Katie Walsh

The irony and meaninglessness of the violence rankles, especially when Ulysses is presented as such a nice guy who is prone to de-escalation and community care in his day-to-day work.

There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers, and had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop stardom instead of an Oscar-winning acting career, she’d be one of our top icons. Her Mother Mary performances are so fantastic it leaves you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Forbidden Fruits can’t reconcile all of its influences and just ends up as a collection of references and high style without much staying power — it’s essentially the fast fashion of girly pop horror.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come feels behind the ball, not ahead of the game, and unfortunately, this is no escapist, or even cathartic, horror romp. Read the news instead if you’d like a real scare.

Made up of stylish pastiche, girl power slogans and one go-for-broke performance, The Bride!, like her Monster, isn’t much more than an assemblage of parts, and the slipperiness of time, place and character leaves the film unmoored and unrooted. Here comes The Bride! — unfortunately, she’s brain dead.

The surface pleasures of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights may be plenty, but the story itself, well, it never achieves climax.

Maybe every filmmaker should make their own Dracula — it’s a text that certainly can be quite illuminating

Greenland 2: Migration offers up a proudly, even defiantly, optimistic view of what comes after disaster, which can serve for the viewer as either cathartic fictional balm, or Pollyanna-ish fantasy — pick your poison.

Fuller demonstrates a strong command over his visual domain, but the pat allegory he presents about the monsters with whom we have to learn to live feels a bit muddled.

Thanks to Grande’s emotional performance, what does shine through is Glinda’s personal story about embracing change, stepping into her own power and defining what it means to be “good,” on her own terms — not because it’s her brand. This is decidedly Glinda’s movie, and that is the one good thing.

Bone Lake offers up an appealing surface, but it’s just too shallow to get very far.

Johansson’s direction is serviceable if unremarkable, and one has to wonder why this particular script spoke to her as a directorial debut. Though it is morally complex and modest in scope, it doesn’t dive deep enough into the nuance here, opting for surface-level emotional revelations. It’s Squibb’s performance and appealing screen presence that enables this all to work — if it does.

There are some affecting inner child healing moments here, but without details and specifics, this is a big, bold swing, but a beautiful miss.

With the dour drudgery of “Last Rites,” it has never been more clear that it’s time to move on from their story, even as the memories of better installments linger.

The character and Qualley’s performance is so beguiling that it would be a delight to watch Honey O’Donahue solve any manner of mysteries of the week, “Columbo”-style. It’s a shame, then, that the particular mystery at hand in Honey Don’t! is so convoluted and nonsensical.

Despite being two movies smashed together, torturously twisted in order to get all these legends at one tournament, Karate Kid: Legends isn’t an unpleasant experience, largely due to the charms of star Wang, who has a bashfully appealing presence that belies his seriously lethal martial arts skills.

Clown in a Cornfield is fun, to be sure, but feels about as substantial as a corn puff.

This flick isn’t a masterpiece, not even a vulgar one, but it’s cheeky and entertaining enough in its giddy hyperviolence, thanks almost entirely to the star turn of Josh Hartnett, who has proved in his recent renaissance that he’s especially great in bozo mode.

Levi plays Scott as somewhat smarmy and disingenuous — it’s hard to feel for this guy when he seems absolutely clueless about his own kids. Fahy carries the film in her supporting role, an acting imbalance that seems weirdly apt for this story: the supportive, capable wife sidelined in favor of showcasing the inept husband getting himself together and presenting it as meaningful or poignant.

Don’t sweat the small stuff (or even the Marvel brand) and Captain America: Brave New World proves itself to be a decent political thriller with something culturally resonant to say that exceeds mere comic book particulars.

The unpredictable nature of this thought-provoking tale and its unusual execution is laudable for its originality, but the ending of “Armand” troubles its strong start, with the sense that Tøndel’s assured direction at the outset has slipped as he makes his way to a strange climax and a questionable conclusion.

The film is a loving tribute from a son to a father figure, but perhaps Deen is too close to the story to have much perspective on it. We’ve seen this story before and Brave the Dark doesn’t shed new light.

While it is fun to reconnect with Big Nick and watch him try new foods, there’s just something missing in this rote “Ronin” ripoff — a danger. It seems Gudegast and his cast of characters alighted for Europe with only a few ideas in place, and the tapestry of this world is not woven as tightly as the original.

The film is a feat of maximalist and moody production design and cinematography, but the tedious and overwrought script renders every character two-dimensional, despite the effortful acting, teary pronunciations and emphatically delivered declarations.

Aside from the obviously unintentional humor, the quality of Kraven the Hunter is severely lacking. Perhaps that’s all the recommendation you need for some dumb fun at the movies.

The surface pleasures of Y2K are outlandishly fun, but plot-wise, the film is structurally unsound.

As far as family-friendly, faith-based holiday movies go, you could do worse than “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” though it might not quite connect with all young audiences, as the film leans more toward poignant than playfully riotous.

Never Let Go becomes an unpleasant slog for much of its runtime.