Nell Minow

It’s too bad this is not on a big screen, because the settings are filled with enticing details that bolster some of the weakness of the screenplay. Even on the smaller screen, though, the fresh, female-led take on the traditional tale, including a bit of a sisterhood-is-powerful twist near the end, makes it worth a watch.

The setting, with many of the same locations from the first film, is used effectively; the peaceful, bucolic beauty of the countryside contrasts with the war news and underscoring the children’s adaptability and resolve.

The movie gets a bit slow, with too much time spent on the human characters, who are dreary and underwritten, compared to the big dreams of the little snail. But the film picks up when the racing snails come back onscreen, thanks to the adorable character design, with expressive use of those googly eyes, and especially to the voice talent.

It’s filled with stunning images of some of the world’s most beautiful mountains and canyons and heart-stopping GoPro footage that takes us into the air with the jumpers. It’s sometimes thrilling and sometimes horrifying as we see and hear terrible accidents.

The Sapphires is clearly a labor of love for all involved. It's also a warm tribute to four women for whom success as performers was just the beginning.

This is very evidently a personal story for the people who made it, a heartfelt note of thanks for the fresh start they found in their new home, and for all fresh starts and the people with the courage to find them.

The movie does not live up to the eternally enchanting music, but it serves as an enjoyable delivery system for experiencing it again, which is magic enough.

Director Craig Johnson and screenwriter Kent Sublette (“Saturday Night Live”) find a nice balance for the boo-surprises, creepiness, and humor, with a resolution that brings everything and everyone together.

This sequel makes up for some of the problems with the 2019 "Addams Family" animated family film, which suffered from an uneven tone and a meandering storyline.

It was and still is a pleasure to see a film that gives actresses characters and storylines that do not reflect or depend on the men in their lives.

This documentary is about resilience and advocacy, but most of all it is a love story.

If we were supposed to take this movie literally, the metaphors would feel unforgivably heavy-handed. But if we think of it as a poetic, impressionistic meditation on life, death, love, art, and, yes, light, with excellent performances from the entire cast, we can be invited into its world.

The film is fun to watch and occasionally illuminating, but is over-packed and barely touches on the problems of scammers, the murky world of “influencers,” copycats who engage in dangerous or harmful behavior, or the infinite regression of people filming their reactions or their friends’ or children’s reactions to what they are watching.

Some sharp dialogue and Freeman and Pugh's committed and insightful performances hold it together.

The flashback scenes are not as compelling as they try to be. The Hopkins scenes are more engaging, not just because we look forward to the re-enactment of the television reveal, but because the film is sharper at addressing the existential issues of purpose and meaning than it is in showing us the difficulties in rescuing the children.

We may find ourselves agreeing with the skeptical podcasters and journalists who see Johnson as a kook or a crafty snake oil salesman who persuades gullible people that they have a problem and he has the answer.

It is really three movies in one, all watchable, but the pieces do not always mesh.

And it's the blurring of boundaries that makes Wildcat more than just an excruciating series of intensifying scenes of torture, disorienting for the audience as well as the characters.

It’s not a good sign when we find ourselves admiring the background art more than what is happening in front of it, but it is more imaginative than the characters and story.

As in another autobiographical memory movie about schoolboys, Louis Malle’s “Au Revoir Les Enfants,” Armageddon Time is the story of childhood innocence as remembered with regret and a sense of responsibility, with adult recognition of history’s vilest bigotries and injustices.

There's a sweetness to this story that reflects Adam Sandler’s real-life love for his family.

The film’s good intentions are evident, but its assemblage of experts and statistics is more lecture than movie. There is too much focus on families of comfortable or better means and too little focus on the impact that these conflicts have on the other members of the family.

Hanks does his considerable best with Finch’s revelations and confrontations, but the writing lets him down.

As all movies about this stage of life must, among obvious jokes about aches, pains, and Viagra—apparently it is okay to sexually objectify someone if you're old—Queen Bees touches gently and sympathetically on the inescapable challenges of aging, loss of loved ones, loss of independence, cancer, strokes, and dementia.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain has the same problem as its real-life subject, in that it goes off in too many directions at once.

It is a story worth telling. But Bernstein cannot bring himself to apply the same brutal honesty to his subject as Ungerer does to his.

It's less effective in the run-with-a-gun scenes, as is the acting and the writing, which all fall off sharply in the final third. The issues of individual, cultural, and national loyalty—and when and how to respond to aggressive actions by other nations—are relegated to the background of some weak chase scenes and plot twists.

The themes of the film are so resonant that they create an immediate connection with the audience, but producer/star Judd and writer/director Alec Tibaldi address them with sincerity but not much depth. The film is more about mood than insight.