Slate

It’s the chemistry between Banderas and Sessa that makes this gentle, low-stakes story—a summer movie in which, for a refreshing change, no one is murdered or menaced by a supernatural threat—simmer along like a cauldron of chowder.

The result is a 27-century-old legend that plays like a thrilling Saturday-afternoon matinee—swordfights, sea monsters, sexy mermaids, cosmic vengeance—when it isn’t reducing the viewer to tears with a brief dialogue exchange conducted in a whisper.

Anyone expecting a fast-paced corker full of secret codes, hidden compartments, and chases down rain-slicked cobblestone streets, however, will be disappointed.

Supergirl’s strongest asset—indeed, its only consistently strong element—is the spiky charisma that Alcock brings to the role of the outwardly combative, inwardly fragile Kara.

Above all, watching the tightly plotted, satisfyingly joke-dense, and startlingly thoughtful Toy Story 5, I felt grateful for a franchise sequel that doesn’t settle for relying on the affection built up for its characters over the past 31 years.

At this point in his career, noting Spielberg’s mastery of craft is like saying that Michelangelo wielded a mean chisel. But Disclosure Day is one of those movies, like Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another last year, for which noting the cinematic prowess at work constitutes a part of the pleasure.

If The Mandalorian and Grogu isn’t the worst Star Wars movie—and it might be—it’s certainly the least: the least essential, the least engaging, the least necessary.

The movie, directed by Kyle Balda and adapted by Craig Mazin from Leonie Swann’s novel Three Bags Full, is endlessly charming and pleasingly clever, as well as surprisingly moving in spots. And, oh yes, it’s about death.

Ultimately, if you are a big enough fan of the first Devil Wears Prada to have ever texted a friend (or in my case a daughter) that viral video of Bowen Yang flawlessly lip-synching the “cerulean” speech, this sparkly sequel provides a satisfying balance between nostalgic callbacks and intelligent updates to suit a more contemporary, if sadder, media landscape.

The painfully literal ending struck me as a somewhat risible disappointment, and though I admired the movie’s imagination and ambition, I can’t say I ever entered wholeheartedly into its story.