I really like Brie Larson, and I really wanted to like “Captain Marvel.” The first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a woman at its center and a woman serving as one of its directors in Anna Boden should have been a game-changer along the lines of “Black Panther.” Instead,...
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Reviews
RogerEbert.com — Run the Race
“Run the Race” is a surprisingly well-made, subtly-acted faith-based film, which is a rarity. The story of a swaggering high school football player (Tanner Stine) and his younger brother (Evan Hofer) trying to help each other out of poverty and despair through sports and faith plays like a Christian “Friday...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Isn’t It Romantic
“Isn’t It Romantic” has a good time toying with all the tried-and-true rom-com tropes — the familiar, feel-good formula that inevitably leads to a happy ending. But it tries to have its red velvet cupcake and eat it, too, in simultaneously ridiculing and embracing the well-worn genre. Rebel Wilson is...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
It falls just short of awesome, but “The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part” is still pretty good. Crammed with colorful characters and self-aware pop culture reference, it’s high-energy and a ton of fun. Nothing could compare to the original “LEGO Movie,” though, which I gave four stars and placed...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Serenity
“Serenity” is laughably terrible but it’s also insanely ambitious in a way that must be experienced. This pulpy neo-noir starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway is one you’re definitely going to want to see with friends, just to hash through the Big Plot Twist that redefines everything. (Actually, there are...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — The Last Man
Hoo boy, is it ever January with movies like “The Last Man” coming out. Hayden Christensen broods beneath a bushy lumberjack beard as a combat veteran building a bunker to survive a prophesied apocalypse. But all is chaos, smothered in relentlessly bleak shades of gray, so it feels like the...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — The Upside
My first review of 2019, and it’s a super January-ish January release. Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston co-star in an English-language remake of “The Intouchables,” a mismatched buddy comedy that was a huge hit in France when it came out in 2011. “The Upside” recreates several key images and moments...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — The Mule
All the pieces would seem to be on place here for a gripping and grown-up drama, including an incredible cast led by director Clint Eastwood. So why does the result feel so empty and unsatisfying? “The Mule” has some serious problems in terms of its depiction of Hispanics and women....
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
I can’t get over what a complete blast of creative joy the animated “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is, and I can’t wait to see it again to catch all the details and jokes I missed the first time around. There’s so much going on in a gorgeously trippy, dreamlike way,...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Ben Is Back
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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