ROThornhill

The Good Will Hunting of piano tuner movies. Woodall and Liu convincingly portray extraordinarily talented characters that you both believe and care about. Entertaining from start to finish.

Rudd and Jonas get to stretch beyond they usual personas - Rudd as a singer and Jonas as an actor - in this funny, somewhat suspenseful and satisfying tale of musical creativity and success. The supporting cast - particularly Peter McDonald as Rudd's loyal but disruptive best friend - also have great moments.

I'll charitably assume that this movie offers some entertainment or interest for people who are followers of the web series. For those who are not, the complete lack of context and resolution may make it an unpleasant waste of time.

Just a padded episode in which nothing memorable is added to the canon. The plot offers no growth, revelation or high stakes for the characters - just momentary "danger" that becomes tedious by the fourth time we see creatures fighting in a pit.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Though there are moments of humor and (muted) emotion, the film demonstrates that a feature film must be something more than a short in which every scene lasts four times too long. On the plus side, it is a pleasant, unhurried pictorial of cars and clothes of the late 1960s.

This movie excels on every level of filmmaking. It has an unpredictable, layered story, with no dropped threads or loose ends. The performances are excellent, with all of the well-chosen cast being completely believable in their roles. And the visual storytelling is excellent, conveying the horror (and often the humor) of each moment effectively with superb staging, framing and editing.

The composer and visual effects artists deserve credit for outstanding work, but they can't compensate for the weak writing and direction; All characters, adult or juvenile, speak and behave with the same low levels of maturity and vocabulary. And the action is often muddled by confusing cuts, or by the camera being in the wrong place to convey the action - particularly in a sequence involving a school bus. The film is labored and tedious whenever the monsters are off screen.