It is funny, uses the classic characters well and contains lots of silly in-jokes for fans.

It is a fascinating deconstruction of the genre, picked apart to serve the filmmaker’s themes. Jane Schoenbrun’s films are alive and exciting because they go wherever they want.

It is well-made, honest and entertaining. It feels like other biopics, except in the way it takes on the personality of its subject. That is its strength.

It is summer entertainment as it used to be; grounded spectacle, with basic, small-scale stakes, likable heroes and a high-concept plot that is easy to follow. It is the exact type of movie that caused some of us to fall in love with the medium in the first place.

I enjoy Thorny, Mac, Farva, Foster and Rabbit as much as the next guy, but it’s probably time they went into retirement.

The fact that it mostly works is a testament to the writing, which never pushes the concept any further than the basic premise, and the chemistry between the two leads. It is just pleasant, with some genuinely funny moments.

It is an amusing story with some structural issues and an unsatisfying conclusion. But it is intriguing most of the way.

The physical presence of the performers is more than enough to tell this story. It isn’t some groundbreaking action classic, though it does what it sets out to do successfully and is pretty entertaining at it.

This is a tremendous, fast-paced, dramatic, exciting, sneakily passionate take on the material, that is faithful, despite some modernizations.

It looked good coming in; it was even better than I anticipated.