It has no real reason to exist, other than to be a passable option for parents whose children are too young to handle PG-13 fare and feels like it.

Pretty far-fetched even for a franchise about rare genetic mutations that allow people to read minds and shoot lasers with their eyes. It’s not bad, just crazy.

Domino, though, is the dregs: This thriller may be randomly set one year in the future, yet it’s hopelessly regressive — a parade of lame stereotypes that feels directed by an out-of-touch Old Hollywood old guy (De Palma is 78).

Ma is a much more enjoyable ride than the even more preposterous “Greta,” which got lost in undeserved self-seriousness.

The whole movie is indistinguishable rubble.

The Poison Rose doesn’t aspire to transcend any clichés, and judging from the flagging energy level of the actors, everyone involved knows it.

Q Ball is a moving and dynamically shot portrait of the Northern California prison’s basketball team, which is sponsored by the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.

It’s one of the funniest movies of the year.

Freddie Mercury may have had the better voice, but it’s Elton John who gets the better movie. Rocketman, director Dexter Fletcher’s trippy new biopic about the flamboyant rocker is braver, deeper and more enlightening than last year’s slobbering piece of Queen propaganda “Bohemian Rhapsody” (which he also partly directed).

Massoud and Scott make a live-action “Aladdin” succeed on a different level than a cartoon can — as a teary romance. “A Whole New World” is more moving than the original.

With stakes so high, the movie should pack a punch. But while it keeps its eye on the stars, its feet never leave the ground.

Zoey Deutch is fine in a non-demanding role as the requisite starry-eyed female student, and Danny Huston (“Wonder Woman”) gives us a softer side as Richard’s weepy best friend. But this is, at its core, a one-man show, and given the uncertain future of Depp’s career (being axed from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, for example), it might also have been titled “Johnny Says Goodbye.”

Hogg (“Exhibition”) sets The Souvenir in the 1980s but shoots her subjects with the long-armed reserve of a period piece; the ivory-complexioned Byrne bears a resemblance to 18th- and 19th-century European portraits glimpsed throughout.

The John Wick action series doesn’t get bogged down in such silly trivialities as character development, plot, dialogue, morals or any of the usual rubrics most films follow. Instead, these fun flicks are just loosely connected, extremely violent fight scenes starring Neo from “The Matrix.” And why the hell not?

In a time when climate news is near-uniformly depressing, this is a nature documentary that pays loving and hopeful tribute to the complex web of life — and it won’t scare your kids.

A loony con-job that comes up short on being convincing.

Poehler isn’t quite cynical enough to pull off a comedy in which, to paraphrase “Seinfeld,” there’s no hugging and learning, but Wine Country could have been improved by keeping its emotional scenes more in reserve — like a high-end cabernet.

Still, Poms mostly patronizes older people as it turns them into punchlines. Be regressive! B.E. R.E.G.R.E.S.S.I.V.E!

Being obvious nostalgia bait for children of the ’90s, director Rob Letterman’s film has no right to be as good or well-crafted as it is. The plot takes major twists that come as legitimate surprises, and seeing those old cartoon characters plopped into our world rendered in CGI is enormously satisfying.

Would it have been tacky to visually play up the connection between Tolkien’s harrowing experiences on the WWI battlefield and his depiction of Mordor in the books? Perhaps. Beyond the briefest of allusions, Karukoski tastefully leaves that to the imagination. But this — like much of the film — is a tastefulness that induces sleepiness. Tolkien’s estate was not supportive of this film, understandably: The legendary author’s work is memorial enough.

At stark odds with the director’s earlier work is the color palette of this one — that is to say, the film is nearly devoid of it, a haunting wash of multilayered grays. This is one Shadow that deserves to be in the spotlight.

The script is garbage, the voice acting is wooden and the songs are as infectious — and deadly — as the Mister Softee jingle.

It’s blessed with an ace comic foil in Theron, who out-snarks Rogen in scene after scene. The duo makes a terrifically fun on-screen couple, with the kind of zingy banter (thanks to Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah’s screenplay) found in black-and-white movies pre-dating the term “rom-com.”

At a certain point, the pattern of Knoop’s reticence, then acquiescence to Albert’s masquerade becomes slightly repetitive, but JT LeRoy still gives a compelling inside look at the head-scratching hoax that succeeded, in part, due to musty notions of what a hot shot writer ought to look like.

It’s as sprawling and pulse-pounding a fight as you’re hoping it will be.

It’s a harrowing tale that deserves a much better movie than this insipid junk.

The movie’s one saving grace — so to speak — is Raymond Cruz (Tuco from “Better Call Saul”) as a priest turned shaman. He, at least, injects a little wry humor into a film that otherwise bored me to tears.

I only wish the Little laughs were bigger.