Book Club: The Next Chapter

It’s the kind of film that exists for the sole purpose of entertainment, which it provides consistently.

Much like the first film, Book Club: The Next Chapter is another easygoing lark that does zero that’s unexpected yet still generates just enough genuine laughter to make its sitcom-level simplicity bearable.

What do you get when you put three Academy Award winners in a movie that has almost no plot and just a skerrick of a script?

What should be an empowering big screen moment for a female ensemble cast whose average age is 77 is sadly let down by the lazy, by-the-book script.

This one’s more of a mindless beach read than a Pulitzer Prize–winning page-turner.

Their film is so stuffed with incident -- all of it preposterous, and occasionally insulting to the intelligence of its central quartet -- that it sours what could (and should) have been a joyful celebration of desire and indulgence at any age.

The chemistry between these four fantastic leads fizzes throughout and almost, almost makes up for the rest.

Its a fun watch but its not a good movie

Book Club: The Next Chapter seems more focused on cashing in on the success of the first film than really investigating the lives of the women they had the audience invest in the first time around.

Feel-good exercise in mush.