Tara Bennett

Heart of Stone is so busy trying to start a franchise that it forgets to be a movie good enough to merit a sequel in the first place.

A visual tour de force of hybrid 2D and 3D animation, Mutant Mayhem is not only the most authentically New York version of the Turtles yet, it’s arguably the most inventive.

Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia is a fascinating look at the compressed life and death of the HQ Trivia app. It’s a familiar tale of tech failure, but the details – and the massive popularity of the app – make it an interesting one to watch.

A tight yet thorough timeline of Wham!’s creation, meteoric ascension and then abrupt ending, Wham! uses the archival recordings of Michael and more recent recorded musings of Ridgeley to tell their story from their perspectives.

No Hard Feelings may be marketed as just a raunchy, 2000s-era throwback comedy, but Lawrence and her co-star, Andrew Barth Feldman, elevate it into something more.

Repeat viewings of Across the Spider-Verse to bridge the gap until the final installment next year sounds like a great way to savor this film as it so richly deserves.

In the end, does a live-action The Little Mermaid feel vital? No. It gives fans of the animated original pretty much the same movie, beat for beat, with some slight adjustments that score on the positive side.

The approach and tone is decidedly non-maudlin, and determinedly hopeful despite capturing the staggering hardships Fox faces simply navigating an average day.

Because the script never lightens up on these non-stop angst moments, Crater suffers from a case of tonal whiplash. One entertaining set piece of jet-pack play or a scene with the kids binge-eating a stash of never-before-eaten foods can’t possibly overcome the tsunami of melancholic moments the adult filmmakers can’t seem to stop indulging in.

Scanlen’s searing performance elevates The Starling Girl from just being a familiar story into something far more interesting and compelling.

The documentary gives us the life story of Blume, from childhood to now, presenting a fully-formed human looking back on a stellar career that just happened to reinvent young adult fiction.

If Eirene Donohue’s script gave us more scenes to really get to know Amanda and Sinh as fully formed people, maybe A Tourist’s Guide to Love could have been memorable. But there’s really no chemistry, heat, or wit between Cook and Ly.

Is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves a fun watch? Sure. The spectacle is impressive at times, with better CG than most peers in its class. It works best as a romp and a primer for kids with parents itching to open their minds to D&D play. In terms of its cinematic impact, though, there’s too much that’s too familiar, which makes it slight and forgettable.

Netflix’s adaptation of author Kate DiCamillo’s The Magician’s Elephant makes some fatal tone mistakes in trying to smoosh together comedy, tragedy, childhood wonder and animal exploitation—which clash pretty hard.

For those looking for more razzle-dazzle with assless chaps, Magic Mike’s Last Dance may test your patience with its meandering middle. But Channing Tatum is so damn skilled as a dancer, comedian and romantic hero, he rewards the patient.

Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel try their best with an interesting premise that’s squandered by script with barely any laughs, gratuitous violence and unconvincing action.

Alice, Darling is a measured, affecting observation of a young woman finally coming to grips with how much an emotionally toxic romantic relationship has viscerally changed her.

The Drop has a great premise about an accident that forces a couple to revisit their relationship and needs, but it never really lives up to its promise.

Anna Diop gives a captivating performance as a Senegalese immigrant working to be reunited with her son in an uneven but haunting meditation on motherhood.

After fits and stops, this sequel finds its nostalgic sweet spot midway through and lands an ending that feels earned and honors the spirit of Shepherd and the characters of A Christmas Story.

It will especially appeal to the sensitive kids (and adults) in your life, and it most definitely meets the high standards Cartoon Saloon continues to make in the medium.

God’s Creatures explores generational family gender dynamics in an extremely slow-burn way, but it has plenty of rewards for patient viewers.

The Woman King overcomes the perils of its overstuffed script with a collection of performances that elevate the whole. As expected, Viola Davis is the emotional center of the piece, masterfully fine-tuning her performance to go from fierce to vulnerable as needed.

Aside from an unexpected ending, director Robert Zemeckis is basically doing a paint-by-numbers version of the studio’s much better original, just with modern animation and Tom Hanks. And while Tom always tries his best, even he can’t make this redo memorable on its own merits.

The Invitation takes way too long getting to its most interesting ideas, leaving us with the distinct feeling of “too little, too late.”

LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation wraps up the trilogy of sequel character specials with an emotional conclusion and some very funny summer riffs on beloved characters.

In Thirteen Lives, Ron Howard sheds the spectacle of the 2018 Thai soccer team cave rescue by recreating the impossible logistics, choices, and dangers with intimacy and chilling claustrophobia.

Persuasion is a disappointingly limp adaptation of one of Jane Austen’s great romances. While Dakota Johnson does her best to give director Carrie Cracknell a contemporized, charming version of Austen’s heroine Anne Elliot, the screenplay’s foundational reframing of the character strips away everything that makes the book’s version interesting and quietly heroic.