Christy Lemire

The film’s frank talk about mental illness, suicidal thoughts, physical abuse and family loss is so potent and necessary that it makes you wish Fanning hadn’t been saddled with a treacly narration at the end, summarizing the themes.

While Where the Crawdads Sing is rich in atmosphere, it’s sorely lacking in actual substance or suspense.

While The Boy Behind the Door runs out of steam a bit in the third act, it’s mostly a tight, well-paced thriller with terrific central performances from a couple of young actors with bright futures ahead of them—once they get out of here, that is.

I am here to tell you that you will be shockingly entertained. Dora and the Lost City of Gold manages to ride a fine line between being true to the characters and conventions of the series and affectionately skewering them.

Reitman gets the superficial details of the era right: the pay phones, the big sweaters, the constant indoor smoking. But he’s missing both key insight and satirical bite in his depiction of this pivotal point in American history. Privacy is about to become a thing of the past. In The Front Runner, it dies with a whimper.

Toni Collette radiates smarts, humor and a world-weary cool in Lucky Them.

Swanberg finds a pleasingly low-key tone throughout the film, which (blissfully) is especially true during the kinds of moments that usually are played for wacky laughs in pregnancy comedies.

The story itself is so absurd and is told with enough surprises and dry humor that it’s constantly engaging.

Ron’s Gone Wrong is an indictment of the invasive, insidious tactics of Big Tech, and of the ways we relinquish a little more of our privacy with every click and view.

The stakes are higher because this is the end—It really is this time!—but the first hour or so of returning director Francis Lawrence’s film is legitimately nap-inducing.

Seeing how freakishly gifted he is and watching his ascendance is a thrill, and Cantor keeps the pacing moving crisply.

Stretched out to 90 minutes in Sponge on the Run, the pacing lags, the goofiness sags, and you discover over time that there’s not much holding these antics together.

While it’s a lot of fun, it isn’t as consistently clever or thrilling as its predecessor.

A dark comedy that’s equal parts amusing and disturbing. Stearns is ambitious in the tricky tonal balance he aims to strike here – shocking us in detached, deadpan fashion – and his story wobbles a bit by the end, but the points he’s making couldn’t be clearer or timelier.

You may realize there’s not much to Harpoon as it sails off into the sunset, but that’s OK. This is one of those movies where the journey truly is the destination.

With its amusing training montages, colorful supporting characters, and uplifting message of perseverance, The Phantom of the Open does exactly what you expect it will in the most familiar, comforting manner imaginable. It earns the politest of golf claps.

See it with someone you love, and then just try to feel smug about the security of your own relationship afterward.

While it’s drenched in style and features performances from an eclectic cast of actors who are deeply committed to the bit, and its expressions of erotic desire can be quite steamy, director and co-writer Amanda Kramer’s film feels limited and grows tiresome rather quickly.

The style remains firmly in place – this time, it’s a lurid look at Los Angeles in the mid-1980s – but there’s nothing underneath it.

So why does Captain Marvel feel like a bit of a disappointment? It’s fine and often quite funny. It fits securely within the MCU but also functions sufficiently as a stand-alone entity. But the character, and the tremendous actress playing her in Oscar-winner Brie Larson, deserved more than fine.

Bonjour Tristesse works best as a sustained mood, as an evocation of long summer days that might not actually exist outside Eric Rohmer films and fashion magazine photo shoots.

Eventually, though, the whole effort feels chaotic, crammed as it is with uninspired pop culture references and way, way too many fart jokes, even for a movie aimed at kids.

It’s all weighty, serious material with huge stakes — emotionally, culturally and financially. But Roach, working from a script by Charles Randolph, finds a tricky balance of portraying these events with a sprightly tone while crafting a steadily building tension. Bombshell is both light on its feet and a punch in the gut.

XX feels unusually frustrating in its inconsistency, given its inspired premise.

Ready Player One is at once familiar in its fabric and forward thinking in its technology, with a combination of gritty live action and glossy CGI. It’s an ambitious mix that can be thrilling while it lasts, and yet it fails to linger for long afterward, leaving you wondering what its point is beyond validating the insularity of ravenous fandom.

Everything about “The History of Sound” is restrained to a fault—until it’s about the music. And then it bursts with passion and pure emotion.

At the very least, The Bad Guys encourages kids not to judge a book by its cover—and maybe even read an actual book about these characters afterward.

Rich in atmosphere but short on substance, director and co-writer Gareth Edwards’ film has the look and tone of a serious, original work of art, but it ends up feeling empty as it recycles images and ideas from many influential predecessors.