Project Hail Mary (2026)

A man wakes up all alone on a spacecraft with no memory of who he is or how he got there. All the onboard crew is dead, he's floating adrift in space, and the stars are apparently dying. The trailers spoil what's to come, but I won't do that here. This is a voyage of wonder and discovery you must take alone.

Powerhouse directing duo Lord and Miller spin a yarn as old as time, Ryan Gosling remains effortlessly effusive, and while most of the science flies over my head, it's emotionally intelligent to boot. A safe bet for best of the year.

4½ fist bumps out of 5

22 JUMP STREET [2014]

Rarely is a sequel much better than it's original but Phil Lord & Chris Miller manage to pull it off with the overly goofy 22 Jump Street.
Like the original, it knows it's a Hollywood treadmill film and that's where it succeeds in a lot of it's humor, particularly Nick Offerman's side-splittingly hilarious meta-speeches.  However it's Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum's wonderful comedic chemistry that makes the film as funny and playful as it is.  This ain't high art or quality film-making, in fact it's probably the furthest thing from it but the film-makers and stars set out to have a good time with the hopes that you will too.

3½ Dumbass Americans out of 5

THE LEGO MOVIE [2014]

From director/writers Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (the guys behind Clone High, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the 21 Jumpstreet films), The Lego Movie seems like it would be one big commercial to sell more toys.
However with Lord & Miller's background one can expect a high-energy, colorfully told story with plenty of tongue-in-cheek moments of snappy dialogue and sight gags all wrapped in a big well-placed heart.
At times it's just a bit too schmalzty and simplistic to really be as smart as some of it's CGI animated counterparts but it's got enough flair to never lose it's enjoyability.
...and let's face it, folks, didn't we all want to see Batman for the douchey ass that he really is?

3 weird cat things out of 5