Odie Henderson

Mirren holds the film together with her narration, but she can’t save the film from Forster’s penchant for overdoing emotional scenes or from Thomas Newman’s intrusive score.

There’s a bittersweet poignancy in watching the children bond with animals and people during their travels before beginning the next leg of their journey.

In addition to being a lousy musical, “Folie à Deux” is also a dreadfully dull courtroom drama.

It’s rare that a movie fires on all cylinders as this one does. The jaw-dropping animation tells a bittersweet and lovely story. The voice work is stellar, and the score sweeps you along on a wave of excitement. Fans of the books will not be disappointed.

There’s an optimism here that coexists with humor, joy, sadness, and more than one laugh-out-loud moment.

Wolfs has enough action to keep us from contemplating how silly it is.

That the director spent 40 years trying to make this worthless, 138-minute hot mess shocks me to no end. “Megalopolis” plays as if every iota of this once-great filmmaker’s talent got sold along with his vineyard.

Had it been 90 minutes, we might be talking about a classic here. If there’s anything that was in dire need of a shot of The Substance to bring out a leaner, tighter version of itself, it’s this film’s Cannes-award-winning screenplay.

Once the general premise is established, “His Three Daughters” lets us bask in the glory of three actors at the top of their game.

Since this is a Tim Burton movie, you can safely assume the love story is the most twisted subplot of all. Still, the actors hold our interest and make the movie believable.

A house is just a structure; what’s inside makes it a home. This film delicately shows what happens when the powers that be decide that the home you made is no longer yours.

Reagan is the worst kind of hagiography. It’s a wretched 2½-hour bore that’s uncurious about its subject.

Blink Twice may be aiming for a feminist statement, but it’s ultimately just a slasher movie with a bunch of one-dimensional Final Girls played by Alia Shawkat, Trew Mullen, Liz Caribel, and “Hit Man”’s Adria Arjona.

Between the Temples emerges as a quirky and effective showcase for two actors known for playing oddball characters.

Despite its overdependence on catering to fans, “Alien: Romulus” is the best “Alien” movie since Cameron’s first sequel.

Only a true grinch would grumble loudly at a film that delivers its pro-environment message with a light touch that avoids preachiness.

If you’re willing to just go with it, no questions asked, “Cuckoo” is an entertaining horror offering. But I must warn you that trying to make sense of the plot will drive you, well, cuckoo.

It runs out of story about midway through, and spends more time attempting to make these guys look cool than showing us the importance of their acts of linguistic civil disobedience.

It’s sad when a film wastes the talents of so many fine actors. Sad for us, that is, because I’m sure they were all paid handsomely.

Sing Sing refuses to pass any judgment while inviting the audience to acknowledge the incontrovertible fact that these people are humans just like us.

Dìdi reminds us that our parents aren’t just our parents — they’re people who have their own hopes and dreams. It’s not just about us.

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?”