Bill Goodykoontz

More curiosity than movie, “Michael,” a biopic so reverential towards its subject, Michael Jackson, that it borders on worshipful, can’t seem to figure out what it is.

When it comes to dumb fun, generally speaking you want a pretty good balance between the two elements. “Normal” ignores this notion, gleefully so.

I admire what Gyllenhaal attempts in The Bride! I was less satisfied with the execution.

In the end, How to Make a Killing is fine, fun, a nice diversion starring, if no longer the flavor of the month, then a good actor elevating the material around him.

Avatar: Fire and Ash will doubtless join its predecessors in the billion-dollar club. It can't miss. It follows the formula of the previous two films — stunning advancements in film technology coupled with mind-numbing plot, evidently a lucrative combo. Don't get me wrong, these movies look great, genuinely so. They're just so dumb.

It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever, a couple of not-so-wise men said a long time ago — and in a better movie.

It’s a jumbled, intriguing, inconsistent mess — and yes, it is uncomfortable by design.

I like movies like “Rosario” — creepy little horror films with enough scares to keep you on edge and enough of a story to keep you invested.

Maybe the Manson murders are not meant for easy explanation, which in part seems to be what Morris is getting at. Maybe we’ll never really know the answers. But we don’t seem to be able to stop looking for them.

The movie has its moments (some of the songs are fun, as always), but like Plankton’s efforts at taking over the world, it’s ultimately a disappointment.

There is a hazy, gauzy quality to all of this, which keeps things just out of reach. Certainly, it looks like a lot of fun to be young, beautiful and rich in Naples. But Parthenope is also out of reach, almost an idea as much as a character. What that idea is I’m not quite certain.

You just have to hope for some fun along the way. The movie delivers that every now and then, but not nearly enough. Bigger! Dumber! Something! I’d settle for just better.

It’s surprising how much you miss the star power of the original Avengers bunch. Or maybe it’s not surprising. Whatever the case, watching this movie too often feels like you suspect there’s a better party going on next door, but you can’t get in.

It’s good, it’s intriguing, but in the end it’s nothing to howl about.

We’ve seen it all before — maybe not quite as spectacular, maybe not quite as dumb. It’s Washington who ultimately makes “Gladiator II” stand apart from the first film and makes it a lot more fun than it has any right to be.

Juror #2 isn’t quite forgettable, but it’s also not the movie we’ll remember Eastwood for.

The Apprentice — its title a play on Trump’s original identity in relation to Cohn, as well as the reality show that helped get him elected president — is well-made, entertaining in its way (particularly for fans of good acting) and not at all surprising.

By the time the main vampire shows up, Salem’s Lot has already been rendered toothless.

This is grasping at something, or really at everything, everywhere, all the time. It feels like a bunch of unfinished ideas, despite the lengthy gestation period.

It’s a serviceable movie, nothing more but — also important — nothing less. And did we mention it has George Clooney and Brad Pitt?

Ultimately, the movie is really boring. Any charm or spark it might have had is quashed by a lack of strong direction and writing.

There’s something about a lot of the film as a whole that makes it feel as if Lanthimos is trying a little too hard.

More brains and less brawn probably isn’t a prescription for box-office success for a movie like this. But it’s a movie I’d rather see.

Not at the top of the list, necessarily, but writer and director Kiah Roache-Turner’s film is a solid if unspectacular entry into the eww-gross-spiders category. It’s pretty good on that front. But when it tries to wedge in some version of Meaningful Family Drama, it loses its way a little bit.

No one is going to mistake “Road House” for a masterpiece, but it succeeds far better at being what the original film set out to be.

Immaculate goes all in on the yuck, but leaves the rest high and dry.

Red Right Hand wants to be a kudzu-covered, Southern-fried crime story, a morality tale set in the “hills” as rich as pig knuckles from a jar in a juke joint. Mostly it’s just a dopey mob movie with Southern accents of varying quality — predictable and cliched.

We’re left with some fun, funny and occasionally scary set pieces, but the slices don’t add up to a whole pizza, as it were.

When Argylle is fun, it is really fun. Watching Rockwell and Howard run around the world is entertaining, for a time, but not forever. “Because these things will change,” as Swift sings in “Change.”... Maybe she should have written the movie.

Murray occasionally shows flashes of his comic genius, but only flashes.

It’s not going to make you forget “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” or “Bambi” or “Frozen” or “Tangled,” but elements of it might remind you of them. Which is by design.

Napoleon isn’t a failure on anyone’s part. But it’s not a rousing success, either. It’s not really a rousing anything, which is the problem. Maybe Scott should have gone in even more on Phoenix’s quirks and mannerisms, which are the most purely entertaining things about the film. Whatever the case, it doesn’t quite measure up.

To say The Marvels is all over the place is to imply that there is an anchor to it somewhere. There’s not.

The Exorcist: Believer is the first film in a planned trilogy. Better luck next time.

Shipka is both funny and gritty as the wry observer unwillingly drawn into the action, the kind of role at which she excels.

Overall, it's exactly as absurd as it sounds, but in the best way.

The incongruity is shocking at first but wears off after a while, making Strays a good and funny bet for stumbling over while channel-surfing (or whatever the streaming version of that is), but not a lot more.

“Pleasant” is probably the word best used to describe the whole film. Mostly Jules is just an excuse to spend some time with Kingsley, Harris and Curtin doing things we don’t always see them do.

The elements of a good story are here, and the talent to tell it is more than willing. The movie just never quite gets there.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is ultimately an OK entry in a legendary franchise. It’s fun enough, but why bother?

What the movie needs is a more coherent story. While keeping an audience off-kilter and disoriented is a worthy goal, particularly in a horror film, it’s got to add up to something. In this case it’s more like meandering.

About My Father isn’t horrible. It’s not great. It just sort of exists as a passion project for Maniscalco, an OK gig for most of the rest of the cast and another curious line on De Niro’s resume.

It’s not a disaster, and it doesn’t lack for ambition. But it’s wildly uneven and kind of blah, if that can be said of a movie with nonstop, often incoherent action, self-aware needle drops and not nearly enough smart-aleck quips from a cast we’ve seen deliver plenty of them in the past.

Aster, who also directed the excellent “Hereditary” and the somewhat less excellent “Midsommar,” has the audience where he wants it — off-kilter, uncomfortable, bewildered. It’s his comfort zone, but not ours. Whether you enjoy this kind of manipulation will go a long way toward deciding how much you like the film.

Using the horror genre to tell a faith-based story is an interesting idea, even if it doesn’t really work in the end. And then Beck shows up, and that’s the scariest thing of all.

The actors are having fun here and, for a while, so will the audience. But the payoff just isn’t there. It’s not-a-stake-through-the-heart disappointment, but the only eternal life Renfield will enjoy is in late-night channel surfing.

Paint is one of those good ideas that doesn’t quite make a good movie. Until it does.

It makes for an entertaining movie, one you can tell is glossing over some details and minutiae. That's probably a good thing overall, but that, and an inability to nail down a consistent tone, leaves it feeling a little incomplete.

Moving On, a dark comedy written and directed by Paul Weitz, isn’t a great movie by any means, but it’s a pretty good one. It’s also a relief to see Fonda and Tomlin play women whose age is not discounted, but is also not disqualifying.

Without an actor like Dafoe at its center (and margins and everywhere else), it would be unwatchable torture. With him, it’s more like watchable torture, easier to admire than enjoy.

Scream VI is a decent film with a transitional feel, a signal that you can take the show on the road and it still works. But it doesn’t leave you screaming for more.

It’s stupid by design, but it’s not stupid enough. … It plays like an idea in search of a film. Desperately in search of, and never quite finding it.

You’d think a move about the potential for the destruction of universes would feel pretty high stakes, but this one doesn’t. Nor does it connect on the family drawn together through adversity front.

To pretend that the film’s pleasures are more than modest is just that — pretending.

It’s not just that the jokes aren’t funny, or that they’re given to genius comic actors like Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus to deliver — which has to be some kind of pop-culture crime — the bigger issue is that there's not a single instance of recognizable human behavior in the entire film.

There’s a lot going on here, not much of it all that interesting. Although you do get to see Rob Lowe clomp around in the woods. And that's something.

If Sick isn’t a great COVID-inspired horror film, at least it’s a start.

It’s not the best movie you’ll see this year, but it’s the most movie by a long shot.

It’s not like the first film was some sort of idiot-comedy version of “Citizen Kane” or something. But that film played like a good buzz. The Binge 2: It’s a Wonderful Binge plays more like the hangover that comes after.

It’s still more of a spectacle than a movie. But as spectacles go, it’s a big one. And with more elements of an actual film creeping in here and there, who knows? By the time we get to the fifth one, we might have some actual cinema on our hands.

Emancipation, Antoine Fuqua’s well-meaning and graphic depiction of an enslaved man who escapes in search of Lincoln’s army and freedom for himself and his family, is a mostly affecting, no-holds-barred look at degradation, inhumanity and, ultimately, inspiration. But at times — too many times — Emancipation also plays like an action-adventure movie.

If nothing else it’ll dazzle your senses, even on a small screen.

If this is the end — and who are we kidding, the film’s box-office returns will determine that, not its plot — it’s a disappointing one. But it’s long past time to let it die.

The star wattage is blinding, but the film fizzles out.

The gossip will die down, presumably, but the film will remain. And what will stand out about it in the future is what stands out now: Pugh absolutely nailing the role of a woman trapped in a too-good-to-be-true scenario, and slowly coming around to that realization.

It’s exceptionally well made, daring and experimental, with a powerful performance from Ana de Armas at its center. At its everything, really — she dominates the film, as well she should. But the film is also too long, too self-indulgent, just too much. It is a marathon of misery.

It’s all very British, enough so they should serve tea and crumpets during screenings. Some of it is also entertaining. Just not enough.

What’s really missing is the sense of magic. Some films feel like classics from the start. Others don’t. The new “Pinocchio” falls into the latter category. Watching it makes you believe sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone.

Thus, despite being stuffed full of inventive, near-visionary visuals, “Three Thousand Years of Longing” winds up feeling a little incomplete. The story lacks the one thing the djinn promises: magic.

The result is a movie that’s fun in spots — a good dish here and there, you might say — that doesn’t add up to a fully satisfying meal.

The best thing “Day Shift” has going for it is the best things the dopey ’80s films had going for them — a willingness not to take itself too seriously. And that only gets you so far. But who knows, maybe in 40 years this will look better in retrospect, too.

Director David Leitch’s film, based on the novel by Kôtarô Isaka, is a hyper-stylized, hyper-violent action film that rarely comes up for air. It’s also a big ol’ mess. Although everyone involved seems to be having a good time.

Give writer and director John Logan points for creativity, exceptional inclusion and casting Kevin Bacon. But the movie could have used a lot more of the camp-slasher horror part.

Gosling and Evans are movie stars, no doubt about it. How far that charisma can take a film is a question “The Gray Man” asks and answers: pretty far, but not far enough.

Daisy Edgar-Jones is affecting and effective as Kya, known to redneck townsfolk as “The Marsh Girl.” If only the filmmaking and screenwriting were as good as her performance. It’s really just a swampy Southern Gothic soap opera at heart, with designs on being something more.

Kosinski never manages full control of the film’s tone, which is essential in a story like this.

“Lightyear” is an OK movie. Chris Evans as the voice of this version of Buzz is a nice touch. But there’s just no magic here.

There is a really cool idea at the heart of the film, which brings together the cast of the original “Jurassic Park” movies and the cast of the latest bunch from the “Jurassic World” ones for the first time. Although they’re kind of like guests staying in different parts of the same hotel who just happen to run into each other at dinner.

The Innocents, writer and director Eskil Vogt’s horror film about children with supernatural powers, is definitely difficult to watch, a brutal bit of business. But the thrills aren’t cheap — they’re hard earned, if you can call them thrills at all.

As events unfold, Raimi’s hand becomes more and more apparent, and that’s a good thing.

Memory is a good-enough movie that could have been a lot better. Neeson is to thank for most of the good. Turns out he, like his characters, does have a particular set of skills. They involve acting.

The most interesting parts of Father Stu, an OK film in which Mark Wahlberg plays a rough-hewn man who finds redemption in an unexpected place, are not the ones you — and possibly the filmmakers — would expect.

The story, meanwhile, strains to be a masterpiece. And the strain shows.

There are some laughs (a well-placed police baton, for one). But Metal Lords feels unfinished, rough, like a solo the guitarist never mastered.

There’s a freewheeling spirit to The Bubble that’s meant to reflect the times during which the film was made, but instead of creative forces finally unleashed it comes off as half-baked, more like a first draft than a finished film. Apatow knows comedy, and his intentions here are good. It’s just the movie that isn’t.

There’s nothing wrong with a thriller leaving some loose ends. But Deep Water trips over them too often.

The Batman is impressively made. The acting is first rate, and the chemistry between Pattinson and Kravitz is magnetic. It’s meant to be an important statement. It’s just not a lot of, you know, fun. Or as someone famously put it in another Batman movie, Why so serious?

Knoxville and the others go about their messy business with a glee that is impossibly contagious.

It will quench the thirst of die-hard fans who always want more. But does that thirst justify “The Matrix Resurrections?” Maybe. But it can’t make it a great movie. And despite Reeves’ willingness to jump back in, neither can anything else.

Is it a good movie? It’s … a movie. That’s not the slight it sounds like. It’s certainly no masterpiece, though not for lack of a great performance from Lady Gaga. It’s an investment, but watching this cast do these things is worth the price of admission.

There is so much to enjoy about Encanto — the songs, the gorgeous animation, the cultural traditions. All of which make the script’s serious shortcomings all the more surprising and disappointing.

Eternals isn’t a bad movie. It’s just not a particularly satisfying one, its scale proving untamable, even for Zhao.

McKenzie and Taylor-Joy are both affecting as two sides of not-quite-the-same coin. Their performances are the best thing about the film, which is good — but not as good as it might have been.

Yes, it’s a musical — strictly authenticity isn’t a requirement. Emotional authenticity, on the other hand, is. And that’s what Dear Evan Hansen could use more of.

Writers and directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly can’t seem to decided whether to make an offbeat comedy about two under-appreciated women turning to crime or a mismatched buddy cop comedy. So they made both. It’s not a seamless fit.

The intentions were probably noble, but the execution not so much.

The Protégé has so many cool elements, so many reasons that it should be better than it is. Chief among them are Maggie Q, Keaton and Jackson. But they can only do so much, and ultimately the film feels flat. Like so many of the hapless anonymous bad guys, it just can’t hit the mark.

If you’re going to keep your audience guessing, you need to provide them with answers they care about. Beckett doesn’t.