The good news is twofold. Ms. Foy, an accomplished performer, is appealing throughout. And Keira Knightley, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, gives the film several desperately needed jolts of edgy energy.

The title isn’t “Broken,” so there’s not much doubt of the outcome. But it’s certainly regrettable, because this long and increasingly sluggish film version of the Laura Hillenbrand book celebrates an American life of singular heroism.

The Clearing has been directed by a successful producer. In this case it's Pieter Jan Brugge, who brings seriousness and intelligence to his newly chosen craft, but little verve.

Mr. Gilroy’s new film doesn’t try for lean. When its lawyer hero isn’t citing legal precedent, he uses spectacularly florid language that reflects his unusual mental state. But there’s a disconnect between what we see and hear and what we’re meant to feel.

Director Anne Fletcher (“The Proposal,” “Step Up”) aims for the tear ducts, directing for maximum anguish, righteousness and/or schmaltz, and much of the Dumplin’ message arrives with postage due.

Fresh Kills could have been a psychologically penetrating character study but settles for merely reiterating that it’s unpleasant to be a gangster’s daughter.

The deeper problem with Rock Star is its insistence on turning a heavy-metal fairy tale into a morality tale that's as heavy as lead.

Ali nails its subject's anger and courage, but not his lilt; his swaggering boasts but not his sly self-irony; his power but not his grace; and his inner turmoil but not the outward joyousness that has made us come to love him.

What’s mysterious about this film is why, with so much on its mind and such gifted stars to express it, the drama should be so unaffecting — even when the two women finally meet, as they neglected to do in the less shapely drama of real life.

It’s largely a two-character drama with two capable actors, though neither Mr. Teague nor Ms. Richardson (who is usually quite good) are given much with which to win our sympathy.

Thanks to a few sweet father-daughter moments and a relatively direct plot, this entry is a notch better than some even-more-febrile recent efforts such as “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Thor: Love and Thunder.” But overall it’s another lackluster blockbuster.

Nothing about the emotionally unmoored Inglourious Basterds adds up. Whether it's parody, farce or a fever dream is anyone's guess.

It has a classical moral that would have made Aesop salute: Greed is not only corrupting, it can be self-defeating. Moreover, suspense lies both in wanting to know whether Miller’s quest will succeed and in what lessons might be learned. Though Miller’s actions drive the story, it is mainly an education for Will, the observer.

Before long, though, things take a turn from simplicity to sententiousness, then to surreal silliness, and finally to a mano-à-mano contest, on a parched desert floor, over which man gets the best close-ups.

Affecting, even touching, provided you can put up with its sclerotic pace.

The film, for all its visual felicities, comes to life only sporadically.

Almost every sequence contains references to other films. Spotting them is a pleasant distraction from figuring out the plot, an absurdly rococo structure that rivals the most flagrant befuddlements of “Inception” or, for that matter, the latter stretches of “Westworld.”

A 3-D fantasy that's lovely to look at but less than delightful to know.

Storytelling problems surface toward the overwrought climax, but the worst problem is the unrelenting grimness. It's hard to like a movie that leaves you with no hope.

The gentle, ambling Ang Lee comedy that's a few tokes short of groovy.

Under the Same Moon comes most vividly to life when Adrian Alonso is on the screen.

It’s an unwieldy subject Ms. Tragos has taken on, and the results are somewhat scattershot.

The movie lacks a resonant center. The script seems to have been written by committee, with members lobbying for each major character, and the action, set in vast environments all over the map, spreads itself so thin that a surfeit of motion vitiates emotion.

The film has so much visual imagination that it tends to squander it.

Ms. Piani is too scattershot a storyteller for the eventual, inevitable romance to feel earned.

Asteroid City may be infused with the powers of the Atomic Age, but no Anderson movie except “The Darjeeling Limited” runs so low on energy.

It is not a good sign when a film keeps evoking superior examples of its genre. And a worse sign still when the genre itself seems more remote from current concerns than it deserves to be. Such is the case with The Courier.

Mr. McCanlies's style lurches between the lyrical, the fantastical (flashbacks to the uncles' youth) and the clumsily antic, and Mr. Osment's performance is woefully stiff and inexpressive.