Karen Han

The documentary, directed by Chris Metzler, Jeff Springer and Quinn Costello, and narrated by Wendell Pierce, uses cartoon diagrams and a cheerful score by the Lost Bayou Ramblers to make its tale of inherited destruction and trauma as charming as possible. The way that initial ease peels back is the film’s greatest asset.

It’s not a perfect movie, nor a particularly innovative one, but the science-fiction adventure—touted as the first Korean space blockbuster—is certainly fun, with colorful performances and impressive CGI, and a worthy substitute for a new Star Wars or Marvel movie.

It’s what James and Thomas bring to the table that makes this new adaptation of Rebecca worth watching.

The story digs deep enough that the cheese Garbarski lays on at the end feels well-earned. It’s a charmingly made film.

In other words, while it might not return with previously unseen treasures, what it does rummage up pairs perfectly with a large bucket of popcorn and a slushy drink.

This would-be tale of female empowerment spends too much time worrying about visuals rather than the story it’s telling, and it loses any sense of catharsis as a result.

The humor being volleyed around in Hubie Halloween isn’t malicious; Sandler, as Hubie, is almost always the butt of the joke, and the gags are mostly gross-outs rather than jabs at any specific people. Hubie Halloween may not be Uncut Gems, but it excels at being what it is: a comedy that’s easy to watch, and easy to forget about.

The textures and sounds littered throughout the film plug up the plot holes effectively enough to keep the film sailing for its 91-minute duration, but there’s no glue keeping that confetti in place, and those flaws open up again as soon as there’s enough breathing room to look at them properly.

That it ends up being more of a showcase for Pattinson than Chalamet is the film’s biggest irony, and nearly the only thing that keeps Michôd’s latest from being a total drag. Chalamet, who has proven himself worthy of the stan culture around him in his previous performances, is a black hole of charisma as Hal.

The film is easy on the eyes, and its cast is strong, but that doesn’t make up for a thin story. The action keeps moving by necessity, given how many characters are in play, but stop to inspect the proceedings, and it becomes clear that that movement isn’t based on much.

The mash-up of tones is a tough one, as is the film’s central pairing, but it works just well enough.

Last Christmas does the job when it comes to creating a pleasant haze of warm feelings, offering a momentary respite from the cold, cynical world outside the movie theater.

It’s the rare teen movie that doesn’t seem like it’s mostly a fantasy, that gets beyond the big, artificial beats of series like Glee and Riverdale.

If anything, this version could have benefited from being weirder. Given that weird is territory Zemeckis seems to specialize in, The Witches’ relatively tame nature is a letdown.

It’s equal parts modern fairy tale, time-travel movie that’s meant to make people understand and appreciate their own era, and Christmas magic movie, and the creators don’t do anything meaningful to refresh those genre trappings, or play with their conventions.

Project Power’s burst of color comes from its central conceit and Joost and Schulman’s sense of style. It’s bright and attractive, but it fizzles out quickly. Tomlin’s idea is innovative, but the story he tells with it is tired.

As Berg and Wahlberg (perfect partners, even in name) ascended inexorably toward a parodic level of Bostonian-ness in Spenser Confidential, I wondered if I wouldn’t be having a better time just getting a more concentrated dose of Arkin in The Kominsky Method.

The artistry at work in The Wave isn’t enough to keep the film from caving in under its middling story.

It’s just enough entertainment to provide fodder for one diverting sleepover, but it’ll be forgotten as soon as the morning dawns.

Director Michael Scott, working in a moody color palette that often makes the movie look like an extended episode of Riverdale, keeps the surprises coming at a pace that ensures no one will think too hard about the fact that there aren’t really any clues to follow. The pleasure of Dangerous Lies isn’t finding out whodunit, but simply yelling, “What?” at your screen as increasingly unbelievable twists play out.

All in all, Cruella is much better than it needs to be, and is hampered primarily by the fact that it’s a Disney movie, both in the sense that it has to heel to its animated and live-action predecessors, and in that making its main character a genuine antihero isn’t an option.

Disney Plus’ original Christmas movie Noelle is like a recipe where all the ingredients are delicious, then realizing, once the dish has been cooked, that the flavors cancel each other out.

Though the central idea is fun, everything that’s been built around it feels rote, if not totally outdated.

Like The Snowman, The Last Thing He Wanted fails to give its audience all the clues necessary to form a coherent picture, and flops in spite of what should be a killer director/cast combination.

Characters go from one place to the next with no explanation and no second thought, and even single scenes play out as if someone attacked the reel of film with a pair of scissors.

Cats undermines itself in both editing and musical arrangement, barely has a plot to hang its hat on, and is CGI-ed into oblivion. Yet there’s something weirdly wonderful about just how committed Hooper is to his vision, which feels like it should have been audience-tested into something less phantasmagorical.

Gorō is a talented director. The individual shots of Earwig are beautifully composed, the characters are delightful (the tiny demons who wait upon Mandrake seem destined to become merchandise hits), and the film’s flimsy plot isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But the visuals sink the entire enterprise.

Though the film becomes a slog, it has a saving grace in Curtis and Vera’s performances, which serve as neat complements to each other in temperament as well as fighting styles.