While it’s a nice way to spend just short of two hours, it seems he could have sucked a little more out of those dusty old graves.

You end up questioning less why Smith and Lawrence are still making “Bad Boys” movies than wondering why such breezily watchable genre movie-star platforms more or less don’t exist any longer.

It is a slick, well-made film, graced by the stirring performance of Paul Newman, but it offers little that is new about that crucial chapter in the world's history. [30 Oct 1989]

It’s no train wreck. Leitch’s film is colorful, cartoonish and well-choreographed. But the more-is-more manic energy of “Bullet Train” eventually peters out, since that’s all the movie was ever running on. Well, that and Pitt. His charm alone does wonders for the movie, raising it at least to the level of watchable.

Whether The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is enough to relight those embers remains to be seen, but it is a reminder how good a platform they offered young actors. It’s a ritual worth returning to.

It’s still a satisfying and fun tribute to someone whose impacts on modern food culture and celebrity are still being felt. Just don’t go in hungry.

A Good Person seems to belong to a uniquely Dan Fogelman-esque subgenre of hyper sincere melodrama that sometimes clicks (“This Is Us”) and other times does not (“Life Itself”). Braff’s film is worlds better than “Life Itself,” but there are some similarities in how it strives for cosmic significance and ultimate tearjerking within a construct that the film tries to sell as authentically specific. In execution, it’s a bit more strained and contrived.

Don’t Worry Darling is ultimately neither worthy of all the off-screen fuss nor quite the on-screen disappointment it’s been made out to be.

In the frustrating The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Day gives it her all as Holiday but she can’t save a film that is overstuffed and also thin. Director Lee Daniels and screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks offer an unfocused, meandering work for much of the time, interrupted by devastating scenes that feel like a punch to the gut.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is clearly not aimed solely at kids, but rather is banking on the fact that adults, too, will be drawn to the striking visuals and mature themes at play.

A clever concept, not a profound film. Terrifically acted and finely crafted though it is, it’s a brilliant but hollow exercise in perspective that calls more attention to its artful orchestration than it does life or loss.

Zhao, whose film Nomadland was everything this is not — spare, naturalistic, moody — struggles with so much going on. The fight scenes are repetitive and the dialogue often stilted.

For all these characters, something about being subjugated by someone else provides a perverse sense of comfort.

Towards the end, Holland's movie gets a little confused: the scary elements give way to too many gory effects. Still, Fright Night is a pleasant diversion. [19 Aug 1985]

Once the film — based on the nonfiction book by Damien Lewis — settles into a seedy, sunny West African setting and the nighttime heist finale, “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” proves a spirited, if grossly exaggerated diversion.

Spencer may be a let down as a story about Diana, but as an exaggerated portrait of Stewart, it’s magnetic.

The film, for all its prestige and edginess, its lofty goals and contemporary messages, is not a particularly engrossing experience.

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination founder Chris Meledandri, as producers, seem committed to keeping things light and playful even while beholden to advancing some kind of coherent, moderately compelling story where there wasn’t one previously.

Goth is compelling again as Maxine, especially in a killer audition scene, but her character feels underwritten.

“Solo” is a straightforward piece of pulpy entertainment with some very agreeable performances from Ehrenreich and Glover, who seems to be having the most fun of all the actors in playing up Lando’s suave demeanor, and fun classic Western flourishes, despite the excessively big action sequences.

The film, earthy and sober, refuses to be carried aloft by sentiment, instead navigating a difficult and painful path toward self-preservation and renewal.

It’s counting on your amnesia to the past, on screen and off, and it will readily supply you with two hours of mindless escape. It does the job better than most, thanks largely to its hulking hero.

Kudos to Hancock for making the film crackle along wittily, drawing in even those of us prone to shudder at movies with a fast-rising body count.

Not surprisingly, Carmichael proves a director who is nothing if not confident and comfortable with the UNcomfortable. He keeps the action moving — at a few moments, the film even feels like an action pic.

You can also excuse a lot in a film that was clearly made with its heart in the right place and a deep love for all its characters, even in their messiest, most unsympathetic moments.

Its plot turns can be rash or implausible, and the movie increasingly feels like ideas and set pieces strung tenuously together.

The Crimes of Grindelwald is often dazzling, occasionally wondrous and always atmospheric. But is also a bit of a mess. Even magic bags can be overweight.

The film succeeds in doing what it aimed for: Presenting a humane portrait of a guy who will be serving most of his life behind bars, in crowd-pleasing packaging. But what, ultimately, is the point of using the charming parts and ignoring the unsavory ones? For a filmmaker who has never shied away from the rough edges of reality, “Roofman” feels a bit dishonest.