Brian Lowry

Nobody should expect too much of a movie in this genre released on Valentine’s Day, and grading on that curve, Players happily punches above its weight class and exceeds expectations.

What “One Love” doesn’t do, ultimately, is provide enough material to distinguish the movie from the contours of an authorized biography or documentary. In that sense, the film pays tribute to Marley’s work but winds up hampered by a love for its subject that works against its ability to deliver major insights or rock-star-level drama.

From the title to the execution, this National Geographic presentation has the right stuff.

Ultimately, Madame Web might have sounded like an interesting experiment, and it sort of is, but the execution feels less like a fully realized film than an extended prologue for a movie to come.

The result is an interesting misfire, yielding a few amusing moments while adding up to considerably less than the sum of its parts.

In her director’s note, Chinn explains that while considerable liberties were taken with the details of her experience, “The emotions are real.” However dark the premise might be, that part of Suncoast shines through as bright as day.

Even if the movie’s head is occasionally in the clouds, “Orion’s” heart is very much in the right place.

Cast to the hilt, the film proves inventively twisty if a little convoluted, with the modest disclaimer that it’s not as good as the trailer makes it look.

Lionel Richie serves as the de facto tour guide for this trip down memory lane, which fulfills its promise to make a better day (or at least 90-some-odd minutes) for you and me.

A sort-of psychological, semi-erotic drama that, despite its literary pretensions, possesses roughly the intellectual heft of a perfume ad.

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.