Kyle Smith

Robin Hood, but he’s a bloodthirsty killing machine,” seems to have been an irresistible pitch that led to the curious if watchable drama The Death of Robin Hood. This Robin is anything but a merry man, and the film is anything but a fun adventure.

Flag Day may train its cameras on a small town, but its vision is expansive.

As attempted profundity, this doesn’t quite land, and neither does much else. Mr. Spielberg combined fairy tale with sci-fi beautifully in his 2001 masterpiece, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Disclosure Day is underwhelming when it tries to do the same.

Best to keep in mind that the whole franchise exists not to advance the craft of storytelling but the magic of merchandising. Forget it, friends, it’s Toytown.

The cast’s choices are like weather-balloon data that presage the disaster of the movie’s climax, when everyone behaves like an emotionally incontinent millennial.

Backrooms may not be a fully explained wonder but it’s well worth the wander.

Mr. Carney steers things back in a more pleasing direction in the end, but for a light comedy, “Power Ballad” contains far too much perplexed agony.

The movie takes on some formulaic thriller trappings in its final act, relying too heavily on strained coincidences. So its second half is more conventional and less grounded than its first. What both halves have in abundance, however, is Mr. Woodall’s unforced charm. He strikes every chord like a virtuoso, and he’s going to be a major player in the movies.

Director Jon Favreau’s film, which he wrote with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, features a grindingly simple plot that provides the weakest possible pretext to staple together a series of uninspired monster and droid fights.

Considering the gravity of the subject, and its immense potential, “The Wizard of the Kremlin” is not just a letdown, but something more like an insult. The film will do less damage to Mr. Putin’s reputation than to those of Mr. Assayas, Mr. Law and Mr. Dano.

Minus the flash, the neon, the tailoring and the quipping, LifeHack is a kind of Ocean’s Eleven for Gen Z: a breathless, ingenious caper that moves at about 200 megabits per second.

This soft, sedate mystery comedy seeks nothing more than to be like its heroes: warm and fuzzy. Less attractively, it’s also a bit cloddish and tame, falling into that unsatisfying category of children’s entertainment that seems to be styled in accordance with the tastes of old people.

Mr. Urban has natural swagger and he’s the best aspect here, although that’s like singling out the most fragrant part of a swamp.

Much of this roams pretty far from Orwell’s vision, but that’s not the reason the film fails. It fails because it’s obvious, witless and dull. The animation is charmless and bland.

The film seeks no more than to be fan service, a two-hour hangout with favorite characters and situations. Like many a runway trend, it isn’t going to last more than a season in anyone’s memory.

Writer-director Kirk Jones doesn’t do a great job finding anything fresh to say about this unnerving situation, with one exception.

Those too young to remember Jackson will get what they want, which is a fantastically effective introduction to the talent.

Even a day later, contemplating this willfully nauseating work carries much the same sensation as having ingested a plate of bad clams.

Amrum is a stirring example of how childhood reminiscence can stand for so much more.

The Christophers is zingy fun. Whichever world Mr. Soderbergh decides to visit, he invariably makes the trip worthwhile.

Some movies are toxically misconceived, and “The Drama” is among them. It wants to be wicked and outrageous but it’s really just dismal and depressing.

For those who half-remember the novella from school (as I did) and didn’t especially enjoy it (as I didn’t), Mr. Ozon both honors his material and reinvigorates it.

There’s nothing wrong with making movies for 5-year-olds. But, as directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and written by Matthew Fogel, “Galaxy” seems very much like a movie made by 5-year-olds.

An English-language debut by Russian director Kirill Sokolov, who also co-wrote its script, They Will Kill You is tongue-in-cheek but not witty, reveling in its excesses without bringing anything fresh to the party.

As a love story, Fantasy Life isn’t particularly original, but the low-key way Mr. Shear realizes some familiar situations is warm and human, with comic aspects and sad ones kept in an appealing balance.

The film may not propose a solution to any of our maladies, but it’s a bitterly convincing diagnosis.

Why an Oscar-winning screenwriter would make a film that makes so little attempt to dig into its central character is baffling. That an Oscar-nominated director with a celebrated eye for the ethereal, strange world of girl-women living in beautiful boxes could make a film as workaday as this one is frustrating.

Combining the best aspects of “Interstellar” and “The Martian,” but more satisfying in the end than either, this 2 1/2-hour epic Christian allegory recreates the same mix as the best Steven Spielberg fantasies—wonder, adventure, humor, warmth and pathos, all infused with a child’s sensibility.