Soren Andersen

Although the sense of being inside a video game is strong, one critical element is lacking: interactivity. Players are always working their controllers to send characters on their complicated journeys. They’re participants. A movie, by its very nature, turns everyone into spectators. We watch, but have no control over what we see. And what we see in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is nothing more than empty-calorie visuals.

It’s a world of fantasy, but as depicted in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, it has a solidity and imaginative depth that makes it seem astonishingly real.

Directed once again by Chad Stahelski, the one-time stunt man who has become a first-rate visual stylist and master of pacing over the years of directing “Wicks,” “Chapter 4” is dazzling.

With scenes of epic destruction uncorked with numbing frequency, the picture drags. It’s two hours and 10 minutes long and you feel every last second.

The fat suit is in a sense a distraction in that you wonder how Fraser was able to act within it. But the fact that he does so and so effectively makes The Whale a searing, moving experience.

As a creature feature, Cocaine Bear isn’t bad. Not great, mind you. But not bad.

“I’m tired.” — Overheard from a member of the audience at the end of the seemingly endless closing credit crawl at the critic’s screening for “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.” - I hear you, lady. Believe me, I hear you.

There’s nothing special about any of this, but as a generic thrill machine, Plane certainly delivers the goods.

So yes: Wow! Gasp! There are some really pretty pictures here. But wow! Gasp! The story is really pretty … stupid.

The picture is a hugely entertaining crowd-pleaser studded with laugh-out-loud moments from beginning to end.

The uneasy marriage of clunky psychodrama and overwrought special effects along with the fact that none of these characters are particularly likable make Strange World a chore to sit through.

“Oppy” is a salute to the best of what humans are capable when they unite in a common purpose to expand their knowledge of matters beyond the realm of the known.

Henry’s performance is delicately nuanced. His character is by turns cheerful, ruminative, anguished. His performance and Lawrence’s are complementary. They play off each other well.

Under Chukwu’s steady, sensitive direction, Deadwyler’s performance is such that it overshadows everyone else in the movie.

Once it gets going, Black Adam feels like a continuous closed loop of destruction where the moments of mayhem blend darn near seamlessly one into the other. And those special effects look incredibly cheesy.

The whole picture is an exercise in obvious effort, try, try, trying really hard to win the audience’s affection. However it only succeeds in trying the audience’s patience. It’s a trial.

There’s nothing original in the movie. Indeed, the off-screen controversy that’s been consuming social media lately over the casting of pop superstar Styles and whether Pugh and Wilde are at odds overshadows the movie itself.

See How They Run is the Saoirse Ronan show. Start to finish. Top to bottom, Now and forever. Amen.

Despite its flaws, Flight/Risk is a comprehensive and stinging critique of a once-proud company that has lost its way and is struggling to make a comeback. And it’s a tribute to the people who died and the families who mourn them.

Hall’s performance is remarkable, full of shadings and intimations of significant emotional depths.

Originality was on vacation when this picture was made.

Elba, always a powerful presence in whatever role he takes on, does the best he can in Beast, but the threadbare nature of the plotting and dialogue ultimately defeats him.

Leitch’s emphasis on excessive and nearly nonstop stunt-filled action is hardly surprising. His lack of directorial discipline, however, is. The guy apparently couldn’t help himself, piling on the action beats until they become numbing. By the end, you’re more than ready to get off this Bullet Train, feeling drained and disheartened.

It’s a detective story. It’s an insightful commentary on the state of us, which is to say us, the U.S., in this divided, disjointed, distracted age. It’s a comedy, sharp and frequently hilarious. It is, above all, consistently surprising.

It’s fun, but it’s not prime Peele by any means.

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris is all sweetness and light. So sweet it nearly dissolves one’s fillings, especially at the end. So light it practically floats off the screen. It’s a gossamer fairy tale. Pleasant. Charming. A trifle, though not without some substance.

Kids will love all the silliness, but oddly the greatest resonance of the Wayback Machine plot will be felt by the kids’ grandparents (if any find themselves in attendance) who were around in those bygone days.

The characters are well-defined and Rockwell holds the picture together as he conveys Mr. Wolf’s shifting emotional states: suave, vexed and morally conflicted. Kids will love The Bad Guys and there’s plenty of substance for adults as well.