modern screenplay with a scatter shot approach and subsequently there are some running gags that work and some that do not. The left field funny jabs also score on an intermediate basis. But looked at in total there are more hits than misses.

Rob Hudson
www.22jumpstreet.com.au