I chose to sidestep last night’s all-media screening of Jason Bourne in order to catch Pete’s Dragon on the Disney lot. I’ll be seeing Bourne tonight at the Grove, but facts may as well be faced: some initial reviews more or less agree with what I was told last week — i.e., that it’s more or less satisfying if you aren’t measuring it by hard-ass standards but it doesn’t blow your socks off, which of course is what everyone wants.

There seems to be general agreement that a first-act, high-tension sequence in Athens is quite effective. But there is disagreement about the Las Vegas finale.

Last week’s guy told me that the Las Vegas finale excites and delivers, but Variety‘s Peter Debruge seems to disagree: “The instant the movie hits the Exocon convention in Vegas, where the potential for high-tech malfeasance ought to hit an all-time high, the film’s energy flags.” The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy writes that “the big action climax, a slam-bang speed race through a jam-packed nocturnal Strip, is as preposterous and incoherently staged as the Athens opening is striking and convincing.”

July 26, 2016by Jeffrey Wells17 Comments