Peter Debruge

Whatever its value as rabble-rousing historical reenactment, Outlaw King never quite compares to the many films it’s so keen to imitate, and in some cases outright quote.

The result is a revisionist fiasco, too dense with Shakespeare allusions for casual moviegoers, and too fast and loose with the facts for those who know a thing or two about the man. In short, All Is True takes the English language’s most gifted dramatist and reduces his sunset years to a sloppy soap opera.

Meticulously acted, gorgeously shot and hilariously insightful about the strange, inarticulable ways people can get on one another’s nerves, this psychological thriller takes its premise to surprising, darkly comic extremes.

With such an enticing cast, it’s tougher than one might think trying to divine which of these eccentrics might be responsible for the crime, and “Crooked House” keeps you guessing, right up to its shocking conclusion.

What Erica Rivinoja, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s script lacks in lingering nutritional value, it compensates for with amusing food puns. If nothing else, the pic’s zany tone and manic pace are good for a quick-hit sugar high.

Godzilla vs. Kong is most satisfying when it’s at its most simple, which happens either in quiet bonding scenes between Jia and Kong, or else in those deafening moments when the monsters are duking it out.

One of those novelistic independent films more concerned with atmosphere and character than the particularities of narrative, where contemplating the backstory is more satisfying than anything we see.

Like too many of Sayles’ films, Go for Sisters seems bound to slip through the cracks, not quite memorable enough to make a lasting impression.

There’s something decidedly old-fashioned — and also dull as ditchwater — about Jonathan Teplitzky’s retelling of events.

While there are no profound life lessons to be found in these subplots, Jennings and his cast manage to deliver a steady supply of laughs, while respecting one of Illumination’s core principles: It’s OK to be silly.

The technical side isn’t nearly as dramatic as it sounds, and there’s only limited interest in watching White navigate the icon’s first serious bout of depression. That is, unless one understands just how much that record represents to the next generations of musicians and why.

An RBG biopic shouldn’t be about sizzle and showpersonship, but hard work and determination in the face of rampant, seemingly unremitting sexism, and in that respect, Leder’s film gets its priorities right.

Features the lamest story of any CG-animated feature to date.

While its sense of humor takes some gettin’ used to, the sheer spaciness of Liza Johnson’s stranger-than-fiction political satire ultimately proves its greatest asset.

Levy’s funny-sad contemporary drama acknowledges the supportive dynamic that Marc plays in Thomas and Sophie’s lives, even as it centers the gay best friend for a change — not so different from the one he played in “Happiest Season.” All three characters feel well rounded and real, especially in their imperfections.

It’s a genre movie, to be sure, but there’s an impressive sense of authenticity — in the language, the locations and the overall texture —that goes a long way to sell the scenario.

There’s real wisdom to Chasing Summer, which Shlesinger and Decker offset with a handful of steamier-than-you’d-expect sex scenes.

Let’s be clear: Lux Æterna is a glorified Saint Laurent commercial. That’s the tweet-length analysis. But there’s more to it than that.

By suggesting that the man's life was as riotously funny as his plays, writer-director Laurent Tirard leaves us wishing he'd opted to do a straightforward adaptation instead.

Wish Dragon delivers a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view, and that’s plenty.

McDonagh’s characters are more complex than the initial caricatures make them out to be — perhaps, in the end, even pitiful — leaving audiences to decide how they feel about their ultimate fates.

Like Russia's answer to "The Matrix" and "Lord of the Ring"s trilogies, Day Watch offers the second chapter in an epic battle between the forces of Light and Dark, the result of which is a gaping gray area where nothing much makes sense.

In this vibrant character study, newcomer Lázaro Ramos plays Francisco with an almost animal intensity.

[Morosini] holds back the personal stuff you can tell a stranger but not your dad — the kind of material good comedians build their shows around — making the result feel like a sitcom more than a brutally honest movie.

As directed by Taylor Sheridan, Those Who Wish Me Dead offers a much bigger sandbox for the gifted actor-turned-action maven, whose scripts for “Sicario” and “Hell or High Water” have launched him to the front of a genre dominated by CG robots, superheroes and other IP once associated with Saturday morning cartoons. Such movies are plenty popular, but this one marks a welcome departure — one intended for grown-ups seeking more “realistic” diversion — without shortchanging audiences when it comes to either spectacle or sound.

Ultimately, such a stir-crazy two-hander can only be as interesting as its actors.

The Last Blockbuster taps into analog lovers’ fond feelings for the monstrosity that gobbled up the little guys, then gave up, leaving not just movie fans but franchise owners like Sandi Harding to fend for themselves. Is the company’s demise really something to be mourned, or was its rise the real tragedy?

Between Bailey’s wide-eyed urchin and McCarthy’s over-the-top octo-hussy, the movie comes alive — not in some zombified form, like re-animated Disney debacles “Dumbo” and “Pinocchio,” but in a way that gives young audiences something magical to identify with, and fresh mermaid dreams to aspire to.

Whatever connection Bond had to the real world has now been severed in favor of delivering the most satisfying possible experience for audiences, such as a throwaway scene of Q using an electromagnetic device to beat the slot machines or allowing homosexual henchmen Wint and Kidd to devise elaborate (and yet easily escapable) traps.

Simultaneously clever and exasperating, the film puts a novel spin on the genre Roger Ebert dubbed “the Dead Teenager Movie.”

The director, who brought a wicked edge to pop-culture redux “I, Tonya” a few years back, has rescued Cruella from the predictability of the earlier “101 Dalmatians” remakes and created a stylish new franchise of its own in which a one-time villain has been reborn as the unlikeliest of role models.

This is, after all, "Mary Poppins" turned on its head.

Writer/director John A. Davis (Jimmy Neutron) is a wizard at transforming the most mundane setting -- the front yard, for crying out loud -- into another world.

Night Watch represents the best in Russian special effects, a collaboration between 42 different CGI specialty firms all working in the service of a single goal: to create the nation's most visually transgressive film.

In Novocaine, it’s the romance that keeps us going, more than whatever sadistic delight the co-directors take in poking Nathan full of holes, treating him like some kind of Looney Tunes character.

Though not a documentary, this gorgeous French family saga benefits enormously from Klapisch’s natural curiosity, informed by research (he participated in a harvest in order to observe its nuances) and elevated by his insistence that they film over the course of a full year, so as to capture the impact of the seasons on both viticulture and its human stewards.

In tapping Satrapi to interpret this project, the producers have done about as well as one could expect with such material. Still, a bit more consistency in style would have gone a long way.

So, where do Shadyac and Atchison expect audiences to direct their frustration at such a miscarriage of justice? Well, that’s what makes “Brian Banks” special: It is not an angry film, but one that preaches forgiveness in the face of such adversity.

With its predictable confrontations and tacky fantasy sequences, you feel writer/director Jane Anderson steering the material toward schmaltzy movie-of-the-week territory at every turn.

While the story easily could have fallen into a broken-record rut, “Nobody Walks” director Russo-Young finds ways of making the day in question feel fresh each time Sam lives it, while giving the overall presentation a look, feel, and voice that’s distinct from the vast swatch of YA movies.

It: Chapter Two is much longer than it needs to be, but it builds to something significant — and a lot of that filler feels justifiable in terms of how audiences’ consumption patterns are changing.

Is this supposed to be some kind of sitcom? A thriller? A provocative #MeToo statement on sexual dynamics in the workplace? Yes, all of the above, it turns out.

This explosive reunion between Damon and director Paul Greengrass further reveals key secrets about Bourne’s origins, bringing its lethal protagonist as close as he’s ever likely to get to total recall.

Inspiration and entertainment can make corny bedfellows, but Longoria pulls it off, to the extent that a moment of faith when Richard and Judy pray doesn’t feel preachy, but a reflection of their priorities.

The script never quite succeeds in making us care about Allan as a character (despite dubbing its quavering narration into English for the ease of American auds), but it finds an interesting balance for a personality who leaves a trail of disaster in his wake.

Freaky Tales takes nearly 40 minutes to find its footing, but once it kicks in, there’s roughly an hour of grindhouse glory ahead (assuming streaming audiences make it that far).

This more broadly appealing project feels daringly frank on the subject of sex. But as is frequently the case with the most saturnalian comedies, it’s actually quite conservative when it comes to allowing its characters to follow through on their uninhibited talk.

The most extreme English-language studio release I've seen in years.

If anything, what Triet has done is demonstrate that people are allowed to be complicated — and at times contradictory. And the tidy Hollywood ending betrays the fact that Victoria’s problems have less to do with sorting out who’s in her bed than what’s in her head.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with presenting bigoted people onscreen, since heaven knows they exist in real life, but the trouble with The Mule is that it invites audiences to laugh along with Earl’s ignorance.

Here’s a project that had the nerve to address these tensions in a megaplex environment, only to squander them on a standoff it pretends could be so glibly resolved.

Here, the laughs come not from the silly voices but a blend of snappy editing and clever character bits, including a recurring joke about an inappropriately named sidekick who calls himself White Shadow (Michael Patrick Bell).

Benefiting enormously from its evocative Sicilian setting, this widescreen experience makes bewitching use of space, time and sound, creating an almost meditative atmosphere in which patient-minded auds might respond to its themes.

In what’s been an underwhelming year for big-studio animation, it’s the best of the bunch: sincere, likable, surprisingly funny, and overall true to its source material.

If anything, it’s what the director’s fans most feared: a lumbering, confused, and cacophonous mess

More often than not, effects-driven blockbusters get dumber as the series goes along, but Jumanji: The Next Level invents some fun ideas to keep things fresh.

It would seem Towne is too much in love with the book to recognize its fundamental limitations as a film.

If nonchalance were an Olympic sport, Max would be a gold medalist, and watching Somebody Up There Likes Me is about as much fun as being a spectator at that event might sound.

Slow and stuffy, like a filmed play, but also considerably more nuanced and mature than your typical relationship drama.

Jackson and his team seem compelled to flesh out the world of their earlier trilogy in scenes that would be better left to extended-edition DVDs (or omitted entirely), all but failing to set up a compelling reason for fans to return for the second installment.

What does set Shrek the Third apart is the quality of its animation, which reaches a level of expressiveness in the faces that would make even Hollywood's heavily Botoxed live-action stars envious.

In a sense, each new take on Chekhov sheds insight on the timelessness of the material, and yet, this one does more to reveal missed opportunities for the next team to explore.

It boasts snappy dialogue, memorable characters, and a gorgeously designed central location but doesn’t quite know what to do with any of the above.

John Turturro brings sensitivity and intelligence to a subject that could have gone terribly awry in Fading Gigolo.

Whether you’re skeptical of Bloom’s abilities or have long been a believer, you can’t help but respect what the actor does with Retaliation. And the same might be true whether you’re religious or not, seeing as how the film promises revenge, while leveraging cinema’s most powerful weapon: empathy.

The emotions are real; everything else is movie magic, representing where we now stand — at the apex of artificiality — for better or worse.

There’s poetry and soul here, but both are watered down by how much the movie seems to be multitasking. With Pixar, sincerity is elemental. The rest risks distracting from what really matters.

“Nobody” director Ilya Naishuller takes gags that have no business working . . . and milks them for laughs, adding original solutions to otherwise familiar action scenes.

Audiences may not care about this gang when the party starts, but once the dust settles, you’ve gotta admit, they made for pretty good company.

The script ... is practically all plot, all the time, which is plenty efficient for those simply looking to be scared but a little anemic when it comes to making audiences care about these people

Director Michel Hazanavicius finds a poignant way to address not only the horrors of the Holocaust, but the kindness that combated it, crafting an indelible parable destined to be watched and shared by generations to come.

Cinematically speaking, this high-concept, low-budget sci-fi mind-bender falls into the same category as Shane Carruth’s shoestring marvel “Primer,” relying on creative ingenuity rather than elaborate effects to keep geek auds ensnared by its multi-layered mystery.

There’s no nice way to put it in this case, but The Zookeeper’s Wife has the unfortunate failing of rendering its human drama less interesting than what happens to the animals — and for a subject as damaging to our species as the Holocaust, that no small shortcoming.

Dupieux’s strategy seems to be flipping or repeating certain punchlines for fresh effect, which is fine for a while, until you realize that neither The Second Act nor those second-degree readings have much to say.

The affectionate reunion of alter-kocker rockers plays like a greatest hits of past laughs, building to a thrilling live performance of songs fans know by heart, featuring guest appearances from several bona fide music gods.

Gainsbourg doesn’t cram the film with all that much material, and spares her mom the embarrassment of showing her personal clutter. She essentially goes easy on Birkin, asking intimate questions but settling for shallow answers.

Scored to a beautiful, introspection-oriented saxophone score, Mr. Six surprises by attempting to delve behind Feng’s sometime-inscrutable facade, rather than pushing its leading man toward action.

"Dicks” is an unapologetically puerile, hard-R novelty that’s just lo-fi enough to maintain its underground cred.

What’s lacking is personality from the human characters, which is a serious failing, considering how the film shifts into character mode as Apte slowly emerges as an equal to Patel, while both remain too guarded for audiences to fully appreciate as people.

What makes suggestion-driven Antlers so disturbing isn’t the movie’s tension- and dread-building mechanics so much as the way the filmmaker burrows into the minds of his two main characters.

Things spiral wildly out of control for Dom and Cole, but the foundation feels real.

Nearly perfect in its own cotton-candy way.

Compared with “Us,” also in theaters now, the movie feels benign, almost polite — which can’t possibly be what Lipsky had in mind. No, he seems determined to shock, but his films are like those proverbial trees, falling noisily in empty forests. That’s not to say Lipsky should stop making movies — one hopes The Last won’t be his last — but that it might be a good time to take a serious look at what he’s trying to achieve, if hardly anyone’s paying attention.

The trouble with Kinky Boots is that director Julian Jarrold doesn't seem to know whether his movie would play better to young hipsters or the blue-haired old lady crowd.

The shattering of one’s noble ideals is a delicate thing to capture on film, and White plays the moment of rupture with a banality that threatens to undermine our faith in her as storyteller more than in the system itself.

Unfortunately, Brewer and screenwriter Mike Nilon ignored an essential rule: Conceiving an original monster isn’t nearly as important as coming up with compelling human characters

Uncle Drew may be tired, but it shows that one’s fundamental love for the game never gets old.

Goldman’s frequently amusing script is the secret ingredient that makes “Miss Peregrine” such an appropriate fit for Burton’s peculiar sensibility, allowing the director to revisit and expand motifs and themes from his earlier work.

A mobster movie without whackings, a thriller without suspense and a courtroom drama without resolution, this turgid retelling of an unsolved missing-persons case functions mostly as a portrait of a young woman who loved too passionately and the manipulative creep incapable of reciprocating her affections.

It's a brisk and lively getaway with genuine personality.

The idea here isn’t to titillate with tawdry teen hormones, but to offer an outlet for all that mental distress young people take on while trying to find their place in the world.

While the scares are in short supply, there’s a surfeit of macabre, tongue-in-cheek creativity to be found here.

The brilliance of this particular episode is how it allows us to see ourselves in Kingsley and to consider the many unseen forces at play in our own socialization. For Black audiences, it confirms many of those invisible barriers. For white ones, it may lead them to question whether the myth of their “success” owes in part to keeping others back.

The Fall Guy is funny, it’s sexy, and it features the boy toy version of “Barbie” MVP Ryan Gosling — which is to say, this time around, he embodies the ultimate action figure.

So much of the unpleasantness has been scrubbed from the picture, until what remains is precisely the kind of dishonest, sanitized no-help-to-anyone TV-movie version of death that inspired Teague to set the record straight in the first place.

Dumont has studied the media enough to get in a few genuinely effective jabs, though it’s hard to engage with the half of France that concerns itself with her private life since she’s such a cold and inscrutable character.

While not terribly original, it would be fair to call the movie inventive, like one of those eccentrics who’s constantly pestering the patent office with what he thinks are fresh ideas, only to discover that someone else got there first.

The Wall succeeds because of Worrell’s words.

The movie’s hella derivative, but still quite entertaining, with an appealing cast and memorable characters.

Like the H character, Wrath of Man walks into the room confident and secure in its abilities, professional, efficient and potentially lethal. All of this is best experienced in a movie theater, if possible.

The cheesy screenplay, shallow characters and wince-worthy acting (from all but A-listers Hardy, Whitaker and Olyphant) suggest that Evans might be better suited to specializing in the second unit or action sequences on a major franchise, rather than writing and directing a quasi-dramatic feature.

The film amounts to a lousy sort of magic show, schematically pulling strings to prove its own points.

Extraction isn’t the smartest movie you’ll see during lockdown, but it’s liable to be the most kinetic — assuming you have Netflix, since it’s the service’s big tentpole of the season, a dumbed-down bit of blow-uppy distraction that’s every bit as entertaining as the equivalent pyrotechnic offering from a theatrical motion picture studio might have been.

The entire scenario, contrived to within an inch of its life, takes Poelvoorde’s appeal for granted. Marc’s anxiety becomes our own once he realizes what he’s done, though Jacquot makes it much more compelling to watch his characters fall in love than it is to see them writhe and twist amid its complications.

At nearly every step, Mufasa’s challenges mirror those that Simba must later overcome, but the movie doesn’t celebrate Mufasa’s might so much as his modesty.

Six months into 2022, it’s the funniest film Hollywood has produced thus far. Audiences know what to expect, and Illumination delivers, offering another feel-good dose of bad behavior.

It cuts to the heart of the self-doubt, fear and prejudice associated with modern homosexuality.

Potter seems at a loss to communicate the ideas behind her agonizingly elliptical picture, leaving auds to marvel at the gorgeous cinematography and scarlet-red hair of its heroine, earnestly played by Elle Fanning in a project undeserving of her talents.

The friends we see on-screen are equally close in real life, and the outing depicted in Wine Country was inspired by similar trips they’ve made together. That explains the second-nature chemistry that makes them so much fun to watch, even when the shenanigans...leave one longing for the outrageousness of an all-female studio comedy like “Bridesmaids” or “Girls Trip.”

This isn’t the kind of storytelling that flatters the audience’s intelligence, and yet, spelling things out ensures that viewers who don’t like to work too hard can follow along easily and focus on the film’s other pleasures — namely, Pearce’s performance and the twisty case of the missing “Vermeer.”

It’s painful to watch such talents pour so much into roles that are fairly common, if not clichéd by American indie standards.

Tag leaves audiences energized and, dare I say, inspired, having delivered all that outrageousness...in service of what ultimately amounts to a sincere celebration of lasting human connections.

At least the backgrounds are eye-catching, as a waddle of mallards crack jokes amid beautiful fall foliage.

Not since "To Live and Die in L.A" has there been such a raw, cynical vision of living and dying in L.A.

Like a cross between "Man on Fire" and "Bad Boys 2," this demolition derby delivers eye-popping action sequences that would make even the Roadrunner roll his eyes in disbelief.

Though its weak bounty-hunter plot makes almost no sense, After Blue satisfies that thirsty spot in our psyche too few films succeed in tickling, where dreams are born, hormones churn and logic simply doesn’t apply.

Cretton captures the incidents of Walls’ childhood (too many of them, to be honest, as the film really ought to be half an hour shorter), but struggles to connect them to the grown woman Larson plays in the present.

It’s not a typical whistleblower movie, like “The Insider” or “Official Secrets” (both excellent), but more of a prickly character portrait, imbued with humor and a headstrong sense of defiance (courtesy of co-writer Kerry Howley, channeling Winner’s voice).

It’s a vibrant journey, but not a terribly illuminating one.

Sinking her teeth into Mother the way Mother herself might a bloody steak, Adams courageously embodies Mother’s exasperation, finding the comedy in every setback.

It's basically just another watered-down version of Dead Poets Society and countless other inspirational-teacher films, but its emotional impact is undeniable.

This singular mutant satire works best as an irreverent homage to what’s come before, as opposed to the prototype for future superhero movies.

While not quite the “art” it’s billed to be, if the perfect con is about diverting one’s focus, then this one keeps you distracted till the end.

True to form, How to Eat Fried Worms forgoes flatulence jokes for positive examples.

The film is sleek and shadowy, benefiting from the fact Onah chose to shoot on celluloid and driven by stellar performances across the board.

Hocus Pocus 2 is actually the better made film, even if it amounts to little more than a stealth remake, with strategic decisions about the present-day and old-Salem witch trios being engineered to allow for more sequels, whether or not its star trio return.

While well cast and plenty compelling (including feisty turns from Christopher Walken and Christina Ricci), this reductive farmer drama deals in emotions more than explanations as it seeks to convey what it means for a little-guy grower like Percy Schmeiser to go up against Big Agro.

The entire movie rides on Paul Kaye's performance.

Yes, French Exit blisters amid the rarefied air of Tom Wolfe or Whit Stillman, but it’s nicely cut with the schadenfreude of “Schitt’s Creek.”

Baier's style is almost uncomfortably voyeuristic, amplified by the casting of a young, inexperienced actor (Pierre Chatagny) in a part that calls for hardcore sex.

Given the complexity of everything the characters went through, it’s a shame to witness their lives reduced to a sequence of TV-movie moments.

Cavill and Hammer have each toplined major tentpoles before, so it’s something of a mystery why neither makes much of an impression here, but there’s a curious vacuum at the center of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that almost certainly owes to its casting.

Stronger on concept than story, Brian Lynch’s Minions script emphasizes scale over quantity.

Everyone has a different idea of what’s funny, but it’s hard to imagine anyone being amused by War Machine, a colossally miscalculated satire.

For those who wish they’d just slow it down and tell a decent story, The Croods: A New Age feels like an assault on the cranium, a loud and patently obnoxious 21st-century “Flintstones” with far more sophisticated technology, but nothing new to offer in the script department.

Leterrier’s bad with story but reasonably strong on the action front. Characters are constantly jumping in and out of speeding vehicles in these movies, and Leterrier’s job here must have felt somewhat similar, clambering aboard the juggernaut that is the “Fast” franchise in full steam.

Something about working with Pacino forces what could have been a breaks-the-mold character portrait into factory-made territory.

Rather than linger on the project’s shortcomings, which only disappoint relative to the story’s incredible creative potential, it should be said that in partnership with Berla, Malzieu has created a fully realized, wildly imaginative storybook world and populated it with eccentric characters.

The most significant Bond ingredient missing from Live and Let Die is Q, whose gadgets still play a central role. The film also offers a few key additions, including an illuminating glimpse of Bond’s home.

Simultaneously shaggy and hyper-stylized, The Beach Bum plays like a less-coked-out “Scarface,” the collected works of Charles Bukowski, and a Cheech & Chong movie all rolled up in one — an epic goof in which the cast (not just McConaughey but Snoop Dogg, Martin Lawrence, Jonah Hill, and Jimmy Buffett) play elaborate, semi-improvised caricatures of outlandish tropical fruits.

Trading her improv-based filmmaking style for a more traditional screenplay-grounded model, Lynn Shelton delivers an uneven mix of half-formed conflicts.

Shepard balances a livelier-than-life script with striking, super-saturated images, which makes the film feel bigger than it is.

The Foreigner amounts to an above-average but largely by-the-numbers action movie in which Chan does battle with generic thugs and shadowy political forces.

[Portman's] drearily empathetic film lacks whatever universality has made “Tale” such an international phenomenon.

Although the director cut his teeth working in commercials and on more comedic material, he has no trouble orchestrating the breath-catching suspense of Dogs, depicting violent confrontations with a certain chilling detachment, then reveling in the gruesome result.

A twisty, action-packed political thriller — one that keeps you guessing even as it spirals into ever-crazier realms.

For nearly two centuries, Brontë’s book has been a romantic fantasy for readers. Fennell treats it as an erotic one as well, leaning into all that is sensual.

These guys are so good at what they do, Ritchie fails to muster the expected tension. Instead of suspense, audiences feel a sense of delight in watching them succeed, no matter the setback.

It takes a special kind of imagination to recognize the entertainment potential trapped in such a mundane scenario, and an incredibly resourceful filmmaker to spin it into as much fun as Daly does here.

Beauvois brings everything together in the movie’s final minutes, although it’s hard to shake the feeling that Drift Away has dodged what should have been its central social concern. Renier, a former child actor who began his career a quarter-century ago in the Dardenne brothers’ “La Promesse,” only gets better with age.

Everything Everywhere is ultimately too much of a good thing, a novel idea driven to the point of exhaustion.

But here’s the cool thing: The film’s consistently clever script, from empowerment-minded “The Handmaid’s Tale” writers Nina Fiore and John Herrera, isn’t nearly as interested in the mystery as it is in Nancy Drew herself, or in the circle of characters and relationships that surround her. And that’s the smart way to approach such a case, since the movie was clearly intended to be more than a one-off.

What felt so revolutionary in 2012 is no less visionary today, but packs a disappointing sense of familiarity this time around, like tearing open your Christmas presents to find … a huge stack of hand-me-down clothing. Or else, like watching a magic trick performed a second time from a different angle.

Considering its superlative title (second only to George Stevens's New Testament epic, "The Greatest Story Ever Told"), I'm sorry to report that The Greatest Game Ever Played ranks somewhere in the murky middleground of sports movies.

More sensitive than sensational, Candler’s debut doesn’t add much in the way of insight to the juvenile delinquency genre, but boasts a stunning breakthrough performance from newcomer Josh Wiggins as the troublemaker in question.

Director Dylan Kidd sneaks some pretty profound observations about love and life by us.

The film unfolds in a dreamy, liminal place in Sofia’s personal evolution, but lacks the tangible sense of vicariously experiencing it ourselves — a shame, since it’s a splendid location in which to be doing such intensive self-healing.

Features some of the best fight and chase footage you'll see all summer.

To call this garish, idea-bloated monstrosity a mere “fable” is to grossly undersell the project’s expansive insights into art, life and legacy.

Aquaman gets his own adventure, and it’s kind of a shock that it doesn’t suck, but only if you’re willing to sit through two hours of water-logged world-building before the movie finally takes off.

For audiences cliché-savvy enough to appreciate the movie’s self-skewering sense of humor, this all plays out pretty much exactly as they’d expect, but that doesn’t mean Spirited can’t still surprise.

Humor turns every kill into a sick punchline, and while the writers do a fine job of making them funny, like macabre cartoons in which Wile E. Coyote can rebound from unthinkable injuries, the movie’s tone negates a fundamental respect for human life.

In the end, what makes The Tobacconist effective despite its limitations is the way it focuses on the experience of a “typical” Austrian — that is, a citizen without political convictions.

Depp plays it surly throughout, dominating those around him, but Minami has a strong screen presence as well (despite struggling somewhat with the dialogue in her first English-language role). As Aileen, she needs only to look at Gene, and he will yield to her demands. The two characters read as equals here, despite their polar-opposite personalities, and that unusual chemistry fuels the dangerous reporting ahead of them.

It’s emotionally exhausting, but audiences come away with a sense of her legacy, as well as an appreciation for the adversity she faced (and, to a lesser degree, a sense of the criticism that has been leveled against her).

Favreau’s most important responsibility in overseeing the remake was simply not to mess it up. Which he doesn’t. Then again, nor does he bring the kind of visionary new take to the material that Julie Taymor added when staging the Broadway musical. That makes Favreau’s “The Lion King” an undeniably impressive, but incredibly safe entry to the catalog — one whose greatest accomplishment may not be technical (which is not to diminish the incredible work required to make talking animals look believable), but in perfecting the performances.

As the years go by and the kids grow — perhaps the only real benefit of Winterbottom’s approach — time begins to run together, making it all too easy for the mind to wander.

Song to Song finds the maestro in broken-record mode, rehashing more or less the same themes against the backdrop of the Austin music scene — merely the latest borderline-awful Malick movie that risks to undermine the genius and mystery of his best work.

Take it from someone who can still feel the hollow rubber tang! of old dodgeball scars: It feels great to be blindsided by a little movie like this.

Unimaginative and downright predictable by grownup standards, but bursting with elements sure to appeal to younger auds.

Triple X posed an ideal opportunity for the series to rectify its dismissive treatment of women until this point, putting a lady on equal footing with Bond. To its credit, the film does feature a bit of screwball badinage between the two (a clunky bit about female drivers, unfortunately), but it has yet to introduce a single female character who doesn’t want to sleep with our hero.

As if by magic, Zagar has managed to foster a sense of familiarity among the boys that sells the illusion that they’re related, further reinforced by the editors’ trick of including moments of spontaneous, unscripted tomfoolery between the young actors.

Lee’s use of split-screens and dynamic transitions makes the process of actively interpreting his monstrous vision a fresh and unrivaled experience.

There’s something so schematic about Iris’ situation, it feels like an insult to those who deal with actual thoughts of self-harm. That doesn’t mean it’s not compelling to watch at times, as Iris does her best to overcome her immobility, but nothing about it feels believable.

The movie’s much too flashy, allowing its cheeky attitude to overpower the otherwise humanist message (somehow, absurd situations feel less so when the narrator is constantly pointing out how outrageous everything seems to be), while the acting is all over the place.

The cinematic equivalent of calendar art.

Rather than channeling James Thurber’s satirical tone, Stiller plays it mostly earnest, spinning what feels like a feature-length “Just Do It” ad.

A quarter-century ago, such an assured, emotionally satisfying French offering as this could have done significant business in the States, the way films like “Jean de Florette” once did.

Life’s a thrill when it’s smart, but it’s even more exciting when the characters are dumb — which is ultimately a paradox the film wears proudly, to the possible extinction of the human race.

Rogers’ stage play is a smart, mature piece of writing, but one that transfers rather clumsily to the small screen, in part because its makers don’t show quite the same confidence in their audience’s intelligence.

If you can get past the idea that the two-ton lion threatening Idris Elba and his family in the movie is a singularly frightening combination of ones and zeros, not killer instinct and claws, then Beast is a blast.

Scherfig approaches the milieu with shrewd anthropological wit, amplifying Wade’s research with her own keen outsider insights — this on top of an expert grasp of tension and tone as the club’s initial allure turns to anxiety and disgust.

Collectively, Thanks for Sharing boasts more than enough personalities to keep things interesting, but it lacks the casual spontaneity to make these characters’ journeys anything other than predictable.

The trouble with “P.S. I Still Love You” is that nearly all the reasons that Lara Jean makes such a refreshingly different romantic lead are contained in the earlier film, and here, she’s reduced to a version of the passive Disney princess, trying to decide between two dudes who both think she’s swell.

Kosinski is a gifted director, but his specialty is juggling human elements with complex visual effects. He is not cut out for this kind of comedy. His design choices are all wrong. The execution is tone deaf.

A movie like this would be a good start, if this were 1980. A decade and a half after “Brokeback Mountain,” however, it feels like a huge step backward.

If nothing else, You I Love delivers a brisk and spirited little taste of contemporary Russian culture through the eyes of three spontaneous, unpredictable and oddly charming characters.

Marshall's Memoirs achieves something few other high-profile literary adaptations do: Rather than simply inspiring us to hunt down the source material, it actually stands alone as a film, rich in drama and star-crossed romance.

It may please the faithful, but it’s not quite epic enough to give less devoted viewers the same thrill they once felt from the live-action movies.

An exercise intended exclusively for fans of the genre, another crude, hard-R bloodbath from the studio that brought you "High Tension" and "Saw."

All of this is reasonably interesting, but not as dramatic as it ought to be.

Firebrand is clever to reframe Catherine as an important figure in England’s change. It just goes too far.

It is, in short, everything you’d expect from a crowd-sourced documentary, designed to celebrate its subject, while mostly just validating the aesthetic taste of its backers.

What the movie needs isn’t a shaggy Christmas pageant, but the kind of catharsis one might expect when four of its characters lost their mom and the fifth ought to be mourning his sister.

Brian Cox rages robustly and arrestingly against the dying of the light in The Etruscan Smile, an unabashedly formulaic yet undeniably affecting coming-to-terms drama that may cause as much discomfort as delight for those who recognize bits and pieces of their own fathers (or themselves) in the cantankerous character Cox portrays so persuasively.

Having learned a thing or two from Baz Luhrmann, Almereyda substitutes guns for daggers and picks his locations carefully, creating a rich, sultry-looking environment within which to stage the drama.

In the end, Jenson’s most radical twist on fairy-tale tradition is the belief that a pat “happily ever after” isn’t nearly as helpful as providing an example of how to cope with unhappiness.

Falls squarely in B movie territory but, by virtue of its two lead performers, winds up being far more enjoyable than it has any right to be.

The original “Craft” may be a mess, but it does have a legacy, and this ain’t it.

When you’re simply looking for something semi-interesting to stream, stories like these don’t necessarily require great actors, but great actors are the reason some of them still reverberate in our memory decades later.

We all know where this is headed — Snow’s destined to become Panem’s authoritarian “president” — but there’s still enormous room for surprise and debate, even among readers of Collins’ prequel.

Most likely chosen for its shaggy-dog looks, Winn-Dixie is actually a great deal more special than you'd expect, a fitting analogy for a film no parent should be too quick to dismiss.

In the era when content is king, Sam Mendes still believes in moving pictures. Empire of Light is the proof.

Silly as it might be, Silent Night gives audiences reason to get excited about the Hong Kong innovator once again, ranking as one of the few bloody Christmas counterprogrammers since “Die Hard” that feels worthy of repeat viewing down the road.

A Wrinkle in Time is wildly uneven, weirdly suspenseless, and tonally all over the place, relying on wall-to-wall music to supply the missing emotional connection and trowel over huge plot holes.

The Beekeeper is the best kind of bad movie — which is to say, it’s the sort that puts entertainment ahead of pretentiousness, embracing the laughter sure to accompany such an unapologetically stupid, ultra-violent premise.

Somehow, it doesn’t actually seem surprising that Cage would partner with Sono. But the creative choices they make together, from an exploding gumball machine to endangered testicles — well, they must be seen to be believed.

Far too many of the shorts prove instantly forgettable.

An unknown commodity to anyone who doesn't follow telenovelas, Becker is sure to be a big star and has already signed on for two sequels. Apart from being scorching hot, he's enormously sympathetic in dramatic scenes.

Though it can sometimes feel invasive when a documentarian includes his or her own voice in the finished cut, Greenfield’s presence is essential here as we observe the rapport she’s established with people whom it’s difficult for us not to judge, and whom she views with all the complexity her portraits suggest.

The movie's politics may miss their mark, but its thrills are dead-on.

The lack of a single clear character with whom to identify ultimately proves problematic.

For Sutton — whose previous film, “Dark Night,” inspired by 2012’s Aurora megaplex shooting, made an austere statement about gun violence — Donnybrook marks a major step forward in both ambition and style.

I'd like to say that Flightplan is one of those white-knuckle, edge-of-your-seat thrill rides that critics are always raving about, but instead, it's more like a transatlantic flight with no clear destination, where the cabin noise makes it impossible to sleep and the in-flight movie is a rerun.

The story gains momentum as it goes, and by the end, it’s positively gripping.

Has all the makings of another "Ice Storm" -- family tension, teen experimentation, friendly neighborhood wife-swapping and a death in the family -- but falls short in its execution.

It’s great to see Smith in comedic mode again, and smart of the team to base the Genie’s personality on the star’s brand, rather than imitating what Williams did with the role. Even in cases where Smith is quoting directly from the original, his persona comes through loud and clear as this blue-hued, CG-enhanced master of ceremonies.

Anchored by an ultra-focused and unusually low-key Will Smith as Peter, Emancipation can be an intense and at times almost unbearable thing to watch, presented in meticulously composed, nearly black-and-white frames, desaturated to the point of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady’s grim battlefield tableaux.

Stevens (who has expert instincts in his documentary work) falls short of making this scenario entirely convincing. Take out a few “gritty” details that account for the film’s R rating, and Palmer is formulaic enough to pass for a faith-based movie.

Somehow, Lilo & Stitch has lost its unpredictable sense of anarchy in the retelling.

Screenplay credit goes to Hannah Reilly, who wrote the stage musical from which “The Deb” was adapted with Meg Washington. While their lyrics are clever and contemporary, this project is every bit Wilson’s jam. Her sensibility is grounded in sincerity but relies on bawdy, off-color jokes to deflect from empowerment messaging that might otherwise seem square. And it works.

Apart from the heavy debt it owes to Malick’s oeuvre, Edwards’ entrancing debut is radically non-generic, either as history film and coming-of-age piece.

Its compelling cast and sincere matchmaking goals are reason enough to play along.

Benji may be far too simplistic for adults to find much enjoyment in watching, but it rewards active viewing from kids and displays mostly model behavior on the part of its young protagonists (once they stop keeping secrets from their mother, that is).

Considering how much new additions Rosario Dawson (as Mimi) and Tracie Thoms (as Joanne) bring to the film, it's a shame Columbus didn't introduce more changes.

Resistance tells a story that’s plenty strong on its own terms, and if anything, it’s a bonus that one of the key participants should survive to become famous. Afforded depth and gravitas by Angelo Milli’s string score, the film hardly needs the framing device in which Ed Harris appears as Gen. George S. Patton, regaling his troops with Marceau’s story before inviting him onstage for his first public show.

It’s not easy being Ben Affleck, by which I mean, there aren’t many actors who seem so comfortably themselves on-screen, and now that Affleck has reached middle age, he’s capable of bringing fresh depth to his performances.

That’s not to say Dog Eat Dog is bereft of interesting choices. Far from it, though its infrequent bursts of gonzo brilliance are all in service of such an uninteresting premise.

Will there be young people who love this movie as much as their parents loved Coolidge’s “Valley Girl”? Sure, that’s bound to happen, but no one will be talking about this movie in 37 years. And with no new music — just second-rate covers of classic songs — it may well be forgotten in fewer than 37 days, lost to the void of VOD.

This slick mix of special effects and practical ingenuity puts Affleck in a fun position, and the slightly grizzled star’s still got the clench-jawed charisma to pull it off. [Work in Progress SXSW 2023]

This erotic thriller is still sexy and plenty entertaining, mind you, but it’s just not very useful insofar as what it says about real relationships.

Though consistent with the game (with a few extra but obvious twists thrown in for good measure), the story of “Detective Pikachu” doesn’t allow nearly enough Pokémon-related action, while the quality of the computer animation (by Moving Picture Co. and Framestore) falls far short of the basic level of competency audiences have come to expect from effects movies.

Running a full reel longer than needed, the film’s balance of romance, humor and pathos starts to slip in the final stretch... though the emotional notes ring true.

Levinson gives his stars roughly equal time, carefully modulating the sense of balance throughout. His direction seldom seems showy, and yet, we sense the intention behind each cut as power and control shifts throughout the movie.

Paine and his crew do muster some decent action, set in places you’d hardly expect (like crowded Piccadilly Circus), but scenery only goes so far to disguise the utter preposterousness of Cross’ script.

Fly Me to the Moon only needs to sell one thing: that beneath Kelly and Cole’s fast-paced dialogue and combative flirtation, there exists a mutual attraction compelling enough to keep us guessing. We already know how the lunar mission turns out, but never tire of gazing upon stars such as these.

As played by Sandra Bullock, Our Brand Is Crisis political spin doctor Jane Bodine is easily one of the best female roles of the last 10 years.

Courageously sentimental in an age of irony, Victor Levin’s refreshingly articulate 5 to 7 delivers romance of the sort thought lost since the days of Audrey Hepburn, for those who appreciate such finery.

Impressive as Berry’s commitment to the role can be, there’s a mirthless predictability to the whole ordeal. This pro-forma sports drama, which clearly means so much to its creator, unfolds pretty much exactly as you’d expect, leaning hard on pathos, when what it really needs is personality.

So, if you like piña coladas, or movies in which severe childhood trauma can be hugged out on an ocean cruise, then you’ll like Like Father. For everyone else, skip the imitation and seek out “Toni Erdmann” instead.

The movie is basically a love story between a man and his elephant, and if viewed as such, it's not nearly as ridiculous as the movie it first appears to be.

Love Is Strange never feels anything less than authentic, like a true story shared by close friends.

This peculiar high-danger romance — which plays like watered-down Elmore Leonard or imitation Tarantino — is a risky retro back-step for an up-and-coming young screenwriter with such hip credits as “Chronicle” and “American Ultra” to his name.

The Zucheros’ creation is audacious and original, but also suffers from some of the same ADHD issues that afflicted “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (both are movies made for multitaskers with brains wired for constantly switching between screens).

The film is a snarl of contradictions, starting with the discrepancy between Mann’s obsessive demand for realism and the consistently implausible screenplay.

To the extent that audiences are willing to go along with an overwrought documentary that strives to imitate what far more professionally executed podcasts have innovated in recent years ..., Berman’s stunt could turn into one of the year’s buzzier nonfiction releases.

A shockingly dull look at a fascinating disorder affecting humans who believe they were born into the wrong species.

For the most part, Coming 2 America falls back on familiar punchlines, serving up nearly word-for-word repeats of amusing bits from the original, but they don’t necessarily play the same in this context.

What's missing cast-wise is an appealing personality in the sidekick role, and Webb is no match for Mads Mikkelsen.

This is one of the kindest characters Williams has ever played, which makes his self-imposed turmoil — the consequence of not wanting to hurt anyone, least of all his wife — all the more tragic.

Action does not come naturally to the “Under the Same Moon” director, though the script poses an even bigger problem in G20, a movie whose short title manages to reflect both its high concept and shockingly low intelligence level.

Though he succeeds in creating the most memorable incarnation of Poirot ever seen on-screen (upstaging even Johnny Depp’s competing cameo), the movie is a failure overall, juggling too many characters to keep straight, and botching the last act so badly that those who go in blind may well walk out not having understood its infamous twist ending.

The emperor is naked, Greed wants us to realize, but unless we agree to radically rethink our own wardrobes, does it make any difference?

Even as Dark Water's horror-movie component flounders, a different, arguably better kind of thriller emerges.

“Toothless” probably isn’t the first word Magic Mike fans want to associate with Channing Tatum’s aging exotic dancer series, but there’s no denying the female-targeting franchise has dulled its bite over the past decade.

An incredibly precise actor who understands exactly how to play to the camera, conveying volumes via even the slightest microexpressions, Kingsley navigates the tricky mix of humor, horror, and deep-seated regret that make this man, if not exactly ordinary, then relatable, at least.

Kyle Marvin’s directorial debut is a pleasant enough reminder that these gals are still game for a good time.

Jason Statham is good at his job, which explains why he keeps booking the same kinds of movies — well, that and the fact that people keep watching them.

Nothing happens as you might expect it to, but the Pinocchio ending is definitely out.

Bourboulon hatches a second-rate romance, rather than detailing the rich, real-life drama that swirled around Eiffel’s controversial endeavor.

At times, it feels less like a feature than a collection of Looney Tunes-y shorts piled one on top of another.

It’s intriguing to see Filomarino experiment with the formula and exciting to imagine where his career might go from here.

Countering the CG bombast and apocalyptic doom and gloom of the modern blockbuster with a soft-spoken message of faith and love, Paul, Apostle of Christ struggles to find a compelling entry point to a critical period in the early Christian church.

To the extent that Adele’s hunger for affection resonates with audiences, what emerges is a powerful — if implausible — romance.

Fortunately, writer-director Richard LaGravenese has jettisoned most of the novel and refashioned its core mythology and characters into a feverishly enjoyable guilty pleasure.

Woman Walks Ahead offers dimension to its leading lady, but holds its Native characters to the same old surface stereotypes. Such a movie is a step in the right direction, but farther behind than it seems to realize.

Whether they’re playing naughty or nice, Witherspoon and Ferrell are two of the rare stars who can be charming even when trying to sabotage someone else’s most important moment, and You’re Cordially Invited is most fun when they’re on the warpath.

Boychoir may be soft, but it’s not run-of-the-mill TV-movie treacle, offering just enough edge to lend credibility.

Doin’ It wants to preach sex positivity, but feels stuck in the immature, shock-comedy mode of “American Pie” and early Farrelly brothers movies.

As first features go, Death of a Unicorn is considerably more ambitious and imaginative than so much of what studios greenlight these days, which goes a fair distance to excuse some of its flaws.

Neither Pena nor the pic itself delivers the necessary dynamism, strained by a modest budget and too few extras to sufficiently re-create a movement that found strength in numbers.

It’s not so common to find an ensemble of this caliber so enthusiastic to work together, and that chemistry comes across.

21 Years: Richard Linklater makes for a disappointingly hollow hagiography: gushy, superficial and strangely overdue — arriving significantly later than its title prescribes.

As coincidence would have it, Steve Carell's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" spun comedy gold from a similar idea just last week. Virgin shares not only The Baxter's basic premise, but also two of its key cast members (Paul Rudd and the beautiful Ms. Banks), allowing audiences to see just how much better The Baxter might have been if Showalter had given us some reason to identify with his socially awkward protagonist.

Given the escalating ambition of Noe’s oeuvre and the pornographic promo materials teased in advance of the pic’s Cannes premiere, who would have thought that Love would ultimately prove to be Noe’s tamest film?

“Valerian” manages to be both cutting-edge and delightfully old-school — the kind of wild, endlessly creative thrill ride that only the director of “Lucy” and “The Fifth Element” could deliver, constructed as an episodic series of missions, scrapes and near-misses featuring a mind-blowing array of environments and stunning computer-generated alien characters.

Most of the jokes are real groaners, though the humor is welcome, while shooting select exteriors with tilt-shift lenses (for a miniature-faking effect that makes real-world buildings look like tiny Lego sets) adds another creative touch to the overall package.

Heisserer’s script endeavors to give Bullock a rich psychological backstory to play — something to do with her reluctance to accept motherhood and the redemption she experiences in accepting that role — and the wonderfully self-reliant actress plays that arc earnestly enough. But there’s no getting around that this is a monster movie without a monster.

Westmoreland approaches the project every bit as respectful toward Japanese customs as Jones was, although only a percentage of her insights carry over to the film. They’re still there, mind you, but more difficult to detect.

Because Lieberstein is an inherently likable actor, we identify with his plight, even if it takes a while to realize that he’s essentially brought this situation upon himself.

It's nice to have actors of Sarandon and Pepper's caliber onboard for the office-bound wheeler-dealer scenes, but mostly, it's the prospect of witnessing Johnson at the helm of an 18-wheeler as he rams his way through machine-gun fire that excites.

Sacrificing good taste in pursuit of the higher goal — which could be described as joining “Fritz the Cat” in animated infamy — Tartakovsky and co-writer Jon Vitti (a veteran of “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons”) make no apologies for the project’s obscene sense of humor.

On the scale that ranges from implausibly entertaining to entertainingly implausible, Skyscraper comfortably falls toward the compulsively over-the-top end, generating thrills by straining credibility at every turn, relying on Johnson’s invaluable ability to engage the audience while defying physics, common sense, and the sheer limits of human stamina.

The movie is much funnier than the vast majority of indie comedies, serving as a great audition piece for a career of sitcom directing.

Writer-director Brian Savelson drags four characters all the way out to the woods to orchestrate the sort of politely confrontational chamber piece best suited to an Off Off Broadway stage in In Our Nature, an eloquent but overly rehearsed drama.

Yes, it’s impressive from a visual effects standpoint.... However, had Potter lived to see what Hollywood has cooked up for her mischievous hero (who was sent to bed without supper in her own didactic tale), she almost certainly would have preferred for Peter (charmingly voiced by James Corden) and his three more cautious sisters...to have wound up in one of Mrs. McGregor’s infamous rabbit pies.

This is manufactured sentiment, less interested in provoking thought than in manipulating emotion, constructed of human obstacles overcome, stirring speeches delivered and heart-rending flashbacks unveiled, all suspended like so much Spam in the jelly of its own score.

Whether or not he is specifically referring to the present day, its demagogues, and the way certain evangelicals have once again sold out their core values for political advantage, “A Hidden Life” feels stunningly relevant as it thrusts this problem into the light.

The Accountant is nothing if not a puzzle — not so much a jigsaw as a three-dimensional brain teaser that gets deeper and stranger with each new revelation.

It’s naughty, campy and wildly uneven.

An impressive, thought-provoking astro-adventure that benefits from the biggest screen available.

Impressive in both its subject and suggested scope, Perry’s sweeping film reflects how the achievement of these women directly impacted the troops’ morale, despite the adversity they faced from skeptical superior officers.

The film is not without spectacle, but it is strangely without soul. That would’ve made it a disappointment to anyone buying a movie ticket, but perhaps at home, it will make for a more welcome distraction.