Johnny Oleksinski

No phrase terrifies me more than “for the fans,” because in the movies that tends to mean “awful and incomprehensible.” And so it does for “Mortal Kombat II,” an onscreen bucket of slop that people will give a pass to because losers cheer whenever a character, such as they are, is impaled or sliced in half.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, the sequel to the 2006 comedy that’s not at all about Anna Wintour, is a good time, even if the high-pressure world of Vogue, er, Runway magazine is no longer the epitome of New York luxury and glamour it was back in the aughts.

The Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” had plenty of issues, but the electricity of the re-creation of the Live Aid concert was not one of them. While “Michael” shares the same producer as the Freddie Mercury flick — and a nearly identical performance from Mike Myers as a jokey music exec — it boasts none of the nostalgic thrills.

Do these stylistic and narrative departures constitute a smart shake-up of the old mummy formula, as Cronin’s movie promises to do? Eh, not really. The director mostly reshapes what a mummy actually is to suit his lackluster whims.

There is nothing to like or admire in this groaner galaxy. The movie has the unconfident, powder-sugar tone of a Disney direct-to-video release, like “The Lion King 1½,” paired with the overeager advertising of an internet pop-up.

The Drama, for all its heat, is not perfect. I wasn’t won over by its climactic series of calamities that fall in rapid succession like dominoes at the end. However, most movies are completely forgotten by the time the credits roll. This one, like it or not, lingers for days. It’ll likely wind up one of the most controversial movies of the year.

During a moment in which movies tend to be either cynically corporate or bleaker than a black hole, “Project Hail Mary” dares to be about that once-great driver of drama: friendship.

Leave her at the altar! She is “The Bride!,” one of the absolute worst movies I have had the displeasure of watching in this job.

Director Daniel Chong’s original movie is terribly funny, and often in an unfamiliar, warped way for the cerebral and mushy studio.

Noooo! Anything but another slapdash horror film with a lazy plot that hinges on artificial intelligence!

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.

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.

Only an actress as caution-to-the-wind as Colman could connect so profoundly with a patio chair. Skarsgard’s sensitivity also helps.

Wladyka keeps the film lively with a sparkler aesthetic and a flair for musical storytelling.

Familiar though it is, the skillfully made movie finds vigor in the been-there-done-that.

Issues millions of people face everyday are addressed cleverly and poignantly, and never without a hint of humor. Wilde isn’t really interested in sentimentality, either, and her movie hits harder for it.

Carousel is one of those tundra, dimly lit living-room movies that snobs defend as closer to “real life.”

In short: Too Many Cooks plus too many minutes.

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.

It’s got something for everybody — toplessness, threesomes, dildos, ball gags, S&M and, of course, art-world satire.

Fiennes is magnificent, and a scene involving him and Iron Maiden’s song “Number of the Beast” will go down as one of the most buzzed-about sequences of 2026. Were it written for a grisly horror movie, Alex Garland’s climax would fit snuggly into a Shakespearean comedy.

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

This movie’s got as many cliches as Madison’s got cheese curds. But script aside, Jackman and Hudson onstage are effervescent and, speaking as someone who’s never mounted a motorcycle, the songs rock.

Whenever there’s a lull here, a big laugh soon comes along with the force of a boa constrictor that conceals the flaws.

Truly every line of this gussied-up pile of trash is worthy of a yelled-out crowd response. It’s one schlocky horror picture show.

No. 3, with a reported price tag of more than $400 million, is the most visually glorious of the trio, adding fresh and imaginative beings and environments that further flesh out one of the all-time great fantasy locales.

In the pantheon of James L. Brooks films, “Ella McCay” is far from as good as it gets.

It’s cinematic Mountain Dew. You’ll be wired for the entire 2½ hours.

What’s best and most consistent about “2” is how flippin’ funny it is.

It’s Olsen’s emotional frailty that helps pump up a bad movie into a mediocre one.

Rental Family is a heartwarming jewel of a movie that is a dazzling showcase of Japan’s urban and natural beauty, instead of the usual depiction of hordes of tourists surrounded by skyscrapers and lit by LEDs.

Darker and grimmer Act 2, though, by a hair, makes a meatier movie because characters aren’t as silly — the first flick was practically a pageant — and they are actually propelling toward a satisfying conclusion.

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.

Dynamite actually — sometimes cheesily — is a lot like 1990s and aughts disaster flicks, except there is not much suspense as to whether or not the nuclear bomb will land, even though Bigelow casually tries to create some.

As for Broadway buffs and lovers of old New York, the witty, hilarious and haunting movie starring a totally transformed Ethan Hawke as musical-theater lyricist Lorenz Hart will have them utterly bewitched.

Really, “Small Player” is a great movie until it abruptly isn’t.

Bugonia buzzes by, if sometimes nauseastingly, and is a huge improvement from Lanthimos’ episodic drivel last year.

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

Ronan has a flair for visuals, no doubt about it. And I liked looking at them. The trouble is his slideshow of impressive landscapes and environments evokes nothing deeper and, actually, is a roadblock to character development and story momentum. Scenic detours.

Panahi is keenly aware of his limitations — both governmental and budgetary — and has crafted a taut, intimate and blood-pumping story around them. Talk about great art being born out of impossible circumstances.

For the most part, however, “Deliver Me From Nowhere” is in conversation with where Springsteen’s mind and passions rest today, as evidenced by his memoir “Born to Run” and his introspective Broadway show — revisiting the mansion on the hill and returning to his father’s house.

Clooney draws you in, but upon arrival there’s an emptiness.

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.

In the pantheon of films about magical cars, this one is not big, bold or beautiful.

With this visionary director — one of Hollywood’s best — it’s one winner after another.

What they’ve chopped up is a cacophony of half-baked characters and rushed ideas that leave you puzzled and unsatisfied. A better title would be “The Chore.”

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.

Nostalgia is a prime factor, yes, but the story is legitimately engrossing this time, however recycled it may be, rather than a lazy stack of trumpeted entrances and exits and half-witty asides that marred the 2019 and 2022 films.

It’s the darkest, scariest and undoubtedly finest acted of the entire detective series.

It’s Buckley who’s giving one of those rare turns that simply beggars belief. She swings back and forth from cast iron to porcelain. The actress is thunderous, playful, grounded and ethereal. She breaks your heart — not only when the worst befalls Agnes, but whenever she cracks a smile.

Del Toro has whipped up a monster that’s enjoyable enough to stare at, all right. And you’ve gotta admire his handiwork. What’s missing are what the Creature hungers for most of all — life and love.

Making mixed martial arts — described in the film as “the bloodiest and the goriest sport you’ve ever seen” — tame and lackluster is a challenge. But director Benny Safdie is up to the task.

What keeps “The Lost Bus” from going full PlayStation — or full Brosnan — is a pulsing performance from McConaughey as a flawed dad desperately trying to reach his ill son (played by McConaughey’s own offspring, Levi Alves McConaughey) while saving the sons and daughters of others.

The film is an often ugly character study of a hard life that only got worse the more famous Martin got.

In the end, what “Caught Stealing” has stolen is time and talent.

Colman and Cumberbatch’s appealing energy is always a pleasure — and clearly the draw here — but I didn’t enjoy spending my night with the sourpusses it’s wasted on.

It’s a violently annoying and annoyingly violent ensemble piece speckled with “look how wacky we are!” characters that are impossible to put up with; a copycat Coen Brothers yarn with the depth of a tortilla.

The experience is akin to being blindfolded and thrown into a trunk — except fun!

Lohan and Curtis are the main attractions, since “Freakier” functions mostly as a nostalgia trip for 30-something ticket-buyers who can now legally enjoy a margarita. But while massaging millennials, the movie also has a good time slinging mud at Gen Z.

Someway, somehow, it’s the funniest movie to hit theaters in a long time.

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.

This film should be reliably filling as pizza for dinner. But the deliveryman is an hour late and has dropped the box.

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 overlong and too-steady movie tries to say so much — about the struggles of being gay in the ‘80s, gender identity, nontraditional relationship structures — that it all comes off as white noise. Albeit white noise that has a borderline oppressive desire to make us cry.

Writer-director Mary Bronstein’s absorbing psychological drama about a mother at her breaking point is two hours of mounting anxiety and nervousness.

It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen at Sundance.

Exploring pain in novel ways in film is a good thing. Next time, though, pick a different novel.

Dreamgirls director Bill Condon’s off-putting movie is a visual and narrative mess: polished where it should be gritty and ugly where it must be glamorous. Bland, almost always.

You’ll begin “Twinless” with basic expectations, and you’ll end it with your mouth agape. And then you’ll ask the most satisfying question there is after first encountering an exciting young filmmaker’s work: When’s the next one?

To say I was never bored wouldn’t be quite right. Rather, I was always transfixed.

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

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.

It is one that sweeps you up, though, in its beautifully detailed vision of an analog New York where stars eat at greasy spoons below 14th and future music legends pass the hat in basement clubs. Scrounging for their next meal.

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.

Skarsgård’s the ace though. Without going overboard, and never being anything less than terrifying, he fleshes out Orlok into a richer character than bat-like Schreck was able to. His tragic, albeit disturbing, final scene almost puts a stake right through our hearts.

As Callas so devastatingly starts to lose it, “Maria” satisfyingly stirs our insides in the mysterious way an opera does.

Although a quick summary would suggest that Our Little Secret is the simplest and most domestic of Lohan’s trilogy of terror, the devices that lead to its wrap-up are anything but Hallmark happy.

The studio’s latest likable musical is nicely animated, has nice characters and a few nice songs. At risk of repeating myself: It’s nice.

McQueen’s script at times reeks of obviousness, even as it nurtures understated and heartfelt performances from Ronan and Heffernan. We always know where the film is going, and it dutifully goes there. Visually, though, the work’s a stunner.

Even after nearly three hours of sitting, I didn’t feel as though I’d gotten to know the characters very well.

For the most wonderful time of the year comes the worst movie of the year.

Is it an essential continuation of the story of Russell Crowe’s fallen fighter Maximus? Eh, not really. A likable diversion, the film is not as epic or weighty as its acclaimed predecessor.

Robert Zemeckis’ film “Here” is an object lesson in how to take a touching idea and make an extremely annoying movie out of it.

The ending means to stir our emotions, and it does inspire one: relief that it’s over.

Endlessly entertaining and frequently hysterical, “Anora” is one of the year’s best films and a formidable Oscar contender.

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.

For nearly two and a half hours, director Todd Phillips’ pathologically unnecessary movie cycles through so many potential reasons to exist. But, as “Deux” grows increasingly disturbing, repulsive and strange on the hunt, it ultimately never finds a satisfying one.

It’s a breathtakingly human film — about a bird and a bot.

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

In The Life of Chuck, the pieces come together much too obviously. And the takeaways — that a person is the product of experience, and don’t judge a book by its cover — are well-tread to the point of total flatness.

Wolfs, a so-called comedy written and directed by Jon Watts in which Clooney and Pitt play rival New York fixers tasked with discreetly disposing of a dead body, is a dreadful, laugh-free slog that tests the limits of what star power alone can salvage.

Lets viewers uniquely into Springsteen’s creative process: Choosing a set list, adjusting tempos, collaborating with background singers. In short: Getting the band back together.

It’s hard to imagine audiences being more glued to another movie this year, so sexy and stirring the story is from start to finish.

Since the characters barely get a chance to catch their breath, let alone say their piece, we don’t learn much about them beyond familiar traits. However, Reitman’s aim isn’t to seriously illuminate that fateful night so much as to energetically add to showbiz mythology.

While I needle “Conclave” for being far from realistic, its meticulous detail is evidenced immediately by the ceremonial removal of the papal ring from the corpse and the sealing of his apartment. Visually, the entire film’s a stunner.

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.

Vitally, though, the director gets a terrific performance from Jerome, which prevents “Unstoppable” from falling into the traps so many athletic yarns do.

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.

I enjoyed this ride of titillation, torment, insanity and exploitation to such a preposterous extent that I’ve considered signing up for online therapy to wrestle with it.

This belabored movie, which is much more serious than its predecessor and takes nearly an hour to take off, feels like it lasts a Day-O.

It’s an impressive first effort from Kravitz that, like the island and the women, immediately has us in its grip.

The bonkers ending will be a talker. At first, I was skeptical, segued to disturbed, and then thoroughly creeped out. It’s a wild choice, however, one with a hint of precedent elsewhere in the series. And it serves to differentiate what is, admirably, a highly deferential film.

It Ends With Us is, despite its failings and indulgences, a highly emotional and absorbing couple of hours.

Unfortunately, for the time being, the star of “Tár” and “Blue Jasmine” is stuck as the lead of the worst movie of the year — a grueling, 102-minute endurance test that’s as lifeless as the video game it’s based on.

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.

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.

Twisters, the disaster movie starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, is an oddity in 2024: a reboot that’s actually worth your time.

What’s so unsettling about his Longlegs is, as big and cartoonish as he is, the weirdo is just believable enough. You could run into him late at night at a highway rest stop or, God forbid, on an empty subway platform. Cage makes a meal out of the murderer...During this so-so summer at the movies, something’s finally got legs.

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.

Everything uniquely special and hilarious about the 1984 fish-out-of-water hit is gone, replaced by commodity streaming mush that looks like every other ho-hum action-comedy right now.

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

Smooth as fresh asphalt, the film makes us pine for a pothole or two.

The failed attempt at cleverness in Lanthimos’ movie is that nobody is actually kind here; they are inordinately cruel. There’s nothing wrong with that — so is Richard III — but these exploits are not particularly entertaining or profound, only random and repetitive.

We hold Pixar to a higher standard because of the true art it has achieved over the past – gulp – 30 years. If “Inside Out 2” doesn’t quite reach those heights, it is still a promising step on the studio’s difficult quest to rediscover its own sense of self.

“Twelve Final Days” is a tender, mellow film that delves inside the head of a deeply enigmatic figure as he asks the relatable and terrifying question: “What’s next?”

With a formulaic plot and adequate supporting players, Smith phoning it in presents a major roadblock for a series as reliant on two leads’ chemistry as this one.

Like most of Netflix’s films outside of awards season, “Atlas” is a sluggish afterthought that settles for being just short of OK.

Summer blockbusters don’t get much better.

I’ll give credit to Krasinski for endeavoring to deliver a new, if derivative, story. He’s not made a loathsome movie, really, but forgettable mush.

As expected, director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s woeful film “Back to Black” doesn’t play as the gripping battle of musical genius vs. personal demons it fancies itself to be. Instead it’s all sadness, songs and sensationalism.

Directed with visual splendor by Wes Ball, the meaty film’s combo of flawless zoological effects (unlike this year’s inferior primate picture “Godzilla x Kong”), superbly crafted characters and a timeless story of emerging civilization and the fight for survival is remarkably riveting for what sets the groundwork of a whole new trilogy.

The core problem facing the rather annoying new movie “The Fall Guy” — starring Ryan Gosling as a professional daredevil — is that we can’t believe. Never for a second does the viewer buy that goofy Gosling is an in-demand stunt person who sets aside his ego for the betterment of a project.

Directed by Michael Showalter without too much sentimentality or cheese, the guilty-pleasure rom-com (emphasis on rom) is elevated by Hathaway’s layered performance as a swept-off-her-feet California mother that goes well beyond the confines of its supermarket pulp storyline.

Like Emerald Fennell’s shapeshifting mystery, “Challengers” is, at once, artful, addictive and deceptive. The salivating viewer believes it’s one thing, becomes sure it’s another and then leaves with a different theory altogether.

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.

The plot plods along — they drive a bit, guy gets shot, they drive some more, guy gets shot — and the dialogue is bottom of the barrel.

Director Philip Martin’s film is not poorly made per se, but its efforts to make the behind-the-scenes scramble to get the Duke of York on TV exciting are for naught.

There is also something a bit off about CGI that makes these behemoths appear less sturdy and imposing. Oddly enough, the most gravitas comes from Hall’s all-business scientist.

This franchise really belongs in the rearview mirror.

The beefcake Swayze role, Dalton, is taken over by an intense Jake Gyllenhaal in this entertaining and, for better or worse, less mockable update of the cult classic.

While the film is a modicum better than the actress’ “Falling For Christmas” last year — such a punishing world, this is — the improvement is also a knock against it. This high-fructose-corn-syrup movie remains air-headed, that’s for sure, but it’s far less campy and therefore a drag.

The so-so story aside, like the previous three movies and most of DreamWorks’ catalog, this iteration of “Panda” appealingly wears its heart on its paw. And that’s sufficient reason for families to choose it over a lot of other animated schlock out there.

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.

Our blockbuster drought is over, thanks to a brilliant sequel set on a sweltering desert planet.

“The worst superhero movie yet” is a phrase I’ve written so much in the past three years, I should make a keyboard shortcut for it. “Madame Web” is F6.

J.Lo has delivered an over-the-top song-and-dance camptacular, both gravely serious and deliriously funny, providing one cuckoo moment after another.

Not a bad idea — and one that already worked out pretty well for John Hughes’ “Weird Science” in 1985. But here it’s a single-joke skit that’s too self-aware to be distinctively funny, freaky or thrilling.

Argyle is a pretty pattern. “Argylle,” meanwhile, is the latest example of a pretty irritating pattern from director Matthew Vaughn.

Any plot greasing is quickly forgivable because of how damn delightful it is to be riding in the back of Squibb’s scooter. That this is the actress’ first leading role in a decades-long career is the greatest crime of all.

Presence is a brisk 85 minutes, which is nice if you have dinner plans, but it also exposes limited storytelling ambitions. It’s a mid-season episode of TV. We don’t get to know much about the characters, and don’t care either way about their fate.

The entertaining movie from director Rose Glass, whose first feature was “Saint Maud,” is unsparing in its graphic depictions of violence, abuse and extreme aspects of the body. Many will find all of that stuff gratuitous, but it fleshes out this unsavory world and ratchets up the plot’s tension.

It is a phenomenal showcase for Ronan, who dares to be unlikable for the rare time in her career. Her natural charm and whimsy we’re used to from “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” is but a glimmer in Rona’s eye — and that little light is why the viewer roots for this troubled woman as hard as they do.

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

Ninety percent of the movie is a very pleasant watch. All “My Old Ass” needed was a few more conversations with Elliott’s family and friends to provide more closure for her and the film.

Impressive throughout is the way Eisenberg balances reverence for his locations and belly-grabbing comedy, while using those elements to support each other.

Even though you definitely don’t leave contemplating the narrative, the detailed and authentic ‘80s aesthetic conjures a spell.

While that winding, buzzword-filled title sounds like a cheap-o parody of a science-fiction epic, this is about as unfunny and unadventurous a movie as you could possibly imagine.

Watching “The Iron Claw” can feel like getting slammed with a metal folding chair over and over again. So bludgeoning are the true and tragic circumstances that befell the famous Von Erich wresting family during the 1980s and ’90s, which director Sean Durkin’s film depicts.

The film, admittedly, does not rev up as fast as a Ferrari. The director initially prefers a relaxed pace and almost sepia color scheme that make us unsure, sometimes in frustration, of what the vibe of the story is supposed to be.

The Lost Kingdom isn’t well done, but it isn’t miserable either.

Another reason to embrace “Purple” is that the moving film is graced by a duo of exceptional performers in Barrino and Danielle Brooks as Sofia who, while singing, capture the electricity of being live onstage, and, while acting, take advantage of the raw intimacy of a close-up. Getting that combo right in movie musicals is rarer than you’d think.

The second “Chicken Run” grabs you by the giblets anyway, thanks to its terrific returning voice cast of big-personality Brits, such as bubbly Jane Horrocks and Imelda Staunton (who, in the 23 intervening years, has gone from the coop to Buckingham Palace), and earnestly funny writing. Netflix, to its credit, has not laid an egg.

This freaky fairy-tale world is really a playground for Stone, whose willingness to be foolish and risky is a breath of fresh air amid all the polite Oscar-bait turns we’re handed this time of year.

Absent of any edge or layered characters, Wonka is at its most enjoyable when you forget the novel and classic Gene Wilder film and strap in for routine pleasantness.

In “Pinocchio,” when Geppetto wished upon a star, a hunk of wood became a real boy. Eighty-three years later, Disney’s latest animated film, called “Wish,” which is sort of about the origin of that same magical ball of gas, couldn’t be more wooden, manufactured or lifeless.

Saltburn has a brain, no doubt about it, but it also has a script that’s written in jet fuel.

Despite the lacking wrap-up, “Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is, like most of the “Hunger Games” films, a well-made dystopian yarn that’s better acted than it needs to be.

It’s too bad Scott could not deliver a brilliant character study of one of the world’s great military leaders — and instead settled for letting a self-indulgent Phoenix fly over the cuckoo’s nest.

In order: bland, annoying and misused.

A lot of this is typical rom-com fare. The genre is not boundary-pushing and that’s perfectly fine — ideal even. But Ryan doesn’t have the sparkle and fizz as a director to make this lacking material sing.

Good old reliable Marty pulls it off again, addictively unraveling a tale that’s almost too terrible to be true with panache, gusto and just the right amount of cultural respect.

Coppola’s movie is packed with many similarly smart, but never egotistical storytelling decisions and is easily one of the finest films of her career.

Nothing Cooper does is organic or authentic, and his show-off performance is always stilted. He arduously thinks through every single choice — it’s time to scream into a pillow; cue the laugh; ready, set, cry. Nobody goes to a movie to watch actors ponder their next beat. We want to feel, and his overwrought turn does not allow us to.

Their heads spun 360 degrees. They vomited up green sludge. They violently shouted curse words...No, not the demonically possessed girls in “The Exorcist: Believer” — the awful movie’s furious audience.

While “Murder On The Orient Express” and “Death On The Nile” were hack-job excuses to force as many disparate and ghastly celebrities onscreen as possible, “Haunting” is an actual, surefooted film with strong performances and a luxurious-yet-frightful tone.

The director (whose “The Assistant” was solid, but this is far better) has built a gripping thriller around the sort of off-hand remarks, boozy outbursts and inappropriate behavior that most bartenders and reasonable patrons encounter all the time. Everywhere.

There are a couple plot threads I found weird — particularly in the final push — that don’t land as powerfully as they intend to. But the resolution is immensely satisfying regardless of a few blips. It’s Payne’s finest work in years.

As well-worn as it may be, Comer reliably freshens up every project she touches and makes otherwise cold scenes sizzle.

Having written this script for themselves, Sharp and Jackson are a scream. Imagine if a vodka Redbull transformed into two human beings — that’s who they are.

Dumb Money, with a predictable script by Lauren Schuker Blum, Rebecca Angelo and Ben Mezrich, rambles on and on with an unwaveringly lethargic tone and zero buildup of energy or anticipation. All the while, the audience has little investment in this dud about investing.

When a movie wades into the vast pool of World War II and Holocaust titles, the viewer expects a splash. One Life is, at best, a spritz. It delivers a lot of what we’ve already seen before, but on a less-than-cinematic scale. Yet spending some time with Hopkins and exploring a speck of light in one of the world’s darkest chapters is just satisfying enough.

Hollywood loves nothing more than a true-crime story about a serial killer, but a new movie directed by Anna Kendrick does a number on that familiar genre.

“Heron” is not as perfect as some of Miyazaki’s past movies. The trippy story is dizzying by the end as too many characters are introduced too late and we navigate a thicket of hastily explained narrative elements. But it nonetheless leaves a powerful emotional effect if you let it wash over you.

While the off-kilter film is a fine showcase for the personalities of two of our best emerging comedic stars, Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”) and Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”), the humor falls short of being very funny.

Finally, on the series’ supposedly last outing, one of its films lives up to the ever-deepening talent of its leading man. Equalizer 3 adds nothing new to the thriller genre, true, but it wisely acknowledges what’s worked well before.

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.

Most of DC Comics’ dreadful movies deserve to be violently squished, but not Blue Beetle, a refreshingly spry new film featuring the lesser-loved, bug-shaped superhero who’s been crawling around in some form since 1939.

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

The fight scenes are remarkably exhilarating and spontaneous for being, well, animated. And all of the jokes — written by Rowe, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, among others — are truly very funny and witty while still making sense for this vision of the five boroughs. They’re spoken by a genuine, young cast, who sound like they’re having a party after school instead of the usual stiff, one-day-in-the-studio delivery.

Waffling Disney can’t decide if it wants this thing to be a quirky and fun but unsettling movie like “Beetlejuice,” with some real guts and creativity, or another schlocky ad for a Disney World FastPass. At times Simien’s film is surprisingly dark and emotionally honest, while at others it’s kitschier than “The Country Bear Jamboree.”

Director Christopher Nolan’s seismic Oppenheimer is that rarest of things: a sophisticated and bracing movie that’s made for adults and makes nobody say, “I’ll wait till it’s on streaming.”

The packaging of “Barbie” is a lot more fun than the tedious toy inside the box.

The will to live is missing from Netflix’s not-quite-sequel Bird Box Barcelona, and so is our will to watch.

Seven movies and 26 years on, Ethan Hunt’s mission is more satisfying than ever.

Like in "Crystal Skull,” director James Mangold’s movie aims to merge Indy’s earthy supernatural framework with science fiction, to mixed results. The love-it-or-loathe-it ending is a real doozy.

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

The love story is nice, but Ember and Wade’s relationship also goes from zero to 60 awfully fast. There have been many a romance told inside of two hours, but these guys’ instant gushiness is awkward and doesn’t ring true — even for CGI blobs.

The seventh movie in the franchise, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, is a predictable return to rock-em-sock-em stupidity with nothing to add except Michelle Yeoh as a talking aluminum falcon.

Directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson and writers Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and David Callaham web-swing to such high heights by treating Miles Morales, our Spidey, as a complicated and hormonal New York teen who love-hates his parents and not just another cog in a franchise.

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.

Despite real actors, CGI and brand-new material, “Mermaid” is the studio’s latest flesh-and-blood cash grab that’s more lifeless than far better two-dimensional painted drawings.

Miraculously, this clunker is worse than the original in every respect, but zero is as low as we can go. Like the original, “Spring Awakening” easily ranks among the worst movies of the year.

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

It’s a “Dumb and Glummer” of a sequel that confuses the worst punchlines ever for Prosecco fizz, when the groaner jokes go down like lukewarm vodka.

Although lacking the gravitas and moral conundrums of Facebook-centric “The Social Network,” Johnson’s dweebish film turns every one of these tech breakthroughs into a stirring victory worthy of “We Are The Champions.”

The utopia-via-laboratory aspects of “Vol. 3” resemble “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” — only it’s the Wrath of Gunn. This chilling paperweight clocks in at 2 hours and 30 minutes, making it the fourth longest Marvel film so far. And it’s wildly self-indulgent.

The gory-as-hell movie is as campy and fun as any chapter in producer Sam Raimi’s four-decade-old horror series. But trapping kids in an apartment — as opposed to college-age friends in a cabin — raises the stakes and brings on legitimate scares. And some hearty laughs, too.

The duo’s journey is gripping, but long stretches elsewhere in the film drag and it feels much longer than two hours.

Crowe — knowingly, I think — clowns around from start to finish. Even if the horror doesn’t have you screaming, his Italian accent will.

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.

For all its detailed worlds, like the Mushroom Kingdom and Jungle Kingdom, the Nintendo film is just another soulless ploy to sell us merchandise that doesn’t bother to disguise its creativity-starved greed. Mostly the movie comes off like a video game we’re unable to play.

Be you a fan of basketball or basket weaving, Air will snugly fit the tastes of just about anybody.

Netflix has padded its catalog of cinematic background noise some more with Murder Mystery 2, the instantly forgettable sequel to its rancid whodunit comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler as married crime solvers.

Honor Among Thieves is a useful reminder of something that’s been forgotten in the age of dense film universes and ultra-violent action films: Light-hearted adventure movies like “The Princess Bride” remain the perfect vehicle for humor, romance, fights and special effects. When done properly, as Dungeons & Dragons is, they give audiences a full-bodied experience that’s hard not to like.

Four tremendous films and nine years into the adrenaline-fueled, Reeves-led action series, director Chad Stahelski has yet to let his franchise noticeably dip in quality.

With sub-par material, Levi pretending to be a kid and naively shouting and pouting has turned grating.

That’s the worst thing about these new Scream films — they couldn’t spook a kitten. They’re much more concerned with so-so jokes and overly geeky observations about the horror genre. Yes, Scream always commented on other scary movies, but never so obnoxiously and repetitively as now.

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.

Brilliant star Michael B. Jordan does double-duty in “III,” returning to play Adonis Creed and directing a film for the first time — the man is a champ at both athletics and aesthetics.

Impressively, however, director Elizabeth Banks keeps the powder gags fresh throughout, as the mammal maims her way through a Southern forest preserve. The movie about blow never blows.

There are some surprisingly attractive shots in director Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s low-budget film — honey drips from Winnie’s mouth in a sadistic “Silence of the Lambs” way — and the acting is committed rather than arch (even if the dialogue is lousy-to-inaudible). Yet it is impossible to recommend to the average horror fan in search of a good movie.

Sorry to Raid on your parade, “Ant-Man” fans, but the third chapter is a pile of dirt.

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.

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

Knock at the Cabin, the “Sixth Sense” director’s latest anvil, is less “Old” and more Old Testament. No fun here! Yeah, there’s much more competent filmmaking and acting on display, however it’s all wasted on a strained and ponderous story with stratospheric delusions of grandeur.

A movie needs more than a smart idea and an impressively visualized concept of the future to run smoothly. Two-thirds of the way through, “The Pod Generation’s” battery is already at 1%.

The well-known story beats are also given renewed vitality by the young actors, whom director Christopher Zalla expertly steers away from being typical overemoting movie kids.

This comedy soars squarely on small moments and big jokes.

Director William Oldroyd’s mouthwatering drama, based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s acclaimed novel, misleads and misdirects all the way to the shocker ending.

Even without the laughable new material, the addictive quality of the short story is lost in adaptation from the get-go.

Director Oliver Hermanus has as much restraint as his star (and for a modestly sized movie, impressively manages a visually believable 1950s Britain), and the viewer never feels emotionally manipulated.

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.

A useful aspect of watching the movie on streaming rather than onstage is you can turn on the subtitles to catch all of Minchin’s clever lyrics. Many of the quirky phrases, coming fast and furious, were muffled on Broadway and the score improved when I listened to the album later.

Yes, it’s your typical Macguffin, with everybody chasing down a trinket, but a fairly creative one with a lot of good jokes. The comic-book-style action sequences also set co-directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado’s movie apart from the litter. The No. 1 reason to watch, though, is Banderas’ top-notch voice performance. If only more A-listers treated their animated film roles as more than a pet project.

The movie is a good 40 minutes too long and momentum ceases to build a while before it finally ends. Still, when the director’s party is raging, you’ll wish you had an invite.

Spending more than a decade pining for Pandora was worth it. Cameron has delivered the grandest movie since, well, “Avatar,” and with an over-three-hour runtime that never sags. What better way for struggling cinemas to regain their footing than with a gargantuan film that so celebrates the glory of the big screen?

As he did so ingeniously with “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the Spanish Civil War, del Toro explores fantasy, myth and childhood in a time of oppressive fascism; the specks of light that escape the darkness.

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.”

Bones and All is a surprisingly effective and affecting cannibal love story.

A sweet, science-fiction family film with a loud environmentalist message (speaking of “Avatar”) that’s good fun. It’s also nicely self-contained.

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.

Directed by Maria Schrader, the film that’s part of one of the most reliably galvanizing genres — newspaper reporters doggedly chasing down a tough story — is a disappointing, sleepy metronome with made-for-TV diminutiveness.