As it speeds toward conclusion, “Supremes” also stops subverting its more maudlin aspects, allowing a descent into soap operatic moments.

A small triumph for lowered expectations.

Laura Dern is not a wizard. She cannot make the dumb and formulaic elements of her romance/travelogue movie “Lonely Planet” disappear. But Dern brings such authenticity to Katherine, her confident, matter-of-fact successful author character, that her performance often outweighs this Netflix movie’s flaws.

Besides the fact that the film is flabby (way too much time is spent on history), its efforts to tie subliminal messaging to a vast array of political, media and pop cultural events turn the proceedings a little hazy (or a lot hazy, depending on your worldview).

The uneven result is definitely not for prudish moviegoers, definitely funny for everyone else, and even approaches poignancy in one or two scenes.

This is harmless fun for the kindergarten crowd, but even they will notice that the "Blustery Day" video they've been playing at home is a lot better.

A familiar feel-good story told through an unseen perspective, Anything’s Possible is an overdue inclusion of trans youth in the celebratory innocence of the coming-of-age genre.

Amusing and holds interest largely thanks to its re-creation of a glitzy, flamboyant era, not to mention its soundtrack of disco songs that sound a lot better today than 20 years ago.

It's amusing in a trashy sort of way.

A cute and scruffy movie. Helena Bonham Carter, lending a female presence to the otherwise all-male story, charmingly narrates as Robert’s sister, who pieces together the Stubby legend from letters sent home.

Never dull, but it's rarely more than gently entertaining.

Exuding glamour, health and prosperity, real-life spouses Beatty and Bening are so radiant that they run the risk of seeming superhuman and thereby losing our sympathy as screen characters.

Suffers most from being overlong.

Director Shosuke Murakami efficiently packages the material, deftly weaving in the individual stories of Train Man's chat-room buddies and how his success also gives them courage.

That Pride ultimately gets to you is more of a surprise than the outcome because it's not very well-constructed.

In his performance, Jeremy Renner hints at something dark stirring beneath Webb’s surface, but it never quite comes out, and we’re left with something more on the order of a rough-hewn saint. Kill the Messenger tells an interesting tale, but it’s caught in an odd zone between too-Hollywood and not Hollywood enough.

Visually, the film is a stunner, dotted with psychedelic colors and many shades of red -- one battle is fought with red laser-gun sights -- some looking realistically like blood. When gangsters open fire, their falls are choreographed like a ballet. The problem comes when the cast opens its mouth and Elizabethan dialogue tumbles out.

The movie's effectiveness is distorted by its hero-worship of the Chicago defendants.

The slow pace kills the sense of urgency, and the length and breadth of the film makes the story seem insignificant. Tarantino is still someone to watch, but Jackie Brown, before it's over, becomes a who-cares proposition.

The original Space Jam was an out-of-nowhere delight, and Jordan gave space to his fellow live action co-stars, such as Bill Murray, Larry Bird and Wayne Knight. It was also in and out in 87 minutes; Space Jam: A New Legacy, directed by a good filmmaker, Malcolm D. Lee (Girls Trip, The Best Man), is a bloated 115 minutes, its mayhem and madness wearing pretty thin as it goes along.

Precious and uninsightful but ends beautifully.

The film is finally a letdown.

Hall Pass attempts to take the Farrellys' harsh humor and bring it into harmony with what has become the modern comic style, which is to be coarse but not absurd, to be brutally honest but real.

The Honeymooners isn't the worst of the endless spate of TV rehashes, but it still feels perfunctory.

It's a kids' movie from a better time, with a few small concessions to modern audiences.

Missing a purpose.

This harmless bit of fluff lacks the element of surprise but is not without random charming moments supplied by its incandescent star.

It's an intelligent movie about economics. As such, it would probably make more sense to have it reviewed by economists than film critics.

The story here isn't much, and the truth it reveals, to them and us, isn't earthshaking, just quiet and somber.

Puccini for Beginners is literate and sensitive, characterized by witty dialogue and smart, emotional two-person encounters.

The plot is somewhat pedestrian and the dialogue needs more zip. But it's amusing to watch the Bayaka poke good-natured fun at the gangly Larry, who has only their best interests at heart.

You’d have to be passionately interested in the details of an Irish small town not to find “Small Things Like These” something of a slog.

There's no getting around it. Though it's not without virtues, The Loneliest Planet may try the patience of even the most dedicated lovers of art film.

But for now, we have The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which actually was a pretty good idea that just didn’t have enough wind in its sails.

This stylized romantic comedy offers limited, largely synthetic rewards.

Sure, “Don’t Worry Darling” — whose very title reeks of paternalism and condescension of the worst order — comes from a woman’s viewpoint, an element that differentiates it from other films or TV series to which it might be compared. But it’s still not enough to keep the movie from slipping into predictability.

Well-intentioned but frequently inert.

The movie is almost all conversations, most of which are intriguing and sensitively structured, with little action. It’s enough, but not worth changing the world for.

Melissa Rosenberg's screenplay is faithful enough to Meyer's soap-operatic inclinations, but I kind of wish it weren't.

For all Wong's energy and virtuosity, the relentless stylishness and whimsicality of Chungking Express become irritating. The cast is appealing -- particularly the forlorn young cops. But the velocity of Wong's attack seems out of proportion to the airy, lightweight quality of the stories.

Excess Baggage falls down as a showcase for Silverstone, who made a big splash in "Clueless" and whose production company is releasing this film. She comes across as unappealing and unseasoned in ways that go beyond the role.

Does have a certain classy charm because of its upscale setting. One could wait for the video.

Getting an inside view on events is fascinating enough to carry the movie.

It tries to get by on charm, and like a lot of movies, and people who make that attempt, “Kingsman” does have charm — just not enough.

If you enjoy gross humor -- elevated by an occasional witty line -- and looking at babes, and don't mind a little blood and gore, do I have a date movie for you.

Buscemi is characteristically likable here, when Del, mercenary in his treatment of human and beast, should not be so likable. Such is the curse of Buscemi, the delightful killer from “Fargo.”

The result is eight times as strange and exponentially more potty-mouthed than the original series.

Pure of intention and passably diverting, His Secret Life is light, innocuous and unremarkable.

A sometimes interesting remake that doesn't compare to the brilliant original.

Could have used more dramatic energy, maybe at the expense of some of that gorgeous scenery.

No campy vampire movie, and the early part of the film is well-made enough that the sadness of Vlad’s dilemma is truly felt.

All in all, the 3-D animations wow without gimmickry, Banderas purrs without peer - and it's a cheerful movie.

Serious and absurd (mostly, it's a drama) but never finds a good rhythm. The movie flounders in a way that calls too much attention to itself -- and is hurt by jarring and unbelievable plot twists.

It has the simple charm of being mindless fun with nary a worry that there are several pockets of lame gags or far-fetched comedy bits that refuse to register on the giggle meter. [16 Feb 1990, p.E3]

Want a believable plot or acting? Forget it. But if you just want knockout images, unabashed eye candy and a riveting look at a complex world that seems both real and fake at the same time, "Hackers'' is one of the most intriguing movies of the year.

The Brady Bunch Movie is fairly innocuous, and ought to satisfy the twenty- and thirtysomethings who grew up on the sitcom. Just one problem: It may be unsporting to point this out, but the whole notion of holding up the Bradys as the ultimate cultural icon of the '70s is basically a lie.

Yet all this wit and effort and occasional beauty is in the service of a movie that is little more than a two-hour chase scene, one that seems founded on the assumption that if you show one set of people chasing another, that’s enough to get an audience excited: Oh, no, let’s hope they don’t get caught!

Pathetic yet stupidly entertaining for several minutes of its interminable running time, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain makes half its cast look like retreads and half like fresh ponies desperately karate-kicking a dud script to see if it has any signs of life.

Amusing enough.

A ludicrous, yet oddly engaging documentary.

So if you don't mind, I'll just go back to believing that someone named Shakespeare (whoever he was) wrote Shakespeare's works. And I'll just go back to regarding them with awe.

Might have been more effective as a documentary.

A provocative, upsetting film.

It says something about this movie that Redford is at his most compelling playing opposite a nag.

For what it is, it's well done, well filmed, well outfitted with ordnance and, well, exciting. However, in script, characters and plot, Act of Valor offers only the barest minimum.

Though “Society of the Snow” has its moments, it’s difficult to see what was gained by telling the story as a dramatic feature. Yes, in a documentary we’d lose the amazing crash scene, but the story would otherwise be better served by a straight laying out of the facts.

Contact, directed by Robert Zemeckis, may be too long, too self-important and too "Gump"-like to be completely satisfying. But it contains elements that are so striking they pretty much redeem the film.

Even the surprise ending arrives with a thud and makes us wonder why Shyamalan didn't try something new instead of recycling his "Sixth Sense" recipe.

Sixty-seven minutes in, I looked up and noticed the movie had 53 minutes left to go, even though every plot element had been resolved. And that's precisely where the movie went to hell. [23 Nov 2014, p.M21]

This movie isn't horrible, but it seems like a waste for Zombie to keep revisiting someone else's world.

Until it becomes completely demented, The Guest is a perfectly respectable thriller, and even when it stops being respectable — even when it goes off the rails and becomes ridiculous — it’s still entertaining.

Alas, Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life loses steam and grows more perfunctory as it wears on.

Suffers from its enthusiasm, so fueled by anger and emotion that storytelling grows clouded. Irreverence gives way to polemic, then to an orgy of violence.

It takes a little while, but Fatherhood eventually becomes exactly what you expected. It will make no converts, nor will it push away the faithful. It’s a Kevin Hart movie, after all.

This is just a slightly better than mediocre film with a disconcerting grasp of the truth.

A very fine actor when he’s not directing bad “Insidious” sequels, Wilson is the only performer here who extracts conflict, growth and genuine wit out of David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick’s surface-skimming script.

It's really strange, and it's really subtitled.

From scene to scene, the tone shifts from supposed sincerity to arch and amused, until the picture begins to seem like some mad, desperate, scattershot attempt to hold an audience's attention from moment to moment, by any means.

Even if it has B-movie trappings and the tension wanes in the second half, it’s a stylish psychodrama.

A category of films that reward viewers who view the cinemas as an escape, rather than an arena of deep thought. If you’re coming off a super bad week, or have had a few drinks, or just happen to find a crowded theater where laughs are contagious, you’ll have a much better time. If you rent the movie and view it alone, you’ll probably laugh three times, and never watch it again.

It is the Eddie Murphy movie where Eddie Murphy has next to nothing to do. Do little says it all.

A domestic melodrama with weak dialogue and biopic cliches.

That the movie is leisurely and unconventional is all part of its charm, too - until it isn't anymore. The movie is a tale of corruption, but then it's not. It's a love story, but no, not quite. Later, it flirts with becoming a great journalism tale, or at least a whimsical journalism tale, but that vein leads nowhere, too. Nor is it much of anything else.

At its best, Gordon's work is bracing and pointed, though it's not for the queasy.

Apart is an attractive-looking piece of work, and I'll always admire any genre film that errs on the side of understatement.

I just wish that "Apollo 13" worked better as a movie, and that Howard's threshold for corn, mush and twinkly sentiment weren't so darn wide.

Bleak.

Though Meg 2 is by far the biggest production he’s ever helmed, director Ben Wheatley doesn’t appear to be in over his head with this; special effects and stunts are proficiently delivered, no matter how ludicrous

The saving grace of Old School is that it has about a dozen funny moments. These moments aren't mildly funny or chuckle funny but really funny.

Screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith may not have any original ideas, but they write some good lines and have a great actress to deliver them.

The result is a movie that serves as little more than an excuse for Moore and Bridges to camp it up.

The result is like any other Lynne Ramsay movie, whether it’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin” or “Ratcatcher” — slow, soporific and, here and there, wonderful.

If the writing and direction carry Sphere most of the way, the actors manage to bring it home.

Regardless of how one might feel about its inherently icky subject matter, Dark Crimes needs more narrative momentum. The cast is game, the production design is impressive and a few surprises await — but even as things heat up, the film somehow remains cold.

The problem with “The Tiger’s Apprentice” is it sacrifices character and story for the repetitive mind-numbing action we have come to expect from such fantasy and superhero films.

The best-case scenario for a movie based on a soft-drink advertisement. It is a disjointed and inconsistent comedy, shoddily filmed at times, while occasionally abandoning storytelling effort altogether.

Twixt is fun, but fairly flimsy - it doesn't have the ambition of his previous film, the black-and-white character piece "Tetro." It's also not really scary, although there are some nice creepy visuals here and there.

At times, the sight of reserved English actors slapping, hugging and acting all Russian looks bizarre, though one casting choice is prime: Bob Hoskins has the ideal air of impish menace in the featured role of Khrushchev.