Brian Lowry

Director/co-writer Robert Eggers ("The Lighthouse") has sought to make the definitive Viking movie, and while the film issues a guttural cry for theatrical viewing, it is built around such a basic revenge plot as to blunt those simple charms.

Like "The Crimes of Grindelwald," "Secrets of Dumbledore" is handsomely done but ultimately too much of a dumble-snore. And somehow, its appealing pieces, old and new, again add up to a less-than-magical movie.

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.

Apatow serves up some clever lines, but they're mostly lost in the overall noise and manic tone. While it's not necessarily too soon for a funny Covid movie, The Bubble labors to achieve a sought-after level of zaniness right up until the ending.

It's a gauzy indulgence in nostalgia that sweetly captures a very specific time and place, which should broadly speak to Linklater's contemporaries who somehow survived childhood before our society adopted most of the pesky rules designed to ensure that they do.

As Marvel movies go, "Morbius" is more a sip than a gulp, a relatively small-boned Jekyll-and-Hyde tale that moves another Spider-Man villain into the spotlight. Significantly better than "Venom" but still somewhat lacking in bite, this origin story perhaps inevitably grows more pallid toward the end but until then proves just tasty enough to merit the giving it a shot.

How to Survive a Pandemic is a poor title for a mostly fascinating documentary, whose flaws reflect its slightly fragmented nature. Yet at its core this HBO presentation captures the race to produce a vaccine amid political pressures imposed by a president preoccupied with his reelection, offering fly-on-the-wall access to many of the key players.

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

While the movie falls apart toward the end, the mystery -- and crackling central performances -- cruises along at a low boil much of the way.

Reuniting star-producer Ryan Reynolds and director Shawn Levy after their winning collaboration on "Free Guy," The Adam Project has the generic feel of a project created by committee, combining action, humor and smart-alecky one-liners in a way that's at best aggressively okay. That's probably enough for Netflix coming off a success with Reynolds in "Red Notice," but like the film's plot, this amounts to rehashing history.

Wherever one sees it, Turning Red delivers an exquisitely animated story that's moving as well as funny -- welcome evidence that creatively speaking, at least, Pixar hasn't lost its golden touch.

Lucy and Desi puts a big heart around Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, not only as the beloved stars of "I Love Lucy" and one of Hollywood's great power couples, but as TV pioneers. Drawing upon personal recordings and home videos, director Amy Poehler has served up a warm valentine that leans into celebrating their lives and away from the tabloid fodder.

In Pattinson, the producers have found a Dark Knight worthy of the hoopla, while creating a Gotham much in need of him. As new chapters go, it's a strong beginning; if only it had known when to end.

Thanks to the cast (which also includes Ben Mendelsohn, near-unrecognizable as the villainous De Guiche), Cyrano is worth seeing, either now or later. But it's a relatively modest addition to the title's storied history, one where the music subtracts at least as much as it adds to the story's inherent poetry.

Uncharted drops toward the wrong end of the chart every time Holland and Wahlberg engage in juvenile bickering, which alas is all too often. The one strange thing is that the funniest insult they exchange appears in the trailer but not the actual movie, and any good dialogue here is too rare to wind up on the cutting-room floor.

Designed to showcase Jennifer Lopez playing a character that could hardly be called a reach, Marry Me trades in the "meet cute" rom-com formula for "meet dumb." Lopez still gets ample opportunities to sing a hummable soundtrack, but even within the genre's parameters, the silly premise deals the movie a blow from which it never entirely recovers.

There's obviously a bit of calculation in introducing more depth to Poirot, making him more interesting for Branagh to play. Yet the filmmakers manage to incorporate that without detracting from the central mystery, and the pace chugs along briskly enough, with plenty of stunning scenery when outside those stuffy cruise rooms.

While some might find it possible to have fun by surrendering to the silliness, this bad moon doesn't quite rise even to the level of a guilty pleasure.

Although it's nice to see the show's creative team afforded one final swing, it's too bad they don't knock it out of the park.

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.

Showcasing a thrown-together international team of female spies, "The 355" mostly feels like the pilot for a TV series, just with an inordinately good cast. Any movie in this genre that name-checks James Bond can't be all bad, but in terms of justifying a trip to the theater, nor is it good enough.

The result is a breezy exercise in karaoke for kids, where the soundtrack beats the movie and a lot of stars again lend their voices to the chorus.

While ‘Resurrections’ again offers a choice between the red pill and blue pill, the one thing that won't be necessary -- especially for those choosing the home-viewing option -- is a sleeping pill.

Nightmare Alley spends too long spinning its wheels before getting to the more pertinent twists about the dangers of conning the wrong people, as well as the shadowy motivations of all concerned.

Fun in places, this World War I era story was designed to expand the franchise but appears just as likely to end it.

Briskly balancing a dizzying assortment of parts, Marvel's latest (by way of Sony) looks destined to do what only a spider can -- namely, lure vast numbers of fans into its web.

At its best, National Champions feels calibrated to provoke a conversation about the flawed framework of college sports, which is talked about plenty and still not enough. Then again, TV networks and sports-related media outlets benefit from the existing system, and many fans would rather just hear about wins and losses.

In a grand science fiction tradition, Don't Look Up uses a disaster-movie framework as a metaphor for a reality-based crisis, with a huge comet hurtling toward Earth as a surrogate for indifference to addressing climate change. Yet this star-studded, extremely provocative satire at times veers off course itself, partially undermining its admirable qualities with the broadness of its tone.