David Rooney

Propelled by Justin Hurwitz’s unrelenting wall-of-sound score, it’s often electrifying, to be sure, and certainly impressive in terms of sheer scale. How often do we get to see hundreds of non-digital extras in anything these days? But even when Chazelle takes a breather from the debauchery and gets his principals on a studio backlot or tries accessing them in more intimate moments, it all seems like one big, noisy, grotesque nostalgia cartoon.

In terms of narrative sophistication and even more so dialogue, this $350 million sequel is almost as basic as its predecessor, even feeble at times. But the expanded, bio-diverse world-building pulls you in, the visual spectacle keeps you mesmerized, the passion for environmental awareness is stirring and the warfare is as visceral and exciting as any multiplex audience could desire.

Where the drama is headed is never in doubt, and the steps it takes to get there are often familiar. Yet by this time we are sufficiently invested in the couple to care deeply. If anything, the intrusion of mortality makes the relationship more believable as both Parsons and Aldridge (Epix’s Pennyworth) imbue their scenes with warmth and heart, regret and exquisite sadness.

This sub-Hallmark dreck made by a bunch of hacks that don’t deserve to be named is the first film out of Lohan’s Netflix deal and her first feature in three years. Not to beat up on a former child star who has overcome more than her share of demons, but if this is the best vehicle she could find, waiting another three might not have been a bad idea.

Spirited owes its buoyancy primarily to the lively rapport of Ferrell and Reynolds, ultimately playing out the movie’s most convincing love story.

It’s impossible for Wakanda Forever to match the breakthrough impact of its predecessor, but in terms of continuing the saga while paving the way for future installments, it’s amply satisfying.

This is a work of unfailing restraint, which makes its stealth emotional heft all the more remarkable.

While it zips along with pleasingly brisk economy in the expository establishing scenes, newcomer Evan Parter’s Black List screenplay indulges in too many movie-ish contrivances to offer a genuinely provocative spin on Beltway shenanigans.

This is a uniquely tiresome slog — madly over-plotted, thuddingly derivative, insanely overlong and slathered in a big symphonic score that strives to infuse momentum into a saga with minimal emotional stakes.

The deep fondness for the source material comes through, and the painterly hand-drawn aesthetic is enchanting.

Till is more effective as an intimate portrait of devastating loss than a chronicle of the making of an activist. But the film has a powerful weapon in its arsenal in Danielle Deadwyler’s transfixing performance as a broken woman who finds formidable strength within herself.

David O. Russell’s Amsterdam is a lot of movies inelegantly squidged into one — a zany screwball comedy, a crime thriller, an earnest salute to pacts of love and friendship, an antifascist history lesson with fictional flourishes. Those competing strands all have their merits, bolstered by entertaining character work from an uncommonly high-wattage ensemble

Joel Edgerton’s haunted central performance as former white supremacist Narvel Roth fits the essential Schrader mold of a troubled soul hiding from his demons. But little else rings true in a drama curiously lacking in texture, which misses the mark in lifeless scene after scene.

Matt Sobel’s overhaul tones down the cruelty and eliminates the more grotesque touches, resulting in a chamber drama that never gets under the skin.

Panahi’s stoical presence at the center of all this is rattled, forcing him to contemplate the repercussions of his work both to himself and to even his most guileless collaborators. The sobering final image resonates with the unspoken cry of an artist exiled in his own homeland, saying, “Enough.”

It’s a small-scale film that many might call unambitious, favoring delicate observation over big emotional payoff.

Nyswaner and Grandage here let the lads get nude and sweaty, rolling around in a golden haze — lots of arched backs, hungry hands and eyes dilated in rapturous transport — that should at least set Styles fans’ hearts aflutter, albeit while remaining fairly decorous. But stodgy storytelling and clunky shifts between the drama’s two time periods dim the afterglow.

There’s brutality but also an understated hint of poetry in the way Bratton tells his story from deep inside it, making beautiful use of Baltimore experimental pop group Animal Collective’s richly varied electronic score, which often plays in gentle counterpoint to the harshness of what’s unfolding.

The tragic dimension of a woman adored by the world, devoured by Hollywood and ultimately abandoned to her own despair in an ordinary little house in Brentwood resonates because we know Marilyn’s sad story. But it’s hard to ignore the queasy feeling that Dominik is getting off on the tawdry spectacle. De Armas holds nothing back in connecting with the character’s pain. She deserves better.

This is Jackman’s movie. He makes Peter’s helplessness intensely moving as he keeps trying, against mounting odds and false breakthroughs, to communicate with a child who remains out of reach. Sadly, that goes for The Son, as much as the son.

Its chief merit is the rare opportunity it provides Saoirse Ronan to showcase her skills with bubbly comedy, making her the standout in a ridiculously overqualified ensemble. But despite the promise of that title, this wheezing romp slows to a limp.

The high-concept, low-satisfaction psychological thriller marks an ambitious upgrade in scope for Wilde from the character-driven coming-of-age comedy of Booksmart, and she handles the physical aspects of the project with assurance. It’s just a shame all the effort has gone into a script without much of that 2019 debut’s disarming freshness.

For all its wit, its lively talk and deceptive lightness, this is arguably the writer-director’s most affecting work.

The intense chamber drama never disguises its stage roots but transcends them with the grace and compassion of the writing and the layers of pain and despair, love and dogged hope peeled back in the central performance. Fraser makes us see beyond the alarming appearance to the deeply affecting heart of this broken man.

As a cleverly packaged pandemic production with narrative echoes of that global anxiety, it’s at the very least something fresh. A gruesome portrait of another young woman hungering for a life greater than the fate she’s been handed, it makes an amusing companion piece to X.

While the film’s emphatic style can become draining, and its attention to technique risks overshadowing the interpersonal drama, there’s an operatic grandeur here that won’t quit, giving the constantly escalating violence considerable power.

Guadagnino has made a kind of emo horror movie. He’s far less interested in the shock factor than the poignant isolation of his young principal characters and the life raft they come to represent to one another as they slowly let down their guard.

Audiences’ staying power for this meandering existential exploration of personal, professional and national identity — as tragicomic as it is rueful — will vary, depending on their interest in the artist or their appetite for the film’s aesthetic beauty.