The Amateur **
It’s a deeply individual thing to conclude that a movie’s plot machinations are utter nonsense, but by the end, I simply couldn’t help throwing my hands in the air at the sheer “no gotdam way” of it all. This adaptation of a Robert Littell novel starts with a pretty great spin for an espionage concept: When CIA computer expert Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) learns that his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) was murdered in a terrorist incident overseas, the veteran desk jockey decides to train with a badass field agent (Laurence Fishburne) to see if he can nerd his way to vengeance. It takes a while for Malek’s particular brand of twitchy anti-energy to settle into the character, and similarly for director James Hawes to find a balance between action beats and the idea that this mostly a moral drama about making the choice to become a killer. There’s not nearly enough framework, though, for the relationship between Charlie and Sarah that will drive the entire narrative—and even that deficit pales in comparison to the ridiculous coincidence that sets Charlie on the trail of these particular bad guys. It shouldn’t be the case, when you’re watching a movie that wants the character arc to matter, that you end up desperately hoping for a conspiracy thriller that never happens. Available April 11 in theaters. (PG-13)

The Ballad of Wallis Island ***1/2
You can feel nearly every beat of this quirky British comedy coming from a mile away, but it’s still one of those charming crowd-pleasers that squeezes every drop of potential out of its premise and its cast. Adapting their 2007 short film, director James Griffiths and co-writers Tom Basden & Tim Key set up a terrific idea: Eccentric millionaire Charles Heath (Key) hires fading folk-music star Herb McGwyer (Basden) for a private concert on the remote island where he lives, unaware that it’s also going to be a reunion with his one-time professional (and personal) partner Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan). The bulk of the humor is built on the awkward interactions between Charles and Herb—and between Charles and literally everybody else, as it turns out, as though he needs to use every syllable he’s had bottled up with nobody else around, usually to make absurdly strained attempts at wordplay. It’s a delightful performance, one that Basden generously allows to take center stage as McGwyer’s own post-“McGwyer Mortimer” artistic floundering doesn’t hit quite as hard, despite a solid connection with Mulligan. Yes, it’s another gentle tale about making peace with the past and finding a way to move on; it also happens to be one that finds a wildly entertaining intersection between Plains, Trains & Automobiles and Inside Llewyn Davis. Available April 11 in theaters. (PG-13)

Drop ***
Here’s how I know Drop was working on the level of its simple genre pleasures: It includes several of the most egregious narrative cheats I’ve ever seen, and I didn’t really care. It has the advantage of a great premise, as domestic-abuse-survivor single mom Violet (Meghann Fahy) takes a chance on a first date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar), a guy she met online, only to find their dinner interrupted by air-dropped messages telling her that she has to kill Henry to save her own son’s life. Director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day) makes great use of the restaurant setting—Violet’s sense of being trapped heightened by architecture that resembles the inside of Monstro the whale—plus some snappy visual tricks to accentuate moments of despair and a screenplay that . He also gets a terrific central performance from Fahy, who navigates a tricky space between Violet’s history of trauma and the inner strength she’s still working on. It’s all clicking along nicely, assisted by a wonderfully outsize supporting turn by Jeffery Self as an over-eager waiter—and then there’s some stuff that might be extremely satisfying if it weren’t also complete bullshit. The final 20 minutes overflows with “wait a minute, what are you trying to convince me just happened” moments, and somehow it’s still okay, because the first 70 minutes serve up so much fun. Available April 11 in theaters. (PG-13)

The King of Kings **
The concept dates back more than 150 years, so you can’t exactly blame it on writer/director Seong-ho Jang, but it’s still hard for this attempt at making the life of Jesus seem hip and exciting not to feel like a feature-length animated version of the “[youth pastor voice]” meme. Based on an 1840s kid-friendly version of “The Life of Our Lord” created by Charles Dickens, it finds the celebrated author (voiced by Kenneth Branagh) attempting to re-direct the energies of his rambunctious young son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis) by recounting the story of Jesus (Oscar Isaac) from the Nativity right through the Resurrection. Jang drops Walter and his pet cat directly into the action at various points, attempting to insert some slapstick energy and the idea of the Incarnation as a personal event rather than simply a historical abstraction. But this is still fundamentally a straightforward re-telling of the Gospel of Luke (mostly), and the familiar names in the English-language voice cast—also including Forest Whitaker, Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman and Ben Kingsley—play things far too earnestly to make it truly engaging for young folks. Plus, even a PG-rated, tamed-down version of the Passion is still rough stuff. While artistically, this is still several steps above the cheaply-made Bible story kid-vids of a generation ago, it can’t move past the self-seriousness even when the youth pastor is telling it to you while straddling a backwards chair. Available April 11 in theaters. (PG)

Sacramento **1/2
Plenty of stories are still to be told about straight White guys needing to get in touch with their feelings, and this one from co-writer/director/star Michael Angarano finds a few charms without nailing much that’s uniquely insightful. It involves a spur-of-the-moment road trip from Los Angeles to Sacramento involving two semi-estranged friends since childhood: Glenn (Michael Cera), an anxious fellow facing a possible work layoff and a first child with his wife (Kristen Stewart); and Rickey (Angarano), whose cover story for the trip about needing to spread his father’s ashes hides other upheaval in his own life. Cera and Angarano make for a great pair in their awkward on-screen chemistry, and as a filmmaker, Angarano clearly understands the communication methods guys use when they can’t be emotionally honest, like a sequence in which they re-live the wrestling matches they engaged in as kids. But the character arcs start to feel a little bit forced, partly due to plot developments that end up feeling more like the stuff of wacky comedy than sincere dramedy. A terrific supporting performance by Maya Erskine gives the third act a boost, one that could have come from approaching male insecurities from a less exaggerated place. Available April 11 in theaters. (PG-13)

Warfare **1/2
If verisimilitude were an inherent virtue, Warfare would be a masterpiece. But it isn’t, and it isn’t. Co-directors Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza—the latter a military veteran and technical advisor for Garland on 2024’s Civil War—re-create a 2006 Navy SEAL operation in Iraq, when a company occupying a house in Ramadi comes under attack. The events played are undeniably harrowing, with graphic wartime violence, bone-rattling sound design and a sense of the chaos that can ensue when a mission goes sideways, and your ability to think rationally about what comes next starts to evaporate. That, however, is where Warfare begins and ends, as it never bothers to give any of the American soldiers, and certainly not any of the enemy insurgents, discernible personalities; if not for the familiarity of certain actors like Will Poulter, Charles Melton and Michael Gandolfini, it would be difficult to tell many of them apart. It’s almost more off-putting that the film opens with the group of soldiers pre-mission getting their horndog on to a circa-1990s exercise video, as though we should care for them more not because they’re individual actual humans, but because they’re a generic cluster of red-blooded American boys. You may very well come away with a greater sense of what it’s like to be in the middle of combat, but let’s not behave like no other film had ever done so before, or better. Available April 11 in theaters. (R)