Review: 'Super Size Me 2 - Holy Chicken'.

So when it comes to things that I've seen lately, during the last couple of weeks me and my friend have watched documentary films. We've tried to watch some of the latest documentaries that we have found to promising and that could be worth our time.

After all, even though I prefer watching movies in general, I can't deny that watching documentaries might actually make you a bit more informed. There's a chance that you might learn something and that the stuff might enlighten you as a person.

So when it comes to the documentary that we watched, it wasn't a difficult decision to choose what to watch. Once we noticed that filmmaker Morgan Spurlock had come up with a sequel to 'Super Size Me', we wanted to see the documentary right away.

After all, the original 'Super Size Me' was about a guy who tried eating junk food for 30 days at McDonalds. It was about testing and monitoring what happens to your health and your body when you eat nothing but fast food 24/7. 

Thankfully, in 'Super Size Me 2 - Holy Chicken' Spurlock does not stuff food in his mouth (except in the poster). Instead, this time as a chicken farmer / restaurant owner he studies the chicken fast food industry in the U.S. and the industry's marketing.

Indeed, the film is basically an expose of the living conditions of chickens and the claims of the fast food marketing department. It shows all kinds of ethical lapses within the industry and how false most - if not all - the claims that the restaurant chains make are.

So when it comes to story of the film, the first part (out of three) is about Spurlock setting up his own chicken farm. This is the part when see how easy it is to find loopholes for raising the chickens and how individual farmers are being destroyed by the corporate greed. 

The second part in the film is about the advertising industry and how fast food chains mislead about their products. We visit marketing firms & taste labs where we see all kinds of examples about how we are lied about stuffs ('free-range', 'all natural', 'bbq grilled' etc.)

The third part of the documentary is when he finally decides to open his brutally honest 'Holy Chicken' restaurant. He does that so that he could educate people about the industry and how completely misleading it is (with some unexpected results).

So when it comes to the quality of the film, like many others, I found the documentary to be mostly pretty well made. There are a lot of things to appreciate and one can't help but to respect the fact that Spurlock takes a hands on approach with the subject matter.

After all, what is better way to get know about the industry than to start raising those so called free-ranged chicken by yourself. This way we get to see what is required to be in the business and how things are done (thankfully he doesn't blame the farmers).

Another good thing about the film has to do with the marketing claims and 'cheats' with the chicken products. You can't help but to laugh at things like the fact that those charcoal stripes in barbequed chickens are actually painted in.

At the same time, even though I did enjoy the film, I also have to say there were some story problems in the documentary. The 'story' in 'Super Size Me 2' didn't feel particularly natural or smooth and the transitions felt a bit too forced and contrived.

After all, there are clearly timeline problems in the film that make you wonder what happened and when. These really hurt the film's flow - like the fact that they didn't use his chickens to provide meat for his restaurant (chicken footage 2016, restaurant 2018).

Still, when I think about the film as a whole, it has to be said that despite these flaws in the story, the positives nevertheless managed to outweigh the negatives. There's clearly enough material to keep you interested and that these points are pretty well made in the film.

In that sense, if you haven't seen the movie yet, you should give it a chance and watch it. You should watch 'Super Size Me 2 - Holy Chicken', because even though the film could have been better, it was still worth watching and was worth my time.

Movies that I've managed to see this month.

Even though I've been busy with my writing project this month - that seems to go on and on and on, I've also tried to find some time to watch some movies with my friend. We've tried to watch some of the interesting films that have been released lately.

Indeed, over the last two weeks we managed to watch movies like Pixar's 'Toy Story 4', James Cameron's Alita: Battle Angel' and Seth Rogen's comedy 'Long Shot'. We thought that these films would be worth our time and that they would keep us entertained.

So when it comes to the first movie that we saw, it wasn't exactly a difficult decision to watch 'Toy Story 4'. Based on its reviews and the success of the series, it was pretty much guaranteed that the 4th film in the series would work too.

After all, when you have a movie that has a 97% fresh rating on Rottentomatoes.com by the critics and a 94% fresh rating by the audience, things look pretty good. It's pretty clear that the movie is going to be at least somewhat watchable.  

Yet, having now seen the Pixar animation with my friend, I have to say that the movie - surprisingly enough - wasn't as good as I had expected. Even though the film is okay, there were certain story problems in it that shouldn't be overlooked.

For example, one of the problems with 'Toy Story 4' had to do with its 'Forky' character (picture above). I thought that the character was just too depressing (it barely was even a toy) and it didn't really fit in with the rest of the characters and the universe of the film.

Another story problem in the movie had to do with its villain character 'Gabby Gabby'. The fact that the writers decided to turn her into a somewhat misunderstood 'good' character in the 3rd act of the film didn't really work and felt contrived to me.

Furthermore, there were other questionable things too in the story, like that the characters weren't much of a team anymore. Especially when it comes to Woody being selfish and the fact that the movie neglected the supporting cast was pretty awkward.  

Still, despite these mistakes in the movie, I can't deny that the film nevertheless had tons of good qualities about it. There's no question that the film looks beautiful, is well acted and that there are a lot of solid action scenes that keep the thing going.

In that sense, if you haven't seen 'Toy Story 4' yet, you should nevertheless give it a chance. You should watch it, because even though the film has its flaws, there certainly aren't too many good movies to watch out there anyway.  

The second movie that I watched with my friend is 'Alita: Battle Angel'. This is a scifi-action movie produced by James Cameron and the story in the film is based on a popular 1990's Japanese manga series by Yukito Kishiro.

The reason that we watched the film was not because I was super excited to see it. I hadn't really heard that many good things about it and I also didn't feel that good about James Cameron's 'career choices' lately either (he definitely should make movies more frequently).

Yet, once I noticed that the film had a pretty solid 7.4/10 rating on Imdb.com, that was more than good enough. Since the film also had a positive rating on Rottentomatoes.com (62% fresh by critics) I couldn't say no to the film.

So having now seen 'Alita: Battle Angel', even though the film has some minor problems in its story, I have to say that it wasn't that bad at all. The movie turned out to be surprisingly watchable and both me and my friend like it quite a bit.

Indeed, when you look at the movie, among other things, there's no question that the whole thing looks absolutely incredible (its protagonist is 100% computer generated). It's clear that insane amount of work went into making this movie as awesome looking as it is.

Story-wise, the biggest flaw in the movie is that there are way too many story beats and exposition in the film. The writers - one of them was Cameron - and the producers - as unfortunate as it is - weren't able to make the story work as well as it should have.

Still, when I think of the movie as a whole (it has the always great Christoph Waltz in it), I was still more than entertained by it. I liked the characters and the basic story in the film and also its 'Blade Runner meets The Hunger Games' atmosphere.

In that sense, if 'Alita: Battle Angel' doesn't get a sequel (it more or less broke even box-office wise), I would honestly be disappointed. The film was certainly good enough for me and is good enough to deserve a sequel.

The third and the last film that I saw with my friend is 'Long Shot', a Seth Rogen vehicle that I had heard some good things about. The movie had gotten solid reviews (81% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com) and I thought that it might perhaps be worth our time.

After all, even though some of Rogen's comedy films haven't been that good, this one had potential. The premise of Rogen's journalist character being hired to become a presidential candidate's (Charlize Theron) speechwriter was something that intrigued me.

So when it comes to the romantic comedy, I have to say that I was positively surprised by the quality of the film. I was delighted by how well written the movie was (especially the romance part) and how much substance and actual message it had.

Indeed, over the course the movie our odd couple goes through all kinds of situations that are entertaining. These situations (meeting, falling in love, honing policies, campaigning etc.) are something where you can't help but to root for these two.

Substance-wise, the movie is about environmentalism and shows how insanely manufactured politicians can be and how corrupt they are policy-wise. The film does a surprisingly good job at taking jabs at corporate politicians and the media (especially Fox News)

Naturally, since this is a Seth Rogen comedy, the movie is full of naughty dialogue and dirty / funny jokes. The movie is absolutely jampacked with raunchy material, which might not be for everyone if we're being completely honest here.

Still, when it comes to the film as a whole, if you're someone who can even remotely tolerate Seth Rogen as an actor, there's a good chance that the movie is for you. You should not think that the movie is all about silly jokes and being as raunchy as possible.

On the contrary, even though the film is definitely raunchy, it also has a good message. Its honest message preaches about being true to yourself and not taking the easy way out, no matter how difficult or embarrassing doing the right thing might seem at first.

'Yesterday' is an uplifting movie that has integrity.

As a pretty big fan of British comedies, when I heard that there was a new movie by legendary writer Richard Curtis called 'Yesterday', I got my hopes up. I thought that there was a good chance that the film would deliver and that it would be worth my time. 

After all, since my hero Curtis had written movies like 'Love Actually' and 'Notting Hill' and the new film had a strong premise, things looked good. I was confident that the movie about 'a guy who's the only person to remember that The Beatles existed' would work.

Having now seen the movie with my friend, I have to say that 'Yesterday' as a film did turn out to be really good. Even though some critics haven't like it that much (62% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com), the movie was definitely worth watching. 

In essence, the story in the film is about a struggling musician (played by Himesh Patel) who one day notices something truly weird. Once a global power outage occurs, he seems to be the only one who remembers that a band called 'The Beatles' ever existed. 

Not surprisingly, once our protagonist casually starts playing the band's music to his friends, they immediately think of him as some kind of a musical genius. How on earth did a guy like him suddenly come up with awesome songs like 'Yesterday'? 

Later on in the film, once he gets past the usual struggles for an unknown artist, the inevitable happens. After he gets enough exposure as a musician, he becomes the biggest artist on the planet and things start to get more and more complicated.

So when it comes to the quality of the film, one of the best things about the film is that the story in it is creative. Even though the script follows the standard story structure, the movie fortunately doesn't take the easy way out with its story beats.

By that I mean is that had 'Yesterday' been your usual 'Hollywood' hack fest, you would have guessed all the story beats way before they happened. In that case you'd have gotten the usual 'guy gets famous, gets too cocky, loses it all and needs to learn a lesson'.

Fortunately in this movie, the protagonist has integrity throughout the movie. He tries his very best to do the right all the time and at no point of the movie acts like a jerk (which I can guarantee would happen in a Hollywood movie).

Another major reason why the movie works so well - not surprisingly - has to do with it how well it's acted. The movie relies on its main actors not only to be able to act well but also to be capable to perform all those various songs.

After all, without the ability of Patel as a solid actor and a gifted musician, I doubt that the movie would have been as entertaining as it turned out to be. He genuinely manages to deliver here and brings that much needed authenticity and honesty to the film.

In hindsight, when I think about the movie, the only real problem in it has to do with some parts of its screenplay. Even though the story is well paced and didn't feel boring at any point, the 'romance' part in the film didn't work as well as it should have.

After all, especially when it came to the moment of Ellie (played by Lily James) finding someone else, I felt that this part in the story was a bit rushed. That part could certainly have used some polishing and could have been better written.

Still, when I think about the film as a whole, it's pretty clear that even though there were some tiny problems in the story, these minor flaws were not that important. They did not prevent me from enjoying the movie as a whole.

After all, despite the film's minor flaws, there are so many good aspects to the movie that make it shine. These solid comedic and dramatic moments and the overall uplifting tone of the movie certainly made me enjoy the film very much.

In that sense, if you're someone like me who likes to watch romantic comedies and likes to listen to 'Beatles' songs, 'Yesterday' is almost definitely for you. You should give the film a chance and not be discouraged by what some critics have said about it.

After all, even though some critics complained that the film doesn't go deep enough in exploring the premise of 'what if', you shouldn't believe their criticism too much. That aspect of the story is not what the movie in its essence is about.

On the contrary, when you look at the movie as a whole, what the film really is about is about idealism and kindness. It's about being good and kind to each other and making sure that no matter what happens, in the end we are still able to do the right thing.

Remedy's 'Control' is a disappointing game.

So when it comes to storytelling in games, it's not exactly a secret that telling a good story is not easy. Being able to tell a story (in a pc or console game) that last for 10-15 hours requires a lot of effort and attention to detail from a writer.

Indeed, in order to be able to create a game that works from start to finish, that means that you have to get things right in the story. You have to make sure that you respect the basics and the fundamentals of the craft without taking anything for granted. 

Unfortunately, over the last few years there have been attempts in 'reinventing the wheel' and not taking the craft seriously. Especially when it comes to a 'story-driven' gaming company like Remedy, these guys have been really dropping the ball lately.

By that I mean is that in Remedy's case, the biggest problem with their previous game 'Quantum Break' (a time travel game that bombed) was that they didn't pay attention to their story. They didn't pay attention to their premise, characters or storylines. 

Indeed, as unfortunate as it was, 'Quantum Break' was a game that didn't know what it was about. There was no proper introduction to the characters, the story made little sense and the game even had those 25 minute live action clips between the gaming scenes.

So based on the meltdown of 'Quantum Break', one would have thought that 'Remedy' would have learned from their mistakes. Surely they would try to correct their storytelling ship and try to come up with something that would actually make sense. 

Yet, when me and my friends managed to finish their latest game 'Control' last week, we had to admit that they didn't learn anything from their almost 100 million dollar bomb. The story in 'Control' is even worse than what it was in 'Quantum Break'. 

By that I mean is that even though 'Control' - fortunately - doesn't have those live action clips, this time those other basic elements are even worse. The story doesn't make sense and the writers are completely clueless about what they're supposed to do.

Indeed, once you start playing the game - a female character called Jesse Faden - there's zero exposition in the 'story'. Her visiting (in the beginning) some Federal Bureau office and having super powers is something that is simply supposed to be accepted at face value.

Later on, once our protagonist starts fighting the bad guys, things aren't explained either. There's some evil entity, her brother is missing, there's some scientific experiments going on in the building and she even talks to someone inside her head (!).

Story-wise, what is so unfortunate about these moments in the story (inner dialogue + protagonist talks to someone in her head) is that none of them make even remotely sense. None of the stuff is explained to the gamer in any meaningful way.

Indeed, as you kept playing the game, this 'character knows everything, gamer knows nothing' just keeps getting more and more out of control. There's no story arc, there are no stakes and you just don't know what the point to the whole thing is. 

Not surprisingly, once we finally reached the end credits after playing the game for like 13 hours or so, me and my friends had had enough. We just couldn't believe how incredibly bad every single storytelling aspect in the game had been.

After all, even though our expectations for the ending were low, the so called 'finale' that lead to the end credits was so bad that we felt like throwing things at the screen. It was such an anti-climax that you simply had to see it in order to believe it.

In that sense, when I think about this game and its problems as a whole, it's pretty clear and obvious that the game didn't do well commercially. Despite the usual hype it didn't manage to make the players excited enough to purchase the game.

After all, even though gaming critics did their best to puff up the game's reviews and its reputation (81% on Metacritic), that wasn't enough. 'Control' didn't even make the top-30 lists on any of the platforms that it was released on. 

In that sense, in the end, if you're someone who's thinking about buying the game and thinking that there's something special going on in here, you shouldn't get too excited. You shouldn't get too excited and think that this game has a story that is executed well.

After all, even though in 'Control' there admittedly were some good things about the concept (some super powers and some shooting modes), as a whole these simply were not enough. These weren't enough to offset the bad qualities that the game was full of. 

On the contrary, problems like the game not having any story, the characters & the dialogue being terrible, the pacing issues etc. were simply too much. They were too serious and made it impossible for me and my friends to enjoy the game as a whole.

'Rocketman' is a pretty entertaining film.

Like many others, when I heard that there was going to be a biopic about musician Elton John, I was pretty excited. I felt that there was a pretty solid chance that the film would be at least relatively watchable and worth my time.

After all, since I had already enjoyed 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (same director) and 'Eddie The Eagle', same director & main actor) it wasn't a difficult decision to watch the film. All the signs pointed to the movie being entertaining and enjoyable.

So having now seen 'Rocketman' with my friend this week,  it has to be said that the film didn't really disappoint. The biopic / musical turned out to be pretty entertaining, even though I do have so minor reservations about its story and how it was written.  

In any case, when it comes to the film, the biggest reason that the movie is as watchable as it is, is of course because of its 'star'. There's no question that Sir Elton John is someone who deserved a movie about him and his fascinating life. 

After all, not only is Elton (born Reginald Dwight) an accomplished musician with a long career, but he's also someone who really knew how to push the limits as a performer and who was willing to give his all to make his concerts as entertaining as possible.  

Indeed, in the film's story, it doesn't take long before Elton's (played by Taron Egerton) rare musical talent becomes obvious. Once he gets his hands on a piano as a young kid and learns his craft, it's obvious that he's going to go far.

Not surprisingly, once he finds an equally talented partner to write lyrics for him (Bernie Taupin - who has written pretty much all his lyrics), it's time to go big. The duo moves to the States and wins people over thanks to his catchy songs (and despite his outfits). 

Filmwise, what I really appreciated about the movie is that before I saw 'Rocketman', I didn't know how good of a musician, composer & piano player Elton was. I just hadn't thought about him that much - even as a somewhat fan of his.

After all, even though Taupin wrote the lyrics for his songs, it took so much talent and creativity to compose songs that were that good. His compositions ('Your Song', 'Crocodile Rock' & 'Rocketman' among others) are simply wonderful and timeless classics.

Storywise, it has to be said that even though I enjoyed, the movie, there aren't really that many obstacles for the main character's success in the story. Unlike in 'Bohemian Rhapsody', Elton becomes a superstar almost instantly (in the 1st act of the film).

The problem with this is that since that there aren't that many obstacles later in the movie, there's not that much of a story to tell. This leads to the film being padded with musical bits and being a bit anticlimactic in its final.

In hindsight, even though Elton's struggles with his addictions and not being loved by his parents are relevant and part of his dramatic arc, one could argue that they're not enough. The script could have used some additional character moments to make it stronger.

Still, when I think about the film as a whole, in my opinion the filmmakers were able to the thread the needle rather well and managed to put together a fairly compelling story. They were able to come up with a solid movie despite the flaws in the screenplay.

After all, especially when it comes to Taron Egerton's performance as Elton, he does an absolutely incredible job here. He's so good that his performance should easily earn him at least an academy award nomination - if not an outright win.

In that sense, if you're one of those who enjoyed 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'Eddie The Eagle', you should definitely give 'Rocketman' a chance and watch it. You should give it a chance and not be discouraged by some of the negative reviews that it has gotten.

After all, even though the film isn't perfect and has some issues, it's still a good movie. 'Rocketman' is a good movie and as long as you don't take it too seriously, it's likely that you'll enjoy the film and that watching it will put you on a good mood. 

Writing a book can be an exhausting process.

When it comes to writing projects that take a lot effort, it's not exactly a secret that making them work isn't usually that easy. In most cases it takes a lot of effort, rewrites and re-evaluations before the quality of the project can be as good as possible. 

After all, the more demanding and the more time consuming your project is, the more difficult it is to make every aspect of the task work. You cannot expect things to work immediately, no matter how good or talented you might be as a writer.

So the reason that I'm writing about this is that I have had some problems in my own book writing project. I think it's pretty clear that it has been an exhausting process to deliver stuff that meets certain quality standards and that is good enough.

In practice, one of the best indicators of this is that I haven't really felt that good about the quality of the book. At no point did I feel completely confident about the overall quality, even though the script had already been proofread and was well received too.

After all, among other things, I felt that the pacing of the story wasn't good enough and that the structure in the book version was lacking. The chapters were too rushed and in some cases clearly didn't have a balanced beginning, middle and end.

Furthermore, even though the story as a whole was well thought out, I felt that there was content in the adaptation (the story is based on my movie script) that perhaps didn't fit in tonally. There were some 'comedic' and 'ironic' scenes that just didn't work.

What made the process so gruelling is that even though I tried my best to rewrite and keep pushing with the project, my rewrites just weren't good enough. I didn't manage to spot all the problems even though the book kept getting somewhat better.

Fortunately, once I managed to take a complete break from the project during the summer (more than two months) this helped to clear my thoughts. This 'lucky' break gave me a chance to think about something else than writing.

Not surprisingly, once I got back to writing, I managed to get things done. I managed to do things like make the book longer (by 25%), give the chapters a better pacing and even kill some of those 'darlings' from the script that didn't work in the book version.

As a whole, all these good things happened because I finally took a long break and managed to give up on some of those stubborn ideas that I was desperately clinging on to. I had finally accepted that certain things in the story needed to be adjusted or changed.

In that sense, when I take a look at this project as a whole, it's pretty clear that writing good stuff is not just about putting in the hard work and putting in the hours. You shouldn't rely too much on your almighty persistence to fix your problems.

After all, even though it's crucial to have a good writing routine and to have a good work ethic, you should remember that simply pushing hard won't always be enough. There are other factors too that affect your success as a writer.

In the end, especially in my case, had I not taken a break from writing three months ago, there's no chance that I would have written something decent. There's no chance that I would have managed to get the book in a shape that is 'good' enough.

After all, even though I did try my best, before the break I was entirely too married to some of my ideas and wasn't able to see the forest for the trees. I wasn't able to understand that the book wasn't finished and that I still needed to make some changes.

In that sense, if your task doesn't seem to go well either, you should try giving yourself a break too. You should try that break, because even though taking it might not be easy, there's a good chance that it works and that it's something that will actually work for you.

Movies that I've managed to see lately.

Even though I've lately been busy doing other things, this week me and my friend found time to watch some films that have been recently released on dvd. We watched some movies after having not seeing anything in the last couple of months.

In order to entertain ourselves, we gave a chance to three recent movies. We watched a Transformers spin-off movie 'Bumblebee', a female 'Superbad' film 'Booksmart' and 'Mary Poppins Returns', a remake of the classic movie from the 60s.

So the first movie that we watched is 'Bumblebee', a Transformers spin-off that had received pretty solid reviews. This was supposed to be a film that gets the series back on track after all those terrible movies in the series.

After all, it's not exactly a secret that every Transformers film after the first one has been more or less completely unwatchable. There hasn't been any real 'story' in these cgi-films that have been all about mindless action and explosions. 

Fortunately, 'Bumblebee' as a spin-off works surprisingly well and doesn't repeat the mistakes of the sequels and works as a stand alone movie.  Instead of taking its audience for granted, it pays attention to its premise and its origins.

Indeed, when I watched the movie with my friend, we couldn't help but to notice that the film does a good job in being 'childlike'. The story is entertaining and pays attention to all those things that can make a script work.

Still, the biggest star in the movie (even though the actors do a good job) is definitely the 'Bumblebee' character itself. As an audience member, you can't help but to find the 'machine' to be likable and you can't help but to feel for it over the course of the film.

In that sense, if you're like me and so many others who gave up on the series a long time ago, 'Bumblebee' is certainly a movie that you should watch. It's well made, entertaining, funny and as a whole, manages to put you on a better mood. 

The second movie that we watched is 'Mary Poppins Returns'. This is a movie that I had wanted to watch for quite some time, because I thought that there was a good chance that watching it would be fun and that the film would lift my spirits.

After all, even though I can't remember much about the original 'Mary Poppins', it was likely that the remake wouldn't disappoint either. Those responsible for the musical would do their best to respect the spirit of the original and make it as good as possible.

So when me and my friend watched the film, it didn't take long before we fell in love with the world of the film and its universe. There's just something special about the story of the flying nanny who comes to help those in need.

After all, over the course of the film I couldn't help but to enjoy how entertaining and immersive everything was. The characters, the action scenes and the musical pieces were great, even though I'm usually not a big fan of musicals.  

Not surprisingly, when it comes to the acting in the film, the cast is also wonderful. Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Jack and the rest (Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Dick Van Dyke, Angela Lansbury) are just superb in their roles.

In hindsight, the only real problem with the film has to do with its screenplay that is a tiny bit lacking in certain places. Especially when we reach the third act in the movie, it feels that the story doesn't 'turn' well enough and the drama is a bit too clumsy.

Still, when I think of the movie as a whole, it's clear that this is a fun movie. 'Mary Poppins' is an uplifting movie that I would recommend for everyone who wants to feel like a child again and who doesn't want to take everything in life too seriously. 

The third and the final movie that we watched with my friend is 'Booksmart', a comedy starring Johan Hill's sister Beanie Feldstein. This a film that I thought we needed to watch based on its positive reviews by the movie critics. 

After all, since the movie had a really good rating - a solid 97% fresh on Rottentomatoes.com - we more or less had to give it a chance. Clearly this film had to be at least somewhat watchable and not completely hopeless. 

So when it comes to the movie, 'Booksmart' is pretty much a female version of 'Superbad'. Almost every aspect of the film (story beats, premise  and the overall theme 'desperation') mirrors the 'original' version pretty closely.

Not surprisingly, when you watch the film and its characters, it's difficult not to see Jonah Hill in Feldstein's character. They clearly resemble each other and have many of the same manners and characteristics as actors.

Qualitywise, I managed to like the movie more than my friend did.  The film - even though formulaic and episodic - was funny in places and was better than some of the other female comedies that have been released lately (Ghostbusters, Bridesmaids etc.). 

Still, when it comes the film as a whole, I'm not sure that it is necessarily worth all its critical praise. It isn't in my opinion necessarily any better or different than movies that we've already seen many times ('Superbad', 'Harold & Kumar'). 

In that sense, whether you'll like 'Booksmart' really depends on your taste in movies. There's a chance that you'll like it, but there's also a chance that you don't find it entertaining and that it won't be worth your time.