Brian Truitt

While it looks great with its gorgeous computer-generated foliage and realistic animals, the story focuses too much on its stiff hero and a one-note villain rather than the big-picture ideas it raises in passing.

Eastwood, who spends much of Uprising squinting like his dad, Clint, plays buttoned-up straight man to Boyega, a dynamic that's initially grating yet finds its legs in the monster-punching stuff later.

Various spycraft tropes litter director Tom Harper’s globetrotting narrative, though Gadot’s charm offensive and her character’s righteous fervor help counter the film’s wilder plot swings.

Isn’t nearly as funny as it thinks it is spoofing spy tropes and buddy films and making a mockery of AIDS, politicians, movie stars and working-class Brits.

The movie throws in a little murder mystery and an alien-invasion angle with its coming-of-age themes, features a host of up-and-coming stars (including Johnny Depp’s daughter Lily-Rose Depp), and rockets to some interesting places when it comes to science and what makes us us. What undermines all that, however, is when the film shifts into being an intergalactic Lord of the Flies as the kids turn on each other and go tribal.

Unfortunately, there’s not much room left for fleshed-out personalities or narrative depth, making the whiz-bang wonder often feel too empty.

BvS will please those either waiting for the two main players to lock horns on a movie screen, or those who've just been pining for Wonder Woman forever. And for the nerdier crowds, a fleeting glimpse at other superheroes hints this is the Dawn of something potentially sensational.

Katniss and Tris might still be queen bees of the genre, but Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and his fellow Gladers find a satisfying, teen-friendly way to combine rebellion, politics, science and a lot of jogging for a broad audience.

What makes the new psychological thriller Antebellum effective, however, is not just studying the past of America’s original sin but deftly showing how it still paints our present day.

At least we have a winning Lisbeth. Now let’s put her in a situation that’s all her own and not just a placemark for a caped crusader or a dapper secret agent.

Jolie’s magnetism, plus the way she toes the line between being a fairy version of Batman and a menacing mistress of not-quite-evil-but-pretty-close, is why these “Maleficent” movies work. She fits the character as well as her endless cycle of evolving costumes.

Night School surprises by being an unexpectedly empathetic look at learning disabilities.

It’s the kind of thing you’d bet would be emotionally manipulative – if only, because that'd be welcome compared to this emotionally disconnecting, sporadically nuanced narrative.

If this is indeed the end, Dark Phoenix finishes off the X-Men movie saga in frustratingly middling fashion, however fitting for a superhero franchise that only just a few times actually reached its cinematic potential.

Pretty much everybody is kung fu fighting in “Snake Eyes,” a satisfying martial-arts action-adventure with two magnetic leads, a heap of lightning-quick swordplay and the best argument yet for a G.I. Joe cinematic universe.

A befuddling mélange of superpowered showdowns, psychological gaslighting and self-important comic meanderings, it's a finale that doesn’t know what it wants to be.

Scooby has quite a history to which “Scoob!” pays homage, though it seems to have missed the most basic lessons.

The series has thankfully, found its way out of the doldrums of the Michael Bay era and discovered a satisfying groove of nostalgic bliss. It’s still a whole lot of earnest diatribes, hokey zingers and assorted nonsense but it’s at least crowd-pleasing, candy-in-your-popcorn nonsense.

Even with a wealth of talent involved, Inferno is missing some serious heat.

The fact that Mackie puts the thing on his own mighty shoulders (with some help from talented castmates) and keeps it watchable is a minor miracle.

[Kidman's] Lifetime-esque potboiler centers on a bored working mom who discovers her husband might not be on the level, but while the locale is postcard idyllic, the narrative is a never-ending slog, only getting halfway interesting with a silly third-act twist and a suddenly bloody finale.

The Great Wall crumbles mainly because of its wholly predictable plot, wretched dialogue and dud of a filmgoing experience from noted director Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers).

The movie meanders when they're not all together. Hahn, however, singlehandedly keeps the second Bad Moms — as she also did for the first — entertaining with her crass, over-the-top Carla.

In picking up exactly where the last one left off three years ago, Kills separates its two key main characters, and not for the better. It just seems like a filler chapter before another main event, albeit with nasty kills, mythos building and cool references.

It dips into the timely satire of mid-20th century suburbia, with inherent racism and white privilege hiding in plain sight next to picket fences and well-trimmed lawns, but rather than embracing it wholeheartedly, the narrative defaults to a lackluster murder mystery and a violent example of men and woman behaving badly.

Legend of the Sword’s overemphasis on the supernatural and the visually spectacular mortally wounds an often-rollicking adventure.

This is Johnson’s baby, a film spotlighting a complicated antihero he has championed for years. It wins some battles and packs plenty of punch, yet it just can’t get past familiar tropes and flaws.

The result is another middling comic-book adventure for the fan-favorite Spider-Man antihero that leans kooky and earnest and even saps some of its title character’s bite, though does give the snarling Venom a new aspect: a big baddie daddy.

An all-star slow-burn mystery for much of its 102-minute runtime until it suddenly decides to become a vomitous reveal-fest doling out all its twists as fast as possible. A storytelling choice, for sure, and one that wastes a talented crew of actors and fails to pay proper homage to the old-school films it references.

What keeps it all watchable is Rodriguez’s magnetism.

The raucous comedy fails to keep up with its charismatic star.

Compared to its ilk, Suicide Squad is an excellently quirky, proudly raised middle finger to the staid superhero-movie establishment.

It’s a lot of soapy melodrama and underdeveloped characters that never really go anywhere.

The original Pitch Perfect worked so well because it was about the friendship of the Bellas amid the wonderfully weird world of singing dorks who didn't get the memo that they weren’t cool. That's now long gone, and what’s left is just way off-key.

This overly sentimental, unduly earnest journey based on Richard McGuire's graphic novel is more gimmick than substance, one overflowing with moments and characters that proves ultimately unfulfilling.

Does a decent job living up to a legendary predecessor. Original star Ellen Burstyn returns in the latest film, which also goes all in exploring every parent’s deepest fears, but while it tries admirably, “Believer” is nowhere near as profoundly scary as William Friedkin’s genre-defining chiller.

Johnny Depp’s drunken Captain Jack Sparrow stumbles into yet another seafaring adventure, which has its rocky moments but also offers an engaging tale with family legacies, above-average swashbuckling and a fantastic new villain courtesy of Javier Bardem

The movie version is simply a poor adaptation, trading the vibrancy and refreshing spirit of the original show for all-too-familiar teen-movie angst, with an out of place leading man.

The movie shoots for the moon with an intriguing dual-role conceit but wildly misses the mark. Hackneyed dialogue, a thin and silly plot fumbling the ambition of the concept, and a mixed bag of visual effects all leave this one just for the Smith completists.

Although overly familiar, “Dominion” boasts everything you’d ever want in a “Jurassic” film and is the best in the series since the original 1993 movie.

Hillbilly Elegy is a well-acted study of a white working-class family reaching for the American dream over three generations, though its disconnected story is what’s unfortunately lamentable.

This Baywatch has its share of hilarious moments but never fully commits to the absurd, and even the cleverest jokes get so many callbacks, they’re beating a dead seahorse.

There’s a scrappiness to Atlas that pairs well with a human/machine bonding narrative and a fish-out-of-water Lopez trying to figure out how to work a super cool, high-tech armored suit and not die spectacularly.

The new edition is comparatively an air ball: It’s less a family-friendly film with a hoops legend and more a crassly referential love letter to all things Warner Bros.

Instead of being an intriguing look at an emotional breakdown, “Lucy” is more interested in being a sporadically trippy (and ultimately forgettable) soap opera that by the end has the camp factor of your average Lifetime revenge thriller.

It’s a dunderheaded follow-up, for sure, but it’s at least buoyed by Chris Hemsworth’s charisma and the few times where Winter’s War embraces complete camp.

On the whole, Argylle just isn’t as exciting or refreshing as what Vaughn did with his stellar “Kingsman: The Secret Service."

They’re made women in an underworld that doesn’t want them, and while that theme is sufficiently explored, The Kitchen disappointingly fails to explore the racial politics it hints at and, aside from the main trio, is full of characters who feel paper thin. The results aren’t criminal, per se, but the movie more often finds mediocrity instead of real nuance.

With Leto flying and jumping through New York City as a do-gooding bloodsucker with moral “Should I feast on my fellow man?” quandaries, “Morbius” is a lifeless slog with no real bite.

The joyous gallows humor and horror-movie commentary of old are gone and some inspired working-in of new technology falls apart.

Much more concerned with the emotional ties between twin sisters — both played by Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer — than scaring the pants off audiences.

This is a fantastical faceplant, and though Elba tries his hardest, what could have been the tale of an iconic gunslinger is a big miss.

Earnest to the point of stultifying, “Red One” offers a busy landscape of plastic action figures come to life, visually appealing and plenty colorful, though as hard as it tries, the movie doesn’t deliver the joy and emotion you’d want in a seasonal treat.

Looking Glass is instead a competition to see how goofy Johnny Depp can be as the Mad Hatter and how many scenes (and hearts) Helena Bonham Carter can steal as the ragingly high-maintenance Red Queen.

Moviegoers may wish that Will Ferrell's megalomaniacal supervillain Mugatu had won in the first Zoolander and saved us from another film with these boneheads.

The Mummy is a tomb full of action-packed guilty pleasure that owns its horror, humor and rampant silliness equally.

There’s fish-out-of-water hijinks as the Martian boy looks for the dad he never knew, but the whole sci-fi narrative collapses into a mess of illogical story beats and groan-inducing quasi-tragic bits right out of "Love Story."

There are a lot of negative things to be said about Fifty Shades Darker. But it does impress in one sense: The erotica lite sequel somehow manages to be worse than the stupefyingly bad "Fifty Shades of Grey."

The flick, based on Hoover’s best-selling novel, lays it on thick alongside a lacking narrative and cringey dialogue. On the plus side, the young acting talent and a welcome lightheartedness will keep the eye-rolling to a minimum.

The 5th Wave finds a way to make the most of Moretz’s talents, with the emotionality she showed in If I Stay and the utter physical chutzpah of her Kick-Ass films.

Ridiculousness needs to abound somewhat in a film like this — reality takes a seat early and often here — but Resurgence pushes everything to an egregiously over-the-top and often infuriating degree.

Sorkin's script is clever and knowing — at one point late in the proceedings, Jobs wonders aloud why “everybody gets drunk” and takes him to task five minutes before every event. It's a small moment that breaks the fourth wall in the slightest and smartest of ways.

Warcraft wins by not trying to be the second coming of a 10-hour cinematic trip through Mordor with Hobbits and jewelry. Rather, it’s a simpler, yet still wholly entertaining tale of magic and larger-than-life soldiers in a battle for survival.

Cats isn’t for everyone – much of it is a cheesy, B-grade affair seemingly crafted solely to take over midnight-movie slots from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Those with an open mind, though, as well as little kids and the T-Swift posse, might find it somewhat pawesome.

A mostly dreadful reboot by director Camille Delamarre (Brick Mansions) that casts English youngster Ed Skrein in Statham's role as well-dressed driver-for-hire Frank Martin.

Actually does manage to be the best of the BDSM bore-fests in the forgettable erotic saga based on E.L. James’ Fifty Shades novels.

This Hellboy leans more into super-gory horror comedy than its predecessors, trading nuance for ripped-off limbs and boasting as much subtlety as a stone fist to the face.

True, most Christmas flicks tend toward the trite and predictable naturally but they just don’t have to be quite this insufferable.

Rather than being a massive foul-up, Artemis Fowl is a sufficient spycraft fantasy that could benefit from the inevitable sequel, and Gad proves once again to be the Mouse House’s Dwayne Johnson, a rock-solid personality who makes everything around him better.

Conjuring films are best when tapping into the Warrens’ work and making it feel all too real to audiences, and in that regard, “The Devil” tries to shake things up but ventures too far from that freaky norm.

Pratt can do lovable rogue in his sleep at this point, and Brown’s got a spunky young woman down pat. Both of them have some good lines and emotional moments but they mostly feel plug-and-play rather than mining anything new and exciting.

In its favor: a breakout performance from Palestinian newcomer Leem Lubany and maybe the most apropos use of Peace Train ever.

Stuffed full of rampant badness, the scattershot comedy isn’t nearly as clever or subversive as it thinks it is.

Even if you love alien robots punching each other while tossing out insipid one-liners, it’s a painfully long two and a half hours where the biggest problem isn’t a lack of plot but way too many of them.

An unfortunate movie that does an embarrassing disservice to the decades-old property and is a frightful waste of all the talent involved.

For every really cool interaction Downey's hero has with one of his animals as a caring listener, there's either an over-the-top spit take or an eye-rolling cheesy line of dialogue.

If only a psychic could have warned us about these wretched Spider-Man spinoffs.

An unseasonably cynical assault on the holiday spirit.

Life Itself is a real downer when it comes to death: A few are so out-of-nowhere that it’s like the hipster version of the “Game of Thrones” Red Wedding.

May boast a star-studded cast but it’s a spectacular dud on every other level with tonal whiplash, a little casual racism played for jokes and a script seemingly pulled from Hallmark cards rejected for being too hokey.