Johnny Oleksinski

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.

“First Steps” marks a slight improvement from the preceding trilogy of terror. But Marvel still can’t nail what should be one of its premiere attractions.

I Smurf-ing loathed it.

It’s a lot better than the 1997 version, if equally as stupid.

For a change of pace, you leave the entertaining “Superman” not confused or clobbered, but feeling good.

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

With “M3GAN 2.0,” the filmmakers have employed a bold strategy: Take a $180-million formula, shred it and forget it.

The fact that Fiennes went right from playing a cardinal in Best Picture-nominated “Conclave” to a nearly-naked hermit with a hobby that would raise Hannibal Lecter’s brow makes me wish we could send the actor’s brain out to be analyzed by scientists.

Beyond the requisite lessons, there are some witty touches.

Is “F1” too long? Absolutely. But not once did I say, “Are we there yet?”

The transition from the DreamWorks CGI version from 2010, one of the best family flicks in years, to real human actors is thankfully smoother and not as off-putting as most of Disney’s recent, pitiful princess efforts.

Too bad “Ballerina” drops the ball. Despite being led by an actress who once took on the role of Marilyn Monroe, it’s a much less attractive movie — downright ugly sometimes.

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.

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

Running in the footsteps of the last two entries directed by Christopher McQuarrie, “Fallout” and “Dead Reckoning,” No. 8 is another high-voltage, gargantuanly envisioned test of Cruise’s bodily limits. Only this franchise can make wincing fun.

The tragedy of Hutchins’ death overshadows anything that’s good about the film, sadly including her own grand cinematography.

A funny-but-tortured femme-fatale performance from Florence Pugh as Russian assassin Yelena Belova, brutal and tactile fights and a merciful lack of confusing backstory makes for the most enjoyable MCU entry in a while.

In combining the old genre tropes with a potent message — the eternal recipe for a great horror film — the ever-entertaining director again shows he has something forceful to say, be it with boxers, superheroes or blood-suckin’ vampires.

Mine all you like. You’ll never find any smarts in this cavern of stupidty.

The plot goes nowhere glacially. Underdeveloped side characters are so far to the side, they’re out of frame.

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 plot is a watered-down grab-bag of old, tired ideas.

It’s far from terrible and a pleasure to look at. But, perhaps inevitably, after such a raging success, Bong’s latest movie is a disappointment.

Nothing’s wrong with a few buckets of blood, but Perkins’ movie waters them down with its repetitious plot and weak attempts at humor. “The Monkey” strains to be a comedy as much as a horror film and effectively works as neither.

If you thought Marvel Studios was committed to getting back on track by making fewer movies of higher quality, wait till you see Captain America: Brave New World...The situation over there is so dire, they’ve brought back a plotline from “Eternals.” “Eternals”!

Ultimately “Mad About the Boy” is much like Bridget herself: endearing, silly, messy, wacky, kind. I like it… just as it is.

You’d be hard-pressed not to enjoy the jolly jaunt. Clumsy Paddington, as always, makes an adorable mess of things.

“Love Hurts” is only 83 minutes long. “Hurrah!,” you say before it starts. But the film feels endless because the story is such a chore to follow.