(US), R: Steven Spielberg, D: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, [Wikipedia]
Well. The referential overload simply washes away the iconic characters‘ magic. The references are rarely used in a clever and meaningful way. Therefore the movie feels meaningless and ultimately soulless over long periods. It sadly struggles for a long time to develop an own identity. The dialogue is mediocre, the characters one-dimensional.
The movie is lazy. Except when it’s not. And then it’s pretty clever and entertaining. (Hello, quest for the second key!)
(And why the fuck does a guy, who got layed out next to Star Trek emblems, decide against distributing his tremendous wealth among the poor and instead create a massive quasi Battle Royale-style hunt for money and power? Where is the humanism in that? It actually perfectly shows how a whole lot of the used references are just nothing more than platitudes.)
★★½☆☆