Brian Lowry

If the last “Scream” movie made noise by wedding the old with the new, Scream VI reinforces how shrewd the producers were in casting the next generation, with Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega ably carrying this chapter of horror’s most self-referential franchise. Throw in a new venue and the same old thrills and kills, and Paramount should be slashing all the way to the bank.

A sort of welcome throwback, a horror movie cleverly designed to be more spooky than truly grisly. That leaves it, however, in a bit of a no-man's land, as this PG-13-rated film is still too scary for the tweens that might be drawn to the challenge and not jarring enough for older horror buffs accustomed to far worse.

In "Suicide Squad," Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was the best part of a bad movie. That's true again with Birds of Prey, which moves the Joker's sadistic sidekick front and center, then proceeds to assault the senses in much the way its protagonist wields a baseball bat.

It's the uninspired writing, more than the general template, that keeps the movie from finding its stride.

Yet even with those slightly different chords, Ross manages to pluck the right heartstrings, in the process delivering a grade-A tear-jerker.

Lethal Weapon 3 is all about chases and comedy schtick, and in this case the sum of the parts really adds up to more than the whole.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” might be the most insanely Marvel movie ever, for good and ill. Unleashing the infinite possibilities of the multiverse throws open the studio’s toybox, but the anything-goes aspects of that can be alternately thrilling, disorienting and occasionally, a little silly. All told, this sequel proves highly entertaining, if not quite worthy of the pent-up demand for it.

The Many Saints of Newark turns out to be a credible and rewarding film. But with a bit more seasoning and time in the oven, like its HBO predecessor, it actually might have risen into a truly sensational TV show.

Always meta in its nods to the genre's quirks, the latest "Scream" is so self-referential as to risk swallowing its own tail. Yet this quarter-century-later "requel" (a term specifically explained in the movie) turns out to be a great deal of fun, cleverly wedding familiar faces with new stars in what isn't exactly a remake or reboot but rather plays like a refresh.

The most interesting aspect of "Lightyear" is dispensed with in the first 15 seconds, when it's explained how and why you're watching a movie devoted to the action-figure character from "Toy Story." After that, the movie works primarily as a fairly likable action vehicle mixed with a familiar rumination on what defines a life, without rising into that top tier of Pixar fare its predecessors occupied.

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.

Anchored by an impressive performance from Matt Damon, Stillwater confounds expectations in mostly frustrating ways.

While there are some visually striking action sequences as Diana and her new super-powered foe square off -- and Gadot remains extremely appealing in humanizing the character -- the last act devolves into a bit of a mess.

Although the movie is visually impressive, the Chinese-American co-production suffers from a too-thin story, built upon a heavy-handed message soaked in that oldest of Disney tropes: a dead mom.

Isn't It Romantic has charm to burn, in a light-hearted send-up of romantic comedies that playfully turns all the familiar tropes into a lively vehicle for Rebel Wilson. The movie owes a thematic debt to "Groundhog Day," but mostly -- in a film so conscious of conventions that it niftily bleeps its foul language -- it's a heckuva lot of fun.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is an awfully long-winded title for a movie with roughly the same plot as the 1989 squabbling buddy vehicle "Tango & Cash," only with bigger -- well, pretty much everything -- and better special effects.

House of Gucci takes a seemingly can't-miss combination of talent and material and produces what feels like the knockoff version of a really grand drama. Lady Gaga and Adam Driver bring buzz to director Ridley Scott's dive into the dysfunctional family behind the fashion empire, but in a movie that doesn't rise to the level of delicious trash, winding up largely defined by its stylish accessories.

No matter how many times you've watched those classic "I Love Lucy" episodes (or not at all), it's likely you'll come away from Being the Ricardos with a greater appreciation for the central couple's talents as well as their personal failings and foibles. In that, Sorkin has delivered a colorful portrait that goes beyond the nostalgia-tinted hues of black and white.

Makes puzzling choices in harvesting the material, mostly providing an incentive to go back and watch the last one again.

After a lengthy buildup, this "thrilla" in the "MonsterVerse" -- for anyone with even modest expectations -- qualifies as a pretty sizable letdown.

Part French sex comedy, part “American Pie”-like coming-of-age story, this raunchy vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence also possesses darker and deeper streaks that elevate it above its “Pretty. Awkward.” posters.

Add "Stephen King's Doctor Sleep" -- the long-delayed sequel to "The Shining" -- to the list of movie and TV adaptations based on the author's work that shine at first, before flaming out down the stretch.

Resting almost entirely on the shoulders of its young leads, both they and the pic lack the sparkle to sustain what seeks to be a whimsical premise but, except for a few moments, proves ponderous instead.

A muddled effort that offers little more than visual splendor to recommend it.

It’s a very different spotlight that falls on The Boss with “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” a deeply personal film about both his artistic integrity and inner demons.

Watching Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani riff off each other is intermittently fun, but that's all there is to recommend The Lovebirds, a dark, somewhat chaotic romantic comedy.

As is, this update of a brand of buddy action-comedy Hollywood churned out with regularity way back when is a pretty shoot-by-numbers affair, beyond the mild kick of acknowledging that the central duo are getting a bit old for this sort of thing.

Director Todd Phillips is best known for "The Hangover" trilogy, and has seemingly overcompensated for his comedy roots by delivering a movie virtually devoid of humor.

The Little Mermaid is both slick and satisfying, meeting the primary challenge of allowing parents and kids to create memories around seeing it together. Setting aside its other assets, Bailey’s out-of-this-world contribution alone serves up the kind of splashy entertainment that justifies getting out of the summer sun, and in terms of being enjoyed far beyond that, might even have legs.

The story chronicles a fascinating moment in the civil rights movement, without yielding quite the returns that it should.

"Cruella" confounds expectations in mostly delightful ways, particularly for what amounts to a supervillain origin-story prequel inspired by a 60-year-old animated movie. Credit much of that to a twin dose of Emma power -- as in Stone and Thompson -- in a movie that might owe its life to "101 Dalmatians," but which centers around a tasty cat fight.

The key performances are strong, but director/co-writer Julie Taymor's movie meanders too much, dragging through the beginning and again toward the end.

"Ruth" admirably contextualizes Ginsburg's lingering legal influence, and how her writing in dissent during her 27 years as a justice often influenced subsequent opinions from lower courts.

It drags on nearly three hours, until a level of numbing repetition creeps into its elaborately staged scares.

After a year where people could pause and rewind to catch missed dialogue, this is one of those movies where missed lines don’t matter, and the only direction this vehicle goes is forward, even when it’s just spinning its wheels.

Playfully presented, it’s the kind of mildly tasty cinematic snack that doesn’t exactly stick to your ribs.

“Stan Lee” is obviously intended to be celebratory in nature, but by allowing Lee to tell the story largely in his own words, it conveys a genuine sense of what made him as big and colorful as any of the spandex-clad figures that he helped birth and spring off the page.

Given the enduring fascination with such material, underscored by all the recent productions about Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, this is one of those stories that seems ripe for a redo. Because even with the uncertainty the one thing “Boston Strangler” makes clear – 55 years after the previous movie – is that when it comes to true crime, some things never go out of style.

A 90-some-odd-minute adrenaline rush that gets stretched out a bit beyond its weight even with its modest running time.

This adaptation of Simon Rich's novella has some fun contemplating how the modern world would like to a 20th-century immigrant, before scraping the barrel for deeper themes.

George Clooney takes his biggest directorial swing yet with "The Midnight Sky," and comes away with a decidedly mixed result. A beyond-bleak post-apocalyptic thriller, the sci-fi film reaches a reasonably satisfying finish, but follows an uneven orbit in getting there.

An awkward, uneven film, with writer-director Taika Waititi conjuring some touching moments, but unable to pull off the magic act this "Rabbit" trick requires.

An overinflated mishmash that compels the audience to sift through a lot of rubble for the few requisite thrills, this second "Die Hard" sequel leaves a lot of creative wreckage in its wake.

An understated, uneventful slog of a movie that feels like a misguided merger of "Gran Torino" and "Bronco Billy."

The High Note is a breezy way to kill a few hours. Granted, it's more an opening act than a headliner, but that simply makes its digital, on-demand residency feel like the venue where the film rightfully belongs.

The primary avatars -- Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan and Jack Black -- seem to be having an awfully good time with all this silliness, which is mildly infectious, even when the movie sags.

Mean Girls might recycle old tropes about high school’s caste system, but for those who just want a boisterous couple of hours in a theater, it aces that test.

The Equalizer 3 might not be totally convincing as a “final” anything; still, the latest outing does have the benefit of feeling like it reaches a nice point at which to close the books for now on Robert McCall, all things, you know, being equal.

Slick enterprise buoyed by a Motown-flavored '60s soundtrack and an appealing ensemble cast.

The closing kick of The One and Only Ivan is somewhat stirring -- and certainly works hard at being so -- but it's pretty tepid until then.

Indian in the Cupboard is yet another example that Hollywood can make movies in which critics of sex and violence can find nothing to complain about. It’s also a reminder that family values can be, well, kind of boring.

Feeling the years and the miles, Harrison Ford cracks the whip for the last time, in a film that offers the requisite thrills and proves fairly emotional before it’s over.

"Wicked” should be considered as one sweeping, five-hour canvas. And if the slightly shorter second half doesn’t fully measure up to the original, that does little to detract from director Jon M. Chu’s overall accomplishment.

Elemental doesn’t quite join the studio’s hallowed top tier, but it does yield moments of magic and beauty – reflecting both the immigrant experience as well as the power of love – worthy of that legacy.

Given the frequent weeping captured from her die-hard, singing-along fans, 4DX would really be the killer app, approximating the spray of their abundant tears of joy.

The Laundromat makes a pointed political statement, while spinning out a garbled mess of a movie. In the process, director Steven Soderbergh mostly squanders a cast toplined by Meryl Streep, in a Netflix film that plays like a darkly satiric connection of vignettes that lost something -- mostly, a coherent narrative -- in the rinse cycle.

The net effect isn't necessarily bad assuming that expectations are modest, and there's something to be said for a more understated, small-scale approach to horror that doesn't confuse body count with scares. Yet considering where the story starts, the place where Antlers winds up doesn't leave much to hang one's hat on.

The challenge with any reboot invariably involves capturing what people liked about its inspiration while bringing fresh wrinkles to it. On that level “Road House” moderately works – specifically, for the intended audience – with the disclaimer that trying to look bigger and being bigger aren’t necessarily one and the same.

While this might represent a diverting lark in its dizzying combination of movie conventions, this is another one of those instances where what happens in Vegas probably should stay there.

The sequel, Extraction 2, hammers away at the same basic outline, while feeling particularly simple minded even by the standards of the genre.

The result is a sturdy but unspectacular film, one that honors Chisholm’s place in history while representing just one, too-concentrated facet of her giant shadow.

The impressive mix of tones and styles that director Taika Waititi pulled off in “Thor: Ragnarok” largely fizzles in “Thor: Love and Thunder,” which isn’t as funny as it wants to be, as stirring as it needs to be or romantic as it ought to be.

The Fall Guy is too flat in the early going to fully meet that challenge, rallying toward the end without reaching the heights required to make a really big splash.

Isn't as much fun as its predecessor, but by the time the smoke clears, it'll do.

A wholly forgettable movie, most likely to be remembered, lamentably, for its contributing role in Neeson landing in hot water.

Handsome but hollow, Snow White & the Huntsman is easily among the stranger additions to a roster of rebooted fairy tales.

Director Miguel Sapochnik ("Game of Thrones") does what he can to wring the maximum amount of emotion out of this unlikely trio, finding moments of tenderness and humor in their interactions.

The Perfect Find falls well short of perfection, but it’s the kind of low-key romance that often finds an appreciative audience on Netflix.

Taken on its terms, the movie isn't terrible strictly as mindless escapism. But beyond the most basic, visceral thrills, Wrath of Man's bitter fruit yields a slim harvest.

A near-irresistible and highly emotional adaptation of Shelby Van Pelt’s bestselling novel.

The stitched-together concept proves too bizarre and disjointed to catch lightning in a bottle.

Far more interested in stunts than story, Extraction is a simple-minded action vehicle for Chris Hemsworth that should benefit from providing a theatrical-style adrenaline rush when the spigot for such fare has closed. Basically, Netflix is serving up an old-fashioned B movie, at a moment when the A-list blockbusters have been postponed.

"Minions” certainly has to be evaluated in the modest context of what it’s trying to achieve – like fueling fast-food giveaways and toy sales – but even compared to the earlier movies in the franchise, this one feels particularly limited in its scope and ambitions.

The Farrelly brothers are growing up, which in this case isn't a bad thing. With a tacked-on ending made necessary by the Boston Red Sox's improbable World Series run last fall, Fever Pitch proves a charming romantic comedy against "A Beautiful Mind"-type framework.

Ultimately, though, the movie feels most notable for the cast assembled, from Harrison -- who subsequently starred in "Waves" and "Luce," and is again very good here -- to smallish roles for Jerome (an Emmy winner for "When They See Us") as a witness and Washington ("Tenet" and "BlacKkKlansman") as James' partner in crime.

The best one can say about this mildly fun film is that it runs a brisk 80-something minutes, meaning parents can take the kids and have time left over for other holiday errands.

The stars outshine the movie in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a dazzling showcase for Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield as Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker in a dutiful, somewhat disjointed chronicle of how the televangelists amassed great wealth before his disgraced fall.

Neither film is especially memorable, which is too bad, squandering Rosamund Pike as Marie Curie and Ethan Hawke, very intense and brooding as Nikola Tesla.

Like its predecessors, Deadpool & Wolverine is loud, proudly vulgar and repeatedly shatters the fourth wall with gleeful naughtiness. Yet beneath the outlandishness, half-dozen belly laughs and nerd-centric beats resides sweet nostalgia for the last quarter-century of superhero movies, while demonstrating that Marvel Studios possesses the power to laugh at itself.

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.

Who's a good movie? Not "DC League of Super-Pets," a big colorful idea that proves promising in theory -- tailor-made for a two-minute trailer -- but a rather tedious slog as a full-length animated film.

Yet for all its high-octane action this tenth film is really just revving its engine for more sequels to come, kicking off a multi-part story that offers an appropriately bloated way to bring this very loud enterprise to a (no doubt temporary) finish.

For those craving an action distraction, it's a reasonably entertaining way to kill time.

There are a few bursts of sheer, irresistible idiocy -- along the lines of "Wayne's World" or even "Pee-wee's Big Adventure"-- but not enough to sustain the more arid stretches.

Campbell's topnotch production team yields predictably polished results, but the director's decision to revisit the late Troy Kennedy Martin's teleplay, finally, feels lacking.

Spaceman feels a little too weighty in its reliance on emotional cliches. Whether that’s ultimately due to the underlying material or the heavy hand brought to translating it, the net effect is a failure to launch.

Safety feels like it aims a bit higher than some of the service's fare, and it's good-hearted and uplifting. If you're only going to score a couple of points, right now, that's not a bad place to start.

Fennell ratchets up the volume to 11, with more emphasis on smoldering and sexuality than literature, at the risk of bastardizing Bronte’s tale beyond recognition.

As war movies go, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ends up in a kind of no-man’s land, draping elements of “Mission: Impossible,” “Inglourious Basterds” and director Guy Ritchie’s brand of violent action-comedy over the bones of a fascinating World War II true story. The underwritten, somewhat messy results are broadly entertaining if not fully seaworthy from a dramatic point of view.

While the movie doesn't wholly succeed, there's enough to like here -- including Channing Tatum's credible performance as a tradition-bound Roman soldier.

The casting alone should spur interest in The Devil All the Tim -- Batman (Robert Pattinson) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland), together at last -- but can't make the movie feel like less of a slog. Adapting Dale Ray Pollock's grim novel, awful characters proceed along parallel tracks, en route to a whole lot of violence and unpleasantness.

As big as he is, you still have to look pretty hard and uncritically to find much magic in "Clifford."

M. Night Shyamalan is up to his old tricks in "Old," but after his heralded breakthrough with "Split," he's back on a downward trajectory. While the premise again has an eerie "Twilight Zone"-type quality, the long journey to a payoff -- littered with pretty awful dialogue -- might be picturesque, but it's no walk on the beach.

Strange, surreal and unexpectedly sentimental, Everything Everywhere All at Once is genuinely and wildly original -- the kung fu/science fiction/metaphysical action comedy that you didn't know you needed, but just might love.

As is so often the case with these movies, the buildup is generally more terrifying than the payoff, and Savage doesn’t scrimp when it comes to jump-at-you scares.

Still, as first impressions go, “Love at First Sight” works nicely on the intended level for those sent in its “You might like” direction. For Netflix’s purposes, the odds are that adds up to all the love it needs.

What starts out crisp and promising gives way to a conventional shoot-'em-up in Safe, a fast-paced but extremely familiar vehicle for Jason Statham, who can only carry the material so far on his brawny shoulders.

Not surprisingly, the pic struggles at times to flesh out even its relatively brief 90-odd-minute duration, but it delivers some genuine if generally low-brow laughs along the way.