Johnny Oleksinski

Based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 World War I novel, the German film on Netflix is unsparing in its portrayal of the horrors of battle. It’s sensory-overload, tough-though-rewarding viewing.

The supremely talented Florence Pugh has rapidly rebounded from the “Don’t Worry Darling” debacle with The Wonder, a creepy new Netflix drama that’s unusually strong for the streaming service. For once, it’s the characters who endure hardship — not the audience.

Ticket to Paradise would be a better time if it was as campy as its lead actress’ frozen hair.

The Rock arrives with the power of a pebble in the new action movie “Black Adam,” in which the popular star plays the titular anti-hero in his first solo outing. It’s just as thoughtless and rancid as the rest of DC Comics’ crummy catalog.

What I love about Green’s style is he has both a sense of the grand — he gives Michael’s mask the cinematic weight of Moses’ Ten Commandments slabs — and the goofy.

The match of larger-than-life actress to larger-than-life role is perfection.

Amsterdam has every advantage imaginable. Doesn’t matter. It’s the worst movie of the year so far, and I will bow down to whatever comes along and tops it.

Hocus Pocus 2 is also awful to the core, but charmless and too low stakes to keep our interest.

There’s so much anguish, we eventually become numb to it over the nearly three-hour film. We come to know her only as a victim, not a fleshed-out person. Is that take enlightening? Meh. Entertaining? Not really. Long? Extremely.

Pugh, a sensational actress, keeps our interest as she grows increasingly suspicious and sees disturbing visions in mirrors and on windows. She brings class and gravitas to a movie that would otherwise be kinda trashy.

Fraser, so good, takes what could be a joke, a flat tragedy, or even a lecture about weight and imbues it with gorgeous humanity.

There’s nothing wrong with some silver screen sorrow, but not when it amounts to indecisive mush.

It’s gripping, visually mesmeric, boasts an exceptional, grounded script by Tony Kushner and is acted to the hilt.

Banshees, reuniting Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell from “In Bruges,” is a scream from start to finish-erin.

Zeller’s latest mental health movie is an exhaustingly tedious experience in which you check your watch several times a minute while taking breaks from giggling at the clumsy dialogue.

Dunham has made a really attractive and cohesive film, merging her modern, punky sensibilities with the dirt-and-stone drear of the time period.

Lathan, who has had a long and fruitful career as an actress in TV shows like “The Affair,” does well in her first go as a director. She has just enough visual flair so as to not overwhelm the rich characters and vibrant place.

Johnson still does whodunits better than Kenneth Branagh’s horrid Agatha Christie adaptations he keeps torturing audiences with. Yet despite the giggles and the beefier budget — explosions, an exotic locale, massive sets — “Glass Onion” comes off slight.

I can’t speak to Bethan Roberts’ 2012 novel the film is based on, but the story’s climactic reveal is one of the most predictable in ages. It gets the award for Biggest Duh!

What a refreshing break from what usually constitutes an epic nowadays — mixing Ant-Man and the Hulk.

What Yankovic and director and co-writer Eric Appel have done, brilliantly in spots, is parody Yankovic’s own life while sending up the whole biopic genre. In a messed-up way, the maneuver is kinda poetic. And so very funny.

After some early thrills, director Baltasar Kormákur’s movie ceases to excite because the creature has no more surprises left. He just jumps through the window — again.

Lucky “Day Shift” has an Oscar winner in Foxx, who’s appealingly heroic, and gags about a burning sensation on characters’ privates.

Reijn’s film, which was written by Sarah DeLappe and Kristen Roupenian, succeeds in making a young basement horror movie for today. And, as least year’s “Scream” reboot showed us, it’s a genre that’s been stuck for far too long in 1996.

Bullet Train is a fun flick, to be sure, reminiscent of director Guy Ritchie’s better crime comedies such as “The Gentlemen” with Hugh Grant. But, as the title suggests, it’s louder and faster. And, a warning to the squeamish, there’s a swimming pool’s worth of blood.

Novak’s forever-skill as an actor is likability, and that approachable magnetism is on display here. What doesn’t work in this otherwise naturalistic movie are the punchlines he’s written for himself. Too planned and stilted, not terribly funny. The huge size of all the actors’ humor never matches the intimate way the film has been shot.

In attempting to dramatize their harrowing story in the film Thirteen Lives...the director doesn’t make quick, from-the-gut decisions the way that the intrepid team did. Instead, he takes a chill ride on the Lazy River.

You simply cannot believe you’re staring at megastars — so sapped of individuality and charisma they are. My barista could have been cast as the lead of this action-thriller, and the film would be absolutely no different.

The movie is a bit long, and the culmination overstays its welcome. That is the only section of the movie where the viewer is a step ahead — and therefore it doesn’t sizzle like what came before. Yet the visual splendor of the sequence also proves the director has a flair for the epic we didn’t know about before. And that makes me all the more excited for the next “Untitled Jordan Peele Project.

Providing a hint of redemption is Edgar-Jones, a naturally vulnerable actress who can turn the shallowest of material into something deep. We like Kya and are with her every step of the way, even though at over two hours there about 50 steps too many.

Love and Thunder is an urgent reminder that in order for the MCU to keep going, in an entertaining, soulful way, creativity and innovation is required. You can’t just say “multiverse” 1,000 times and call it a movie.

While a tad too light, as these films often are, nobody is making animated characters as funny or likable (or marketable) as the Minions.

A movie that runs on jet fuel and confetti, Elvis is a tribute to Presley’s innovative spirit, deep passion for fusing blues, country and gospel music and the intense connection he had with his audience

Dismiss “Cha Cha” as yet another heartwarming comedy at your peril because every single person in it has layers upon layers of complexity.

The movie is one of the better pieces of family entertainment released so far this year.

Nobody is good in this thing. You’d think it would be nostalgic to see Dern, Neill and Jeff Goldblum together again, but they all act like old fogies, and they’re written to sound like morons.

At Crimes, you gag a lot more than you giggle.

Booster’s film, directed by Andrew Ahn, tries to do too many things at once. One side is the clever Austen adaptation, while the other is a sendup of the rom-com genre to the point of parody.

What was once a sophisticated, edgy, witty, sexy drama series has become “The Love Boat” Season 10. Though these wax figures’ love is even less exciting and neeeeew than that old show.

Now that’s how you do a 1980s film sequel.

Many diehards, in their slavish, zombie-like subservience to the MCU gods, will tell you that Sam Raimi (brilliant on the 2002 “Spider-Man”) has directed a horror movie. Lies! It’s as scary and visually arresting as “Van Helsing,” “Underworld” and “Hellboy 2.”

It might sound like a gimmick, but it’s as good as any action-comedy you’re likely to see. Cage heightens his already big personality just the right amount to ensure that the film rises above a skit. We care a great deal about fictional Nicolas Cage.

“Secrets,” somehow the third of a planned five, really puts the “dumb” in Dumbledore.

The first “Sonic” worked unexpectedly well because it thrust the wisecracking alien into a small town filled with humans — a hog out of water — and gave Carrey the opportunity to once again do the physical comedy he’s best known for. Now the novelty has worn off, the charms of the original have evaporated and there’s nowhere for the series to go.

The cacophonous ending sets up a sequel, but I hope it never sees the light of day. Actually, considering it’s about vampires, maybe I do!

Directors Aaron and Adam Nee’s movie sits frustratingly for two hours on the tarmac of comedy as we the angry passengers await takeoff.

Leonard takes advantage of one of Rylance’s greatest strengths — the ability to instantly switch from weak to strong. Behind every tiny smile is ferocity.

Although it is a soft PG-13, The Adam Project is stylistically geared toward 5-year-olds who aren’t going to watch a movie about time travel and frayed parent-child relationships. Today’s teens and 20-somethings are too smart for a movie so dumb.

Some heightened plot lines in writer-director Jared Frieder’s film don’t land as well as the tender moments do. The romance is admirably never overplayed for sentiment.

The new movie, directed by Joe Wright and written by Dinklage’s wife Erica Schmidt, ranks with the most lifeless adaptations. Even the swishy dances are a downer.

The Batman is the first caped crusader adventure in a while to come off as completely purposeless. Christopher Nolan’s movies reframed the comics as realistic, psychologically complex tales of an urban blight, and Affleck’s Bruce was built to fit into a wider DC universe. The Batman is here just to ensure that Marvel has box office competition.

[Tatum] lets his cuddly co-star shine and wrings out a few touching moments of his own, too.

Uncharted, you say? That’s a funny title for an action-adventure movie that doesn’t stray one inch from the well-trodden path of what came before it.

While Bigbug is characteristically eccentric, it also has the most mainstream appeal of any Jeunet film since “Amélie.”

Branagh’s warped vision of these films as putrid, depressing slogs makes Death on the Nile interminable.

Good on J.Lo for protecting the integrity of flighty rom-coms. Every movie need not be so serious and socially conscious.

On paper, “Moonfall” has all the hallmarks of an Emmerich blockbuster — natural disasters, parents separated from children, the total annihilation of Manhattan — but with a twist so baffling, you pinch your arm to make sure you are really awake. No need to reach for your dream journal — it’s all painfully real.

Should a serial killer blood-bath be so comfy and nostalgic for an audience? Not if it wants to maintain our interest. Over two hours, Cinco de Scream-o lumbers along with routine kills and few surprises even when it makes lame attempts at shocking us.

What makes Sing 2 enjoyable are the tunes. And writer-director Garth Jennings assembles a characteristically quirky mixtape.

Writer-director Matthew Vaughn, who’s helmed all three, needs to either call it quits or hand over the reins to someone with some self-control. The formidable talent of Ralph Fiennes can lift his movie some, but the man’s not Hercules.

After two lousy sequels, here’s a pitch for Warner Bros.: “The Matrix Retirement.”

The last time Guillermo del Toro directed a movie, 2017’s The Shape of Water, he won the Best Picture Oscar. His latest, Nightmare Alley, probably won’t, but it is nonetheless a far more entertaining and satisfying film than its overrated science-fiction predecessor.

It’s the gargantuan and deeply satisfying Spider-Man: No Way Home in which the former Billy Elliot proves he’s more than a teen idol with a perfect American accent. This time, his Peter’s got gravitas, emotional oomph, brutality, believable love, an anguished scene in the rain! The movie is the actor’s best performance yet, in anything, Spandex or no.

If McKay crafted the most enjoyable parts of his satire with a scalpel, somebody should’ve handed him a machete to chop the script down some. The film clocks in at nearly two hours and 10 minutes, and we grow exhausted by it as the surprises stop and the ending becomes inevitable.

I’ve always had my reservations about Sorkin as a director. His scripts tend to be better than his final products. Those druthers started to fade with the moving “Trial of the Chicago 7” and are now completely gone after “Being the Ricardos.” His vision of ‘50s TV production is spot-on — nostalgic, quick, boozy, but without the glamor of Hollywood movie-making.

It’s the ensemble that wows most, though. Faist makes an unusually spindly Riff, yet he is scarier than any I’ve seen. Bernardo, the best role in the show, is given real intensity by David Alvarez and Ariana DeBose dances the dickens out of “America” as Anita.

It was always going to be an emotional experience watching the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman make his acting debut. His father, an Oscar-winning genius, died in 2014...What we never could have imagined, though, is that Cooper’s freshman performance (he’s so green, his IMDB page doesn’t have a photo yet) would be one of the best of the year in what is easily the best film of 2021, Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant Licorice Pizza. This wonderful kid should be in the Oscar race, but we’re too predictably infatuated with big names. Let’s fix that.

OK, it’s no Frozen — a Let It Go only comes around once every couple of ice ages — but it’s nonetheless a heartfelt and joyful take on a good old dysfunctional family.

Berry wears two hats effortlessly. Her direction is gritty and assured, and her leading performance hasn’t lost an ounce of that star quality — to simultaneously be so weak and so strong — that won her an Oscar for Monster’s Ball.

The film is empty-headed good fun that’s blessedly under two hours and has just enough character development to make you kind of care when someone gets bitten.

The abysmal “Gucci” would get a better grade, perhaps, if it was a term paper titled “How to Make the Assassination of a Famous Person Boring.”

Richard is flawed, never villainous or heroic, and rarely follows his own fervent advice to be humble. You leave in awe of what he accomplished, but not admiring the whole man. Few biopics dare to have layers anymore.

While Rentheads and Broadway fans will certainly connect to it on a deeper level than those who only know Idina Menzel as Elphaba, not Maureen, Tick, Tick is a terrific, moving, propulsive film on its own terms. It’s about New York, art, life and love.

Fresh off of winning the Best Director Oscar for "Nomadland," Chloé Zhao has upchucked one of the MCU's worst movies in ages.

Anderson’s film is told via a prologue and three episodes that bring to life the quirky publication’s stories. They just barely engage the audience as we watch the director’s entire mobile phone contact list show up for about 15 seconds each.

Degreasing a stove is a more enjoyable way to spend your Saturday night.

[Reitman] finds the perfect tone here . . . He’s also skilled at getting genuine performance out of young actors, as he proved in “Juno,” and balancing humor with stakes — essential for comedy-horror like “Ghostbusters.” The jokes are very funny and Wolfhard and Grace make life-threatening peril look like a ball.

Watching it, unless you’re already a demented diehard fan, is utter agony.

Cary Joji Fukunaga was the right choice to direct “No Time To Die,” even if he wasn’t the first in this rocky road of a production. His Bond feels reverential and classic, but not campy, and he makes bold choices.

When you make a film out of the greatest TV show of all time, there’s bound to be a hint of disappointment. What you’re getting here is a very enjoyable mob movie that can be appreciated by anybody, but will undoubtedly be preferred by Sopranos fans. The Godfather IV it ain’t.

The undeniably sweet film, based on the wonderful West End musical, fixes some of the (much better) show’s flaws, but loses its humor and energy while it wallows in sadness.

Writer-director Michael Mohan’s “drama” tries to be a modern Rear Window (emphasis on “rear”), but Hitchcock it ain’t. The Voyeurs is a cheap, never-ending trifle that takes itself more seriously than Hamlet.

Those confessionals can and should deliver an emotional wallop; however, Sara Colangelo’s direction isn’t skillful or nuanced enough to give the scenes power. The speeches from actors, such as Laura Benanti, about the worst day in all of these people’s lives feel too rehearsed and polished for us to believe them.

Writer-director Kay Cannon has shattered Cinderella’s glass slipper. And we, the audience, are forced to walk across the shards barefoot.

It’s fresh, it’s alive, it’s not the same old Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The talented quartet saves the movie, but making it great would take a rewrite.

While the movie could be a notch scarier, the unsettling imagery and slow build to chaos make me want another movie by this director stat.

This wannabe works oh so hard to be a contemporary detective noir, with its shadows, damsel in distress and brooding narration. But it never finds the suspense or sensuality of that genre.

The Protégé should’ve been a home run for director Martin Campbell, who did brilliantly with Casino Royale, Daniel Craig’s first James Bond film. He brought seriousness to the old franchise without sacrificing its charm or decadence. Instead, we get old clichés.

The supporting voices are sublime. Alongside Hudson are Audra McDonald, Tituss Burgess and Broadway’s Hailey Kilgore and Saycon Sengbloh. But the music, absent a believable 1960s sense of place or real concert atmosphere, doesn’t rouse so much as please, not unlike the familiar movie it’s a part of. Respect settles for being respectable.

CODA is part of that fizzling genre of film, popular in the ’90s, in which you’re almost always on the verge of sobbing while watching it.

The script by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn is hysterical, but director Shawn Levy must’ve sold his soul to the devil to secure this cast.

Vivo is a heartfelt piece with catchy songs and a much more cohesive plot than Miranda’s Moana, which gets tangled midway through. Sure it could do with a touch more depth, but in the kids movie genre, you could do a lot worse.

Unlike Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there is nothing serious about The Suicide Squad. That’s a good thing.

The film seizes Lowery’s best skills as a director: his eye for innocence and nature (Pete’s Dragon) and how he uses slowness to deepen a story (The Old Man and the Gun).

What director Tom McCarthy’s intriguing film — which is a tad overlong — deftly explores are the cultural barriers that prevent us from achieving basic goals, such as solving a murder, and connecting with people unlike ourselves. The story is a lot more nuanced than France vs. America.

To bulk up the thin material, the film steals from countless other, better adventure movies to create an altogether less satisfying combo plate that costs $30 to rent on Disney+.

The fights, taken on their own, are occasionally OK, but not enough to lift this joke-and-fun-free slog.