Kyle Smith

Mannered acting, dismal cinematography, clunky attempts to enhance excitement via gimmicks such as slow motion, and a musical score like a fountain of goo all serve as flashbacks to Reagan-era network schlock.

The film proves to be as smug and shallow as the plutocrats it lampoons.

Though Mr. Skarsgård (who played the terrifying Pennywise in “It”) is gravely charismatic and FKA twigs is touching, the dour, depressing dankness of Mr. Sanders’s vision makes The Crow a turkey.

Alien: Romulus occupies a strange position: It’s lovingly aimed at fans who have seen its Carter-era predecessor 15 times, yet it’s unlikely to scare anyone except those who are new to the “Alien” shtick. In space, it turns out, no one can hear you yawn, either.

The tone is dry farce that never strays into camp, with a mildly sardonic appreciation of oddballs recalling such Robert Altman films as “The Long Goodbye.” A creepily discordant musical score by Fatima Al Qadiri adds immensely to the feeling that everyone is hiding something and no good will come of it.

Parts of the film (which can be seen in select theaters and via video on demand) are so good that it’s a shame it strikes so many false notes.

Cuckoo brings up a lot of ideas but doesn’t organize them into anything like a satisfying resolution. As frenzy follows frenzy, it aspires merely to create a feeling of senseless chaos.

The charming, gentle simplicity of the book, with its childlike art, has been displaced by a mania for digital images and frantic attempts to be funny. This crayon should have been left in its box.

Mr. Liman handles each plot beat maladroitly, piling one utterly absurd contrivance or coincidence upon another.

At times, it’s scary how derivative it is. Still, as crepuscular weirdness seeps across the story and leads to a delirious ending, it’s largely effective.

Messy as it is, Deadpool & Wolverine is the first MCU movie in several years that’s mostly enjoyable.

Oddity is everything a horror film should be—creepy, exciting, unpredictable—and it leads to an ending that’s both shocking and inevitable.

Thanks to a polished script by Mark L. Smith, exciting yet human-focused direction by Lee Isaac Chung, and two likable stars, the quiet scenes work too. This is one of the few Hollywood movies this year to achieve everything it sets out to do.

It’s easily the most effective work of horror I’ve seen this year.

Martin Scorsese is the ideal moviegoing companion: His fandom is so exuberant, so well-informed, and so contagious, that he makes you want to see every work he mentions (or see it again) to luxuriate in the images as he does.

Touch is a worthy consideration of the things that matter most when the clock is running out, but it could have been more focused.

Fly Me to the Moon could have worked beautifully, if only someone had first figured out a coherent story.

“Sound of Hope,” like its predecessor, is a big-hearted film made with a homespun sincerity that comes as a refreshing surprise at the multiplex these days, though it has the gauzy, simplistic feel of a cable-TV movie.

The heart of the Gru-niverse is slapstick and capers, but the balance is all off here.

Daddio is a bracingly naturalistic conversation with a sneakily brilliant screenplay and two wonderfully textured lead performances.

The film may be pretty to look at, but this passion project isn’t likely to generate much of it.

If a thriller can make you hold your breath for fear of being eaten by aliens while you’re sitting in the multiplex, it’s working pretty well, and “A Quiet Place: Day One” appropriately kept me in a frozen state, afraid to so much as crinkle a page in my notebook.

It’s a film that demands to be watched several times to figure it out, but although I occasionally enjoyed its mordant humor, it’s so unpleasant that it’s hard to sit through once.

Thanks to an inert story and disagreeable characters, its 90 minutes go by slowly.

There’s no goal to be met or secret to be uncovered. Instead, it’s a collection of odd, wonderfully realized vignettes that plunge us into an alternative way of life that it neither glamorizes nor satirizes but simply strives to understand.

Fresh Kills could have been a psychologically penetrating character study but settles for merely reiterating that it’s unpleasant to be a gangster’s daughter.

Rejecting all Hollywood trends pointing the other way, Inside Out 2 goes for the penetrating over the shallow every time, never allowing the premise to devolve into a mere gimmick.

Without straining to make an obvious point, Mr. Tomnay uses black comedy and shocking splatters of gore to tweak the class of jaded plutocrats who are as asset-rich as they are morals-poor.

Fewer and better-drawn supporting characters would have helped give some substance to Chris Bremner and Will Beall’s script, but as it is the movie centers on the chatter of the two principals, creaky one-liners and blowout action scenes that mistake frantic editing for excitement.

Though rousing in places, “Young Woman and the Sea” is a routine effort that feels made for television, and was (originally slated for Disney+). Clichés and predictability are more forgivable at home, but asking people to take the plunge on a movie ticket for this so-so offering is asking a lot.

Here she accomplishes something her father has done many times: making two-thirds of a reasonably compelling supernatural thriller. But that’s like saying the “Agony of Defeat” guy had two-thirds of an excellent ski run before things went amiss.

Mr. Bellocchio, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Susanna Nicchiarelli, has crafted a weighty, suspenseful family drama that touches on the eternal conflicts of religion but widens into a consideration of law, personal development and power politics.

At its best, “Furiosa” is like a more fun, less ponderous and mysticism-free “Dune,” with every pedal properly to the metal. But it’s closer to numbing than enthralling, like a long ride with no shock absorbers.

Swamping the audience with Michael Giacchino’s oceans-of-syrup score, IF expects viewers to cry at the end, but if so it’ll be due to regret at wasted time, or possibly from hyperglycemia.

The film is detailed, vivid, enthralling—and necessarily full of pain. The performances are top-notch, led by Ms. Abela, who does her own singing in an amazing re-creation of Winehouse’s muscular soul vocals.

The second half, in particular, exemplifies science fiction at its best: thoughtful, exciting, provocative and pointed. It’s fantasy wrapped around ideological substance, making “Kingdom” the best of the franchise films to make it to theaters so far this year.

It’s a finely wrought story of palace intrigue enriched by lush sets and decors, having been shot at Versailles.

As pleasing as the film may be to those who treasure ambiguity and nuance, it strikes me as dry and tedious.

Mr. Pearce (“Iron Man 3,” “Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation”) and his director have no idea what kind of picture they want to make. Instead they have four or five different concepts which they set loose like cars ramming into each other as they jostle for position.

Boy Kills World should have stuck to gonzo comedy and been 15 minutes shorter. But Mr. Mohr exhibits the kind of flair for comic action that makes him an obvious choice to direct a big-budget Hollywood superhero epic.

Director Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes tell the story out of order, jumping around in time so often that it becomes tiresome, especially since there is so little forward-moving plot.

As this frequently lyrical and touching portrait of youth reminds us, for many thousands of people over the years, Cabrini-Green was simply home.

The gags seem fun and refreshing at first, but they get stale quickly. Moreover, since there is no plot and no dialogue, the quirky central idea never takes on any narrative momentum. What might have been a brilliant short subject—at, say, 15 minutes—gets stretched to its limits, and then some.

Civil War is superficially silly—Mr. Garland writes himself into a trap in one tense scene and gets out of it with an absurd moment of action-hero gusto that is, as presented, not possible—but it’s also deeply silly. It’s a statement movie that contains no insights at all.

Written by Tim Smith, Keith Thomas and Arkasha Stevenson, and directed by Ms. Stevenson, The First Omen relies heavily on gory imagery, jump scares and shocking dream sequences to cover for its weak plotting.

Reining in his famously discursive dialogue, and designing a clean, punchy plot, Mr. Allen limits himself to suggesting one big point with one big twist, which he makes emphatically, even wickedly.

The audience is left to feel sorry for characters we’re meant to find amusingly contemptible and to groan at the way the writing keeps taking potshots at the most obvious targets. When the film thinks it’s being wicked, it’s closer to being trite.

Spectacular? I guess, if you’re wowed by soulless CGI chaos. Thrilling? Not really. At the end, I was left feeling the way Kong does at the beginning: tired and bored.

Who doesn’t love Bill Shatner? The theatrical documentary “William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill” reminds us why, stylistically channeling what became the actor’s signature: a dedication to sustained gravitas so portentous that it becomes absurd, then keeps going until it emerges, triumphantly, into the realm of the genuinely spellbinding.

What was once thrilling, inventive and funny is now desiccated and limp. The pertinent question, it turns out, is not “Who you gonna call?” but “Why did they bother?”

Mr. Cailley is interested in the allegorical implications of his story, but not interested enough to pursue them very seriously.

Not many performers can please an audience as much as Mark Wahlberg, but the pooch comes close.

Given that the character is a literal saint, and the script never stops reminding us how brave, honorable, loving and committed Mother Cabrini is, the movie suffers from a certain steadfast tone. It’s warm with fondness but never boiling with passion, and a major star might have succeeded in making Cabrini larger than life. As it is, she comes across as so pure that it’s a little difficult to relate to her.

Asleep in My Palm is a virtuoso debut feature from writer-director Henry Nelson.

Instead of a theme park, it’s more of a cathedral—solemn, sober, beautiful and forbidding. Greig Fraser’s photography and Hans Zimmer’s score are full of majesty.

About Dry Grasses is characteristically extravagant and tiny at the same time, like a 10-story museum devoted to paper clips.

The film is a lesbian-road-trip gangster farce with a hint of political satire, and though it’s admirably offbeat I found it only mildly amusing.

Even though it starts out likable, it gets sillier as it goes along and winds up as camp.

If the film is ambitious, it is also inert.

As bright as Ms. Cody’s imagination is, she deserves a director who understands comic tempo. Instead, the third act, which should be frantic, seems ponderous, with a clunky ending. Lisa Frankenstein may celebrate the undead, but it’s not lively enough.