Brian Lowry

The title, however, feels particularly apt in describing a series that burned quite brightly when it first arose, and despite the light and heat cast by its charismatic lead, gradually fizzled, faded and flamed out.

Director Elizabeth Banks conjures bursts of absurdist energy and humor without delivering anything approaching a sustained rush.

Ant-Man is a somewhat ironic choice for a very, very big job: Kicking off the next phase of Marvel movies. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania works on one key level, establishing Kang the Conqueror as a truly formidable and worthy villain. Yet with its plunge into inner space, “Ant-Man” comes up short in almost every other way that matters.

Your Place or Mine will probably do just fine for Netflix, standing out from a pack of Valentine’s Day-timed rom-coms because Witherspoon is her, and Kutcher is him. But those awkward red-carpet photos weren’t the only part of this exercise that didn’t quite work, whatever place one happens to watch it.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is less a coda to the franchise than a muted riff on it, an encore without much of a purpose. What drew director Steven Soderbergh back to material this thin is anybody’s guess, but if strippers like to talk about making it rain, this third and (for now) final entry creatively speaking yields more of a drizzle than a downpour.

The result is a humanizing look at a woman often reduced to cartoon caricature, while occasionally feeling too conspicuously like a licensed product.

The main challenge is that there’s simply not enough heft in the story to fill out this wild-and-crazy weekend, which requires a level of embellishment that alternates between cute and absurd.

As for “JUNG_E,” the film turns out to be visually striking and narratively muddled, with a story that starts somewhere in the middle, throws around lots of provocative science-fiction concepts and comes to a rather abrupt end.

Economically told and cleverly calibrated to maximize its claustrophobic setting, it’s among the most effective films the director has delivered since his mid-career slump, making this a door well worth opening.

You People relies on cringe-inducing moments as the crux of its comedy, as a Jewish guy and a Black Muslim woman (neither of them particularly observant) get engaged, then endure the push and pull of their respective families. A topnotch cast – down to the tiny cameos – can’t fully redeem material that gets lost somewhere between satire and sitcom as assembled by star Jonah Hill and director Kenya Barris.

Even for an action comedy, this Lopez-produced effort is inordinately skewed toward putting everything that might entice someone to watch in the trailer, beginning with the shot of Coolidge hoisting an automatic weapon to defend the wedding party. As hot as she is off “The White Lotus,” she can’t redeem the tiresome execution.

These two Paramount+ projects ultimately feel pretty toothless.

Missing doesn’t try to reinvent the concept so much as recycle it, and the more the audience is willing to just roll with that, the more they’ll enjoy it. Yet even making that allowance, it should be taken as a cautionary note to any plans for future sequels (or reboots) that this sleuthing-by-computer thriller is already beginning to run in low-power mode.

Granted, the overall exercise feels more efficient than inspired, but there’s something to be said for that sort of workmanlike ethic in an old-fashioned “B” movie fashion. Those attributes don’t necessarily merit rushing out to buy a ticket, but wherever and whenever one ends up boarding this flight, taken on its terms, it’s not a bad trip.

Director Gerard Johnstone builds up nicely toward those moments, smartly taking its time before the casualties and coincidences start piling up. The film is also a savvy rumination on the perils of letting technology serve as the ultimate babysitter, with Cady becoming a bit of a little monster herself when deprived of M3GAN’s company.

Pretty easy to tune out.

While the ranks of musicals brought to the screen probably does merit some family planning, “Matilda the Musical” offers a sprightly demonstration that there’s always room for another good one.

Despite a stellar cast and showy moments (given who’s involved how could there not be?), the writer-director’s sprawling, messy, three-hour-plus endurance test isn’t ready for its closeup.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish brings a playful quality to the animated feline as well as a deeper message. When it comes to long-delayed sequels it’s wise to be careful what you wish for, but overall the film manages to nimbly land on its feet.

James Cameron has done it again with Avatar: The Way of Water, a state-of-the-art exercise that rekindles that sense of wonder and demands to be seen by anyone with lingering interest in watching movies in theaters.

Despite its beauty, several of those narrative touches don’t fully work, leaving behind a movie that’s aesthetically lovely but narratively uneven.

While the haunting aspect of the photograph grounds “Emancipation” in reality, there’s a pronounced Hollywood-ized feel to the finished product, one that doesn’t compare favorably with other projects that have covered similar territory, among recent examples the biographical “Harriet” and Amazon’s fictionalized miniseries “The Underground Railroad.”

The love showered on Brendan Fraser out of film festivals inflates expectations for “The Whale” wildly out of proportion, in a movie based on a play that occurs almost entirely within a lone apartment. Weighted down not by its morbidly obese protagonist but rather its stick-thin supporting players, Fraser deserves praise for his buried-under-makeup performance, but that’s not enough to keep the movie afloat.

At the end of Sr., a documentary so personal the word “intimate” almost doesn’t do it justice, Robert Downey Jr. ponders what his 90-minute ode to his father was really all about. The simple answer, stripped of celebrity, is the painful process of saying goodbye to an aging, increasingly infirm parent, filtered through the careers of these two entertainers.

The idea of a nasty Christmas movie is nothing new, but Violent Night still manages to deliver the goods, mixing “Die Hard” and “Rambo”-style action with a fair amount of hokey ho-ho-hokum. David Harbour makes a particularly good cranky, butt-kicking Santa, in a movie that offers the sort of shared experience that should bring theaters some much-needed cheer.

Writer-director Rian Johnson again assembles a solid cast behind Daniel Craig, but it’s his use of language – where nary a word is wasted – that finally gives the sequel its edge.

Amy Adams nimbly steps back into the role of an animated princess trying to adapt to the live-action world, in an epilogue to “Enchanted” that has moments of magic without completely delivering on the premise.

It’s a strange and intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying stew.

At a time when journalism is often under siege, there’s value in displaying its noblest qualities and loftiest aspirations. Even with hiccups and quibbles, She Said achieves that central mission.

Most notable as a vehicle for Jason Momoa, this wannabe spectacle from “The Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence serves up lots of special effects desperately in search of a story.

For those wondering who would build a giant holiday musical-comedy around Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, the “produced by Will Ferrell” credit provides a helpful clue. “Spirited” tries turning “A Christmas Carol” on its head, and while it’s big and boisterous, the movie (hitting theaters before Apple TV+) isn’t consistently irreverent enough to feel like much more than a streaming stocking stuffer.

It’s a deeply personal chronicle from one of cinema’s greatest talents, yielding a movie that features wonderful moments within a somewhat scattered narrative.

Say Hey, Willie Mays! is the kind of treat to help tide over baseball fans through the post-season, giving Mays his due while he’s still around to take a bow. It’s a gift for baseball fans who saw him play before he hung up that golden glove nearly 50 years ago, and maybe even more so, for those who didn’t.

In the parlance of Olympic diving – a good analogy for blockbuster movie-making – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever faced an inordinate degree of difficulty, addressing the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman. That the movie manages to strike that somber chord and still deliver as Marvel-style entertainment represents a major accomplishment, though the tension created by those two forces grinding in different directions can’t entirely be ignored.

Opening up about her bipolar disorder is surely a service, but the six-year span encompassed by this intimate Apple TV+ presentation labors to flesh out its revelations into a documentary.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story certainly earns its title, operating, appropriately, not as an actual movie biography but an outlandish parody of one, filled with comedy cameos and bizarre flights of fancy.

The game is afoot (again) in Enola Holmes 2, a wonderful showcase for Millie Bobby Brown that this time manages to work the character’s famous brother, Sherlock, more organically into the mix. Throw in fact-based underpinnings about horrid working conditions during the time and you have the makings for a very polished sequel – one that makes the whole thing look elementary, and a whole lot of fun.

Making the most of its extensive access to Giancarlo Granda, the figure at the center of it all, Hulu’s “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal that Brought Down a Dynasty” pulls back the curtain on a salacious tale of sex, lies, hypocrisy, and political intrigue – for streaming purposes, a divine cocktail if there ever was one.

Call Jane is a good example of how a few questionable choices can muddle an otherwise-powerful story, with the recent HBO documentary version of these events, “The Janes,” outshining this fictionalized dramatic account. The portrait of an underground abortion network pre-Roe v. Wade is obviously timely, but its slightly askew focus blunts the overall impact.

Think of Ticket to Paradise like a postcard of beautiful people having fun in a beautiful place and you’ll get along just fine. Giving it much more thought than that won’t help this rom-com vehicle for George Clooney and Julia Roberts, although the “com” part proves a trifle deficient in a movie that’s significantly better when it’s sweet than salty.

A bit slow-moving at first, the history gives way to a thoughtful conversation about how best to remember this history and honor its victims, while simultaneously highlighting the modern science surrounding identifying the ship and, thanks to DNA, potentially linking its captives to their descendants.

Black Adam features a protagonist of almost unlimited power, which only makes its puny script more conspicuous. Dwayne Johnson is saddled by a very limited range of expression as the ancient mystical being featured in DC’s latest superhero epic, a film that isn’t nearly as cool as its poster, while highlighting the inherent challenge of building stories around antiheroes.

Getting the delicate balance of the story mostly right, “Till” captures how Mamie Till Mobley turned the inconsolable grief over the murder of her son, Emmett, into resolve and activism. Anchored by Danielle Deadwyler’s towering performance, it’s a wrenching portrayal of reluctant heroism under the most horrific of parental circumstances.

Tapping into the twin markets of A) lovers of rom-coms and B) recovering English majors, “Rosaline” promotes a fleetingly mentioned “Romeo and Juliet” character front and center, then builds a very clever and breezy movie around her. The result is a welcome starring showcase for Kaitlyn Dever more likely to prosper in the hamlet of Hulu than it would have fared in the province of theaters.

Forty-four years, 13 movies and innumerable corpses later, it sounds naïve to think “Halloween Ends” will really mark the end of anything, but like the holiday for which it’s named, it’s fun to pretend. The producers do seek to bring finality to this latest trilogy featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, although that turns out to be the only original idea they conjure in an odd, tedious film.

Luckiest Girl Alive falls short of its promise, a reminder that, however ironic the title is intended to be, fortune tends to favor the bold.

As heavy-handed as it might be, Russell’s point is interesting once he finally gets there, but by then, the movie has seemingly exhausted most of its goodwill. Playing it straight – or at least straighter – might have helped, but as is, it’s almost impossible to know.

Hellraiser is obviously operating within fairly well-defined parameters, and leveraging 35 years of screen history, delivers on the most basic level in terms of special effects and gore, without – the “reimagining” claim notwithstanding – bringing much freshness to the formula.

Add Mr. Harrigan’s Phone to the relatively short list of really good Stephen King adaptations, garnishing a coming-of-age story with understated hints of the supernatural and thoughtful rumination about cellphones that finds true horror in their ubiquity. Amid a month of Halloween-tinged offerings, it might be one of the few to share with the kids – at least, before the next time you punish them by taking their phone away.

What makes this Hocus Pocus gel is the nifty mix of old and new, replicating the basic template from the original while introducing a new and more diverse contingent of teens to do battle with the centuries-old witches.

Sidney, a documentary from director Reginald Hudlin produced by Oprah Winfrey, does the actor justice, providing context, depth and considerable warmth in chronicling his remarkable life and trailblazing career.

Given a chance to step up in class, the actor turned director has assembled a topnotch cast, but in a story that teases the buildup a bit too long and doesn’t pay it off very neatly; indeed, the ending becomes what the movie’s driving force speaks of endeavoring to avoid – namely, chaos.

The formula is obviously full of potential, which explains why writers keep returning to it, from “50 First Dates” to the recent Andy Samberg movie “Palm Springs.” Yet the concept is also fraught with peril.

Do Revenge isn’t about stretching conventions but rather simply finding another wrinkle on what has become an established formula. It does that, but for a movie where the characters speak often about their Ivy League aspirations, creatively speaking it lands more in the safety-school category.

Confess, Fletch doesn’t possess a whole lot of heft, but it manages to serve as an old-fashioned and playful star vehicle, carving out a version of the character that’s distinctive from Chase’s broader, more slapstick-oriented take.

Somehow, the film manages to feel like a throwback to the action movies of old while featuring people who were seldom allowed to occupy prominent roles back then. If the finish is a bit too busy to be as rousing as intended, by then, The Woman King has made the most of its formidable arsenal.

Once you get past admiring de Armas’ immersion into the role, that’s the only itch that Blonde seems to know how to scratch.

Grappling with middle age, Clerks III turns out to be unexpectedly sentimental and nostalgic, reflecting that writer-director-editor-co-star Kevin Smith inherently recognizes this will likely be the gang’s final visit to Quick Stop Groceries. If so, it’s an uneven if gentle way to hang out the “We’re closed” sign.

Even taking it as a given that Disney’s animated classics will all receive live-action makeovers eventually, Pinocchio feels like an unnecessary exercise – a movie so flat that it never sparks to life, and barely feels as if it’s making the leap into a different medium.

While “Honk for Jesus” isn’t a perfect movie, give it praise for at least being an interesting one.

Running With the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee suffers from zooming in too close on its subject, leaving a documentary that’s chaotic and exhausting but offers less enlightenment than a more sober approach might have yielded.

An animated, comic-book-inspired opening turns out to be the best part of Samaritan, a very by-the-numbers superhero tale that casts Sylvester Stallone as the long-retired title character, and otherwise feels like and exhibits the production values of a 1990s TV pilot. While tolerable on its own terms, the charitable thing to do critically speaking would probably be to ignore it.

The amount of new information in "The Princess" will likely depend on one's personal Royals-related media consumption, but the packaging of this stark and intimate documentary -- marking the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's death -- serves as a sobering reminder of how the press hounded her from the moment of her engagement until her tragic death.

Some of the elements in “Secret Headquarters” are mildly pleasant, but the film seems too content to color completely within the lines. The resulting picture might be enough of a diversion for younger kids, but even they won’t be missing much if what’s in the movie stays secret.