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Tuesday, September 16, 2025

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Movie Reviews

Movie Reviews

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Both the upstairs and downstairs inhabitants of the titular stately home get a splendid send-off in "Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale" (Focus). A couple of subplots interwoven into this third big-screen iteration of the franchise, however, suggest the abundant elegance it offers is best reserved for grown-ups.
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‘Christianity is about being present in suffering,’ director of new film about St. Maximilian Kolbe says

Rather than beginning with St. Maximilian Kolbe's early life or missionary work, new film "Triumph of the Heart" opens at the moment many accounts conclude: his entry into the starvation cell.
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Freakier Friday — PG (A-ll)

Back when President Nixon was riding high, author Mary Rodgers considered what might happen if a rebellious teen girl suddenly switched bodies with her underappreciated mother. The result was the 1972 children's novel "Freaky Friday," which went on to serve as the basis for two theatrical films and a pair of made-for-TV movies.
Movie Reviews

The Naked Gun — PG-13 (L)

For most of its running time, the intermittently amusing comedy "The Naked Gun" (Paramount), a sendup of the hardboiled cop genre, qualifies as a fun spoof that's appropriate for most grown-ups. Yet its one sequence of utterly tasteless sexual sight gags will leave discerning viewers anything but entertained.
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The Bad Guys 2 — PG (A-ll)

Back in 2022, director Pierre Perifel brought the skillfully criminal, yet ultimately goodhearted, gang of anthropomorphized animals featured in "The Bad Guys," a series of children's books by Aaron Blabey, to the big screen with thoroughly pleasing results.
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The Fantastic Four: First Steps — PG-13/A-II

Set in an alternate version of the mid-1960s, director Matt Shakman's Marvel Comics adaptation "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" (Disney) can fairly be called the TWA Hotel of superhero movies.
Movie Reviews

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight — R (A-III)

"Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" (Sony Pictures Classics) is writer-director Embeth Davidtz's adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's 2001 memoir of her childhood in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). The respectful and evocative drama recounts its protagonist's slowly dawning recognition of racial inequality in her homeland.
Movie Reviews

Smurfs — PG (A-l)

With "Smurfs" (Paramount), a blend of animation and live action, director Chris Miller has given the titular blue elves, Belgian cartoonist Peyo's trademark creatures, a big-screen reboot. Although his would-be fresh start promotes positive values and is mostly free of problematic material, it's also numbingly uninteresting.
Movie Reviews

I Know What You Did Last Summer — R (O)

While not as bloodsoaked as some slasher flicks, "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (Columbia) has a sadistic streak. As a disguised, metal hook-wielding murderer preys on a quintet of young adult pals, viewers are invited to relish long scenes of the victims' torturous suffering.
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Superman — PG-13/A-III

In the spring of 1938, when the figure of Superman made his first appearance in the pages of DC's "Action Comics #1," President Franklin Roosevelt's efforts to combat the Great Depression via the New Deal were at their height. There had as yet been only one world war and Lou Gehrig was still playing for the New York Yankees.
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Jurassic World Rebirth — PG-13 (A-llI)

Given the blockbuster success of the franchise built on this somewhat outlandish premise, however, the characters who populate it are unlikely to learn their lesson and quit messing with the big beasts anytime soon. Certainly not this summer at any rate, because here comes "Jurassic World Rebirth" (Universal).
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F1 the Movie — PG-13 (A-ll)

'Tis the season for popcorn pictures and the slick but shallow sports drama "F1 the Movie" (Warner Bros.) fits the bill. While acceptable for grown-ups, however, this fictional glimpse into the world of Formula One is not apt fare for impressionable youngsters.
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