In Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, Sir Lancelot (Dan Stevens) sums up Ben Stiller’s appeal quite well. When he first meets Larry Daley (Stiller), Lancelot tells Larry he reminds him of a “fool” he liked back in Camelot because of the way Larry is able to make him laugh with the simplest of expressions and his dry, monotonous delivery. As the everyman, amusement comes from the exasperated way he reacts to the absurdness around him. Stiller isn’t always the straight man, but when he is, he emanates the aura of a best friend, one you can relate to and want to hang out with, making the more outrageous characters and situations that much more tolerable. It works, and because of that, director Shawn Levy doesn’t see any reason to change anything else in the franchise either. Read Full Review

Chris Rock has always been a very hit-or-miss comedian. I’ve always liked his voice work in the Madagascar series and when he appears in films that, with the exception of possible improv work during filming, he doesn’t have a hand in writing (such as his roles in The Longest Yard and Lethal Weapon 4), his presence is felt with incredible enthusiasm. But when it comes to his standup act, and those films he writes and directs himself, something always seems to be amiss. I’m not sure if it’s his overall schtick, the way his mind works, or if he allows others to influence his decisions, it’s almost as if he’s unwilling to put as much energy into his craft as he does when he has no stake in the bottom line. His newest passion project, Top Five, hobbles on a similar crutch, feeling too important than it should be and failing to give the film room to just have fun. Read Full Review

Given that the major studios decided to take a break this weekend by failing to offer up one new nationwide release, I had to make a choice: review a film I’d already seen, go check out a major release I had yet to see (and I was not about to waste my money on Dumb and Dumber To) or check out an independent film I probably wouldn’t have seen had it not been for the lack of offerings. (The film I was going to review this week, The Pyramid, only opened in a little over 500 theaters and didn’t make the cut at my local cineplexes). So I decided on the latter, choosing to see Tommy Lee Jones’s directorial debut, The Homesman, a slice-of-life western that piqued my interest mainly because of the stellar cast Jones was able to put together. Unfortunately, even the best cast can’t rise above a mediocre story, no matter how many Oscars they may have won (or have been nominated for). Read Full Review

In a perfect world, other than films that are already part of a planned series, sequels wouldn’t exist. Production studios, producers and writers wouldn’t rely so heavily on title recognition and consistently churn out original material. Alas, perfection doesn’t exist, and so we are left to wallow in constant sequels, prequels, spinoffs and rehashes, most of which could never capture the magic of the original film, and for the most part feel lame, ordinary or repetitive (see The Hangover, Part II). Yet with any rule, there are always exceptions (such as Terminator 2: Judgement Day and The Godfather: Part II), but they are few and far between, mostly because producers are only hoping to capitalize on the popularity rather than doing so because of artistic integrity. So when a film like Horrible Bosses (a decent comedy, but not one a whole lot of people were begging to see more of) makes just enough money to warrant an unnecessary sequel, I was a bit shocked to find that Horrible Bosses 2 not only doubles down on everything the first film had to deliver, but ends up creating a winning piece of entertainment. Don’t Stop — There’s Plenty More