A vivid presence despite her dry-as-dust tone, Threapleton makes a splendid Andersonian debut here as half the father-daughter duo, along with Benicio Del Toro, that drives the director’s latest creation. Their emerging relationship is what stands out amid the familiar Andersonian details: the picture-book aesthetic.

Despite the change of scenery, Scream VI is less a sequel and more a stutter-step, a half-movie with some very satisfying stabbings but no real progress or even movement. It’s like treading water in gore. And to fully enjoy this “sequel to the requel,” you need to have watched most of the others.

Directed by Anne Fletcher, Hocus Pocus 2 goes down easy — though by the time the entire town breaks out into a dance to “One Way or Another,” you may be ready for the film to get where it’s going. Still, it’s a fun enough ride for a fall night.

An almost sturdy, often gripping genre exercise that ultimately doesn’t find enough fresh material in the serial killer procedural to warrant its blast from a stylish and shlocky past.

For a movie about a detail obsessive, it’s curiously messy. But — and this might matter more — the film has a reasonably firm sense of just how serious and how knowingly silly a movie about an uber-talented accountant ought to be.

For a movie that was in so many ways about a country mouse (bunny) coming to the big city and finding endless varieties of wildlife, both upright and shady, the “Zootopia” sequel spends too much of its time away from its mammalian metropolis. Even Nick Wilde — no longer scheming, more in touch with his feelings — doesn’t feel quite so wild now. The fun caper spirit of the first movie is alive enough to carry Bush and Howard’s film, but you can’t help feel like sequel-ization also means domestication.

Whether Moore’s frenetic but absorbing work here — the cinematic equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, where you throw everything and some of it sticks — pleases or frustrates you, one thing is clear. Moore’s at his best when hitting a subject dear to his heart.

In broad strokes, Westmoreland’s film succeeds as an inspirational period tale so much for today about a woman seizing her independence.

The tonal extremes and multilayered theatricality of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s movie-mad movie are, by any measure, a lot. But I would argue such ambitious gambits are exactly the kind that a filmmaker in their sophomore outing ought to be taking. “The Bride!” feels constantly like an act of plate-spinning that’s about to collapse. That it doesn’t is a fever-dream feat, one that makes me eager to see what Gyllenhaal does next.

I spent over two hours with Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers and I still have no idea what her personality is. Sure, there’s a lot more going on in Captain Marvel, but it’s a pretty egregious failing considering that the creative bigwigs at Marvel had 10 years and 20 films to work it out.

The sequel, again directed by David F. Sandberg, feels less breezily funny, less fresh, less fleet of foot.

Compelling performances make Palmer watchable and fairly affecting despite the fact that we’ve seen this kind of thing so many times before.

The Banker is a pleasant watch.

Director Simon Wincer, who made the first Free Willy, knows a thing or two about gigantic mammals that fly through the air, and he does a nice job here. If only his editing team had been more ruthless in trimming from the film's second half. [27 Jul 1995]

It’s an admirably fun and light movie about more serious issues of representation and equality.

Breaking, Abi Damaris Corbin’s lean and heartfelt first feature, is a lackluster bank-robbery thriller with noble intentions enlivened by an impassioned performance by John Boyega and an elegiac final appearance by the late Michael K. Williams.

Rocketman is happiest with its feet far off the ground in a dreamy pop splendor, with headlights all along the highway.

More than anything, Gilford’s film ought to be lauded for the way it continues telling a story about a subculture that few know exist.

Both Lane and Costner, direct and earthy performers from the start, have only added depth with age. As long-married Montana ranchers in Let Him Go (in theaters Friday), they’re basically the platonic ideal of an old-fashioned, homespun Americana. They could sell you a mountain of jeans if they wanted to.

This is more than just a snack-version “Rocky” story, with the filmmakers exploring the insecurity of factory shift workers, the stress of integrating into white culture, how hard it is for corporations to innovate and the ability to silence the voices in your head that urge you to quit.

Nonnas, like comfort food, may be a little obvious, a little safe, but that’s the point.

It’s a promising debut from Tøndel, nonetheless — a film that will keep you engaged if not entirely satisfied.

Monroe, steely and strong, cuts like a knife through this almost cartoonishly severe film. Nasty stuff? Yep.

Six Minutes to Midnight is entertaining enough if a little underwhelming.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the film is how prophetic it is. Although it doesn’t offer any reflection on the current moment, it also won’t come as a surprise how we got here.

Guadagnino gives us a lesson in the history of Hollywood itself, not to mention the birth of the “movie star” and the role fashion has played in that. (It’s great fun.)

The abundance of special effects, no matter how clever, overbalances the charming premise of Young Sherlock Holmes. [9 Dec 1985]

By bringing the migrant crisis into a horror-film realm, His House has forcefully captured the traumas of the refugee experience. The grounded performances and pained faces of Dìrísù and Mosaku offer no easy answers.