Alonso Duralde

In the sterling tradition of its predecessors, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is never afraid to pursue emotion, even as it skillfully crafts breathtaking action sequences.

Peak Nolan involves a mix of popcorn delights and intellectual contemplation, and he has rarely brought those two notions together as skillfully as he as in The Odyssey. It’s an epic saga of an epic saga, worthy of its source.

This version, for whatever it’s worth, at least ranks among the best of this crop — even if, like me, you wish Disney would stop harvesting it.

Returning director Pierre Coffin bombards viewers with the slapstick and gibberish you expect in a Minions movie, but the references to cinema history — and the love letter to both moviemaking and moviegoing — give this kiddie sequel a wonderful jolt of smarts and sentiment.

It’s a story about a somewhat callow young man learning to put responsibility and ethics over ambition, and if that sounds dry, well, it is.

Alcock deserves a do-over, but given the current state of the superhero cinematic economy, she’ll probably have to settle for scene-stealing appearances in the next wave of Superman movies.

In 2026, it’s hard out here for a toy — whether you’re an action figure or a dinosaur or a horse or even a plastic fork — what with all the screens sucking all the attention out of kids. And it’s that real-world dilemma that Toy Story 5 tackles with both wit and wisdom.

Spielberg’s West Side Story demonstrated that the old master still has exciting work in him when he chooses to tackle a genre that’s new to him. But like Ready Player One and The Fabelmans before it, Disclosure Day reveals an artist spinning his wheels when he digs back into his own past triumphs.

While the film delivers a fair share of laughs, its barrage of references to recent hit movies calls to mind Pauline Kael’s dismissal of Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety: “This is a child’s idea of satire — imitations, with a funny hat and a leer.”

With connective tissue linking it to both Skinamarink and Synecdoche, New York, Backrooms is a chillingly ambitious debut that finds the terror in enclosed spaces and echoing silences. It’s a screen nightmare that could easily work its way into viewers’ real ones.