But after three dog-eared attempts, including the awful 1992 sequel, enough is enough. The time has come to bury Pet Sematary once and for all.

In the end, it’s the animals who conquer the emotions and provide the suspense in The Zookeeper’s Wife.

Dreamland doesn’t quite work, but she (Robbie) deserves an A for effort.

It has warmth, humor and an understated sweetness that is not to be taken for granted.

This anemic little so-called thriller is the next best thing to a prescription for 30 mg Dalmane.

Jake Gyllenhaal is the sole component that separates Road House from the sort of movie that stars stunt legend Scott Adkins and premieres on VOD.

In the small-town-conspiring-on-a-big-lie genre, The Grand Seduction doesn’t get near the mastery of 1998’s "Waking Ned Devine," but the shots of the village in Newfoundland, where it was filmed, are beautiful, and the local accents are convincing.

The welcome surprise is that it’s quite thoughtful and sensitive, thanks to a captivating performance by Will Brittain that dispels any preconceived notions of cavemen as the hairy, misshapen, grunting brutes depicted in Hal Roach’s One Million B.C.

Well-considered and sincerely acted, Kodachrome is a character-driven drama that has been wrongly labeled a comedy by some so-called critics. There is nothing funny about it.

I found it flawed but fascinating, and a no-fail showcase for Tina Fey’s real talents as a serious actress. Best of all, this movie is never boring for a single minute.

In a movie without adults, the children are spontaneous and natural. And Ms. Ronan is captivating throughout.

Overexposed and barely awake in the most dramatic scenes, Ewan McGregor is the star, but it’s not one of his most energetic performances.

Balanced and solid, with equal measures of terror and suspense, the movie is Arcadian and I’ll be darned if it didn’t scare the daylights out of me.

Although the going is so sluggish at times that the film often looks like it needs artificial respiration, stick it out. The end result is oddly entertaining.

A middling attempt to peek through a lace curtain for a glimpse of the other Upstairs/Downstairs staff members only leads to too many distracting social functions that fail to relieve the film's otherwise solemn pacing.

Jane Fonda's first French-speaking film in 40 years finds her leading a joyous ensemble of septuagenarians in a sweet, thoughtful and spirited examination of how to grow old with dignity and pride in a regrettable era when senior citizens have been reduced to the status of a political agenda.

What makes this one different is the dedication, commitment and sincerity the star brings to every aspect of the role. This is a pugilist with a heart.

Add up the ingredients and you get a mostly enjoyable dog-eared formula for escapist entertainment without critical perception.

It's still worth seeing for its two dazzling centerpieces.

It’s a high-class thriller without a single goose bump, but between the mother, the daughter, the lawyer, the Mafia, and the investors determined to separate Renée from her money and power, there’s enough material to juggle several balls in the air at the same time.

Ultimately, Thor: Love and Thunder does what a good superhero movie should do: it entertains us.

It’s obvious that something got lost in translation.

It’s meant to be a gritty slice of cornpone about revenge from a woman’s point of view, but the female protagonist who emerges is nothing but a cartoon.

It is all very-very-very entertaining.

As the corpses pile up on every side of the law, it reminds me more of those nasty, sometimes laughable Charles Bronson genre vehicles from the 1980s, buried under 50 feet of snow. Call it "Death Wish" with icicles.

Never catches fire or fully engages the imagination in the nightmarish way it should.

Directed by Jon Gunn with no frills but a lot of suspense that comes out of the story naturally, without the need for any manufactured Hollywood thrills, and co-written by actor Meg Tilly and Kelly Fremon Craig, this is one of those rare emotional sagas “based on a true story” that begs to make it to the screen but seems preposterous when it gets there.

Some of the on-camera bitchery between Mr. Ford and Ms. Keaton is laugh-out-loud witty. For the most part, Morning Glory is a delicious movie that will make you jump for joy.

The film eschews a Hollywood happy ending in favor of bone-chilling reality, which makes Viper Club doubly relevant amid current headlines.

From Germany, the deeply disturbing domestic tragedy Three Peaks is another film of understated but driving intensity starring Alexander Fehling, a.k.a. the Paul Newman of German cinema.

It's one of those revolting, raunch-fueled movies churned out in their sleep by the Farrelly brothers and Judd Apatow that I usually hate, but with real cleverness, off-center wit and edgy imagination. Imagine an X-rated Three Stooges farce, and you get the picture.

Trading in her red locks for kohl-lined eyes like a raccoon and the vampire look of Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, [Chastain] is the spookiest thing in Mama. Everything else is cable television.

It’s only April, but this is one of the best films of 2013.

I'm sure there is much to be learned from Forks Over Knives (the title means fruits and veggies can be forked, but anything you cut with a knife is lethal), but what does it have to do with real life?

Unfinished Song moves too slowly for its own good (mourning is doubly taxing in a country where it’s always raining), but it’s a great showcase for Terence Stamp.

Scorsese’s movie did something crucial that this one doesn’t: it told the truth as it knew it. Honesty, or at least some version of it, would have been a very good place for War Dogs to start.

By my rough calculation, the real Jack Ryan should be approximately 103. Preposterous but moderately engaging, Jack Ryan has outlived his welcome, and there’s no end in sight.

There are and have been countless Hollywood actresses for whom this role would be particularly resonant, but for this moment, there’s no better person to tell this story than Sydney Sweeney. And, thankfully, she gets to tell it on her own terms.

As much as May in the Summer is a comedy — May and her mischievous sisters may remind you of The Three Stooges — it is also an intimate and demystifying look at life in Amman, where the movie was actually filmed.

The whole thing has a certain “been there already” deja vu that dilutes the movie’s intended wow factor. Everything else in The Commuter is a yawn.

Kristin Scott Thomas breathes new life into a woman who was invented by Flaubert and copied by Francoise Sagan.

I guess I’ve seen worse teen sex comedies, but it’s rare to encounter one this stupid.

Die Another Day is the most thrilling, lavishly designed and imaginative Bond picture in years. It is also the most preposterous.

The nicest thing that can be said about this demure little Canadian trifle is that it’s a film that finally gives the gifted, self-assured and sadly underrated Alessandro Nivola a leading role.

Diary of a Chambermaid doesn’t quite add up to the chronicle of decadent abuse endured by the servant class in turn of the century France that it hopes to be, but it’s still worth seeing as another entry in the rise of Léa Seydoux, a star of Gallic charisma if ever I’ve seen one.

As good as Citizen Gangster is, it would be even better if you could understand the dialogue.

Buried beneath its furious, catch-as-catch-can approach to humor (Wine Country never met a joke it didn’t like), the film is a moving and nuanced portrayal of how difficult it is to be open and vulnerable even to those who love us utterly and without apology.

In a footnote to history that is still too close for comfort, he’s the real meaning of paradise lost.

It’s a true story, basically a two-hander about a pair of courageous lovers lost at sea, as crushingly hard to imagine as it is to watch, but every element is so perfect that it left me shaking and devastated.

A sports anime focused around a group of orphans which makes the conscious decision to compete over basic necessities instead of participating in everyday society is the seed of a fruitful idea. But instead of playing to his strengths Araki has settled for lowest common denominator storytelling.

There are heart-tugging moments in The Glass Castle, but Walls’s bestselling memoir needed to be roughed up and aired out. For it to match up to the book, the movie needed the glass to be smashed, not every shard treasured.

Colin Firth is brilliant as the patient, uncompromising and introspective Max Perkins, and the explosive performance by Jude Law as the wild, unpredictable and tragic Thomas Wolfe is one of the greatest triumphs of his career. I was spellbound.

There are some lovely and moving things here, but over the long haul it’s more like watching an hour and a half of someone’s weekend trip to Knott’s Berry Farm.

Deadpool & Wolverine is every inch a post-peak Marvel movie, a parade of crowd pleasing pops with practically no substance, guaranteeing a billion dollar return and a shelf life of about five minutes.

It’s beautifully photographed and entertaining, with charming performances by Will Smith and newcomer Margot Robbie that tease and tantalize. You won’t be bored.

Everything works miraculously here, making Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky one of the most bountiful experiences of the year.

A solidly fun follow-up that understands its audience. Set in 2022, Hocus Pocus 2 not only leaps across several decades, but also reimagines itself in a more contemporary way by diversifying its cast and embracing technology.

I lost count but the word “family” is mentioned upwards of 50 times, many more times than it is in, say, Lilo & Stitch. Yes, it is way too much, like everything else in this aggressively over-the-top film, but at the same time, it just feels nice to be part of the group.

The situations in Little Accidents cry out for more clarity than the script delivers, but the carefully observed performances are worth perusal, and the dark, industrialized joylessness of Rachel Morrison’s cinematography is a somber mirror to the sad dead-end life of Appalachia.

It just goes to show, no matter how burnished your backdrop or splendiferous your setting, if your script is crap, you're stuck with a total dud.

Maybe this is just a whimsical trip with quirky characters and little depth. Maybe we’re never supposed to really understand or care about anyone’s motivation or background. There are great moments and a great idea here. Without that connective substance, though, the car gets stuck in neutral.

Like "Moneyball," this is real movie making that packs a solid entertainment punch.

The movie is about how he learns to show what's in his heart even when he can't find the spoken words to express his feelings aloud. Under the careful guidance of Mr. Nunez, Mr. Becker does both, in ways that reminded me of a Hispanic James Dean.

Unknown makes no sense at all, so you not only worry about Liam Neeson's judgment in movies, but you begin to wonder if he's forgotten how to read.

Johnny Depp is dismally miscast as the alter ego of the rebellious author with the "screw you" attitude.

Michael Shannon is a convincing and resourceful actor who is now too established and viable to settle for enigmatic roles in meaningless, throwaway movies with zero possibilities for commercial success like a thing called Frank & Lola.

There is plenty of excitement and pulse in Hereafter, as well as a reluctance to provide easy answers to life's great mysteries. I'm happy to see a great director take on the challenge of new and different material with his customary grace and impressive two-fisted technique intact.

Fast X is an outlandish movie. Literally nothing in this movie could really happen, but isn’t that why we watch films in the first place? The imagined world of the Fast & Furious saga is exciting and that’s enough. Are there too many characters now? Yes. Do you always know what’s going on? No. But you’ll laugh, you’ll cheer and you’ll feel, for a few hours, like part of a family.

Why tell the Sleeping Beauty story anew? With this half-hearted film, Mr. Stromberg, the visual effects wizard behind such big-budget blockbusters as "Oz the Great and Powerful," "Alice in Wonderland" and "Avatar," can’t provide an answer.

A dull, pretentious trifle from director David Gordon Green with Al Pacino in another of his late-career mishaps that does nothing to elevate his fading film status. How I wish he would stick to the stage.

The film is extraordinarily well directed by Alexandre Moors, realistically written, and uniformly well played by an excellent supporting cast that includes Jennifer Aniston, Toni Collette, Jason Patric, and Jack Huston. As “war is hell” movies go, this one is better than usual.

The film knocks itself unconscious trying to be whimsical and offbeat, but is so contrived that it is as embarrassing as it is unfunny.

Beautiful and challenging, Bokeh has a pristine look and chilling feel of its own that contributes enormously to the mood and tone of the whole film.

Redundant, unnecessary and a colossal waste of talent and money, you can pretty much sum up Man of Steel in the scene in which a lady police officer watches with her mouth wide open as Superman tosses aside tanks like Tinker Toys. “What are you smiling about, captain?” asks another cop. “Nothing, sir — I just think he’s hot.”

The scant narrative and unwritten characters result in a lack of empathy that doesn’t serve the thematic ideas.

The actors are superb. The nuanced writing and direction have insight. The three-dimensional portrayals of women in the rural South during the war are praiseworthy.

It’s compelling to see [Ritchie's] take on a World War II movie, despite a few narrative holes, and it’s a good reminder that not all war stories have to be so serious.

Almost three hours long, a lugubrious sludge of mud soup called Cloud Atlas deserves a limp nod for pure guts, I suppose, but what I'd really like to do is burn it.

This is one of the best movies of 2012. With rich performances, a riveting and articulate screenplay, meticulous direction and enough grounded emotional intensity to keep your pulse pounding, Hitchcock grabs you by the lapels like a suspense classic by Hitch himself - a knockout from start to finish.

Never Let Go never manages to answer any of a number of recurring questions adequately, and the movie makes no more sense than one of those head-scratchers by M. Night Shyamalan, which it annoyingly resembles.

The movie is not particularly well directed by Justin Kelly (a protégé of Gus Van Sant), and his screenplay (co-written with the real Savannah) has the toxic naturalism of a drag revue. Dern is never less than fascinating, even in Gothic raspberry wigs, and does everything possible to bring a sense of human urgency to an unconventional dual role, but the film deserts her midway.

In beauty, tone, technical achievement and cinematic artistry on every level, Hyde Park on Hudson is a movie unto itself - funny, believable, historic and hugely entertaining.

Old is asinine.

The actors are so good, though, that they make you want to see what they could do in a better movie than this tedious acting-class experiment.

This is a director whose only interest is in entertainment without a trace of originality. He isn’t interested in quality, only in length, noise, and stale ideas from old movies. There’s plenty of all three in Ambulance.

The Boogeyman, a pointless, misguided and totally incomprehensible waste of time, is yet another horror film that exists for the sole purpose of exploiting the endless desk-drawer doodlings of writer Stephen King.

Ineffectual, irrelevant and amateurishly conceived from start to finish, this movie is so bad it could kill off Nancy Drew forever.

It’s mildly entertaining, sure, but as aspirational wish fulfillment it’s not particularly impactful.

To pass the time and justify the film’s nearly two-hour length, director Elliott Lester and screenwriter Chris Kelley concentrate on loading everyone with enough oddball characteristics to convince jaded viewers who hate Westerns that they are watching something unique.

Part of the problem with Close to You is Hillary Baack, who plays Katherine. Miscast and inexperienced, she is not up to Page’s standards and mumbles so incoherently that whole scenes clumsily pass by without clarity.

The script may be flawed and the narrative storytelling mechanical, but the period details are fascinating, the camerawork swaggers across a maze of squalid row houses and nightclub floors with visual velocity, and whenever either one Tom Hardy (or both) is onscreen, Legend is engrossing stuff indeed.

This first-cabin director returns to top form, with this revelatory film his best in years. More than that, Mao's Last Dancer is a masterpiece.

Linus Sandgren’s lush camerawork and the glittering, throbbing musical score by A. R. Rahman contribute a distinctive flavor of their own. The performances are superb.

Overall, it is the performers that give the story life and allow Arkansas to rise above some of its shallower instincts, which include a garish costume design that seems to posit the idea that people from the South dress like rodeo clowns. Hemsworth in particular brings a truth and measured heartbreak to his portrayal of someone who has been forced to glimpse how the world works and deeply wished he hadn’t.

Even when it occasionally falters, it is polished, heartbreaking, and worthy of attention.

Richard Brooks made a tougher and much better film about the tragedy of compulsive gambling in his 1985 film "Fever Pitch," and in 1949’s "The Lady Gambles," even Barbara Stanwyck made a more convincing fall from respectability into casino hell than Mark Wahlberg does here.

The Flash is no genre-redefining masterpiece and it’s unlikely to appeal to viewers who aren’t already bought into the superhero oeuvre, but it’s a much better movie than what’s being advertised.

And there is Ewan McGregor, who makes entirely too many movies and only occasionally makes an effort to speak the kind of English anyone can understand.