Movie & Television Reviews

Though it’s the third film in a franchise that kicked off in 2018, “A Quiet Place: Day One” (Paramount) serves, as its subtitle suggests, as a prequel to its predecessors. Accordingly, it recounts the opening stages of the series’ trademark showdown between resourceful humans and marauding aliens.

If the devil comes a-calling, you may need an electrician, because Moloch and his ilk have the power to make lights turn on and off at their bidding. Such is one of the primary takeaways from the often-silly horror flick “The Exorcism” (Vertical).

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

A fact-based fish-out-of-water tale, director and co-writer Richard Linklater’s black comedy “Hit Man” (Netflix) starts off intriguingly. After some needlessly graphic forays into eroticism, however, the film’s third-act departure from the real biography of its protagonist sends a morally skewed message.

It’s a notable phenomenon in contemporary Hollywood that some movies aimed primarily at children, especially those produced by Pixar, prove both more substantive and emotionally resonant than many films competing for a grown audience. Such is the case with the animated psychological comedy “Inside Out 2” (Disney).

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

The outstanding characteristic of the “Bad Boys” buddy cop movies has always been the sheer delight with which they depict violence. So when, after a two-film rampage over the turn of the millennium, the franchise fell quiescent for almost as long as Rip Van Winkle snoozed, it was a case of letting a sleeping cinematic dog lie.

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.