Everything that's wrong with the super-sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods is effectively baked into the title. Because if there's one thing that fans of the 2019 film (myself among them) don't want, or at least shouldn't want, it's fury – not when the original's appeal was so firmly grounded in the goofy, amiable, touching, and refreshingly inconsequential.

As a rule, horror sequels aren't supposed to be good. Fifth sequels in any genre aren't supposed to be good. Sequels whose basic M.O. is “Let's do what we've always done … but in a different city!” aren't supposed to be good. And yet, almost preposterously, Scream VI proves to be very, very good – though if that praise seems suspect, I'd be willing to amend it to “very, very entertaining.”

It's still incredibly early in his career to ask this, but is there anything Jonathan Majors can't do?

While Cocaine Beat is both less stupid that it could have been and less stupid than it should have been, I had a surprisingly agreeable time – and so did a high-schooler friend of mine, and my 50-something bestie, and my octogenarian mother.

Of the three showcases to date for Paul Rudd's alternately diminutive and behemoth superhero, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania is the one I dislike the least. As I see it, credit for that is due to precisely two elements. Compared to Ant-Man & the Wasp, this new adventure has roughly 75-percent more Michelle Pfeiffer; and compared to the 2018 sequel and 2015's original Ant-Man, it has 100-percent more Jonathan Majors.

In a recent Vulture interview, Steven Soderbergh, director of 2012's original Magic Mike, stated that until he saw and adored the movie's London-stage-revue version in 2018, he found “no compelling reason to make a third film.” So now we have the Soderbergh-helmed Magic Mike's Last Dance … and this sequel feels like it still has no compelling reason to exist.

A doc can get away with an unexciting, even bland presentation so long as the story it tells captures and holds your interest, and directors Mila Aung-Thwin's and Daniel Cross' 2014 documentary Atanasoff: Father of the Computer kept me interested, and quite invested, through the whole of its too-short 45 minutes.

Among the quartet of living legends who star in 80 for Brady, Jane Fonda plays a romance-hungry author of steamy, football-themed fan fiction. Director Kyle Marvin's buddy comedy could hardly be called steamy, but it, too, is football-themed fan fiction, and about as winning as movies of its type ever get.

The January 24 reveal of this year's Oscar nominees brought with it the usual amount of pleasures, disappointments, and surprises, as well as our annual reminder that not every movie voters get to see is one Quad Citians have been able to see. Two of the stragglers, however, managed to secure local releases this past weekend. Another contender has been available for rental and purchase for weeks, but found itself as perhaps the title that Academy Awards completists wanted/needed to catch up with above all others.

If any movie this season can truly unify parents with their teenagers, it'll likely be Missing, the new mystery thriller whose morals can be effectively boiled down to “You need to always be honest with me, Mom” and “You need to pick up when I call, sweetie.”

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