Johnny Oleksinski

The trouble here is the fizzling story. The viewer can’t help but feel the loss of Ross.

Sometimes it’s refreshing when a movie is just an improper noun that delivers what it promises.

On this overstuffed ride, we also learn where wise Rafiki, royal aide Zazu, evil Scar and even Pride Rock come from. Who cares? The backstories only make us crave the peerless 2D original.

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

Writer-director Greg Jardin’s seductive — if occasionally difficult to follow — movie is a wicked spin on a familiar tale: a group of friends spending a dramatic drunken evening in a big, luxe house.

One of the funniest films of the summer so far, it tells the story of five scruffy Peter Pans, who have been playing the same game of tag for 30 years. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, the tale is (almost) all true.

What’s different from the previous entry is that humor here, despite a formulaic plot, is balanced with surprising dramatic heft.

Heller’s enjoyable film is not the cringe fest you walk in expecting it to be, even if the premise will be a hairy leap for some moviegoers.

Director Shawn Levy’s laugh-a-second movie is easily the best Marvel has delivered since 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” and provides similarly nostalgic pleasures in its whiplash-inducing number of retro cameos — none of which I’ll spoil, for fear of my own life.

Luce is a taut, extremely watchable movie, though the dialogue could loosen up a touch.

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

Ethan Coen’s road-trip comedy “Drive-Away Dolls” does not have that cinematic new-car smell. No, the stale scent is closer to months-old, unfinished McDonald’s Happy Meals and inexplicably maroon stains. The creaky vehicle has racked up so many miles, it barely starts. So tired and unappetizing, this dreadful film is.

The film is overstuffed with comedy material, though. There’s a time-period-appropriate gag for everything — the TV is just a hole in the wall that they watch birds through — and the jokes are nonstop. The best moments of animated films are often the most serene.

Don’t expect a single novel element here — everything is recycled from the junkyard.

Where is Wright’s mastery of tone and zany-but-unnerving quick-cut style? It’s been replaced by a cacophony of assembly-line sci-fi noise in a blah “Blade Runner” that, depending on the scene, is either stupidly serious or seriously stupid.

Meet Moondog — a movie character you’ll want to punch in the face.

This is a sexy, funny, ravishing and dark revision that keeps Heathcliff’s frightening obsessiveness, emotional toxicity and sadism intact while ably contorting the tale into a decadent, modern, yet still distinctly gothic, romance.

Ritchie is tops when it comes to getting a group of guys (and, occasionally, gal) together to complete a bloody, belligerent task. And this is as taut an ensemble of his as ever.

Driven is a lot like a DeLorean: Looks great, but moves slow — if it even moves at all.

Although the film can be a tad unrelenting, it’s highly watchable.

M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller, Old, is campy, poorly written, candy-colored and subtle as Eurovision.

If you’re a Fab Four fan like I am, that setup itself sends you into an existential tizzy. But it makes for a likable, quirky movie that’s British writer Richard Curtis’ (“Bridget Jones’ Diary”) best work in years.

What a gift Zeitlin has with children. He showed that special skill with “Beasts,” but does even more so here, with the kid ensemble being full of personality and entirely unrestrained. The freedom and unbridled joy they find on the island are infectious, like their movie.

From beginning to end, the craft — directing, acting, writing, editing, design — is just not there.

An Aquaman sequel is reportedly in the works. The series already has a strong leading man and a feel for an epic. The filmmakers just need to find the heart of their ocean.

A solidly entertaining if predictable time-travel film that boasts something most DC movies sorely lack: a strong lead performance.

Though the cast is a decade older, Zombieland: Double Tap is no less funny. Thanks to some new additions, it’s even more riotous.

The material, filled with peppy pop songs, is admittedly funnier than Murphy and his cast make it. Barry (played on Broadway by the brilliant Brooks Ashmanskas) was a riot onstage, but Corden’s bland performance is generically kind, fey and mostly joke-less. Someone like Nathan Lane would’ve made a meal of every line. That said, the story is more moving here than it was at the theater, which comes as a surprise.