Tom Russo

Even with his glossy new look, Charlie Brown remains the Charlie Browniest.

Cooper swaggers as convincingly as always, the food-prep montages are mesmerizing, and we even get a couple of solid twists and an education on the sous-vide trend.

To Chu’s credit, he does work hard not only to legitimize 30-somethings’ halcyon recollections, but also to make the material relevant to a new generation.

The script’s messy seams also show in the parade of sidekicks that passes through Kaulder’s door as a new threat develops.

This feature adaptation of kid-lit author R.L. Stine’s best-selling horror-comedy series is out to thrill fans with a story that’s just as obsessively invested as they are, right down to Black’s meta casting as Stine himself.

Passable adventure that offers the occasional flash of real cleverness.

A narrative feature can do what the documentary couldn’t: re-create the tightrope act in full, glorious motion, rather than editing together surreptitiously snapped photos. These dizzying IMAX 3-D visuals truly are big-screen magic.

For the haters out there, you could see where Sandler reprising his role as a cartoon Dracula in Hotel Transylvania 2 might just be the perfect metaphor: Yep, there he goes again, evilly sucking the lifeblood out of decent entertainment. Now come on, let’s grab the torches!

Wilson has some fun lampooning ’80s action tropes, but he’s also just doing Dwight Schrute with a twang at times. McBrayer and Garcia barely get to play one-note characters, let alone ones that you’ll remember.

The movie may feel tonally consistent with the first, but it’s also overlong and thoroughly routine.

The movie grows easier to like in the later, straighter going, as it stops pushing so aggressively to be naughty and lets its characters try on some introspection.

Director Baltasar Kormákur (“2 Guns”) and his cast craft a lean narrative tone that humanizes the action without an excess of gloss.

It’s vintage Shyamalan, with a twist.

Director and Team Besson member Camille Delamarre (“Brick Mansions”) speeds us from one action sequence to the next with a style that alternates between routine, clunky, and modestly inspired.

Far from contrived, the triangle that “Zachariah” sketches among the last three folks on earth is all too human.

It’s only in the late going that the marital drama turns somewhat more authentic, helping to restore a bit of the audience’s, well, faith.

Ultimately, what Fantastic Four delivers is change for change’s sake, rather than change for the better.

A wide-ranging new survey of the toy’s global subculture and appeal.

Pixels may feel flatter to kids of the ’80s than it does to moviegoers too young to have known Pac-Man from Ant-Man.

The film is slow going with its mix of stilted political discourse and restless village folk just looking to celebrate life and dance. At times, it’s like “Footloose” gone didactic.

You’ll have to appreciate what fleeting cleverness you can here.

But, oh, the action. Tommila and Jackson have a couple of escape sequences that are exhilaratingly choreographed, never mind that one employs a meat freezer as its key prop. Kids should dig these bits. After all, off-kilter as Helander’s sensibility continues to be, he’s got a passion for popcorn-movie energy that can be contagious — especially when he’s not trashing Santa.

These promising themes aren’t given much more than surface treatment, making for a movie as conveniently tidy as some coming-home schmaltz on basic cable.

The character is sweetly sympathetic — less “Tammy” than “Mike & Molly” — and the laughs and chaos are all the more infectious for it.

It’s simultaneously silly and progressive, a familiar movie moment reserved for the girl you’d least expect.

An Australian crime yarn with a solid cast and tone, but not enough freshness — or enough of Pegg’s waggishness — to be memorable.

Finally, a movie with at least some coherence despite its sadly challenging circumstances.

Jim Parsons brings his own irrepressible energy to DreamWorks’ 3-D animated Home, segueing from almost-alien misfit Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory” to alien misfit, period.