Ben Kenigsberg

A case in which a production designer and prosthetics team showed up for work but the screenwriters might as well have crowdsourced their ideas from fanboys.

Like lovingly warmed leftovers, it has its satisfactions: a charismatic cast, evocative Los Angeles location work, the sort of granular details on diamond couriering and insurance valuation that might give impressionable viewers ideas.

When Dead Man’s Wire ends with footage of the real Kiritsis and Hall, it is hard not to conclude that a much crazier, livelier film could have been made.

We don’t need to hear about Herbert’s party years after his first marriage faltered. But he still had a cool idea, and his explanations of printing technology and color chemistry are almost enough to carry the film.

The movie favors an unflashy presentation that allows its themes to emerge organically. But the interlocking structure, which owes more to the early work of Alejandro González Iñárritu than “Rashomon,” undermines sustained tension, and the dramatic architecture is slightly wobbly.

Evidently, as this muddled movie tells it, the climactic lesson of the Nuremberg trials was that America had a friend, too.

Part of the accomplishment of Feinartz’s film, which at times comes across as too deferential, is that it fitfully succeeds in cracking his shell.

It would be easy to dismiss the movie’s perspective as limited and jingoistic, but “The Road Between Us” never pretends to offer more than an in-the-moment chronicle of a violent clash. The bigger problem is that its slickness cheapens the most harrowing recollections.

The Baltimorons aims for bittersweet rather than wacky. Didi is lonely; Cliff struggles with sobriety. And while the film has clear affection for its Baltimore locations (it’s dedicated to the workers killed when the Key Bridge collapsed in 2024), considerably less thought has gone into creating convincing situations for those backdrops.

A children’s film that fares better with its nimble special effects than its clunky dramatics.

The philosophical window dressing — would you rather your loved one live a better life if it meant living without you? — doesn’t play to Vigalondo’s strengths.

By turns heartfelt and, especially in the ghost tête-à-têtes, irksome, the movie is helped substantially by its cast, especially Cranston, who brings a welcome sincerity to a quixotic, potentially cloying character.

Because Slumlord Millionaire has assembled a dynamic and engaging group of activists, it seems churlish to complain that it hasn’t found a way to make the material cinematic.

This fans-only documentary gets bogged down with dull asides.

Some deviations are inevitable, but the expository dialogue — and the convention of having Russian characters speak English, with British accents — are distractions. Even so, Politkovskaya’s bravery, and Peake’s commitment to honoring it, is enough.

The film’s unusual backdrop, unresolved subplots and dream-sequence fakeouts are ultimately all distractions from a story that doesn’t make much sense.

Magazine Dreams bludgeons viewers to show off its sensitivity.

Whoever Opus is supposed to be sending up, its aim is a bit wide of the mark. But even if the movie’s only real goal is to frighten, it bets far too much on its eventual twists.

In short, Seven Veils offers plenty to think about. But fans who mourn that Egoyan’s dramatic instincts have slipped in recent years won’t quite be getting a return to form.

The storytelling economy (small cast, one main location) is welcome, but none of the four characters is the sharpest tool in the shed, and whatever insights Hodierne intends on the cutthroat world of crypto remain elusive.

The theft that inspired the movie has been called one of the biggest in Denmark’s history. It deserved a sleeker film.

Back in Action has a better cast than its (often mawkish) writing earns. Mostly, the familiarity takes its toll.

The much-in-vogue hybrid mode proves more cryptic than edifying this time around.

Beyond the videos, the movie takes a thorough, methodical approach to laying out the case against Netanyahu, even if few of its arguments are new.

It isn’t fair to say that “Spellbound” lacks musical or visual invention. Zegler can belt out a song, and the evil storm that transmogrified the royals is pleasingly lo-fi. (It looks like a scribble-scrabble twister.) But the magic feels distinctly, almost insultingly poached.

The director hasn’t found a rhythm or pace to lend momentum to this exploration of disparate material.

To the extent the film has appeal, it is of the tabloid variety.

Visually, The Critic is polished enough, despite some splashes of apparent digital lacquer. But Marber hasn’t supplied an incontrovertible motive to bind Nina to Jimmy. And there is something arguably troubling about the way McKellen’s character has been conceived.