Michael Ordoña

How It Ends works both as an alternative to the usual, race-against-time or humanity-sucks apocalypse dramas, and as a personal exploration of settling affairs — and it’s a comedy.

The film mixes horror elements with surreal fantasy and the crushing realism of a serious family drama. It’s metaphorical, vague but also precise in its specificity for the horrific trials these people are to face — their personal hell.

Hard Luck Love Song is a happy but gritty marriage of material, filmmaker and star. Much is asked of Dorman, and he delivers all.

Where the documentary succeeds most plangently is in its fan testimonials of the album’s impact and Blige’s emotional recollections of the songs’ roots.

Migration isn’t exactly unique, but it’s different enough. And in today’s factory filmmaking, that’s almost as unlikely as milking a duck.

In Embattled, the human side feels explored, as if the film could have been made without the MMA scenes and still been a worthwhile watch. But it does have those adrenaline-injecting fights, so … all the better.

The flesh-and-blood protagonists are powerful, driven people caught in a riptide.

Boss Level takes a well-worn gag and injects energy, showing the genre is still a game worth playing.

Pixie isn’t exactly magical, but amusing enough whenever Cooke’s character casts her spell

The film, based on Romain Puértolas’ novel, has clever touches and is consistently engaging, if meandering.

The subject is absorbing, but the lack of differentiation in dramatic levels makes the film feel longer than its 126 minutes.

Tammy’s Always Dying is a richly observed comedy-drama. Johnson’s direction is intelligent and restrained.

An intelligent, sometimes moving, sometimes funny sci-fi examination of emotional autonomy amid futuristic pharmaceuticals, until an awkward shift into thriller territory dilutes its purity.

The film drifts from grown-up to kid problems with mostly anecdotal evidence but very little science to back it up. It tries to cover too much ground in 71 minutes without going deeply into any of the areas it lightly explores.

While the result may be scattershot at times, the achievements of these badass professionals are worth a look — especially if, like this writer, you believe an Oscar category for stunt performers is long overdue.

Against the Current is a gem. It’s gorgeous in many ways.

No moment on this anything-but-love boat has the impact of, say, the seasickness sequence of “Triangle of Sadness,” but slaughter stans will get their butchery bellyfuls.

The superb fight choreography and committed execution by the two women in the ring (real-life UFC champ Valentina Shevchenko is convincing as Jackie’s opponent), informed by Berry’s skill as an actor conveying Jackie’s desperation, make the final fight thrilling and cringe-inducing — in a good way.

Little attention is paid to the vernacular or physicality of the period. The depths of emotions aren’t plumbed.

That rare zombie movie with actual scares.

You don’t have to be into football to appreciate the high-stakes struggle in National Champions.

No Man’s Land comes out of the blue to comment memorably on the immigration crisis by simply giving human life its due. It’s wise and empathetic and worth a watch.

It’s a ‘70s paranoia movie in the best sense. And this is no hackneyed tribute; it’s complex, murky, propulsive.

Jerry & Marge Go Large is a charmer. It’s a low-key, fact-based caper movie that overcomes some broad comedy leanings to settle into the sweet stuff in the soft center. It’s bolstered by a funny script and dependably sharp performances by Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening.

If you can hang with the slow gestation of the first hour or so of Malignant, the final third may grow on you.

Day Shift is a damned delight. One would be tempted to call it the best horror comedy of 2022 so far, but it mixes so many genres it’s more like 2022’s best horror-buddy-cop-cartel-drama-bounty-hunter-martial-arts-action comedy (so far).

To very young kids who like cartoon dogs driving shiny vehicles, PAW Patrol: The Movie may be awesome. To grown-ups, it may be an aggressively under-written, 88-minute toy commercial.

In a pandemic, some might call the film a beacon of hope; others might prefer science to prayer for salvation. As a piece of cinema, though, Fatima is unlikely to be canonized.

You don't go to this film for Sorkinesque repartee; you go for the world's longest chainsaw, or equal-opportunity genital mutilations, or very, very long bludgeonings. And here they are, in buckets.

One suspects Inside the Rain is a labor of love. One wishes its makers would have let us in enough to love it as well.

The Unholy Trinity is a passable, 95-minute diversion, but an unremarkable one.

The plot chugs along with no surprises, but that’s beside the point. While it’s not exactly a laugh riot, the film’s humor tends to land.

Dosed works best as a purely anecdotal, personal chronicle of a friend’s struggle with addiction therapies. It is not recommended as a substitute for scientific conclusions.

Kate has its charms.

You want to see Eddie Murphy surrounded by some Christmas-themed silliness. And on that score, it’s fine enough, but destined for regifting.

The slapstick generally works and the movie milks Bautista’s sheer size and roughness, compared with tiny Coleman’s crafty fearlessness. Much of the story is telegraphed, but it’s not about shocks or surprises. It’s a charming diversion stocked with people who are fun to watch.

Unfortunately, the movie’s thriller elements amount to pale reflections of many other works.

It’s so detached from the supervillain narrative that it’s almost meta. But as the musical numbers become lengthy detours rather than lending further insight into Arthur, the sequel doesn’t sing as a character study. And it sure ain’t a thriller.

It’s one of those pseudo-thrillers with car chases and shootouts in which it’s hard to invest yourself because its rules seem fungible.

Without a more probing look into her artistry, it’s hard to think of Olympia as a definitive Dukakis profile — though it’s certainly an unusual celebrity documentary.

In such troubled times, one supposes there’s comfort to be found in the lack of adventurousness of Holidate, but it’s like opening the same present again and again.

It’s full of missed opportunities and lacking in telling details.

The Princess is an unabashedly feminist action-adventure in which the central character rises from her dormancy to slash the patriarchy. It couldn’t be more timely, and it’s a good time too.

With its human relations a bit dicey, the movie lives or dies by the cuteness of its CG animals. Fortunately, it probably will never stop hitting the cute button inside us simply to see rabbits scurry-hopping with earnest little faces. The cinematic technology’s growth is remarkable.

The cast is game. Unfortunately, what should be gut punches feel like glancing blows.

While it gets mileage out of its two fine lead performances and the story has deep emotional roots for the filmmakers, its journey fails to capture the imagination.

Odom, surely one of the busiest actors working today, gives a committed performance but lacks chemistry with either of his onscreen wives. A sense of lightness, of fun, of the alchemy between two people is missing, though it would seem crucial to drive the story.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom may not be consequential in the long run, but it’s a mostly diverting, upbeat closer, one that could hint at the tone of things to come.

The film lacks slam-bang, signature action sequences that would make it more memorable.

The picture’s too rosy to feel real. Its elements of posthumous, loving advice and inevitable tragedy make for good bones. But this portrait is too clean, too unquestioning, too accepting, to get to the marrow.

The filmmaking lacks the style to pull off its willful blending of fact and fantasy. At least there are the songs to enjoy.

Is Faith Based the answer to the prayers of comedy-starved movie buffs? Not entirely, but it’s no plague of locusts, either.

The new Cheaper by the Dozen feels less like a feature than a lengthy sitcom pilot. It’s an assembly-line product scrubbed clean of personality.

The movie isn’t unusual-looking or surprising, but my daughter assures me fans of the show will not want to miss it. The rest of us will be immersed in warm confusion as things we just don’t understand unspool before us.

Whatever its goals, the filmmaking is uninspired. It’s heavily reliant on clichés, especially in its use of score, the lone-wolf cop and familiar devices to build tension.

The scenery’s gorgeous, Redgrave and Bergin are pros, Tom Everett Scott is fittingly gross as the selfish stage dad and Goodacre has some charm. But the film forgot to graft a personality onto its protagonist and seems so determined to be PG-clean that sparks between the leads are … hard to “find.”

The ending that seems meant to be wistful, even magical, reads instead as appalling, lamentable, gloomy, however you want to say “the opposite of wondrous and happy.”

It’s more of the same, for better or worse, but likely with enough bells and whistles — especially those new characters — to please younger fans.

The gags are often better in theory than practice.

If scares are the movie’s raison d’etre, though, it’s hard to imagine Spell will frighten anyone but those vulnerable to a few bits of graphic gore.

Opportunities for comedy are missed by miles. Davidson gets gonzo gags, Palmer is 007 with a heart, Murphy and Longoria try to exist in reality. That halfhearted miasma of genres results in tonal confusion. Murphy throws in what seem like ad libs to spice up a moribund script, but it’s not enough to add flavor to a bland stew.

The movie is Barrymore’s, of course. Even after the initial jolt of seeing her as a cursing hellion and an ambitious hanger-on wears off, she does not disappoint.

If you're interested in this movie, it's because you love either seeing zombies explode (check), the video games (major character included, check) or Jovovich kicking undead butt in every conceivable way (check and mate).

You’ll be pleased to discover the entertaining remake has its charms; it actually is all that, for the most part.

Don’t expect surprises or something to ideologically critique. This is kooky carnage. You came for Dave Bautista stomping a motorcycle into submission, and damn it, that’s what you’re gonna get.

We get slivers of moments and feelings described rather than experienced.

If the end-of-the-world genre seems downright somnambulant lately, Awake is jolting proof a fiendishly clever twist can shake it from its doldrums.

The new David Bowie biopic Stardust could be marketed as “Bowie as you’ve never seen him,” but it feels like “Bowie as no one ever saw him.”

Kraven the Hunter will sate fans with Taylor-Johnson’s action bona fides and its fine cast. But those same fans may be less-than enthusiastic about the idea that, with no Spider-Man and no franchise to move forward, this one essentially has nowhere to go.

Scream 7 is anything but cutting edge.

The “pranks” just aren’t funny. The whole premise isn’t funny.

The action is violent and improbable but not staged with particular pizazz.

There’s much to like about the road-trip comedy Half Brothers. It’s funny, smart, topical and even touching at times. But it’s hard to overcome the inescapable rot at its center.

Interesting and timely, The Red Sea Diving Resort highlights the plight of refugees and casts those helping them in a heroic light, but it doesn’t quite deliver dramatically.

For most, there will be no adrenaline rush from fear or thrill, or vicarious release from seeing tormentors tormented; one leaves feeling sad. Sad that this is what "entertainment" has come to. Come on, filmmakers. Can't you do better?

Breaking News in Yuba County lacks both the form and substance to cash in on its acting assets.

There's also no point in paying the 3-D ticket price for occasional bits of gristle flying your way, or blurry action shots. Whereas the first "Saw" got marks for originality, the filmmakers have so lost their fastballs that this one's extreme gore provokes either laughter or sleep.

Chain Letter is a nonsensical, bloody mess that, well, is missing a few links.

Only 97 minutes but feels much longer. It suffers from a marked lack of energy, a condition not cured by its many, many pop-music-scored montages.

It’s light on the science and heavy on the action.

The dialogue is often stiff, the action and plotting unlikely, making the romance hard to swallow. The appealing Uddin and Raymonde do generate enough chemistry in their fleeting time together to keep the proposition afloat.

Apparently, at least 400 women fought as men during the Civil War, but the perplexing Union is not the exploration they deserve.

Mosley feels well-intentioned, though its lessons are unclear, especially considering its ending. And more humor and more fully developed characters could have enlivened the familiar hero’s journey template.

The handcrafted feel of the film is mainly a virtue, setting it apart from the vast majority of animated fare.

Perhaps, despite its lack of structure, the film will inspire a new generation to investigate this funny lady who could sing the lights out.

There are nagging narrative gaps and some jumping around — while that’s a bit jarring, one supposes it’s apropos for the film’s handmade feel. This isn’t an official document; it’s a fan’s eyewitness account.

If tension was the filmmakers’ aim, they decisively miss — especially if it was meant to come from the puzzlingly casual sniper situation. Any possibility of buying into the story’s reality is defused by the soldiers being so dang gabby, and loudly so.

There is an enjoyable fight scene and the production design and cinematography of “Funhouse” do what they can with limited resources. One wishes the script hadn’t been the most limited resource of all.

Running Against the Wind is purportedly based on real events, and it’s sloppy and sort of random enough to be true.

It means to be about a struggling family saved by a brave dog. What most viewers will agree on is that it needed more dog.