A.A. Dowd

A new Wes Anderson movie is always an event, but the writer-director’s latest whirligig comedy, The Phoenician Scheme, might be his slightest in a couple decades.

The movie leaps to life whenever the bullets start flying. It's the generic gangland stuff in between that's not up to snuff, even with Hardy lending his trusty gruffness to the haunted-cop boilerplate.

AI-loving Marvel hitmakers Joe and Anthony Russo join forces again with Netflix to deliver a $300-million sci-fi epic you can safely half-watch while doing the dishes or making dinner.

Director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro) offers some reliably, well, clean hand-to-hand combat without showing us anything we haven’t seen before. Only a mid-film twist and the oddly sympathetic motives of the bad guys distinguish Cleaner from a thousand other movies with basically the same sturdy premise.

Even when The Gorge disappears into generic run-and-shoot action, it benefits from the colorful confidence of Derrickson’s staging and a ’50s-inflected sci-fi score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. At its worst, this solid genre exercise still looks worthy of the theatrical release Apple didn’t grant it.

But as a comedy, Love Hurts is pretty stale; when not trotting out dopey crime-flick caricatures, it’s simply leaning on the supposed hilarity of a sunny house hunter with a secret talent for breaking bones. You’ve seen many versions of this premise, and better ones, too.

From the sincerity of the lead performances to the cartoonish gore offered by Werewolves Within director Josh Rubenn. There are much worse ways to spend Valentine’s Day than a genre cocktail for saps and gorehounds alike.

Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon can’t quite salvage You're Cordially Invited, a comedy that's as overcrowded as the dueling nuptials it depicts.

Better jokes, better imagery, and two (!) inspired comic performances by Jim Carrey give this Sonic sequel an edge on its predecessors.

A good cast and Collet-Serra’s energetic staging elevate the kind of straight-down-the-middle entertainment Hollywood has mostly, sadly stopped bankrolling. It’s not quite Die Hard, but close enough.