The first half of “Ben Is Back” is stronger than the second half, but Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges hold the movie together throughout. Writer-director Peter Hedges’ film about a 19-year-old drug addict who comes home from rehab for 24 hours to visit his family for Christmas begins as a...
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Reviews
RogerEbert.com — The Possession of Hannah Grace
This horror movie is so dark — visually, I mean, and not just thematically — that it’s often difficult to tell what’s happening. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, given that there’s very little to this 85-minute, scare-free thriller, but it does make it tough to write about. This...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Green Book
I am shocked that not only did I not dislike “Green Book,” I found myself dazzled and even borderline choked up by the end. It’s pure formula, this story of a black man and a white man who learn they’re not so different after all while on a road trip...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
It’s not as fantastic as the original, and there aren’t nearly as many beasts. Still, this spin-off series from the “Harry Potter” universe keeps slogging along. The second of five planned movies has its moments of magic, but it also features way too many characters and subplots to even begin...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — The Front Runner
The typically charismatic Hugh Jackman is horribly miscast in “The Front Runner” as Gary Hart, the Colorado senator who was on his way to the Democratic nomination — and probably the presidency — before a sex scandal derailed his career in 1987. Jackman seems too old, too mad and too...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Disney’s “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” is an enormous, expensive lump of coal, as complicated and convoluted as its title. It’s so garish and misguided, it reminded me of “Cloud Atlas” at times. If you’re going to see it, just go for the costumes and the brief, beautiful snippets...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Suspiria
Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” is a gloriously gonzo take on Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic — not a remake, exactly, but more of a serious (and seriously insane) expansion. The mood is deeply creepy from the get-go and Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton are exquisite. It doesn’t always work in its...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Beautiful Boy
Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet share several emotional moments as father and son in this real-life addiction drama. But “Beautiful Boy” might be too beautiful itself, depicting its horrors in a gauzy way with a distracting, time-hopping narrative. And the soundtrack of on-the-nose tunes is often cringe-inducing as it comments...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Venom
“Venom” isn’t quite the unmitigated disaster you’ve heard it is, but it’s also not the optimal use of its prodigious talent. Tom Hardy gives it his all, as always, in the title role as the Marvel Comics villain. (Although here, in his origin story, he’s more of an amusingly menacing...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Smallfoot
The animated “Smallfoot” is full of big ideas: Question authority. Question religion. Think for yourself. Don’t accept the status quo. If only its visuals and dialogue were so ambitious. Channing Tatum, Common, James Corden and Zendaya are among the starry voice cast in this musical comedy in which yetis and...
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