Soul amounts to more than technical wizardry and intelligent dialogue. Why artists keep pounding the pavement despite never finding commercial success is a meaty topic.

Butler’s pretty bad — not horrible — but the movie itself is quite watchable, if a lot bleaker than your average disaster flick.

Blunt and Dornan’s chemistry eclipses anything the hunky actor ever managed with Dakota Johnson in “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

The material, filled with peppy pop songs, is admittedly funnier than Murphy and his cast make it. Barry (played on Broadway by the brilliant Brooks Ashmanskas) was a riot onstage, but Corden’s bland performance is generically kind, fey and mostly joke-less. Someone like Nathan Lane would’ve made a meal of every line. That said, the story is more moving here than it was at the theater, which comes as a surprise.

The action-adventure aspects of “Christmas Chronicles,” with sleigh chases and a reindeer fights, are cluttered. More appealing are the real-world storylines, such as the siblings dealing with their mom getting serious with a new beau.

Talk about toxic masculinity — Buddy Games leaves you feeling dead inside.

It’s a pleasant watch with some solid jokes.

Tonally, Happiest Season is a bit uneven; it can move from broad hijinks to high emotion a little too quickly. But it also delivers wonderfully heartfelt moments.

This is a Disney adaptation, beautiful but frequently treacly.

The film is overstuffed with comedy material, though. There’s a time-period-appropriate gag for everything — the TV is just a hole in the wall that they watch birds through — and the jokes are nonstop. The best moments of animated films are often the most serene.

Watching Chadwick Boseman in his final movie, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, is pure heartbreak.

Of course, nobody watches a Jackie Chan movie for the sophisticated plots or deep characters. They come for the martial arts. But those, too, settle for being not much more than a kick in the park.

Being a lesbian period piece, the film’s earned inevitable comparisons to last year’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Sure, it’s similar, minus the chemistry, humor and joy. There are definitely corsets in both.

The book is a fascinating, insightful, touching window into a unique community with immense struggles. On-screen, it’s exploitative.

Gibson’s got another strong performance in him, I think, but this Christmas crapola sure ain’t it.

Lane and Costner are swell, but the film jolts to life the second we walk into Blanche’s dimly lit kitchen, occupied by even dimmer men. The villainous Manville acts like a rooster, clucking, crowing and, worst of all, pecking. A sickening scene in a motel won’t have you taking the kids to South Dakota anytime soon.

The sleepy horror movie is an onslaught of spooky images that, while well-done, are watered down by sheer abundance. We stop being scared after the first 15 minutes because there is nothing new to see.

The actress is absolute bliss in her new Italian drama, The Life Ahead.

Throughout, Dirisu and Mosaku enliven a fascinating character study.

Also making a meal of a morsel is Chloë Sevigny as Paul’s mom. The actress probably has fewer than 20 lines, and still she brings depth and palpable regret to her scene.

Bad Hair is about 10 minutes too long. You don’t salivate over Anna’s home life as much as you do her office from hell, and a few of those scenes could have been trimmed. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see horror let its hair down again.

For the most part, the film is second-rate horror, but watchable enough.

Decent movie, same old Borat.

Hathaway floats in the air a few times and the sides of her mouth are slit, a la Heath Ledger’s Joker, but even that deformation doesn’t make her frightening or threatening. You’re supposed to believe this woman wants all children dead, and instead, you believe she is sometimes rude to Bergdorf’s employees.

Scott Thomas sounds like she’s about to pull out a shiv and knife her new boss right then and there. The actress is so good, you wish she could reprise the role in a better film that actually deserves her.

It’s an impressively realistic touch from a studio that’s neither Disney nor DreamWorks.

You’ll find that out in the film’s last — and best — moment, which belongs to Redmayne. Is it sentimental? You betcha. But it sure takes you back to the TV magic of President Bartlet.

Laughter and enjoyment is stifled by the constant question of whether we’re allowed to laugh or enjoy anything at all.