Bigger, louder and dumber than its predecessor, Iron Man 2 is still a lot of fun.

The film is a mad whirl of influencer phoniness, paranoia, imposter syndrome and parenting nightmares.

What Cars 2 lacks is that moment the best Pixar films have, when parents and children alike stand slack-jawed with awe at something wonderful happening on-screen - when the films move beyond mere entertainment and become something more, something better.

Horror comedies can be wildly entertaining -- "The Return of the Living Dead," from 1985, for instance. It sends up horror movies in hilarious fashion while still managing to be gross-out scary. The Revenant never rises to that level. Nor does it seem to want to.

Dig a little deeper, however, and you’ll find … another Liam-Neeson-gets-revenge action thriller. But one with quite a few laughs thrown in amidst the unlikely ugly heroics.

Never quite delivers on its promise -- a dark retelling of the fairy tale in which women hold the true power, good and evil -- but it certainly is an attractive misfire.

The Quiet One could have used a lot more complexity.

There are moments in The Dinner, Oren Moverman’s tense drama based on the Herman Koch novel, in which you sit back and watch four terrific actors go at it. There just aren’t enough of them.

Scott Frank's atmospheric thriller is a step up from Neeson's usual shoot-'em-ups. Not a giant leap, but a step up nonetheless.

It's a slight movie that makes "Broadcast News" look like "All the President's Men" in comparison.

Not at the top of the list, necessarily, but writer and director Kiah Roache-Turner’s film is a solid if unspectacular entry into the eww-gross-spiders category. It’s pretty good on that front. But when it tries to wedge in some version of Meaningful Family Drama, it loses its way a little bit.

The story has potential and the acting is good, but the buildup is thrown away as the movie draws to a close. It feels divided, as if it were two different films.

“Pleasant” is probably the word best used to describe the whole film. Mostly Jules is just an excuse to spend some time with Kingsley, Harris and Curtin doing things we don’t always see them do.

Let's not pretend otherwise: The comedy here is profane, juvenile, silly. Fine by me, because some of it also is hilarious.

The atmosphere is appropriately creepy, and there are some starts, if not outright scares...But it just gets stupid.

Long-winded, tiresome and free of any tension, The Company You Keep will ultimately be remembered as a Redford vanity project, in every sense of the word.

Depending on your own relationship with food, the pro-vegetarian documentary Forks Over Knives may be an inspiring call to action, a tedious bit of propaganda or a 90-minute guilt trip.

Them That Follow is a tough slog, no doubt. But it’s also a worthwhile one, even if you might appreciate it more than you’ll enjoy it.

Despite its ostensive seriousness, Galveston is a tepid crime drama without talons sharp enough to sink into the audience.

The struggle between faith and reason somehow gets sidetracked, resulting in a sometimes silly, too-obvious journey.

It’s predictable. It’s saccharine. It’s silly. It’s also, thanks to the consummate talents of Stamp and Redgrave, occasionally a joy.

There’s a limit to how much patience one has for spending time with terrible people living large. But for all the lackluster familiarity of the film’s style, the story is too interesting, too baffling to deny.

Truly, you don't have to watch former secret agents relentlessly wipe out villains. But if you want to, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone better than Washington for the task.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a well-made movie, well-acted (Costner and Branagh seem to be having an especially good time) and a pleasant diversion. They’ll probably make several more. But it doesn’t exactly put the “thrill” in action thriller.

Immaculate goes all in on the yuck, but leaves the rest high and dry.

The film, wisely, is built around Hemsworth. He’s good at this kind of thing, and no matter how many throats he slits, you still root for him.

The film really pops to life only when it gets a little messy, and it's never messier than when it loses itself in family dynamics.

What's interesting is how Jacquot treats the material. It is, by any measure, a romantic drama. But he uses the score, by Bruno Coulais, as if the film were something else altogether.