Sheila O'Malley

The heist movie has a long pedigree, and while Finding Steve McQueen is no "Le Cercle Rouge" or "Rififi" (or even "Reservoir Dogs"), Johnson keeps the tone light, vivacious, almost slapstick at times. This is a smart choice.

The final exchange between Paisley and McGuinness, when they shake hands, is the best, but by then it's far too late.

An actor has to just have it and Omar Sy has it. One needs only to watch his performance in Samba to see Sy's old-school natural star power in its purest form.

EPiC is so vivid it makes Elvis seem not like an entertainer from the past, but a figure who lives in the perpetual Right Now.

Man of Tai Chi is hugely entertaining.

Refusing to explain Ted Bundy is the strongest possible choice Berlinger could have made because it destabilizes reality. The film itself gaslights us, and this is where Berlinger and Zac Efron — an inspired choice—are powerful co-creators.

It's a courageous film that's willing to sit in those moments instead of underlining them or hurrying past them, hoping we get the shorthand. Love is Strange is a patient film. The emotions it unleashes are enormous.

Co-directors Sam and Andy Zuchero also wrote the script, and while there are a lot of vibrant ideas at play, there are about ten ideas too many. The film ponders existential questions but keeps them at a remove.

It doesn't know what it wants to be, or what story it wants to tell.

Players, written by Whit Anderson and directed by Trish Sie, struggles with the inherent artificiality of its setup. The tropes are so front and center that real life barely has any room to breathe.

Sorvino is great in the small role of Clark's tear-stained, checked-out mother.

This Beautiful Fantastic is not meant to be realistic. It's supposed to be a fairy tale. That's fine, but it's a very low-stakes fairy tale, wrapped in a strained garden metaphor.

As Danica, the head witch, draped in a bright-red gown with matching lipstick, Rebecca Romjin gives a very perverse and funny performance, all icy intimidation and glamorous power.

The film plods at points, trudging along, and there are a few misguided narrative "devices" tacked on, but still, Trial by Fire bristles with anger.

The characters never take shape, not even as caricatures. There are elements of parody, but Operation Fortune is not broad enough to be a spoof. It's weirdly empty.

"Stanleyville" is part Stanford Prison Experiment and part MTV's "The Real World." It's part Milgram experiment and part "Squid Game."

Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen plays like a tall tale, a yarn heard at the corner pub, filled with exaggerations and embellishments, where the storyteller expects you to pay his bar tab at the end. And maybe you won't mind doing so.

The cast is terrific, and there are a couple of sequences that made me laugh out loud, but the movie as a whole is baffling.

A mostly satisfying entry in the art heist genre.

Fatima is told simply but emotionally, prioritizing the sensorial reality of the children's world and the people inhabiting it. This devotion to the "real" makes the holy vision palpable and plausible.

There's a lot of interesting things here and yet Flannery feels incomplete, and — worse — a little bit scared to go in for a much deeper dive.

It's a disappointment when so much goes unexplored, when the film bows to the demands of a cliched plot driving the story forward.

It's all a bit overheated, and while there is certainly nothing wrong with melodrama, the problem arises when the script (also by Tornatore) keeps insisting on explaining its own symbolism and subtext, to make sure we get how deep the thing is.

Set in 1967 Ireland, The Miracle Club stars three powerhouse Oscar-winning and/or nominated actresses (none of whom are Irish) and features period clothing and cars, sweeping cinematography, location-shooting, and a heartwarming message, where each character gets a satisfying arc. Cliches work for a reason.

Bohemian Rhapsody is bad in the way a lot of biopics are bad: it's superficial, it avoids complexity, and the narrative has a connect-the-dots quality. This kind of badness, while annoying, is relatively benign. However, the attitude towards Mercury's sexual expression is the opposite of benign.

A successful franchise depends on the hero at its center. Is the hero's personality interesting enough to warrant more? Time will tell, but Falcon Rising is off to a good start.

Last Looks works best in its twisted often-incoherent plot, where no character is generic. Everyone has a secret. No one is on the level. Surfaces lie.

A lot of thrillers are exciting but empty. “In Cold Light” is thrilling but very full in unexpected and complicated ways.