Kate Erbland

It works, and it’s no big mystery why — Johnson knows his form and format, and delivers on it, playing with tone and message but never losing sight of why these stories are so damn entertaining to watch and unravel.

The larger-scale drama is unquestionably effective — what Greengrass and his team of craftsmen and visual artists have been able to do with wind is a miracle, and that’s to say nothing of the fire itself — and so evocative and terrifying that words fail to do it justice.

The devil isn’t just on the screen, it’s in the details, and Latif’s film can’t pull those together.

While “Christy” has long been positioned as an awards play for Sweeney . . . her performance here is more nuanced and more painful than early indicators fully let on. She’s committed to the role, but she’s also committed to a story that doesn’t totally fit the usual mold. It doesn’t pull punches, even if that ultimately leaves a different kind of mark on its audience.

That McNamara has written a truly new spin on Adler’s novel is genuinely refreshing, but the lighter tone and greater reliance on actual romance between its leads makes what’s to come all the harder to swallow.

Handsomely made but tediously plotted, Kirby is more than deserving of this kind of meaty, she’s-in-every-frame role, but Night Always Comes sunsets long before we get there.

Leave it to Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan to crack the code as to what makes a good legacyquel, which they’ve done quite handily with their long-gestating Freaky Friday sequel, Nisha Ganatra’s charming and quite fun Freakier Friday. The secret? Fittingly enough, it harkens back to exactly what Curtis and Lohan brought to Mark Waters’ 2003 Freaky Friday: actual verve, obvious joy, and performances that are about three times better than they need to be.

And, yes, it is also often quite funny. Most of that humor comes care of Sandler, who slips back into Happy with something like grizzled ease, and seems to have not lost a trick on what makes the character both so funny (his rage, his imagination, his fashion sense) and so easy to care about (his rage, his imagination, his fashion sense).

The devil is in the details, and the details? Well, they’re in the kind of patchwork-guessing and random sign-seeing that so many are forced to endure as they embark on the horrors of modern dating. Brooks just takes them in some delightfully daffy (and occasionally deeply scary) new directions.

D’Apolito covers a staggering amount of ground here, much of that possible because of Lewis’ special brand of candor.

Yes, Ride’s life was rife with tensions, both personal and professional. So how do we build a film around that? Carefully. Perhaps too carefully.

Packed with major talking heads, zippy animation, and a bouncing (and bouncy) sense of time (and timeline), “It’s Dorothy!” succeeds mightily when it comes to its most elemental thesis.

No one needs a live-action remake, but ones this faithful and sweet are not the problem.

Cynical, sad, increasingly fucked up, and often gloriously mean, Song has turned the genre inside out to show us how shallow these stories can be.

That Tortorici pulls this twist off is both perverse and pleasurable, and that he keeps it all feeling funny is even better.

Occasionally muddled, mostly convoluted, and yet still broadly entertaining, it’s a shame this glossy and big budget affair (you really can’t fake Egyptian pyramids like these), will only exist as a streaming pick on Apple TV+.

It adds up to a fascinating, if often baffling first effort from Johannson and Kamen, one not afraid of big emotional wallops, but not always able to carry them into truly revelatory spaces. It’s a little predictable, a little bizarre, a little funny, and very sad, but it’s also an ambitious swing at what movies can still be.

The heart of this story remains firmly intact, but there’s something about seeing it rendered in live-action that takes away its inherent magic.

Austen fans might balk a bit at how much this one goes off-script into its own territory, but the spirit of Austen runs deep.

Mostly, G20 has two major points in its favor, right out of the gate: a super-fun premise for an action film (what if money-mad mercenaries seized the 20 most powerful leaders of the world and demanded some really insane shit?) and a star both so good and so classy that it never feels as if she’s punching below her weight class.

It doesn’t always fit seamlessly together, but it’s far more entertaining than that might lead on. This is a spirited and sweet spin on classic material that deserves kudos for its balance of necessary updates and affection for the old ways. Mostly, it’s a reminder of what’s actually worth considering and critiquing: the final product. This one is good.

The film makes a great case for Quaid as action hero, Midthunder as romantic charmer, and Berk and Olson as being ready to step out of their horror-centric background.

Zellweger, as ever, is sterling in the role. There is no Bridget Jones without Renée Zellweger, and the force of her performance and obvious admiration for the role do plenty to skate over any off-kilter beats (a few odd subplots, Bridget’s total lack of concern around money, etc.) with effervescence and pluck.

It’s a simple enough conceit, but one made consistently confusing by a distinct lack of energy, excitement, and cohesive editing. Never before has 83 minutes felt so very long.

There’s something quite moving about watching Matlin tell her own story, on her own terms.

We are treated to all the joys and pains of 10 transformative months, with Ewing and Grady taking us inside an experience that’s both specific and oddly universal.

Twohy seems to have long ago lost the thread of what Bubble & Squeak was really trying to say and the inventive ways he might say it.

In the moment, it’s hard not to get pulled into the spectacle, stuck to the story, really connected to this crowd-pleasing (and -screaming) little ditty of a midnight treat.