Johnny Oleksinski

Emancipation, which is an otherwise well-tread period drama about the horrors of slavery, features more of Smith’s rich emotionality and laser-focused intensity that he’s uncovered late in his career and that won him the Oscar for last year’s “King Richard.”

Ma is a much more enjoyable ride than the even more preposterous “Greta,” which got lost in undeserved self-seriousness.

For a film with the nuance of a nuke, Palmer’s by-the-numbers journey nods along like elevator music.

What was great fun before is mostly mopey and depressing now. A hunk, a hunk of burning IP.

Cage is amusing though, and exemplifies the old stage wisdom “if you’re having fun, they’re having fun.” However, that’s the biggest problem for Renfield: Whenever Cage leaves the frame, which is often, we immediately stop having fun — as if Dracula commanded us to.

Devil, make a better movie.

If you like Charli xcx’s songs and find her to be a unique and uncompromising presence in the often airbrushed world of pop, you’ll appreciate moments of “The Moment.” But that’s it. This is not a fully formed movie. At best, it’s a moderately intriguing pitch.

The movie is smartly paced, and Sprouse (“Riverdale”) and Richardson make for one of the more adorable pairs in recent films. You not only want what’s best for them, but believe it can actually happen.

Being obvious nostalgia bait for children of the ’90s, director Rob Letterman’s film has no right to be as good or well-crafted as it is. The plot takes major twists that come as legitimate surprises, and seeing those old cartoon characters plopped into our world rendered in CGI is enormously satisfying.

Basilone’s movie becomes an intriguing puzzle that frequently bugs you, but you’re nonetheless determined to make it to the end.

For those who do not have a room in the house devoted to Elvis memorabilia, or care a lick about the guy, “EPiC” is still an energizing experience. To my mind, there’s nothing better than observing the greatest artists of all time do what they do best — unvarnished.

Sandler, like him or not, is a master at bringing ‘90s heart and sentiment to his dumb schtick, and he’s disarmingly quiet and warm here. And his best jokes have nothing to do with Halloween.

Director Greg Berlanti’s romantic comedy, which imagines that Richard Nixon’s administration really did film a fake, backup moon landing in 1969, is a mystifying misfire all along the way from initial concept to end credits.

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

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.

Without question, the follow-up isn’t as hilarious as the original. Who honestly expected it to be? And a good 20 minutes could have been trimmed. But “2” is warm and comfortable, features another untethered performance from Sandler that only he can give, and is less lazy than I feared.

But a happy reunion can’t re-create the original’s spark, innocence and masterful comedy.

Really, though, it is just another tiresome and impenetrably brooding Gerard Butler movie in which no event seems to matter any more than the next one — and grimaces are mistaken for drama.

There aren’t really game-changing shocks here so much as detours. Shyamalan takes what your non-serial-killer father might call the scenic route. The destination? Meh.

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

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

Day’s performance is a beacon surrounded by mediocrity and mismanagement.

Murder on the Orient Express has been . . . murdered!

Scott and Balinska are capable, but bland. The actress who gets most in the oversize spirit of the occasion is Stewart, showing more personality and comic chops than she has before.

Coogan and Isla Fisher, as his friendly ex-wife, are well-cast, if too mean and fake. But their comic talents are wasted on Michael Winterbottom’s sorry attempt at a mockumentary. Actually, it’s a bit greedy.

Donna Summer’s disco classic “Last Dance” does a good job of summing up Steven Soderbergh’s new movie Magic Mike’s Last Dance: When it’s bad it’s so, so bad.

As always, Dracula sucks blood. But his latest movie simply sucks.

With stakes so high, the movie should pack a punch. But while it keeps its eye on the stars, its feet never leave the ground.

Centering around a stoic woman who elbowed her way to the top of her field in a world of men in tweed suits, only for it all to be put at risk, the plot has heavy shades of 2022’s “Tar,” which is a much better movie.

Grindelwald gives us a proper villain and a purpose for this series of — gulp — five eventual movies.

80 for Brady would be close to worthless were it not for the prodigious talents and chemistry of its marvelous cast.

Don’t be fooled by its awful title. The Spy Who Dumped Me is the rare secret-agent spoof that doesn’t double-O-suck.

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.

I wanna feel the HEAT … but I don’t. On the contrary, the animatronic new Whitney Houston biopic “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” left me shivering from a gust of arctic air as it so clinically and lazily examines the tragic life of the famous singer.

“Fallen Kingdom” is a more interesting, and less obvious, story than the usual Tyrannosaurus romps, which tend to be death-defying games of hide-and-seek.

Writer-director Todd Robinson is the victim of his own noble intentions, turning each and every moment into an ice bucket of sentiment.

If you find hedge funds hard to wrap your head around, the movie Human Capital won’t do much to ease the confusion.

There is enough detail and psychological nuance in Mattson Tomlin’s clever script to make Project Power more intriguing than most of what Marvel and DC have to offer, even if it could barely match their catering budgets.

In this new, totally unnecessary version of Dr. Seuss’ holiday favorite, the mean one (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) isn’t all that scary or cruel.

Linklater, a director who usually earns his sentiment, just can’t get the tone right. “Bernadette” is supposed to skewer the norms of family, suburban life and motherhood. While Bernadette should be a creature out of Wes Anderson, Blanchett and her director opt for “The Addams Family” instead. Nothing about it works.

Lazily bopping around to exotic locales in France, Turkey and Qatar, it’s a generic collage of mega-yachts, luxe hotels, fancy parties, disguised identities and tame fights that add up to a big nothing.

Legends is the latest in a long line of terrible “Karate Kid” movies. A passing of the torch, such as it is, to the next inferior rip-off.

The action-adventure aspects of “Christmas Chronicles,” with sleigh chases and a reindeer fights, are cluttered. More appealing are the real-world storylines, such as the siblings dealing with their mom getting serious with a new beau.

But like he seems to do with every project these days, Grant runs away with the movie.

The story is far less gripping than the consistency of the hunky lead actor’s facial hair. For most of the two hours or so, the beard is perfect. Frozen in time.

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

One of the worst depictions of our city ever filmed.

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

At the start, “The Cut” is an adequate, typical gloves-and-shoves picture. And then, with a snap of the fingers, director Sean Ellis’ film turns absolutely interminable.

One sequence is amusing: a number called “Fairytale Life (After the Spell)” in which panini grills and espresso machines sing along like they live in Pee-wee’s Playhouse. You struggle to care about the rest.

The Death Cure doesn’t work on every level. The movie has, for the most part, jettisoned many of the story’s previous science fiction elements to focus more on action. In so doing, it relies on a lot of repeat devices to earn its thrills — namely perfectly-timed, life-saving rescues, often from the sky. Sometimes, you just want to hear some scientists talk shop for a minute.

It’s a shame that George Michael’s final major artistic contribution to the world is the crummy movie Last Christmas. In its shoddy attempt to make a splash in the British romantic-comedy genre, it amounts to nothing more than a careless whisper.

In order: bland, annoying and misused.

Directed by James Griffiths, this is the sort of hilarious heart-warmer that only comes around once or twice a year to offer a blessed break from darkness, snobbery and streaming schlock. It’s so easy to love, even if love doesn’t come easy for its characters.

The book is a fascinating, insightful, touching window into a unique community with immense struggles. On-screen, it’s exploitative.

The once-great franchise is hardly reborn from the amber this time. It’s slammed by an asteroid yet again.

There simply aren’t enough synonyms for “loathsome” to do the new movie The Hunt justice. Perhaps if we expand into other languages. C’est détestable! È ripugnante!

“The Equalizer” should be locked in a room with “The Terminator.” Then this lousy series would finally be killed off.

The timeless classic, a groundbreaking achievement for animation, has been turned into another pointless and awkward live-action automaton that vanishes from your mind the second it’s over.

The treacly trifle is just more of the same Hallmark-inspired Christmas white noise for people who defend these terrible, sappy movies as chicken soup for the couch potato’s soul.

A terribly funny sendup of the show that famously gave us “Waterloo” by ABBA in 1974, and now gives us a year’s supply of crazy. The Netflix film is the most enjoyable music industry parody since Christopher Guest’s folk satire “A Mighty Wind.”

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+.

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!

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

If Canadian director Bruce McDonald’s dreams are anything like the disgusting underworld we see in his new movie Dreamland, get the man a doctor.

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.

Things Heard & Seen is an adequate haunted-house film, to be sure, but it will certainly give you pause about that three-bedroom, three-bath listing in Kingston.

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

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

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.

Instead of smarts, we get farts. The movie is packed with gross body and sex humor, reductive characters (the gay assistant, the boss who should be fired) and delusions of insight. And Henson’s likable performance is so overblown, it could be sponsored by Red Bull.

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.

"Rhapsody” has a shallow script, oversize performances and looks like it was shot in a sauna.

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.

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.

On the whole, the pairing of these two comedy titans is forgettable and slow as an ice age. To put it in skiing parlance: Downhill is pizza-ing when it needs to french-fry.

I only wish the Little laughs were bigger.

I’d rather put Baby Shark on repeat all day than spend another 90 minutes with this adult horse.

Here’s some perfectly mindless couch viewing.

Updates are fine for some stories. Not this one, though. Moving the action to a contemporary urban setting is akin to fitting a fairy with cement boots.

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

The inferior second part, short but not nearly short enough, proves just how ill-prepared its creators were for the original’s success.

It’s hard to believe Costner left “Yellowstone” to make such an embarrassing, poorly told mess.

The best thing about the Escape Room film series is that it gives audience members clear directions in the title about what they should immediately do: Escape. Room. Get out of that theater and go see Black Widow instead. Run for your lives — and sanity!

Directed by Guy Nattiv, the sluggish film caves to the worst tendencies of forgettable biopics. Mirren is ensconced in prosthetics and a gray wig in hopes that a lookalike transformation can distract from bad writing and a total lack of insight.

Racially offensive quips, flagrant sexism and Tourette syndrome gags all contribute to this witless, scare-free junk.

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.

Director Andy Goddard’s film is far too aware of its subject’s peculiarity, and every frame knows full well that something is a bit off.

Forty-three years later, “Tron: Ares” is groundbreaking for being the first “Tron” film with a discernible plot.