All told, Barbie is a fascinating movie, even if it is occasionally a little frustrating and often more fun to look at than it is laugh-out-loud funny. I think my daughters will probably enjoy it quite a bit — when they watch it when they’re a few years older.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One starts at iabsurd and only gets more bonkers from there. (The film openly jokes about how many times Ethan Hunt has gone rogue and still managed to keep his job as the world’s greatest spy.) But Dead Reckoning also passionately believes in those themes — and, above all, in Tom Cruise doing ridiculous things on camera for the amusement of his paying customers.

The stronger element (sorry) of this story is the relationship between Bernie and Ember, and how it underscores the way the expectations of every generation winds up resting heavily on the shoulders of the next. I’m not sure using different elements as a metaphor for the immigrant experience quite works beyond its broadest strokes, but it does at least add some heft to Elemental’s scenes between father and daughter, which do build to an affecting if extremely predictable conclusion.

While Flamin’ Hot’s choice of subject might separate it slightly from the larger canon of great-man biographies, it’s otherwise a very familiar recipe coated with a little new seasoning.

The good barely outweighs the bad here, at least enough for me to give The Flash a marginal recommendation. A lot of the reviews of The Flash from early screenings called it one of the greatest DC Comics movies ever made. Maybe in another universe that’s true. In this one, I thought it stumbled across the finish line.

It’s also much more about what it means to create something that rejects the notion that Peter Parker needs to be the central focus of every Spider-Man story, even in the face of intense opposition. It’s also about notion that every sequel needs to spoon-feed the audience more of the same stuff they liked the first time around.

However you write its title, Past Lives is a great romance, a great coming-of-age story, a great tale about the ways technology can bring people together (but only so far), a great New York City film, a great story about immigrants — and a great movie, period.

Walker’s presence in the Fast movies was the sweet, underplayed counterbalance to Vin Diesel’s ultra-sincere, ultra-sleeveless bombast, and the franchise still hasn’t found a way to fill the void he left behind. In hindsight, the series probably should have stopped after Furious 7, which not only marked the franchise’s farewell to Walker’s character but also to any semblance of logic or cohesion in its ongoing mega-narrative. Since then, Fast & Furious has basically been running on fumes.

I don’t think Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 quite matches the sublime pop silliness of the first film in this trilogy, but it’s easily better than Vol. 2, which had wonderful bits along with an overstuffed storyline. Vol. 3 isn’t exactly streamlined — it still runs about two and a half hours — but it is more focused on its themes and ideas, and on giving the Guardians the sendoff they deserve.

In another director’s hands Air could very easily have become a piece of corporate propaganda for Nike and its ongoing Michael Jordan apparel empire. And, in a way, it still is — only it’s now an exceedingly entertaining and impressively heart-warming piece of corporate propaganda.

For a couple minutes, it starts to feel like the film is building on top of the Super Mario mythology rather than simply regurgitating it. The rest reminded me of the attract mode that would automatically start to play on old arcade games if no one pressed start: A bunch of computerized images going through the motions over and over.

The lead performers bring a lot of energy to the material, and for a while Tetris hums along as part The Social Network and part Ocean’s 11, at least until a final act that collapses under the weight of an action sequence so ludicrous it feels like it belongs in a parody of bad Hollywood biopics.

It manages to capture not only the adventure of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, but also the sense of camaraderie the game engenders, because it is typically played by groups of close friends meeting regularly for months or even years to a complete a campaign.

This thing ain’t a “chapter.” It’s a whole damn book — a glorious, nightmarish, biblical compendium of all manners of asskickery.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods is just sort of there, coasting on the residual good vibes and talented cast of its much-superior predecessor.

Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett do know how to stage a good scare sequence, and Scream VI has enough decent ones to prevent the film from tipping over into disaster.

Creed III returns the franchise to its roots in macho melodrama. Yes, Adonis and Dame eventually fight. But a lot of Creed III is about their lives away from the ring, and about universal themes that have nothing to do with boxing like getting older and feeling as if your dreams are about to slip through your fingers.

If you want to see a lot of strange CGI visuals and the you’re interested in the groundwork of the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you’ll likely walk out satisfied (if maybe a little confused about the specifics of Kang’s larger plan). If you want to see an Ant-Man movie like the previous two Ant-Man movies — with wry humor, simple stories, and inventive uses of Ant-Man’s shrinking powers — you’re as out of luck as Scott Lang after Kang drags him to the Quantum Realm.

Before that, though, Knock at the Cabin is about as well-acted and intense as a movie of this kind gets. For a long time, Shyalaman had a reputation as a guy obsessed with twists. While he does still occasionally veer into that sort of territory, his movies these days are less about structural gimmicks than insistent messages. In Knock at the Cabin’s case, it is a poignant tale about faith and sacrifice — and, above all, avoiding family vacations at all costs.

While most of 2022’s holiday toys are destined to be dumped in storage bins or even the garbage in a matter of weeks, I have feeling M3GAN is going to stick around a lot longer than that.

Chazelle seems so enamored with his simulacrum of this forgotten world that he loses sight of the people in it.

You can’t say The Way of Water doesn’t give you your money’s worth, especially in the visual department. This thing’s got enough eye candy to give you ocular diabetes.

In general, Glass Onion is a much sharper comedy than Knives Out, with snappier dialogue, flashy cameos, and quirkier characters.

Weird won’t make anyone forget Walk Hard, but it might make some folks go and break out their old Weird Al records for the first time in a while. I recommend Dare to Be Stupid.

I hope Spielberg makes 20 more movies. But if this is the last one he ever directed, it would be the perfect career capper: An origin story, a thesis statement, a love letter, and a cautionary tale. Like life, it is hilarious at times, and pitifully sad at others. From the first scene to the last, it had me leaning forward in my seat like Sammy Fabelman at The Greatest Show on Earth.

This movie has a lot on its mind — and perhaps too many characters.

There could still be some cinematic potential in Black Adam, perhaps in contrasting his grim demeanor with the eternally sunny Shazam in some kind of crossover sequel. But this Black Adam was already a long time coming. And it wasn’t really worth the wait.

Hocus Pocus 2 doesn’t necessarily demand Kubrickian levels of visual splendor, but it’s still a film, and film is a visual medium. If there was anything even remotely interesting to look at on the screen, that would be nice.