Hanks’ winning performance covers a lot of holes, but not all of them.

It's definitely a family-friendly film, but some of the slower moments might bore kids. More importantly: There isn't anything astoundingly different about this film. It's about a dog, and it's absolutely cute and sweet. It's also predictably heartwarming and it offers nothing new.

In the end, this may be a case of a pop-culture icon being dragged down by the weight of trying remain relevant past its prime. It’s not woke, but you can’t call it racist. Maybe racist-ish. Misogynistic-ish. Entertaining-ish.

The film’s intentions are noble enough, but its story doesn’t always live up to them.

The Green Hornet, which strives to be a different take on the superhero genre, is an interesting film - until it devolves into abject stupidity.

Both Garrel and Martin are good. And it’s important to note that Hazanavicius is quite adept at the comedic bits, as well as at the occasional more-serious scenes, which deal with the disintegration of the marriage. The problem is his inability to merge the disparate tones.

A Little Help is worth watching, mostly for Fischer.

It’s more serviceable than inspired, but “Dark Fate” gets by on nostalgia. It’s just nice to see Schwarzenegger and Hamilton together again.

For a film that atonally screams praises of the destructive power of punk rock, The House of Tomorrow is disappointingly, if crowd-pleasingly, textbook. The pedestrian narrative still makes for a winsome coming-of-age tale, buoyed as it is by a talented cast and visually striking setting.

Disney movie about U.S. cavalrymen who are short on horses so they start riding camels. But how many movies feature Slim Pickens, Denver Pyle and Jack Elam? A cornucopia of coots. [18 Aug 2006, p.1]

It’s ironic that a film about bucking formula is itself so formulaic. There’s nothing wrong with such inoffensive pleasantness, but if Late Night wants to advocate setting fire to the system in pursuit of more meaningful art, it should have led the charge.

The acting is really good, particularly Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby. But boy, with a running time of nearly 21/2 hours and a near-constant bombardment of visual overstimulation, it’s exhausting.

The plot is ingeniously engineered, but the narrative is like a low-res image. It gets the idea across, but without the kind of details that make it memorable.

By the time the film reaches its implausible climax, it is far too late to rescue the story from the limbo that lies between ugly history and slick entertainment.

Mortal Engines is an entertaining movie if you don’t ask to many questions of the story and stick to what’s put in front of you onscreen.

Unfortunately Jean-Marc Vallée’s film doesn’t measure up to Gyllenhaal’s performance.

While Blyth's portrayal of a well-despised character can't go unnoticed and Zegler brings brightness to a bleak world, the issue is there isn't enough time to develop their relationship and make sense of Snow's turn from normal to bloodthirsty.

Rudderless is a quietly ambitious film, and if it eventually collapses under the dramatic weight it's asked to shoulder — and it does — at least it's trying.

Wahlberg and Washington are so good together, quips flying as fast as lead, that much is forgiven.

Rough Night has a couple of halfway good ideas, but they never add up to a whole.

Melfi, who also wrote the script, goes for broke on the sappy front. It's a credit to Murray's skill — or maybe the strength of his personality — that he never submits completely to all the heart-string tugging.

It's all well done and cute and forgettable.

Though it's certainly well-acted, the quiet film is a retread of familiar recent dramas about doomed heroines like in "Still Alice." But this version prompted me to look up one-way flights to Portugal instead of weeping about a character's looming destiny.

The Apprentice — its title a play on Trump’s original identity in relation to Cohn, as well as the reality show that helped get him elected president — is well-made, entertaining in its way (particularly for fans of good acting) and not at all surprising.

The movie makes some observations about the worth of human life — the title refers to the monetary value put on the life of the injured waiter — and the economic class system, but they're not terribly interesting or surprising.

Competent, pretty funny in places, awfully nice to look at, that sort of thing. There’s just not a lot of excitement, though.

Director Marc Forster moves from one thing to the next so quickly the movie plays like a two-hour-plus trailer. Something feels like it's missing here, even at that length.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is certainly funny. It’s just not the flash of inspiration the first movie was — it can’t be. Baron Cohen revealed more out of contemporary America (and a lot about Arizona) with the 2018 TV series “Who Is America?” The new movie will make you laugh, but too often it’s more of the same.

Is it a good movie? It’s OK. But is it funny? It is, and ultimately that’s all it sets out to be.

My Spy is best summed up as fun and expected, but also, at times, surprisingly violent for a story where the main character is a nine year old girl.

The Quiet One could have used a lot more complexity.

Aster, who also directed the excellent “Hereditary” and the somewhat less excellent “Midsommar,” has the audience where he wants it — off-kilter, uncomfortable, bewildered. It’s his comfort zone, but not ours. Whether you enjoy this kind of manipulation will go a long way toward deciding how much you like the film.

If you can ignore the implausibility -- nay, the opacity -- of the plot, the film is wonderfully cinematic, with great photography, exciting editing, fresh camera angles and some impressive CGI.

He (D'Souza) reaffirms many of the complaints against Obama, and when he sticks to the facts is much more persuasive.

Fans of fancy period costumes and supernatural effects both get plenty to gawk at, but the story offers no real surprises, and that includes the big plot twist.

Wonder will make you cry — that’s one of the main purposes of its existence — but it’ll also drive you a little crazy.

Ultimately Coming 2 America isn’t a sequel that ruins the original. But it doesn’t improve upon it, either.

Ole Bornedal's film hits enough high notes to make it a worthwhile addition to the exorcism-film heap, somewhere in the lower middle.

How many times have we complained that summer blockbusters are all about the action, at the expense of niceties like character development? Well, Edwards has gone in another direction, one that's more intriguing in theory than on the screen.

Go for Caan and Farmiga, and stay to be surprised by Reeves.

It's all very pleasant, very inspiring, just not very surprising.

It is, at times, a charming reprieve from the usually dour cinematic explorations of Middle Eastern conflicts. But big-hearted and well-intentioned as the film is, it's frequently undone by its own silliness.

The performances are certainly compelling.

Mostly, it's fine. The acting is fine. The writing is fine. The story is fine. There are a few laughs. And that should be fine enough. But with material as rich as Leonard's serving as the foundation, just fine is a disappointment.

A clever, funny movie that will entertain kids and adults.

Wants to scare you, but it can't quite seal the deal.

Even with the revolving door of characters and plot developments, there are some laughs in Almost Christmas.

As a retelling of Shakespeare's "Hamlet," "The Lion King" has it all: drama, an interesting love story, personal growth, dynamic characters and a satisfying ending — all things "Mufasa" ultimately lacks.

Pacino, long ago having given up subtlety for bombast, continues along that path here, but he's still fun to watch.

Jeunet's new film, Micmacs, mixes the dark, claustrophobic world of "Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children," with the happy-ending optimism of "Amélie" and "A Very Long Engagement." It isn't a convincing graft of moods.

Billed as a musical comedy, Magic Mike’s Last Dance should be a lighthearted Valentine’s Day/Super Bowl weekend watch. Unfortunately, it’s not funny in the ways it expects to be.

It’s never a boring film to look at, but it is often a tiring one. Running over two hours, the film is bloated with portent and repetition, each story taking too long to get to its inevitable moral.

It's good enough for a brainless night of fun at the movies, though your enjoyment might hinge on your nostalgia for old-fashioned dude movies, complete with a soundtrack of wailing electric-guitar solos and a wealth of random topless babes. Unfortunately, it could have been a lot better if someone had taken out a hit on the script.

Chemical Hearts is sad, dark and depending on how much heartbreak you can take, almost too depressing at times. But it definitely provides something different in the teenage romance genre — except that something different may make you miss the days of cheesy high school rom-coms by the end.

The hyperreal CGI animated Over the Moon is fun, visually stunning and poignant, even if there are spurts of aimless psychedelic chaos along the way.

Wild Grass retains a literary feel with the help of an unseen narrator, who offers intriguing poetic observations. And Resnais' visuals are equally lyrical. What can you say: The French sure know how to make pretty pictures.

Everest is a sprawling mess of a movie, one you feel like could have been great but instead roams all over the place and winds up being just pretty good.

It’s a serviceable movie, nothing more but — also important — nothing less. And did we mention it has George Clooney and Brad Pitt?

Broadway Idiot is entertaining enough. Certainly if you’re a Green Day fan, it’s something close to essential. But it never goes too deeply into anything.

A mix of solid action and an underused cast, with star Hugh Jackman left shouldering the burden of bad lines and forced emotion, it leaves you longing for more editing and a tighter story.

Niccol looks at the pilot's struggles and the toll this remote form of warfare takes on his life. It's certainly intriguing, but he tells his story in such broad, obvious strokes that the movie isn't as powerful as it could be.

Levine shows some of the promise that would serve him so well later, but beyond an intriguing look and an initial attempt to put a new spin on the teen-horror genre, “Mandy Lane” winds up being pretty conventional.

If the cast wasn’t so talented and so committed to doing some heavy lifting, Finding Your Feet would be a gigantic misstep.

The makers of Wish Upon must love the “Final Destination” films, because they perfectly mimic the style, which is alternately nerve-wracking and slightly silly.

All the glossy, kinetic animation and inventive action sequences get lost in the gag machine. The film throws jokes out like a tennis-ball machine on the fritz: gross humor, slapstick pratfalls, bizarre non sequiturs. The randomness does land a few laughs, but it's also exhausting.

Téchiné's fidelity to the facts delivers a disappointing denouement to an intriguing character study.

It’s probably best to think of Suicide Squad as a primer, an entry into a side world of the DC Universe that may pay bigger benefits in later films. It certainly seems like that’s how the filmmakers thought of it.

Southpaw is all about the fist. There’s no delicate footwork here, no lingering grace notes. It’s a film played entirely in power chords.

While there is some magic here, it’s not the transportive experience it might have been.

There is nothing in the film that will keep you awake at night. Instead, The Awakening works much more subtly, with a profound sense of dread and resignation, a death-obsessed movie given life by Hall's performance.

The story, meanwhile, strains to be a masterpiece. And the strain shows.

There’s nothing in Thor: The Dark World that wasn’t done better in “Thor,” or a lot better in “The Avengers.” Except Tom Hiddleston’s performance as Loki.

Despite all its noble qualities, the movie boasts a stiffness that keeps it from ever feeling fully alive.

This won't be the best movie audiences will ever see, but at least it's fun to watch with pretty visuals and upbeat songs.

Doesn't attempt much, doesn't accomplish much, doesn't offer much and doesn't leave you with anything memorable to take home with you.

We’ve seen the elements that make up Paper Towns before, but that’s OK. Schreier proves adept at avoiding clichés, and is helped by his actors.

The story doesn't really have a focused plot.

This is grasping at something, or really at everything, everywhere, all the time. It feels like a bunch of unfinished ideas, despite the lengthy gestation period.

I guess I was charmed in spite of myself. I’m reminded of a quote from Alexander Pope I had to memorize as a kid, which gave me fair warning about the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber and “Cats”: “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien / as to be hated needs but to be seen; / Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, / We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” Did I tear up a little? Maybe. Do I ever need to see “Cats” again? Nah, I’m good.

This is Ferrell's movie, meaning some inspired laughs sandwiched between annoying bits that stretch on well past their usefulness.

The Conjuring 2 won't make anyone forget the first film, but it's good enough that you'll hope they make another.

Bill & Ted Face the Music is sweet and hopeful and, of course, kind of stupid, but that’s a big part of the point.

As reinventions of fairy tales go, this one has some pretty big holes. Not all of the twists on the story work, but for the most part it's well-meaning, goofy good fun.

Helped by good performances from Edgar Ramirez as Duran, Usher Raymond as Leonard and Robert De Niro as Duran’s trainer, Ray Arcel, the film chugs along well enough, but never rises close to boxing films like “Raging Bull” (few films do) or “Creed.”

Massaging the facts to pump up the drama is a necessary evil in a film like this, but The 33’s cinematic beats are so familiar that they undercut the sense of realism that would make it more compelling.

Eternals isn’t a bad movie. It’s just not a particularly satisfying one, its scale proving untamable, even for Zhao.

The Innocents, writer and director Eskil Vogt’s horror film about children with supernatural powers, is definitely difficult to watch, a brutal bit of business. But the thrills aren’t cheap — they’re hard earned, if you can call them thrills at all.

Looking for a movie to get you as far away from reality as possible? Watch The High Note.

Due Date should be a disaster, derivative of every road-trip movie you've ever seen. What prevents that are the efforts of the two stars.

Good for its uncommonly level-headed characters, less so for viewers watching a movie in which not much happens.

A jumbled, messy movie that has some winning moments but jumps around too much to hold your interest for long.

It's asked in the film, "How many new lives can we have?" The answer, it turns, is however many we want. And as long as Dench, Smith, Nighy and Imrie stick around, the same probably is true of "Marigold" movies.

It is all very respectful, all very serious, all very important-feeling and often a little dull. As such, it’s a good start for Portman, with promise of better things to come.

Britt-Marie Was Here succinctly crams in plenty of overwrought tropes but maintains a sentimental heart with its prickly heroine. Is it revolutionary? Not by any means. But is every journey of self-discovery supposed to be?

Ribisi has become the go-to guy for movie psychos, giving everything to performances like this one or as Moburg, the dissolute reporter in "The Rum Diary."

Sarah Burns steals scenes as a seemingly prim social worker, and Melissa McCarthy (Sookie on "The Gilmore Girls") does the same as a pushy neighbor. The supporting cast serves up enough small moments of surprise to keep this formula flick from falling flat.

Thanos is the most interesting, and most complex, character here.

Scream VI is a decent film with a transitional feel, a signal that you can take the show on the road and it still works. But it doesn’t leave you screaming for more.