Jen Chaney

Harold and the Purple Crayon makes the classic Hollywood mistake of taking a story that was lovely because of its concision and simplicity and turns it into a movie that is overly long and complicated for no good reason.

What made the first two so successful — Beverly Hills Cop III is not canon in my world — is that they also functioned as delivery systems for Murphy’s charms as a total ham willing to freak out or speak in a parade of goofy voices for the sake of getting a laugh. Axel F does that too, but more than anything, it’s a reminder of how fun it can be to watch a Beverly Hills Cop movie.

The movie is not demanding anyone feel that way nor straining to jerk tears out of its audience. It is matter-of-fact, even when those facts aren’t necessarily flattering to its subject.

The most compelling moments come from watching Braun and Jones advancing toward and retreating from each other. It doesn’t sound quite right to say they have good chemistry; it’s more accurate to say that both actors understand how to make the lack of chemistry between their characters real and tangible.

This one is a celebration of Cassandro, and like so many great sports movies before it, it’s an underdog story. But it’s one steeped in the grittiness of reality that avoids leaning too hard into easy sentimentality.

The scenery in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, largely shot in Corfu and Athens, is gorgeous but everything else about the film’s construction is an absolute mess.

This isn’t an organic continuation of Giselle’s story so much as an uninspired knockoff of the original, yet another attempt to use existing IP to attract viewers and subscribers besotted by the prospect of watching something familiar on a Friday night.

We get a reboot that takes no risks and steers away from the uncomfortable sexual jolts of its predecessor. This movie doesn’t raise hell. Honestly, it barely raises heck.

A quietly delightful new entry in the Fletch series.

The movie Honk for Jesus: Save Your Soul belongs to Regina Hall. By the end, she has seized it with both hands thanks to a performance that, especially in the film’s second half, is explosive, multi-layered and, unfortunately, much more purposeful than the film itself.

The whole movie-making story line is the most fun part of A New Era and gives Fellowes, who wrote the script, and director Simon Curtis an opportunity to do what Downton Abbey has always done best: explore class distinctions and how those boundaries are constantly changing.

Too much is skimmed over rather than dug into deeply.

In its subtext, this movie tells us that nothing is as good as you might hope. That’s true of the era that Tony would later, wrongly, glorify. And it’s true of a movie that is fascinating to study and consider, but not nearly as good as the television series that made us wish for this movie to exist.

The result is a piece that’s more personal, but also not as rigorous and objective.

This film ultimately doesn’t reach its full potential in part because it can’t settle firmly enough on a vibe or viewpoint. It ping-pongs between buoyant caper, farce, and female empowerment drama without ever lingering long enough in a single zone to make an impact.

Tina is sweeping, fascinating, and, because of Turner’s participation, deeply personal.

It’s obvious that Poehler and her colleagues have taken great care to impart all the right civic and social lessons, and that’s good. But watching Moxie, you wish they could have exhaled more and allowed more unresolvable messiness to infiltrate the movie’s spaces.

This is a rock documentary that doesn’t just recount a band’s rise, breakup, and successful reunion, though it does do that. It invites its audience to see the band’s success from a deeper, more contextualized point of view.

If your mind has opened even a little by the time American Utopia is over, that is a testament to what publicly presented art can do and why its absence is so deeply felt right now.

A movie about such a pivotal figure who fought, and still fights, so hard for gender equality should spark some intense emotion, especially if you’re a woman. Weirdly, The Glorias never does that.

Class Action Park tries with only partial success to capture the dissonance between the funny war stories told about that hazardous site and how awful and tragic it was that young people lost their lives there.

A 90-minute kid- and grown-up-friendly work of cartoon comedy that’s as consistently delightful and clever as the series always was.

This engaging, sturdily guided film from director Alison Ellwood (American Jihad, Laurel Canyon) argues forcefully that there is more depth and value to a group that fought and celebrated, broke up and reconciled, burned out and rocked hard for four decades.

How pleasurable to once again escape to this thoroughly ridiculous, richly rendered place and live there, if only for a couple of hours until the credits roll.

Fyre director Chris Smith (American Movie and The Yes Men) has experience crafting stories about guys with big dreams and the capacity to pull off long cons, and he has a great instinct for finding the most damning anecdotes.

As is often the case in documentaries like this, absorbing all those details as part of one, tightly edited story gives them an impact they lack when digested in individual pieces over time.

It’s as if the film is taking after its own heroines: aspiring to something bigger than it should, and too often looking awkward in the process.

After paying good money to take your family to see this film, you may be dealing with some anger-management issues of your own.