Lindsey Bahr

Brightburn was a good idea. Unfortunately the creativity stopped there.

The driving engine behind the film — a whirlwind 24-hour romance — is contrived, underwhelming and perhaps worst of all, unconvincing.

Poms really wants to be a sweet movie with a sweet message, but it’s hard to buy into it when none of the squad gets significant backstories, inner lives or even enough dialogue to give them distinct personalities. They’re just there to be punching bags for other characters and the movie.

It’s not a perfect film, it lags at times and at over two hours it is far too long, but Theron and Rogen have a natural chemistry that makes spending a couple hours with them, even in the dullish moments, a joy.

The dance sequences, in training and performance, are magnificent. Fiennes is fascinated by the athleticism of ballet, and the granular details of the flexing muscles in feet and forearms.

Plotlines are abandoned at will, there are set ups for things that never come back and some suspiciously malleable “monster-logic” that makes the whole endeavor seem a little lazy and half-baked.

I’m still not entirely sure what it all adds up to, but it is provocative, difficult and bleak and leaves you with a very precise feeling of despair and aloneness — just like the best of the space independents do.

A bizarre and transfixing carnival of vulgarity and vice.

Nitpicks aside, Shazam! is just a lightning bolt of unexpected joy that is certainly worth your time and money.

But Clermont-Tonnerre has established herself as a filmmaker to watch with The Mustang, and has also made the most compelling case yet that Schoenaerts can not only handle an American accent, but excel with it too.

I spent over two hours with Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers and I still have no idea what her personality is. Sure, there’s a lot more going on in Captain Marvel, but it’s a pretty egregious failing considering that the creative bigwigs at Marvel had 10 years and 20 films to work it out.

Huppert seems to be enjoying herself fully leaning into Greta’s insanity, so perhaps this one can get a pass. She helps elevate the film from its self-consciously B-movie roots to be something that’s actually pretty good.

Isn’t It Romantic stays pretty surface level, which makes for a fine and pleasurable viewing experience, but doesn’t exactly do anything to show that rom-coms would be better if the best friends had more of an inner life, for example. In fact, it just kind of redeems the formula in some ways.

It’s pretty amazing just how compelling this is for being so simple, but it allows the viewer to really get wrapped up in the minutiae of it all: The performance, the landscape, the minor triumphs and major setbacks.

I’m not sure just how much more the studio can mine out of this concept that was once so brilliant. But happily, The LEGO Movie 2 doesn’t destroy everything the first worked so hard to build. It’s just trying very hard to be exactly the same.

A surprisingly delightful film full of action, heart, a crazy-haired Patrick Stewart (as “old” Merlin) and a few genuinely good gags.

While it might not be a conventional history lesson, it is a necessary and utterly urgent one.

For all the hype behind these three characters meeting, and the years it took to get it off the ground, Glass is one big anti-climax.

Although it might be a stretch to categorize this as a movie, A Dog’s Way Home is harmless enough and a nice little adventure that’s fit for the whole family. But you might want to have the tissues ready.

The filmmakers haven’t gone so far as to put you in the game, too. A lot of it is watching all the characters find keys and have their own revelations, so by the time you get to the fifth room, it’s understandable if interest is starting to wane a bit even with the addition of a link between the six people.

It is simply terrific — an understated but smartly told crowd-pleaser about the legendary comedy duo in their last act, with wonderful production value, a sharp and surprisingly poignant script and brilliant performances from John C. Reilly, as Oliver Hardy, and Steve Coogan, as Stan Laurel.

Brooklyn is a story for anyone who has ever left home. It’s a story for those who’ve waffled in indecision, for those forming their identities and forging their own paths. It’s a story awash in muted pastel nostalgia about family and love and ambition and heritage and goodbyes. And it’s one of the loveliest films to grace cinemas this year.

This is a complex man and artist worthy of a complex story, not a would-be-feel-good farce.

“Moonlight” is a hard act to follow, and while Beale Street might not quite reach the heights of Jenkins’ instant classic of a best picture-winner, it is its own kind of marvel, lovely, transcendent, heartbreaking and as smooth as its jazzy soundtrack.

A slow but captivating burn that may leave you questioning your own hard-set ideas of right, wrong and family.

The film, for all its prestige and edginess, its lofty goals and contemporary messages, is not a particularly engrossing experience.

Cuaron is content to take his time with Roma, allowing the camera to linger on his subjects and the frustrating banalities of ordinary, everyday life that sneak up on you with poetic significance as the film goes on

If there is a big studio movie that’s more generally crowd-pleasing than Green Book this season, I have yet to find it.