Sweet and warm-hearted, but there is another film with a similar story that is boundlessly better, and that is "My Dog Skip" (2000).

The problem is, despite the efforts of the talented cast, the supposedly lovable former soldiers aren’t all that lovable, the primary human villain is a cocky fool with cloudy motives — and the predators don’t seem all that intimidating compared to a lot of the Earth-loathing alien invaders we see at the movies these days.

There are better movies opening this weekend. There are better movies opening every weekend. But Slither has a competence to it, an ability to manipulate obligatory horror scenes in a way that works.

Despite its attempts to be racy and of-the-moment and to earn that R rating, Red, White & Blue comes across as contrived and, at its foundation, quite formulaic. Not even the cake gives a convincing performance.

It’s a fractured fairy tale, penned in clunky strokes.

What we have here is a dirty soap opera. It is dirty because it intends to be, but it is a soap opera only by default.

The movie doesn't seem sure what tone to adopt, veering uncertainly from horror to laughs to romance.

Despite a promising beginning, “Immaculate” relies too much on jump-scares and disturbing imagery for the sake of shock, and flies off the rails with an absolutely bonkers climactic sequence that plays like something out of a cheap horror film.

Bronson is a first-rate action star with a catlike grace and a nice air of menace. But here, trying to land a helicopter after only a few lessons on how to fly it, or staging a phony rape scene to distract prison guards, Bronson is given a sort of incompetency he doesn't wear well. We believe him more easily when he's strong, silent and infallible.

It isn't a great movie, but it looks terrific and makes me look forward to the next film by its director, David Ren. He has a good eye.

The movie makes the same mistake as some of the characters in it: It treats these two guys like lovable old characters instead of listening to what they really have to say.

The performances are strong, even if the characters aren’t given much depth.

Muslim comics are correct about not needing to defend their faith in post-9/11 America. Their patriotism is not the point. I just wish they told better jokes.

Lars von Trier exhibits the imagination of an artist and the pedantry of a crank in Dogville, a film that works as a demonstration of how a good idea can go wrong.

The film ends up feeling more like a very long music video.

The movie turns cruel and ugly, and hasn't paid the dues to earn its last scenes. Parigi had me there for a while, but when he lost me, it was big time.

It’s arguably the weakest, lamest and least memorable entry in the history of the franchise. It’s also crass and tone-deaf. And played mostly for laughs that are few and far between.

Any movie that employs an oven mitt and a plumber's friend in a childbirth scene cannot be all bad, and I laughed a lot.

While the talented cast...do as well as can be expected with the (excuse the weak pun) pretty flat script, this remake likely will be all but forgotten shortly after it hits multiplexes this weekend.

If you’ve seen “The Big Chill,” you’ve seen this movie, with older grown-ups. Even if you haven’t, you won’t be surprised by much.

At the end of the movie we are conscious of large themes and deep thoughts, and of good intentions drifting out of focus.

The movie comes to life when Murphy and Wilson are trading one-liners, and then puts itself on hold for spy and action sequences of stunning banality.

Innocent Blood is an uncomfortable marriage of vampires and mobsters; it doesn't work on either the supernatural or the criminal level. The payoff, in which the gangsters find that they've become vampires, is an exercise in missed opportunities. More's the pity, then, that the movie contains an intriguing character in Marie, a vampire who is woman enough to spare at least one man from her fangs.

The film is not a compelling drama so much as a poignant observation of a sad situation.

In The Hottest State, Hawke uses fairly standard childhood motivations for his unhappiness and reveals too little real interest in the Sara character.

The Marvels has a kind of 1990s B-movie vibe throughout and is neither as funny nor as engaging and warm as it tries to be, despite the best efforts of the talented director Nia DaCosta (2021’s “Candyman”) and a trio of gifted and enormously likable leads in Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani.

All through the movie, Scream 4 lets us know that it knows exactly what it's up to - and then goes right ahead and gets up to it.

On some dumb fundamental level, Airport kept me interested for a couple of hours. I can't quite remember why. The plot has few surprises (you know and I know that no airplane piloted by Dean Martin ever crashed). The gags are painfully simpleminded (a priest, pretending to cross himself, whacks a wise guy across the face). And the characters talk in regulation B-movie clichés like no B-movie you've seen in ten years.