Murtada Elfadl

Perry knows what he’s doing. He can’t possibly think any of this is believable for one second. But it could be fun to discuss its outlandishness over a few glasses of wine.

As blockbuster movies go, Dune: Part Two is a thrilling ride that totally earns its two-and-a-half-hour running time. The filmmakers add much-needed heft to their display of virtuoso filmmaking by adding serious real-life themes.

In telling the specific moving stories of a few men, The Space Race manages to provide such a rich perspective into their experience that it transcends its goals of shining a light on worthy lives and untold history, to entertain and educate.

With Perfect Days, Wenders shows what an artist who has lived a full life can accomplish. There’s a sweet rhythm to the film that cherishes the small moments that might go unnoticed elsewhere.

In crafting two believable characters, giving them witty banter and getting Mamet and Athar to inhabit them, Litwak succeeds. The rest feels hit or miss.

Unfortunately director Reinaldo Marcus Green, along with his co-screenwriters Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers and Zach Baylin, waste this opportunity and Marley’s legacy with a rather limp story full of cliches and perplexing choices.

Manning Walker proves herself a natural filmmaker, trusting that she doesn’t need to explain everything. As a storyteller she’s comfortable in the gray areas. As a director she’s able to coax wonderful performances and give them enough space to feel lived in.

In real life, anyone would hate to spend even a few minutes in their company. Yet in Hammel’s hands, they become easy to enjoy and laugh at while completely understanding their full awful personalities.

As an homage to biblical epics of yesteryear, The Book Of Clarence doesn’t have enough grand drama or thrilling set pieces. As a spoof of such films, it loses its nerve and never goes for the full joke. And as a straightforward story of belief, it relies too much on familiar tropes. Thus it ends up being too little of this and that and not enough of its own.

Ultimately All Of Us Strangers says that only a lucky few get to free themselves to accept love and redemption. It’s a heartbreaking and sad notion, but when delivered with as much sensitivity and visual panache as Haigh does, it becomes cathartic.

The Color Purple offers some entertaining moments, however the sum of it is much less than some of its standout parts. Bazawule clearly had a vision in adapting this story once more, and he’s aided by excellent work from cinematographer Dan Lausten and costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck, yet that vision never fully coheres.

Even if narratively Mami Wata never fully reaches a satisfactory apex, its images remain utterly enthralling.

American Fiction is an intriguing conundrum. It starts as a sizzling, hilarious satire that manages to sling pointed arrows at most of its targets. However, by trying to become too many things, it ends up sanding the edges off its sharpness. Still, the journey to its denouement remains mostly entertaining.

Oldroyd has crafted a strange and mysterious thriller with Eileen. It’s not entirely satisfying, however it’s also never less than imaginatively conceived and utterly beguiling.

It’s the lame jokes and repetitive dialogue that keep it from landing any laughs. The cast is essentially left stranded, mugging for the cameras as they desperately try to compensate for the undercooked script.

It lulls the audience into thinking it’s only providing historical context. Yet by the end, it reveals the myths, the distortions and the made-up fallacies that have been presented as truth for centuries. And that is the most radical thing it could have done.

Faced with a flat script and uninspired direction, the actors can’t save Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Killers Of The Flower Moon is as momentous as the country it’s set in and as full of history as the people whose murder it depicts.

With mystical elements and a foray into gothic storytelling, A Haunting In Venice could have been much more intriguing. Instead, Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green do not vary much from what they delivered in the other two movies.

Beyond the righteous action and visceral violence, it’s Washington’s swagger and charisma that compels.

While Feña’s journey may contain some contrivances, the way this young man adapts to each predicament feels authentic and emotionally potent. That’s a testament to Lungulov-Klot, who succeeds in placing vivid characters in slightly heighted situations — amplifying our connection in the process — without sacrificing the sense of realism that makes “Mutt” so relatable.

A by-the-books comedy, “The Out-Laws” misses its target. It doesn’t make its audience laugh, and it wastes its cast by putting them in the most obvious situations and giving them forgettable jokes.

A must-watch for anyone looking for a thrilling summer blockbuster.

Jennifer Lawrence proves, once again, that she can carry a film by the sheer force of her on-screen magnetism and performance agility.

Because of the structure of the film—the story within the story—none of them feel urgent or especially resonant. There are moments of brilliance both from the performers and from the writing. But they never cohere together into a complete story.

Using horror to satirize systemic racial failures in American society is a bold goal, but with its unbelievable final resolution, the film falters somewhat in execution.

What Assassin Club lacks in fully developed characters, it more than makes up for in kinetic thrills. Golding proves that he can carry both the romantic and physical aspects of such a project, while looking delectable, and that’s probably as much as the audience for this film expects.

While it doesn’t fare well in comparison, Master Gardener still has enough unique characteristics and performances to stand out as a fine film. It’s just the least successful in this particular trilogy.