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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard,\u201d the weekend\u2019s #1 movie, was a colossal waste of my time. In the interest of not wasting too much of your time with my complaining, I\u2019ve decided to chop down that review and offer two alternatives that are much more deserving of your time, though they will never get a weekend to call their own. With that in mind, I\u2019ll get the big dud out of the way first\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This movie is a poor excuse to have Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, and Salma Hayek cursing at each other for 99 minutes. That might sound like fun given the talent involved, but trust me, it gets old fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reynolds is especially grating as a wannabe bodyguard who\u2019s not particularly good at anything. In 2017\u2019s \u201cThe Hitman\u2019s Bodyguard,\u201d he was at least competent enough to be a decent bodyguard except for when he was getting foiled by Jackson\u2019s hitman. Here it\u2019s hard to see why he was ever allowed to be a bodyguard in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The whole thing is set against the backdrop of an action movie so hacky it\u2019s on par with those direct-to-VOD movies I was reviewing when theaters were closed last summer. These actors could have been doing much better projects, and I weep for what we might have had instead of this dreck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grade: D<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language, and some sexual content. Its running time is 99 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeter Rabbit 2: The Runaway\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I watched 2018\u2019s \u201cPeter Rabbit\u201d in preparation for this sequel, and I\u2019m glad I did. Both movies have a nice twisted sense of humor, which isn\u2019t to say that they\u2019re so cynical that they\u2019re obnoxious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This movie sees Peter (James Corden) and his family turned into storybook characters by their adoptive human parents (Rose Byrne and Domhnall Gleeson). Peter likes his newfound celebrity until he learns that he\u2019s seen as a bully and a villain. This makes him want to ditch his new life entirely and pull food heists along his late father\u2019s old thieving crew. But if he\u2019s turning to a life of crime, doesn\u2019t that make him the bad seed that everyone thinks he is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Peter\u2019s identity crisis isn\u2019t particularly compelling (the need to learn a lesson is overpowering), but the movie hits the right notes in the humor and sweetness departments. Kids finally have a decent movie to see in theaters besides \u201cRaya and the Last Dragon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grade: B<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rated PG for some rude humor and action. Its running time is 99 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCruella\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the tradition of \u201cMaleficent\u201d comes Disney\u2019s latest recontextualization of a classic villain. How did mischievous-but-well-meaning street urchin Estella (Emma Stone) become the crazed fashion mogul Cruella de Vil, a character so contemptable she wanted to turn 101 dalmatians into fur coats?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer is she doesn\u2019t. Disney would never let a protagonist become that unlikeable, so the movie presents an all-around nicer version of the character that happens to look kind of like Cruella and say \u201cdarling\u201d like Cruella, but isn\u2019t really Cruella. But all is not lost. While this movie fails as a Cruella origin story, it\u2019s actually pretty good as a con artist movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cruella is out to unseat The Baroness (Emma Thompson) as the head of the London fashion world. She and her cohorts Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser, a great under-the-radar talent) and their loyal dogs pull all sorts of fun pranks and heists in the name of getting Cruella ahead. The movie is a delight until it gets bogged down in exposition that I suppose was inevitable. But the movie is still filled with well-attended costumes, sets, and gags, so I give it a recommendation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grade: B-<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rated PG-13 for some violence and thematic elements (though I can\u2019t think of anything in this movie that warrants a PG-13 rating instead of PG). Its running time is 134 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Bob Garver \u201cThe Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard,\u201d the weekend\u2019s #1 movie, was a colossal waste of my time. In the interest of not wasting too much of your time… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":49308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[416],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49309,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49307\/revisions\/49309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}