Odie Henderson

What saves “Anora,” and makes it worth seeing, is the performance by Madison.

As for The Little Mermaid, it’s one of Disney’s better remakes. But don’t throw away your DVD of the original.

Though it plays fast and loose with several details, The Burial remains true to its focus on race, class, and how capitalism exploits both regardless of a person’s color or financial means. The message is not subtly delivered, but it’s still effective.

Seeing Superman save, and work with, more than just white people is refreshing, but it really struck a nerve with fans who rely only on hearsay. Gunn doesn’t care if you’re offended; he’s too busy showing us a good time. “Superman” is a surprisingly entertaining reboot.

The film's best asset, and the thing that elevates it above the 1986 version, is how well it is cast.

Even if you can’t stand the Minions (who are once again voiced in “Minionese” by Pierre Coffin), you might find this one tolerable. Especially if you’re old enough to get the 1976 jokes yet feel young enough to find bemusement in all the goofy slapstick.

It’s Mortensen and his smokes that seal the deal. Puffing away, he is dangerously sexy and morally dubious, the latter of which makes perfect sense as we are in Patricia Highsmith territory.

More than just catnip for Trekkies. It’s also an often painful examination of the rocky father/son relationship that existed between filmmaker Adam Nimoy and his famous father, Leonard.

Dear Mr. Brody does a fine job of showing how the financial chasm between rich and poor people is as wide and insurmountable today as it was in 1970.

To feel seen is a potent, potentially life-changing emotion, and only those who were never in the dark would have a moral problem with it. Rafiki makes this serious point quite effectively, never losing its ebullience.

Say what you want about his onscreen vices, but Branagh has always been a charitable director and it really shows here.

The best feature of Alpha is its imagery, which is absolutely stunning in IMAX. Hughes, his cinematographer Martin Gschlacht and the visual effects team create a world that is as beautiful as it is dangerous, often framing the characters in the center of a vast, almost endless landscape.

This is not a film for children, but the camerawork and the emotional undercurrents most often evoke the physical viewpoint, level of understanding and sensory processes of a child. We as adults must deduce the film’s most crucial pieces of information as they fly over Frida’s head.

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.

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.

Along with an equally superb Scott Ellis Watson, who plays Davidson as a teenager, Aramayo is the best thing in this movie. Unfortunately, the rest of it is Biopic 101, which at times makes the story feel too simplistic and thin.

Surprisingly, Bad Boys For Life is nowhere near as bad as its opening day schedule would indicate. It is the best of the three films, offering in some odd ways a corrective to the prior installments. Unlike the original, this one finds some depth in its female characters.

People Places Things treats its characters a lot messier than most romantic comedies, which makes it delightful at times. It also makes it disappointing when the film falls into the same traps that plague romantic comedies.

Champs is a documentary that wants to say something sociological about the sweet science of boxing. In this regard, it has an undeniable power.

Living up to her surname, Blunt doesn’t just chew and swallow the scenery, she regurgitates it and chews it again. Along with the bad writing given to her character, she singlehandedly torpedoes “The Smashing Machine.”

A lot of people die, much danger is averted, and we’re once again treated to a grand spectacle at the film’s climax. It’s all wrapped up in a package that’s too neat to leave an impression.

At 105 minutes, Elstree 1976 became a bit of a slog for me. Visually, the talking heads-style of documentary can be very dull.

The flashbacks and overbearing music serve as this film’s emotional core, and the result rings false and superficial.

As much fun as A Working Man can be, I kept thinking there’s a better movie peeking out through the cracks of this rather OK one.

Despite the film’s tendency to drag, Vicky Krieps remains compulsively watchable, as always. She almost saves the movie.

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.

A more fleshed-out character might have grounded a last act burdened by an unconvincing plot twist, an odd moment of wish-fulfillment, and an over-reliance on the clichés that befall Black people in urban-set films.

The scariest thing about Scream VI isn’t seeing someone get knifed in the face 600 times; it’s this movie’s absurdly inaccurate depiction of New York City.