Pat Padua

The Angry Birds Movie 2 is not great cinema. But the animated sequel — inspired by the popular Angry Birds games, available on mobile devices and other platforms — goes above and beyond what is to be expected from such things.

While the movie doesn’t shy away from confronting the obstacles of foster parenthood, it never fully earns its happy ending.

Despite its broad comedy, typical of “Dukes of Hazzard” director Jay Chandrasekhar, the film has some tender and wise moments. And even if you don’t get all the ethnic jokes, there’s plenty of family drama that anybody will recognize, no matter their background.

To reference yet another cultural touchstone, Aporia comes across like an expanded, indie-film version of “The Twilight Zone.” It’s never going to set the world on a new and unfamiliar course, but it does its job well enough.

Grown-ups might not roll over for Show Dogs, but children almost surely will. With its fart jokes and smart-alecky canines, this talking-animal comedy is aimed at a young audience anyway. For dog-loving adults, well, it’s just engaging enough to make them prick up their ears.

The film has more than enough true material to fuel an effective thriller, but director Aviva Kempner doesn’t quite manage to bring this fascinating figure to life.

Actress Nana Mensah (“After Yang”) makes an impressive debut as a writer-director with “Queen of Glory,” a dry comedy of culture clashes, both ethnic and generational.

It’s a fantastic idea, but the execution is inconsistent. Alice, the movie, dares to go through the looking glass, but it doesn’t entirely know what to do once it gets there.

Sometimes feels like a horror movie with a contact high.

Unforgettable borrows elements from film noir, Lifetime movies and slasher flicks and updates them for the Internet age. But this forgettable thriller will simply make you remember other, better films.

The movie sounds — and looks — tasty enough, but this “Strawberry Mansion” just doesn’t bear much fruit.

I Am Michael, is an intermittently affecting — but not entirely convincing — conversion story.

Manhattan Night gets by on the strength of its visuals and a few vivid central performances, but by the time we find out whodunit, it doesn’t really matter.

There are some inspiring people in the film, and one wishes it had been edited to focus more on their stories. In the end, Tomorrow is less a movie than a long public service announcement.

Despite a glorious performance by Nicolas Cage as a vicious father, this vivid satire of a world turned upside down is marred by writer-director Brian Taylor’s sloppy filmmaking.

Despite some quality craftsmanship, “The Good Boss” ultimately doesn’t pay off. Capitalism should be more fun than this.

London Road comes across as no more than tabloid karaoke.

Somehow, for all the work that went into the film, it comes across as something that may have worked better as an audiobook.

The film lacks the very imagination it touts, along with another trait that it links to exceptional athleticism. That’s obsession.

Though lacking in the script department, this cinematic wonderland delivers on one promise: escape, to a place of such natural beauty that even these affluent characters, however cardboard, are forced to take stock of the important things in life.

Unfortunately, in the filmmaker’s narrative-feature debut, she takes the theme of betrayal and turns it into fodder for a sitcom, and not a particularly funny one at that.

The movie has its flaws. Still, for anyone with a soft spot for the mute gaze of man’s best friend, it’s hard not to shed a tear — or two — during The Art of Racing in the Rain.

This is one movie that no one needs to relive.

In his effort to inject fresh blood into this gory franchise, which has already seen four sequels (including two “Alien” crossovers), the filmmaker can’t seem to summon up that old Black magic.

Yet despite the stirring performance at its heart, the movie is ultimately too restricted by its own dramatic conventions, and it only seldom comes to life.

Like its protagonist’s fleeting relationships, the film never completely connects.

For all its faults, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 manages to just get by on pretty scenery and a meticulous inoffensiveness. What else is there to say but, “Opa!”

The film’s likeable leads almost carry off a dark premise: that the love that strengthens this couple also makes them dangerous.