George Clooney takes his biggest directorial swing yet with "The Midnight Sky," and comes away with a decidedly mixed result. A beyond-bleak post-apocalyptic thriller, the sci-fi film reaches a reasonably satisfying finish, but follows an uneven orbit in getting there.

The closing kick of The One and Only Ivan is somewhat stirring -- and certainly works hard at being so -- but it's pretty tepid until then.

This adaptation of Simon Rich's novella has some fun contemplating how the modern world would like to a 20th-century immigrant, before scraping the barrel for deeper themes.

While there are some new details in the telling, the net effect leaves the Smith that people didn’t know, other than those meticulously airbrushed photo spreads, largely untouched.

It's possible to admire the performance and still come away feeling director Pablo Larrain's fictionalized movie doesn't significantly add to a story many of us already know in exhaustive detail.

Add "Stephen King's Doctor Sleep" -- the long-delayed sequel to "The Shining" -- to the list of movie and TV adaptations based on the author's work that shine at first, before flaming out down the stretch.

What’s billed as a horror-comedy thus can’t entirely decide where it wishes to land on that spectrum, in a movie that benefits from letting Cage cut loose without fully capitalizing upon his full-throated performance.

Ultimately, though, the movie feels most notable for the cast assembled, from Harrison -- who subsequently starred in "Waves" and "Luce," and is again very good here -- to smallish roles for Jerome (an Emmy winner for "When They See Us") as a witness and Washington ("Tenet" and "BlacKkKlansman") as James' partner in crime.

Ultimately, The Little Things meanders a bit too much with stakeouts and the drudgery of police work before getting to the meat of its psychological core, which offers a provocative payoff, if not perhaps one good enough to fully justify the journey.

The best parts should strike a mildly receptive chord with parents while potentially boring younger kids, a prescription that could subject the movie’s imaginary friends to a harsh reality once audiences in summer-movie mode get a good look at it.

Neither film is especially memorable, which is too bad, squandering Rosamund Pike as Marie Curie and Ethan Hawke, very intense and brooding as Nikola Tesla.

The story plays like a rather tired excuse to redo the first story with a few cosmetic tweaks, hoping to tap into adult nostalgia while potentially attracting a new generation of kids.

Despite its satirical tone, The Beanie Bubble largely plays things pretty straight – indeed, a little too straight, when a bit more humor and whimsy would have helped – with Galifianakis portraying Warner as the kind of self-absorbed, ruthless narcissist who’ll say anything to get what he wants (or really, needs) without necessarily possessing the savvy or discipline to hold onto it.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is an awfully long-winded title for a movie with roughly the same plot as the 1989 squabbling buddy vehicle "Tango & Cash," only with bigger -- well, pretty much everything -- and better special effects.

Director Elizabeth Banks conjures bursts of absurdist energy and humor without delivering anything approaching a sustained rush.

Clocking in at a welcomely brisk 105 minutes, it’s Marvel’s shortest film, but a lighter tone that occasionally borders on a sort of cosmic “Freaky Friday” doesn’t consistently make the movie fly, much less soar.

Amy Adams nimbly steps back into the role of an animated princess trying to adapt to the live-action world, in an epilogue to “Enchanted” that has moments of magic without completely delivering on the premise.

Fire Island primarily wants to be fun, not necessarily profound, so it needs to be consumed on those terms. Austen adaptations clearly never go out of style, but this latest variation reminds us that alone doesn't mean they pack enough accessories to completely validate the trip.

Mostly, this fun-in-the-sun romp in Australia (because hey, it’s summer there) serves as a showcase for Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, who amiably meet the demands of the exercise even if the script only occasionally follows suit.

The best one can say about this mildly fun film is that it runs a brisk 80-something minutes, meaning parents can take the kids and have time left over for other holiday errands.

House of Gucci takes a seemingly can't-miss combination of talent and material and produces what feels like the knockoff version of a really grand drama. Lady Gaga and Adam Driver bring buzz to director Ridley Scott's dive into the dysfunctional family behind the fashion empire, but in a movie that doesn't rise to the level of delicious trash, winding up largely defined by its stylish accessories.

While the new Rebecca is a lot of things, irresistible, alas, isn't one of them.

Reuniting star-producer Ryan Reynolds and director Shawn Levy after their winning collaboration on "Free Guy," The Adam Project has the generic feel of a project created by committee, combining action, humor and smart-alecky one-liners in a way that's at best aggressively okay. That's probably enough for Netflix coming off a success with Reynolds in "Red Notice," but like the film's plot, this amounts to rehashing history.

Thanks to Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anne Hathaway it's mildly watchable, but mostly an artifact that might look better after a few years in the Covid time capsule.

The world-class pairing of Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen is the only calling card that The Good Liar needs. Yet even these two knighted performers -- in a rare star vehicle for a pair of senior citizens -- can't elevate this adaptation of Nicholas Searle's book, which clearly wants to be twisty and Hitchcockian but never quite gets there.

Both in its cultural specificity and the passage of time, Society of the Snow delivers a credible take on a remarkable story – augmented by the prolific Michael Giacchino’s score – while hampered somewhat by the limitations imposed by how those events unfolded.

Sly possesses value as a pop-culture record, letting an influential talent tell their story to those weaned on their work. Compared to the best of that fertile genre, though, it’s more of a lightweight than a genuine contender.

American Skin is worth seeing, for the issues Parker seeks to address, even if it only partially works in leaving a mark.