Soren Andersen

Snowtime! is by turns ribald (there’s a flatulent dog), boisterous (there’s charging through the snow with wooden swords wildly waved), tender (there’s a boy grieving quietly for a father killed in a real war) and, yes, tragic.

So there’s not a single surprise along the way. But there is the comfort of familiarity operating in the movie’s favor. And it’s fun.

The camera is fixated on the face of Alice, the lead character in The Girl in the Book. And no wonder. There’s a lot going on there.

Director Raman Hui mixes martial-arts fights and slapstick comedy (lots of mugging by Jing) into a whimsical, fast-paced monster mash.

There are lots of ideas rattling around in it — about artificial intelligence, about racism, about American aggression on the world stage, about the future of humanity. And rattle and clang they do. And also clunk. The various elements are not well integrated.

[Ip Man] is the calm at the center of a storm of kung-fu combat sequences, and Yen plays him with grace and serenity.

Part 2 is undeniably lively and very obviously pitched to young kids. It’s colorful but not especially distinctive.

There’s the old cliché that says, “so-and-so is such a great actor he could read the phone book (whatever that is; as I said, it’s an old cliché) and make it interesting.” That’s pretty much what Washington pulls off in EQ2.

Sequelitis has Vaughn in its grip. The follow-up to his 2014 hyperviolent, boundlessly inventive spy-movie sendup gives the impression it’s trying a little too hard to surpass its predecessor.

It’s Harley Quinn’s movie and everybody else in Suicide Squad is just a supporting character. No surprise there. That’s the way it is in the comic books, too. It’s all about personality, and Harley has that by the freight carload.

Inspiration, old-fashioned style, is the main course being served in Pelé: Birth of a Legend. In essence commissioned by the soccer icon, who is credited as one of the picture’s executive producers, “Pelé” is hagiography. But appealing hagiography.

The original “Deadpool” caught lightning in a bottle. The sequel sparks only intermittently.

There are a lot of moving parts here, and Pearce fits them together with admirable skill. Originality isn’t his strong suit, but “Artemis” has enough snaky twists and turns and moody energy to make it a fun ride.

The sweetness in the original is absent in the sequel. The players, including Judy and Nick, have an edge to them. Maybe that’s to be expected in that the main characters are now more settled in their parts, but there’s a sharpness in tone that makes them hard to warm up to.

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris is all sweetness and light. So sweet it nearly dissolves one’s fillings, especially at the end. So light it practically floats off the screen. It’s a gossamer fairy tale. Pleasant. Charming. A trifle, though not without some substance.

The plot may be nothing special, but Reynolds most certainly is. He’s just so relatable, genial, nice, in an unforced sort of way that he makes the movie, which he also produced, a fun ride.

When it’s good, Ralph Breaks the Internet is very, very good. When it’s not, it’s annoying, cloying and LOUD!

The storm effects are first-rate, immersive all the way. The tale-telling ability of director Craig Gillespie is frustratingly inconsistent.

It’s an undeniably fun picture but rather too self-impressed. It’s Ritchie at his limited best.

Blade of the Immortal is a pretty good title for a samurai movie. I’ve got a better one: “10,000 Corpses.”

The Addams Family suffers from an acute case of the cutes.

The picture’s pyrotechnics are first rate, and the acting by the principals is more than serviceable.

Directors Rob Cannan and Ross Adam have made a picture that’s technically rough-edged but absorbing.

The picture has an undeniable rough stylishness...but in terms of coherence of storytelling it leaves the audience choking on all that swirling dust.

There’s gunplay aplenty here, but nothing about “The Kid” sets it apart from the many Billy the Kid movies that have preceded it.

The picture’s time shifts are smoothly handled by Kwak. But eventually confusion sets in.

For most of its length, Stillwater goes along as a meticulous examination of its central characters. And then suddenly near the end it jumps the tracks.

The chase, chase, chase pace is tiring, not least because it’s not clear who many of these people are and what agendas they’re following. Mixed-up confusion is the result.

The gunplay is primary though there are some obligatory scenes of martial arts fights.

Woodley and Claflin make an attractive pair, but they’re not particularly convincing playing people deeply, deeply in love. There’s something lacking in the conviction department there.

Smith, on the other hand, throws himself avidly into his work, communicating a, uh, biting malevolence and sick glee in his portrayal. The picture only truly comes alive when he’s masticating his scenes. Otherwise, “Morbius” is dead at its center.

Beatty directed and wrote the script, but from a man who made the weighty epic “Reds” and the corrosively funny “Bulworth,” Rules Don’t Apply feels curiously weightless and as forgettable as its title.

So it goes, with Sonic, fleet of foot and quick of tongue, racing from one dire situation to another. It’s exhausting, but the makers knew exactly how to tailor it to its game-mad audience.

You get a sense [Eli Roth]'s struggling to rein in his penchant for gory frights, and for that reason “Clock” feels like a movie at war with itself.

In the matter of searching for work in a difficult economy, Get a Job traffics in fairy tales that come complete with happily-ever-after endings.

Its take-no-prisoners pacing [takes] it up a notch from the average low-budget shoot ’em up.

Every plot twist is easily anticipated...The ending hints at the possibility of a sequel, but that’s a prospect that leaves one cold. As far as “Demeter” is concerned, enough is enough.

Freighted with symbolism and beautifully mounted, Youth is dreamlike and at the same time stultifying.

Humongous undersea cities, enormous herds of aquatic creatures and a superabundance of monsters are laid before the viewer. The goal: Make people go, “Wow!” Pardon me, but the overall effect is more like, “eh.”

It’s all big action. Big colorful visuals. Outsized vocal performances.

None of this is especially promising or, frankly, funny. In fact, for much of its length, “Despicable Me” is painfully unfunny.

There is advocacy. And then there is propaganda. The Trolley, with its overcooked rhetoric, falls into the latter category.

The Book of Henry launches itself into cloud cuckooland and never returns to Earth.

Forster gets decent performances from Lively and Clarke, but the overall impression “All I See” leaves is of a picture that fails to live up to its filmmaker’s ambitions.

Angel Has Fallen plays out exactly as you would expect from a potboiler of this type. No surprises here, other than that it exists at all. It’s the kind of movie one expects to be released at the shank end of summer. Time to turn the page to fall.

Similar to the scenario of the original picture, it’s a band of grizzled soldier types who battle the alien menaces. Missing, however, is a formidable leading-man presence in the Schwarzenegger mold.

Curiously though, director Michael Dougherty and his filmmaking team obscure the battle footage in darkness, smoke and downpours, making murky much of the imagery.

With all of Shults’ dark-night-of-the-soul mood manipulations, the film promises more than it delivers. Its buildups are impressive, but in the end its frights are mild.

It’s somehow only fitting that with Scarlett Johansson in the lead role, Ghost in the Shell leaves you with the feeling that something has been lost in translation.

Daddy’s Home is a movie with a one-joke premise: Will Ferrell, he’s a pincushion of punishment. Make him screech. Watch him squirm.

So yes: Wow! Gasp! There are some really pretty pictures here. But wow! Gasp! The story is really pretty … stupid.

Yep, we’re in Tarantino territory for sure: way too self-indulgently long, and way, way overboard with that N-word.

This is a picture whose subject, loudly and frequently proclaimed, is magic. But there is precious little of the genuine article to be found in it.

The picture is essentially a brief for Wise’s case. And as such, it’s as dry and uncinematic as a dusty legal document.

The “Dragon Tattoo” series continues with “Spider’s Web,” but it seems as though the franchise is running out of gas and fresh ideas.

There’s a lot going on here, which leads to a whole lot of gassy exposition to explain it all.... Think of it as torture by blah-blah.

With anybody other than a superstar like Tom Cruise in the title role, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back would just be a routine potboiler. With superstar Tom Cruise in the title role, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is … a routine potboiler.

Affleck sports plenty of snappy ’20s fashions, tailored double-breasted suits, often cream-colored, and elegant Borsalino-style fedoras. He’s dressed to kill for sure. Too bad his movie is so deadly dull.

Betrayals, narrow escapes and much battle action ensue in the course of the picture’s paint-by-numbers plotting.

Rather than using the extended running time to dig deep into these characters, director Andy Muschietti, who also directed the original, piles on the frights in a manner that builds to an ending drenched in hysteria.

You wait and you wait, through many overamped special-effects action sequences, for the cavalry to save the day, but by the time it finally appears, the picture has been long dead.

In the midst of all the mayhem it’s sometimes hard to stay awake.

Get out your handkerchiefs, but don’t expect to believe a minute of this vastly improbable tale.

Shouting and struggling, poor Pratt vainly tries to give his character dimension and some sense of sympathy. So genial and engaging in the Guardians of the Galaxy series, Pratt flails grouchily and ineffectively in Mercy.

Originality was on vacation when this picture was made.

The action is pumped up. The destruction is extreme. The whole thing is absurd.

The characters are so thinly sketched that the audience feels little emotional investment in them, and the handheld (or rather head-mounted) cameras produce the same jittery visuals that many viewers found so off-putting in the original.

As a creature feature, Cocaine Bear isn’t bad. Not great, mind you. But not bad.

The Wedding Guest is a thriller without thrills.

What we have here is a standard-issue comedy-tinged crime thriller indifferently directed by Tim Story (the “Think Like a Man” and “Ride Along” movies). Its nothing-special plot, the product of writers Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow, features ill-defined villains and briefly touches on Islamophobia and military veteran PTSD and drug abuse — and never follows up on any of those issues.

Leitch’s emphasis on excessive and nearly nonstop stunt-filled action is hardly surprising. His lack of directorial discipline, however, is. The guy apparently couldn’t help himself, piling on the action beats until they become numbing. By the end, you’re more than ready to get off this Bullet Train, feeling drained and disheartened.

There’s such a thing as something being too personal. James White is that thing.

Weaver’s Kay is a fanatic.

Strange movie. And despite the presence of Tina Fey playing its lead character, a cable-TV reporter named Kim Baker, it’s not a funny one.

The uneasy marriage of clunky psychodrama and overwrought special effects along with the fact that none of these characters are particularly likable make Strange World a chore to sit through.

The emphasis here is on the splashy spectacle with those insider-knowledge elements jammed together in a frenetic hodgepodge.

There’s nothing original in the movie. Indeed, the off-screen controversy that’s been consuming social media lately over the casting of pop superstar Styles and whether Pugh and Wilde are at odds overshadows the movie itself.

You know, there was a time when “Guardians of the Galaxy” was fun. That time was 2014, when the first picture came out... Now here’s “Vol. III.” And it’s no fun at all.

The picture’s ultimate destination is marked with an obviousness so bright it can be seen from space.