Brian Lowry

Despite the gravity of the situation (or lack thereof), the promising idea feels too weightless in the spare, underdeveloped execution, operating at the edges of a good movie without reaching that orbit.

The star’s latest film should attract flies, all right, not with honey, but rather the stale aroma of its inane premise.

Intermittently amusing and surely interesting, "Lebowitz" falls victim to the classic faux pas of overstaying its welcome.

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.

Both in its cultural specificity and the passage of time, Society of the Snow delivers a credible take on a remarkable story – augmented by the prolific Michael Giacchino’s score – while hampered somewhat by the limitations imposed by how those events unfolded.

“Ferrari” doesn’t click on all cylinders, featuring a miscast Adam Driver as the automotive mogul, in a Michael Mann-directed movie with some arresting moments that add up to less than the sum of its parts.

Steeped in old-fashioned virtues and a feel-good underdog story, The Boys in the Boat isn’t bad, but it doesn’t ever navigate its way out of the shallow end of the sports-movie pool either.

Spanning decades, the film version of the Broadway stage production improves in key respects on the Oscar-nominated original movie, with a spiritual message that should resonate through the holidays.

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.

Mostly, this fun-in-the-sun romp in Australia (because hey, it’s summer there) serves as a showcase for Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, who amiably meet the demands of the exercise even if the script only occasionally follows suit.

“Rebel Moon” might look big and splashy, even on a TV screen, but in terms of working as drama, it’s less a rebel yell than a low-key rebel grunt.

Director James Wan again fills the screen with spectacle, some of it unevenly rendered, though even eye-popping digital effects couldn’t compensate for the frequent flatness of the dialogue and situations.

The story plays like a rather tired excuse to redo the first story with a few cosmetic tweaks, hoping to tap into adult nostalgia while potentially attracting a new generation of kids.

Ultimately, American Fiction raises questions about the price of Black success in a White-dominated media and entertainment culture. What it doesn’t do, while maintaining its satirical edge and eye, is provide any easy answers.

The movie’s earnestness can’t wriggle away from the pretty powerful temptation to tap out.

Edgy, unsettlingly paranoid and genuinely clever, it’s a logical continuation of the conversation writer-director Sam Esmail started with “Mr. Robot.”

Funny, sentimental, and anchored as always by Tony Shalhoub’s “defective detective,” it’s a worthy follow-up that goes beyond just being a nostalgic exercise.

Sara Bareilles headlines this adaptation for which she wrote the lilting songs, in a show that manages to be alternately sweet and silly, touching and raunchy.

Wonka only sporadically conjures cinematic magic, and most of those moments owe an oversized debt to tying directly into the earlier movie based on Roald Dahl’s story, as opposed to carving its own path for a new generation.

Thriller 40 consciously and effectively brings the focus back to the music and the thrills he delivered as a performer. As for the ability to keep the rest of his story at bay while watching it, that will likely depend on one’s level of Jackson fandom.

In the charitable spirit of the season, Candy Cane Lane serves as a passable addition to the annual parade of holiday movies trotted out each year. Yet even by that unexacting standard, there’s barely enough juice here to keep the lights on.

Watching Cooper and Mulligan portray their characters across decades, it’s hard not to be impressed, while nurturing a greater appreciation for why Cooper found Bernstein’s contributions and complications deserving of such a tribute.

Wish doesn’t quite reach the stars, but it does shine intermittently while introducing another plucky teenage female heroine, gamely voiced by Ariana DeBose.

Despite a glittering pedigree, the result is an earnest film deficient in the inspirational qualities of its subject matter.

Ultimately, Next Goal Wins derives most of its modest charm from the film’s sheer unpretentiousness, which also makes it light enough to feel fairly disposable, despite being equipped with likable characters and scenic locales.

There’s obviously some talent at work here, but not much in the way of stretching, and the initial energy and sheer dorkiness doesn’t generate enough laughs – some decidedly low-brow (like John’s fascination with videos of mating animals), others cleverer – to sustain a movie.

Splitting the movie into three chapters seems appropriate, since the film delivers a trifecta: overwrought, overacted, and overlong.

Alternately uplifting and devastating, a warm reminiscence about the Harry Potter franchise and a glimpse into child stardom, it’s finally a tribute to its namesake, who concludes that he’d “better tell my story, or it won’t be told.”