The following are capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television during the week of May 24, as well as notes on TV programming for the same week. Televised films may or may not be edited for language, nudity, violence and sexual situations while the […]

NEW YORK (OSV News) – Based on a video game series so notoriously violent that it helped inspire the establishment of the Entertainment Software Rating Board regulatory body, “Mortal Kombat II” (Warner Bros.) lives down to its blood-soaked heritage. Ostensibly concerned with the martial arts, the film ultimately revels instead in horrific mortality. Lost amid […]

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television during the week of May 17, as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

NEW YORK (OSV News) – “The Devil Wears Prada 2” (20th Century), director David Frankel’s second send-up of the fashion world, reunites one of the more memorable casts of recent decades. The predictable result is a glamorous good time for moviegoers. Occasional salty dialogue and an incidental yet potentially misleading theological notion, however, suggest this […]

Like the creatures for which it’s named, director Kyle Balda’s comic mystery “The Sheep Detectives” (Amazon MGM) might be expected to be innocuous at worst and rather cuddly at best. Yet, as scripted by Craig Mazin, this adaptation of Leonie Swann’s 2005 novel “Three Bags Full” includes material at odds with revealed truth.

The professional legacy of famed entertainer Michael Jackson continues to glitter as brightly as the rhinestone-covered glove he was fond of sporting on stage. Yet the details of his controversial personal life remain as murkily mysterious as they were at the moment of his untimely death at age 50 in 2009.

Along with vampires, werewolves and zombies, undead ancient Egyptians have long been a staple of the horror genre. While “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” (Warner Bros.) presents viewers with a reasonably interesting variant on this motif, the titular writer-director seems more interested in grossing moviegoers out than intriguing them.

Many potential brides and grooms-to-be have experienced cold feet in the lead-up to their nuptials. But few can have had their trotters quite so thoroughly chilled as the previously devoted fiance at the center of writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s provocative psychological study “The Drama” (A24).

Beginning in 2013, a fact-based British drama series about a gang that wielded power in the Midlands city of Birmingham in the late 19th and early 20th centuries proved immensely popular with TV audiences. Having made a name for itself on the BBC, the show went on to become a hit on Netflix as well.

For the price of a movie ticket, viewers can enjoy a brief sojourn in the Italian countryside thanks to director Kat Coiro’s romantic comedy “You, Me & Tuscany” (Universal).