Now that’s how you do a 1980s film sequel.

Many diehards, in their slavish, zombie-like subservience to the MCU gods, will tell you that Sam Raimi (brilliant on the 2002 “Spider-Man”) has directed a horror movie. Lies! It’s as scary and visually arresting as “Van Helsing,” “Underworld” and “Hellboy 2.”

It might sound like a gimmick, but it’s as good as any action-comedy you’re likely to see. Cage heightens his already big personality just the right amount to ensure that the film rises above a skit. We care a great deal about fictional Nicolas Cage.

“Secrets,” somehow the third of a planned five, really puts the “dumb” in Dumbledore.

The first “Sonic” worked unexpectedly well because it thrust the wisecracking alien into a small town filled with humans — a hog out of water — and gave Carrey the opportunity to once again do the physical comedy he’s best known for. Now the novelty has worn off, the charms of the original have evaporated and there’s nowhere for the series to go.

The cacophonous ending sets up a sequel, but I hope it never sees the light of day. Actually, considering it’s about vampires, maybe I do!

Directors Aaron and Adam Nee’s movie sits frustratingly for two hours on the tarmac of comedy as we the angry passengers await takeoff.

Leonard takes advantage of one of Rylance’s greatest strengths — the ability to instantly switch from weak to strong. Behind every tiny smile is ferocity.

Although it is a soft PG-13, The Adam Project is stylistically geared toward 5-year-olds who aren’t going to watch a movie about time travel and frayed parent-child relationships. Today’s teens and 20-somethings are too smart for a movie so dumb.

Some heightened plot lines in writer-director Jared Frieder’s film don’t land as well as the tender moments do. The romance is admirably never overplayed for sentiment.

The new movie, directed by Joe Wright and written by Dinklage’s wife Erica Schmidt, ranks with the most lifeless adaptations. Even the swishy dances are a downer.

The Batman is the first caped crusader adventure in a while to come off as completely purposeless. Christopher Nolan’s movies reframed the comics as realistic, psychologically complex tales of an urban blight, and Affleck’s Bruce was built to fit into a wider DC universe. The Batman is here just to ensure that Marvel has box office competition.

[Tatum] lets his cuddly co-star shine and wrings out a few touching moments of his own, too.

Uncharted, you say? That’s a funny title for an action-adventure movie that doesn’t stray one inch from the well-trodden path of what came before it.

While Bigbug is characteristically eccentric, it also has the most mainstream appeal of any Jeunet film since “Amélie.”

Branagh’s warped vision of these films as putrid, depressing slogs makes Death on the Nile interminable.

Good on J.Lo for protecting the integrity of flighty rom-coms. Every movie need not be so serious and socially conscious.

On paper, “Moonfall” has all the hallmarks of an Emmerich blockbuster — natural disasters, parents separated from children, the total annihilation of Manhattan — but with a twist so baffling, you pinch your arm to make sure you are really awake. No need to reach for your dream journal — it’s all painfully real.

Should a serial killer blood-bath be so comfy and nostalgic for an audience? Not if it wants to maintain our interest. Over two hours, Cinco de Scream-o lumbers along with routine kills and few surprises even when it makes lame attempts at shocking us.

What makes Sing 2 enjoyable are the tunes. And writer-director Garth Jennings assembles a characteristically quirky mixtape.

Writer-director Matthew Vaughn, who’s helmed all three, needs to either call it quits or hand over the reins to someone with some self-control. The formidable talent of Ralph Fiennes can lift his movie some, but the man’s not Hercules.

After two lousy sequels, here’s a pitch for Warner Bros.: “The Matrix Retirement.”

The last time Guillermo del Toro directed a movie, 2017’s The Shape of Water, he won the Best Picture Oscar. His latest, Nightmare Alley, probably won’t, but it is nonetheless a far more entertaining and satisfying film than its overrated science-fiction predecessor.

It’s the gargantuan and deeply satisfying Spider-Man: No Way Home in which the former Billy Elliot proves he’s more than a teen idol with a perfect American accent. This time, his Peter’s got gravitas, emotional oomph, brutality, believable love, an anguished scene in the rain! The movie is the actor’s best performance yet, in anything, Spandex or no.

If McKay crafted the most enjoyable parts of his satire with a scalpel, somebody should’ve handed him a machete to chop the script down some. The film clocks in at nearly two hours and 10 minutes, and we grow exhausted by it as the surprises stop and the ending becomes inevitable.

I’ve always had my reservations about Sorkin as a director. His scripts tend to be better than his final products. Those druthers started to fade with the moving “Trial of the Chicago 7” and are now completely gone after “Being the Ricardos.” His vision of ‘50s TV production is spot-on — nostalgic, quick, boozy, but without the glamor of Hollywood movie-making.

It’s the ensemble that wows most, though. Faist makes an unusually spindly Riff, yet he is scarier than any I’ve seen. Bernardo, the best role in the show, is given real intensity by David Alvarez and Ariana DeBose dances the dickens out of “America” as Anita.

It was always going to be an emotional experience watching the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman make his acting debut. His father, an Oscar-winning genius, died in 2014...What we never could have imagined, though, is that Cooper’s freshman performance (he’s so green, his IMDB page doesn’t have a photo yet) would be one of the best of the year in what is easily the best film of 2021, Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant Licorice Pizza. This wonderful kid should be in the Oscar race, but we’re too predictably infatuated with big names. Let’s fix that.

OK, it’s no Frozen — a Let It Go only comes around once every couple of ice ages — but it’s nonetheless a heartfelt and joyful take on a good old dysfunctional family.

Berry wears two hats effortlessly. Her direction is gritty and assured, and her leading performance hasn’t lost an ounce of that star quality — to simultaneously be so weak and so strong — that won her an Oscar for Monster’s Ball.

The film is empty-headed good fun that’s blessedly under two hours and has just enough character development to make you kind of care when someone gets bitten.

The abysmal “Gucci” would get a better grade, perhaps, if it was a term paper titled “How to Make the Assassination of a Famous Person Boring.”

Richard is flawed, never villainous or heroic, and rarely follows his own fervent advice to be humble. You leave in awe of what he accomplished, but not admiring the whole man. Few biopics dare to have layers anymore.

While Rentheads and Broadway fans will certainly connect to it on a deeper level than those who only know Idina Menzel as Elphaba, not Maureen, Tick, Tick is a terrific, moving, propulsive film on its own terms. It’s about New York, art, life and love.

Fresh off of winning the Best Director Oscar for "Nomadland," Chloé Zhao has upchucked one of the MCU's worst movies in ages.

Anderson’s film is told via a prologue and three episodes that bring to life the quirky publication’s stories. They just barely engage the audience as we watch the director’s entire mobile phone contact list show up for about 15 seconds each.

Degreasing a stove is a more enjoyable way to spend your Saturday night.

Second films in trilogies are often the toughest to pull off. Maybe Green’s final chapter, Halloween Ends, will redeem what he’s done here, which ultimately feels like very little progress at all.

[Reitman] finds the perfect tone here . . . He’s also skilled at getting genuine performance out of young actors, as he proved in “Juno,” and balancing humor with stakes — essential for comedy-horror like “Ghostbusters.” The jokes are very funny and Wolfhard and Grace make life-threatening peril look like a ball.

Watching it, unless you’re already a demented diehard fan, is utter agony.

Cary Joji Fukunaga was the right choice to direct “No Time To Die,” even if he wasn’t the first in this rocky road of a production. His Bond feels reverential and classic, but not campy, and he makes bold choices.

When you make a film out of the greatest TV show of all time, there’s bound to be a hint of disappointment. What you’re getting here is a very enjoyable mob movie that can be appreciated by anybody, but will undoubtedly be preferred by Sopranos fans. The Godfather IV it ain’t.

Some of the acting feels cardboard; the plot points are never shocking. Eastwood’s love interest is about four decades his junior. And yet, the director casts a Zen cowboy spell that makes it all sort of irresistible.

The undeniably sweet film, based on the wonderful West End musical, fixes some of the (much better) show’s flaws, but loses its humor and energy while it wallows in sadness.

Prisoners of the Ghostland is equal parts visual delight and narrative head-scratcher. Most of all, it’s a hefty dose of Nicolas Cage set to full-tilt gonzo.

Writer-director Michael Mohan’s “drama” tries to be a modern Rear Window (emphasis on “rear”), but Hitchcock it ain’t. The Voyeurs is a cheap, never-ending trifle that takes itself more seriously than Hamlet.

Those confessionals can and should deliver an emotional wallop; however, Sara Colangelo’s direction isn’t skillful or nuanced enough to give the scenes power. The speeches from actors, such as Laura Benanti, about the worst day in all of these people’s lives feel too rehearsed and polished for us to believe them.

Writer-director Kay Cannon has shattered Cinderella’s glass slipper. And we, the audience, are forced to walk across the shards barefoot.

It’s fresh, it’s alive, it’s not the same old Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The talented quartet saves the movie, but making it great would take a rewrite.

While the movie could be a notch scarier, the unsettling imagery and slow build to chaos make me want another movie by this director stat.

This wannabe works oh so hard to be a contemporary detective noir, with its shadows, damsel in distress and brooding narration. But it never finds the suspense or sensuality of that genre.

The Protégé should’ve been a home run for director Martin Campbell, who did brilliantly with Casino Royale, Daniel Craig’s first James Bond film. He brought seriousness to the old franchise without sacrificing its charm or decadence. Instead, we get old clichés.

The supporting voices are sublime. Alongside Hudson are Audra McDonald, Tituss Burgess and Broadway’s Hailey Kilgore and Saycon Sengbloh. But the music, absent a believable 1960s sense of place or real concert atmosphere, doesn’t rouse so much as please, not unlike the familiar movie it’s a part of. Respect settles for being respectable.

CODA is part of that fizzling genre of film, popular in the ’90s, in which you’re almost always on the verge of sobbing while watching it.

The script by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn is hysterical, but director Shawn Levy must’ve sold his soul to the devil to secure this cast.

Vivo is a heartfelt piece with catchy songs and a much more cohesive plot than Miranda’s Moana, which gets tangled midway through. Sure it could do with a touch more depth, but in the kids movie genre, you could do a lot worse.

Unlike Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there is nothing serious about The Suicide Squad. That’s a good thing.

The film seizes Lowery’s best skills as a director: his eye for innocence and nature (Pete’s Dragon) and how he uses slowness to deepen a story (The Old Man and the Gun).

What director Tom McCarthy’s intriguing film — which is a tad overlong — deftly explores are the cultural barriers that prevent us from achieving basic goals, such as solving a murder, and connecting with people unlike ourselves. The story is a lot more nuanced than France vs. America.

To bulk up the thin material, the film steals from countless other, better adventure movies to create an altogether less satisfying combo plate that costs $30 to rent on Disney+.

The fights, taken on their own, are occasionally OK, but not enough to lift this joke-and-fun-free slog.

M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller, Old, is campy, poorly written, candy-colored and subtle as Eurovision.

Over its interminable, nearly two-hour runtime, the film repeatedly mocks its very existence.

The best thing about the Escape Room film series is that it gives audience members clear directions in the title about what they should immediately do: Escape. Room. Get out of that theater and go see Black Widow instead. Run for your lives — and sanity!

It’s my favorite Cage performance in some time, after overly bizarre turns in recent years as a murderous parent in Mom and Dad and an inmate on a mission in the Japanese film Prisoners of the Ghostland. When he goes back to basics, it’s as rich and juicy as a delicious ham steak.

1994 plays more like television than a theatrical film. The more limited scope isn’t bothersome, though, because you can only watch it on your TV, after all, and two more films/episodes are soon on the way.

That idea was fun once, maybe even twice, but by the fifth outing the formula has given way to preachiness and predictability.

The Tomorrow War, in trying to become the new Independence Day (this release date is not arbitrary), throws Alien, The Terminator and A Quiet Place in a blender. And, like that gross kale smoothie you made once, the result is gray goop.

How unfortunate that we have two Ant-Man films and soon will have a pair of Doctor Strange flicks, but in all likelihood just a single Black Widow — a much deeper, more fascinating, more exciting character than either of those two duds, sorry, dudes.

What Werewolves Within aims to be is a Knives Out of the horror genre, with a wacky ensemble having a blast while they play enormous characters and follow clues. They do, and their antics are enjoyable for the most part. However, unlike the Daniel Craig mystery film, Werewolves can sometimes be overly spastic and annoying.

I don’t mind Diesel and Cena starring in movies like this, because it helps keep them out of other, better movies. But to see folks such as Helen Mirren (doing her weird cockney accent again), Russell and Theron’s talents wasted on such schlock is a shame.

The characters are so wacky you don’t believe them as killers or strategists or even just bystanders who are in the right place at the right time. You simply don’t buy anything about them. Ever.

For the most part, though, Luca is light and effervescent as a summertime Bellini, which is something parents can drink while the kids watch this.

Trust me — it’s been ages since you’ve seen actors have this much fun in a movie.

Devil, make a better movie.

I’d rather put Baby Shark on repeat all day than spend another 90 minutes with this adult horse.

This film is so sexy and cool and punk rock, you forget all about that Mickey logo and Cinderella’s cutesy castle.

The hugely enjoyable second entry doesn’t lift the franchise to new artistic heights, a la The Empire Strikes Back, but Part II is every bit as good and scary as its predecessor, and the characters, especially the kids, go to deeper and braver places.

When the massacre starts, the movie gets better. But the methods of murder are, like everything else, awfully self-serious and limited to mostly just plain old guns and knives.

Despite being a She-Hulk who’s seemingly impervious to physical pain, Jolie turns in her best performance in a while — arguably in over a decade. She’s relaxed, determined and maternal here, and connects well with Little, who is a big talent.

The long-gestating thriller The Woman in the Window, based on A.J. Finn’s novel, is here, and it sure is dusty.

Off-screen, Oyelowo moves the camera elegantly, and he creates a few cool moments in the woods.

Crystal, for what it’s worth, stays genuine through the increasingly viscous plot. He still has that warmth beneath his zingers that you don’t find in the frigid comedians of today. Nonetheless, we resent his movie’s aggressive efforts to force us into crying with strained, untruthful moments by the bucketful.

Wrath of Man isn’t as blatantly funny as “The Gentlemen” is, though it has its laughs, but it is taut and exhilarating without a single wasted moment.

Things Heard & Seen is an adequate haunted-house film, to be sure, but it will certainly give you pause about that three-bedroom, three-bath listing in Kingston.

Indeed, Clancy has written 20 books featuring John Clark. But, even with a star as charismatic and physically formidable as Jordan, audiences won’t be hungry for a single sequel.

The action film is as unpretentious as Charlie Sheen eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut at Six Flags. In short: blissfully dumb entertainment.

The fighting is unsatisfying, and renders the film a failure.

Burger’s half-assed attempt at an updated Lord of the Flies makes you long for a good old-fashioned school bus and a pig’s head on a stick.

Harp’s mix of old-school masculinity, love of animals and innate paternal instincts suits Elba perfectly. And unlike Nomadland, which also brought together real citizens with a Hollywood star (Frances McDormand), Elba fits easily and naturally into this group and their environment. It’s like a rider meeting the perfect horse.

This time, ‘Zilla and Kong face off in ginormous Hong Kong — a destruction junkie’s dream battlefield. Neon, chrome and oversize animals clobbering each other. Also around is another adversary whose reveal will have fans drooling. See Godzilla vs. Kong on the big screen if you can.

Director Andy Goddard’s film is far too aware of its subject’s peculiarity, and every frame knows full well that something is a bit off.

The adequate Netflix film, which was supposed to have been released two years ago, is funny in spots, but it flatlines early and gets way too gross.

How would “Slightly less terrible!” look on a poster? That is my approved quote for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a perverse exercise in fanboydom on HBO Max that tacks on two extra hours of footage to a maligned 2017 DC Comics movie to create a kind of new, still-bad movie.

Basilone’s movie becomes an intriguing puzzle that frequently bugs you, but you’re nonetheless determined to make it to the end.

Keeping logical track of all the comings and goings is like trying to focus on a single bird in a flock. The details, names and faces blur a little more every time a character rounds a corner, just as they would for the ailing Anthony. With its narrative boldness, however, The Father never stirs or fully satiates.

Raya doesn’t have any coming-of-age experiences, she doesn’t sing, she’s not trying to please her father, there’s no romance subplot, nobody helps her get dressed. What there are are crossbows and swords. And on that front, it is a success. The battles and missions in each separate place are visually exciting.