Movie Reviews: Last News

DC’s future Superman, David Corenswet.Without a doubt, these characters’ backstories and drives are vastly more compelling than those of 28 years ago. And the main trio’s opposing auras — Edgar-Jones’ damaged soul, Powell’s sensitive jock and Ramos’ heart of gold — marry beautifully. There’s greater moral complexity this time, too.

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, is best summed up by the next lyric of Frank Sinatra’s song.Let me play among the stars. Director Greg Berlanti’s romantic comedy, which imagines that Richard Nixon’s administration really did film a fake, backup moon landing in 1969, is a mystifying misfire all along the way from initial concept to end credits.Where his movie does achieve liftoff, however, is its charming pair of A-list leads, who are mostly immune to the deadly material.

2021’s “Coming 2 America,” the misguided sequel to “Coming To America,” it’s understandable that viewers approach Eddie Murphy’s new “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” with some trepidation.Unfortunately, they’re right to.Netflix has, once again, gotten its greedy hands on a cherished title, tossed in some celebs and lazily devalued it into an algorithmic afterthought.Everything uniquely special and hilarious about the 1984 fish-out-of-water hit is gone, replaced by commodity streaming mush that looks like every other ho-hum action-comedy right now.Another mediocre nostalgia grab.More and more I ask, though: How nostalgic is it, really, to see our favorite characters return worn out and weary in forgettable films? Who does that make feel good? Not me!Problem No. 1 is that Detroit police officer Axel Foley (Murphy) hasn’t changed enough since 1994’s dismal “Beverly Hills Cop III.”The only substantive difference is that he has an estranged adult daughter named Jane (Taylour Paige), a defense attorney in Beverly Hills, who gets into a dicey situation with a drug cartel.That’s why he leaves Michigan for the luxe California enclave, where director Mark Molloy stages overly wacky chase scenes (a helicopter flying in traffic) and beats tired gags to death.Axel desperately needed some new shtick.

a grizzly truffle forager and an underground criminal whose face is superimposed onto John Travolta.But Cage’s creepy, enigmatic Longlegs, with a squeaky voice and swollen face splotched by white paint, is on another messed-up level.Really, the entire addictive film, written and directed by Oz Perkins, is one of the best horror movies of the past several years. Neither shield-your-eyes torture porn nor a by-the-book slasher flick, “Longlegs” is powered by an ever-present sense of dread that never lets up, an engrossing story and fascinating characters.

Kevin Costner made a bold choice. He departed the most popular TV show in the country and decided to tell the sweeping story of American Western expansion in four interconnected films before anybody knew if the first one was any good. Well, by the end of “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,” which clocks in at more than three glacial hours, I could not fathom committing another 540 minutes of my time to this bloated ego trip.

Al Capone in 2020’s abysmal “Capone” — brings that same serpentine gargle to Johnny. He broods, snarls, spits out something unintelligible and repeats.“Come again?” we go.

Poor Things,” “The Favourite” and “The Lobster,” were, to varying degrees, eccentric, sexy and smart. The unbearably pretentious “Kinds of Kindness,” on the other hand, is a Euro-chic, albeit stylish, endurance test that will divide film buffs and outright appall mainstream audiences.

“I Am: Celine Dion.”The “My Heart Will Go On” singer, who suffers from a rare neurological disorder called stiff person syndrome that’s hindered her ability to sing and even walk, is at a physical therapy session in 2022 when she begins having a seizure. Facing downward on a massage table, the 56-year-old frighteningly convulses and writhes in pain until she can no longer move. Dion, curled up, moans in agony.A man then calmly tells her to squeeze his hand if she can hear him.“Do you want us to take out the cameras?” the physio asks the singer about the documentary crew.“I’m OK,” she mouths.Right then, Dion is clearly not OK.

Inside Out,” with a voice cast led by Amy Poehler, which returned it to the inventive glory days of “Toy Story” and “Ratatouille.” Almost a decade later, Pixar’s crisis is now existential. Its fortunes at the box office have plummeted, the movies often stink, it’s been forced to lay off staffers and is quickly losing its once-dictatorial grip on American childhoods.

opened with an estimated $56 million in theaters over the weekend, handing Hollywood a much-needed summer hit and Smith his biggest success since he slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.Expectations were all over the map for “Ride or Die” given the dismal moviegoing market thus far this summer and Smith’s less certain box-office clout. In the end, though, the Sony Pictures release came in very close to, or slightly above, its tracking forecast.“Ride or Die,” produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, is Smith’s first theatrical test since his 2022 slap of Rock earned him a 10-year Oscar ban.

the infamous Oscars smack, when Smith stormed the stage of the Dolby Theater and slapped presenter Chris Rock for making a jab about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith, it still stings for many ticket-buyers. Let alone Rock.The actor’s televised assault of the comic and unhinged shouts of “Get my wife’s name out of your f–king mouth!” shattered his public image as a charismatic and funny life of the party who could wring laughs even out of a devastating alien invasion.The hit was enough to get him banned from the Oscars until 2032. Frankly, he’s lucky that he wasn’t arrested.

the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival is back with a trove of diverse and innovative fare. There are character-driven indies with Hollywood stars, a documentary about one of the world’s greatest sports figures of all time and an entire mini-festival celebrating Tribeca co-founder Robert De Niro.

smacking comedian Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars in 2022.But, for the time being anyway, that bizarre incident is still fresh on viewers’ minds, and the “Independence Day” actor remains a very challenging guy to like — even in an easily digestible buddy-cop movie. His second go at a comeback after last year’s “Emancipation” would suggest a clichéd old phrase about third times.In the mediocre sequel to 2020’s surprisingly fun “Bad Boys for Life,” Smith is completely dead behind the eyes, with that glazed-over look of corporate burnout.

Megalopolis,” which began as a script he started 40 years ago. None of Hollywood’s studio bosses liked it then — and now it’s unclear when or if it will end up in American theaters.

@makethatmagic, “And that his daddy was so irresponsible, come to find out. Barracudas don’t eat clownfish eggs. Nor do they eat clownfish.”“But you know what animal does eat clownfish eggs? Clownfish!”The TikToker, driven by curiosity, embarked on a quest for truth.

her Dunkin’ Donuts ad in which alleged husband Ben Affleck became a rapper, to her campy musical film “This Is Me … Now: A Love Story” that co-starred Jane Fonda and Post Malone as zodiac signs.None of it has made a lick of sense.In a modern world that’s obsessed with staying on brand, J.Lo’s brand is more like Newman’s Own — she’s got salad dressing and pet food.Which brings me to “Atlas,” her Netflix science fiction meh-pic that’s a totally uninspired rip-off of “The Terminator” and “Battlestar Galactica.” What is she doing in it?Lopez plays a socially awkward scientist and chess master named Dr. Atlas Shepherd, who must chase down a robot terrorist hiding out on a distant planet where trees look like traffic cones.I know.

Mad Max: Fury Road.” How easy it is to forget. Repetitive, badly written, fake-looking superhero fare has gobbled up the market since, and escapist thrills have so often become synonymous with idiots in spandex.Not so in the beautiful and brutal “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”Miller’s latest Road Warrior adventure, a thunderous prequel to “Fury Road” sans Max that explains the origins of Charlize Theron’s badass Imperator, provides the same slap-in-the-face wake-up call as its predecessor.The explosive chase sequences, hurdling through the sandy Wasteland, are as fueled as much by boundless creativity as gasoline.

Running time: 104 minutes. Rated PG (thematic elements and mild language.) In theaters.John Krasinski has written, directed and stars in a new movie about imaginary friends.

Running time: 122 minutes. Rated R (drug use, language throughout, sexual content and nudity). In theaters May 17.A basic biopic about Amy Winehouse, the eccentric singer who recorded two albums and then died of alcohol poisoning at the devastatingly young age of 27, was never going to work.Obviously.Hers was a whirlwind, hard-lived life that ended abruptly in tragedy.

War for the Planet of the Apes,” continues this damn dirty science-fiction franchise’s reign as one of the best out there.Directed with visual splendor by Wes Ball, the meaty film’s combo of flawless zoological effects (unlike this year’s inferior primate picture “Godzilla x. Kong”), superbly crafted characters and a timeless story of emerging civilization and the fight for survival is remarkably riveting for what sets the groundwork of a whole new trilogy.This enduring series proves that, when handled properly, you just can’t beat talking monkeys.And yap, they do.

Anne Hathaway’s career in Hollywood began 23 years ago with a family movie about every teen girl’s ultimate fantasy — her geeky character discovered she was actually royalty.Now 41, the actress has delivered a second dose of impossible escapism with “The Idea of You,” an, ahem, steamier, R-rated flick clearly made for the older millennials who obsessed over “The Princess Diaries” back in the aughts.Her latest fizzy project instead realizes the dream of every bored woman in their thirties and forties: She plays an exhausted single mom who has a fling with a famous, 24-year-old British boybander. And why not? What fun.Anyway, I suspect that aspirational viewers of “The Idea of You,” a decadent diversion that’s based on the popular novel by Robinne Lee, would much rather jet set around Europe with Harry Styles than live in a moldy 300-year-old palace and cut ribbons.