For anyone wondering why "The Princess" is premiering on Hulu in the US, not sister service Disney+, the movie answers that in the first five minutes, when the title character brutally dispatches a pair of guards sent into the tower where she's being held. While the timing seems right for a princess who rescues herself, there's precious little substance to this violent fantasy, featuring Joey King figuratively letting down her hair.

What “One Love” doesn’t do, ultimately, is provide enough material to distinguish the movie from the contours of an authorized biography or documentary. In that sense, the film pays tribute to Marley’s work but winds up hampered by a love for its subject that works against its ability to deliver major insights or rock-star-level drama.

Antebellum is built around a provocative twist, and it's a good one -- as well as one that definitely shouldn't be spoiled even a little. Once that revelation is absorbed, however, the movie becomes less distinctive and inspired, reflecting an attempt to tap into the zeitgeist that made "Get Out" a breakthrough, without the same ability to pay off the premise.

That doesn't translate into magic, but in terms of improving on the original, giving the stars some reasonably good material to play and delivering action within its PG parameters, Mistress of Evil pretty much threads the needle.

Even setting the expectations bar at a modest height, though, the movie doesn’t quite clear it – another case, in rom-com terms, where the idea of them, as a marquee matchup, proves superior to the execution.

Newman’s direction maintains the mystery through the gasps and sneers from the gallery during the trial sequences, leading to the eventual determination of Kya’s fate. It’s a satisfying conclusion that doesn’t overplay its hand.

Set in Berlin, the Speed-like conceit possesses a crisp and efficient stupidity before, predictably, running out of gas.

Thin as biopics go, the power of Abela’s portrayal elevates the film, providing a poignance and strength that’s the clearest motivation to go, go, go.

Simon Kinberg has worked on scripts for three previous X-Men films, and with his promotion here to writer and director, approaches the material with considerable conviction, as well as plenty of callbacks to the earlier movies. What he can't do, at least consistently, is make this story pop, or prevent the inevitable showdown -- with multiple parties engaged in a massive battle -- fully engaging, as opposed to devolving into a sort-of chaotic mess.

As much as the movie appears to yearn to jump-start the franchise, it seems to have forgotten to bother with a coherent script, leaving one to wonder how a film with this much action somehow manages to be so boring.

Proves just clever enough to come out on the right side of a split decision.

Yet even with the occasional dollop of dog-related humor, The Art of Racing in the Rain feels as ponderous as its title. While there have been plenty of movies that touch the heart through the relationship with our four-footed friends, if this one doesn't completely hit the skids, nor is it close to being the pick of the litter.

Granted, Scoob! appears more into recycling than reinvention -- it's more a snack than a meal -- but it does endeavor to make an old concept fresh and cool again in children's eyes. That might answer the question why the movie exists, but based on the results, nothing here merits an exclamation point.

Burr’s fans will doubtless find plenty to like in “Old Dads,” even if the movie sandpapers down his rough edges and causes him to question his cave-man mentality.

Far from a passion project, this Netflix film distinctly feels – as one of its writers says in the production notes – like a punchline in search of a movie, built on a soggy parade of sugary cameos that doesn’t provide much snap, crackle and pop.

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.

A simple-minded strain of giant-robot combat. Much in need of a script tune-up, it’s a less-than-meets-the-eye summer-movie machine, and not a particularly well-oiled one.

Director James Wan again fills the screen with spectacle, some of it unevenly rendered, though even eye-popping digital effects couldn’t compensate for the frequent flatness of the dialogue and situations.

Simply put, Neeson has been in a bit of a rut, one that Ice Road exemplifies almost literally, since at several points in the movie the challenge involves extricating big trucks from slushy situations.

The main problem is there's a whole lot of scary out there this time of year, and Books of Blood winds up in a sort-of creative no-man's land. Even for undemanding souls, this is a pretty skeletal construct.

If the previous movie conjured a bit of excitement by eradicating everything that had transpired after the original, that sense of novelty has quickly worn off.

6 Underground proves so uneven in its tone and unrelenting in its volume that it's hard to imagine a hole deep enough in which to bury its silliness.

Black Adam features a protagonist of almost unlimited power, which only makes its puny script more conspicuous. Dwayne Johnson is saddled by a very limited range of expression as the ancient mystical being featured in DC’s latest superhero epic, a film that isn’t nearly as cool as its poster, while highlighting the inherent challenge of building stories around antiheroes.

It's possible to allow that Cinderella has its heart in the right place without concluding that the movie works. Credit where it's due for trying to squeeze the material into some new clothes, but hoping isn't enough to make the shoe fit.

The tragedy associated with such stories could provide fertile territory, theoretically, for a good drama about what went wrong and who's ultimately responsible. That movie might get made someday, but Crisis isn't it.

Whatever the intricacies in Clancy's book, they're largely abandoned in a violent revenge tale that a few decades ago might have starred someone like Steven Seagal.

While some might find it possible to have fun by surrendering to the silliness, this bad moon doesn't quite rise even to the level of a guilty pleasure.

Although streaming provides a logical venue for this small-scale film, it's hard to think of a time or platform where this adaptation from British director Joe Wright ("Darkest Hour," "Atonement") would have felt satisfying, with an ill-considered, twisty finish that's a sizable letdown from the already so-so material preceding it.