Odie Henderson

Though “Twisters” lives up to the sequel maxim of being louder, larger, and busier, director Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) and screenwriter Mark L. Smith don’t deviate from the first film’s formula. Watching the sequel is like playing Mad Libs with the original’s plot.

As with any documentary where the star tells the story, “Faye” occasionally comes off a little lighter than a more objective look might have been.

Once the film started throwing in Satan worship, spooky dolls, and nuns with agendas the Pope would not endorse, it became more silly than disturbing. Still, I have to admire a filmmaker who, once realizing he’s painted himself into a corner, opts to bust through the wall rather than accept being trapped.

The reason romantic comedies fail so often is that they attempt too much. “Fly Me to the Moon” may be the busiest example I’ve ever seen. It’s also one of the worst, despite its eclectic needle drops convincing me that I need to buy its soundtrack album.

“Axel F” is a joyless affair, a mediocre simulacrum that made me long for the original.

It’s cheap pandering to fans, but I really couldn’t stay mad at a movie that uses Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon” as a point of contention and has two shout-outs to one of the best movies of 1985, “Real Genius.”

Fans of Lanthimos’s works outside his Emma Stone movies will find “Kinds of Kindness” worth watching. As for the rest of us: You’ll start out clapping along with “Sweet Dreams,” but by the end, you’ll be singing Peggy Lee’s immortal question, “Is That All There Is?”

As usual, Gladstone is excellent, and she doesn’t mind ceding the spotlight to Deroy-Olson. The two craft a convincing family unit, one we don’t want to see broken. And though the film hits familiar plot beats, it loses none of its redemptive power.

A talky movie like this one succeeds only if its leads have chemistry and understand their characters. Both actors fit the bill, giving committed performances that elevate the material.

The trio give excellent performances, working together to create a credible family unit. Father and daughter hit their strides during their moments of catharsis onstage, which explains why audiences at Sundance reportedly laughed and cried during the climactic performance.

This is one of the year’s best films, and the most fun you’ll have at the theater this summer.

It felt like I was watching a Wayans Bros. movie instead of one that expected me to take the ideas of dying and grief seriously.

Inside Out 2 is serviceable entertainment. That’s a sad thing to say about a Pixar film, especially when you consider they made classics like “Toy Story,” “The Incredibles,” and, well, the first “Inside Out.”

Julia von Heinz’s direction can’t handle the film’s tonal shifts, and the screenplay (co-written by von Heinz and John Quester) centers on two very poorly written leads who clash in ways that are supposed to be comedic but are mostly infuriating.

Robot Dreams reminds us that animated feature doesn’t mean “movie for kids.”

There are plenty of things that go bump in the night. “The Watchers” proves they’re only effective if you don’t sleep through them.

Throughout the mayhem, Marcus and Mike bicker like an old married couple. While this interplay has always been the best element of the “Bad Boys” universe, Smith and Lawrence look disinterested this time. It’s as if they’re getting too old for this [expletive], to use a phrase from a much better buddy-cop movie series.

By the time the film settles down to give us a few solid dramatic scenes, I appreciated the effort but had long since stopped caring.

The film evokes all of the usual biopic tropes while painting a standard picture of an extraordinary hero.

Hit Man is one of the year’s best movies.

The somewhat inappropriate story won’t matter to youngsters who’ll be hypnotized by a color scheme so bright you need sunglasses to view it.

It’s a mechanical exercise that lacks suspense, is too long (at 148 minutes, it’s the franchise’s lengthiest film), and is so chockfull of exposition that I took more notes than I’ve done in years.

At its heart, this is a film about sisterhood.

The ambiguous finale provides neither certainty nor respite, and may prove frustrating for some. I had no idea where Hamaguchi’s cautionary tale was taking me, but I remained intrigued until the bitter end.

It’s a fable that ties up too neatly to be believed, and it’s a story I’m tired of hearing.

The Fall Guy isn’t just a throwback to the 1980s television show that inspired it; it’s an old-fashioned romp that knows how to build on its gags.

The film is essentially a two-hander between Norton and Lamont, both of whom give excellent, complementary performances. They feel like father and son from first frame to last.

“A place is the people,” a closing screen credit tells us. It’s a lovely sentiment, but “We Grown Now” feels more like fleeting memories of those people rather than a fully formed reminiscence.

The problem with “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the same as so many of these franchise-based films: They’re all soulless special-effects extravaganzas where CGI takes the place of character development, good writing, and emotional connection.

Seeing the Ghostbusters in the Big Apple where they belong put a smile on my face, at least until I realized I was watching a sitcom about wiseass teens and their dopey parents.

Despite an impressive pedigree in front of and behind the camera, “Shirley” fails to convey just how remarkable the career of Shirley Chisholm really was. The problem isn’t the narrow focus on one of her accomplishments, it’s the even narrower depiction of who she was as a person.

I generally love noir, gore, kick-ass women, the 1980s — but “Love Lies Bleeding” ladled out a visual stew I did not enjoy consuming.

For the first 90 minutes, the film has a light touch that centers its story and makes us identify with Shayda.

I should have been more affected by Arthur the King because, after all, “Old Yeller” conditioned my generation to erupt in tears whenever a dog’s fate looks dire. And yet, all I saw were the familiar gears churning underneath.

While uncertainty remains about Tenório’s horrible fate, it’s never in doubt how much he was beloved. “They Shot the Piano Player” is a tribute to the musician and to those who knew him best. See it more than once, and hope the theater plays it loud.

I enjoyed the first three adventures of the Dragon Warrior, but the best thing he can do now is to give this series a much needed skadoosh, sending it to rest in the cinematic spirit realm.

Just as in the first film, I was put off by the white-savior narrative (Stilgar’s fervent belief quickly becomes grating), and the Hans Zimmer score that sounds as if Arrakis were in the Middle East rather than space.

Io Capitano doesn’t try to convince viewers whether Seydou, Moussa, and all the other migrants have a right to seek a better life. What it does do, however, is tell their story in a way that makes them far more human and relatable than most of the news stories we see nowadays.

This entire film is a troll, a refreshing, claws-out swipe at anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and beliefs. It’s also a testament to the power of queer people in front of and behind the camera.

One of 2023′s best films, “The Taste of Things” is achingly romantic and devastatingly sad. You’ll spend the first two-thirds of this movie salivating, and the last third of it sobbing.

Johnson tries her best, and O’Connor is good for a few laughs, but “Madame Web” is a lost cause. The special effects are confusing and the action scenes are poorly edited. By the time we get a rote explanation of Webb’s powers, it’s too late to care.

Bob Marley: One Love opts to print the legend, but it will just make you want to listen to “Legend.”

If you love food porn, this movie will satiate your appetite for visions of French food while providing much insight into how that food is prepared.

Though the last third of the film feels rushed, and Bennebjerg’s performance hews dangerously close to mustache-twirling-villain territory, there is much to admire and enjoy here. Arcel has made the kind of cinematic spectacle Hollywood used to excel at, but doesn’t make anymore.

Argylle is a cynical cash grab that has the audacity to use that “new” Beatles song, “Now and Then” (itself a cynical cash grab pieced together with far more skill than this movie) as the basis for its score and the “love theme” for Aidan and Elly.

It’s not a fun time at the movies, but it’s an informative and worthy one.

This film isn’t terrible; it’s just empty. There are few things more disappointing than a genre movie that forgoes developing its intriguing premise to focus on cheap, failed attempts to thrill.

Driving Madeleine is held together by the funny and dignified performances of its two leads.

Though I enjoyed both films, I had the same problem with this “Mean Girls” as I did with the original: I didn’t know whom to root for as the story played out.

Samuel’s sophomore full-length feature is an ambitious misfire, a noble failure that starts off like “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” and ends like “The Passion of the Christ.”

Night Swim has its characters make infuriatingly asinine decisions to serve its plot.

It’s simultaneously cathartic and heartbreaking.

Driver and Cruz are perfect surnames for actors starring in a movie called “Ferrari.” That was just one of the many thoughts I had as the minutes slowly ticked by. At least the loud sound mix kept me awake.

The Color Purple ultimately works far better in pieces than as a whole. Considering those pieces contain some of the best moments I’ve seen in 2023, I’m able to put my concerns aside as a mildly nagging uncertainty.

Unfortunately, Durkin’s script is so shallow that every character is reduced to a simple sketch.

The satire isn’t as brutal as it could have been — and perhaps needed to be — but overall, I thought “American Fiction” was a rousing success that got me thinking about my own experiences.

Parents will be tortured by this film. If the whiny adult ducks and their even whinier kids don’t give them a headache, the garish animation will.

In a year of movies with bloated runtimes, Kaurismäki keeps his at a brisk and welcome 81 minutes, not one of which is wasted.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie so fully collapse in its third act as this one does, and it does so without warning.

It’s not as memorable as the original, but like a good piece of chocolate, Wonka is at its most delectable when you’re consuming it.