Kenneth Turan

The virtues of The Aeronauts are real but they are almost exclusively visual. Despite the hard work of acclaimed actors in what sounds on paper like a strong story, the drama presented is determinedly earth-bound.

Instead of engaging what we get is a plodding, unfocused effort with few genuine thrills to speak of, the kind of movie that would play best on an airplane when you are eager to kill time.

Midway is so square, so old-school and old-fashioned, it almost feels avant-garde. Ambiguity is not its goal, nor is nihilism its motivating philosophy. It aims to celebrate heroism, sacrifice, determination and grit, and if you don’t like that it really does not care.

Erratic but engaging, going in and out of daring, the film’s mixture of black humor and unashamed sentimentality is not always as good as its best parts.

While part of the film offers the expected, unsparingly violent action tropes typical of the series, there’s another aspect to the story, a surprisingly brooding examination of a warrior in winter, a dark story of a berserker who can’t let go, that’s in its own way bleaker and more despairing than we may be expecting.

Perhaps inevitably because it is dealing with a big issue, This Changes Everything suffers a bit from being all over the map, touching so many bases that, though each is important, they don’t all cohere into a whole.

Three Peaks is a dark little family drama, a ticking time bomb of a movie that is well made but never totally satisfies.

The plotting is so leaden and the fire fights so pro forma that not even the sight of the three Shafts in action can keep this film from sinking under its own weight. Yes, the great Isaac Hayes music makes an appearance, but the old days are gone and they are not coming back.

Director Russo-Young, whose roots are in independent film, has brought a bit of a welcome indie sensibility to the proceedings.

Well-behaved and genteel from the get-go, it has its pleasures, but being wild and crazy is not one of them.

Cinéma vérité all the way, a classic fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows Bannon for about a year as he flies hither and yon on private jets, taking meetings, bolstering supporters and attempting to turn his brand of fervent nationalism into a global movement.

Whether this iteration of Dumbo is a good experience for you will depend on your tolerance for the familiar and the sentimental, and the joy you take in what is visually striking and beautiful.

The body count goes up, but our interest level doesn’t rise with it.

Landais has made a version of Aspern that is too often uncertain and unconvincing despite the good work of his female stars. And when the actresses leave the screen and the film ventures into ill-advised flashback territory, things get shakier still.

Destroyer is simultaneously impressive and stand-offish. Persuasively directed by Kusama and convincingly acted by Kidman and expert costars like Toby Kebbell and Sebastian Stan though it is, its determination to live exclusively at the darkest end of the street pays disagreeable dividends.

Mortal Engines is bursting with everything you’d want except compelling emotional intelligence.

Bright and charismatic though Mary was, she was, in effect, born under a bad sign, fated, despite all her advantages, not to have anything like the happily ever after that royals have in fairy tales and Disney movies. In a similar way, despite numerous advantages (including splendid cinematography by John Mathieson), the film with her name on it has promise it does not fully deliver on. But when those queens are on the screen, all bets are off.

The visual allure of this production is undeniable, but having the nerve to be simple and nice all the way through is, even for Disney, verging on being a lost art.

Viper Club is an attempt at a very difficult balancing act. It doesn’t quite succeed, but it deploys enough persuasive elements to make the attempt involving.

The efforts of an international cast including stars Oscar Isaac, Melanie Laurent and Nick Kroll notwithstanding, Operation Finale sounds more involving than it actually plays, ending up earnest and acceptable more than compelling.

Despite its pro-forma nature, the setup for Siberia — a lone hero in over his head in an unfamiliar world — actually starts out well but refuses to play out in satisfying ways.

Not that you would anyway, but it doesn't pay to think too hard about "Rampage." Sure, it could be improved (shorter would have helped), but it gets the job done in a more or less acceptable way. Not the highest praise, but things could have been worse.

While Chappaquiddick sheds some light on the proceedings, the film leaves us feeling, as Kennedy intimate Ted Sorensen (Taylor Nichols) puts it, "history has the final word on these things," not Hollywood.

Simultaneously effective and uninspired, Red Sparrow is successful in fits and starts. A perfectly serviceable spy thriller, it inevitably leaves behind the feeling that a better film was possible than the one that made it to the screen.

Made with its subject's cooperation and talking to people like comrade in arms Gloria Steinem and Allred's daughter, fellow attorney Lisa Bloom, the film allows us, at least to a certain extent, to get behind the public persona to the private person.

Though the sequences of the actual heroism on the Paris-bound train are fully as crisp and involving as you'd expect, the other sections of the film, intent on demonstrating how undeniably everyday the three participants were up to that crucial moment, fall regrettably flat.

Because of its look, some fine period music including the Mills Brothers version of "Coney Island Washboard," and actors giving it their best effort, Wonder Wheel is not as completely forgettable as it would otherwise be.

Though it keeps Auggie's fine sense of humor and his remarkably even-keeled attitude about himself and his situation, the movie version of Wonder feels more pat and After School Special-ish than the novel.