Here are snapshots of what our reviewers thought of the movies opening this week in the Seattle area. (Star ratings are granted on a scale of zero to four.)

★★★ “Dolittle” (PG; 106 minutes): The granddaddy of talking-animal tales gets the full CGI treatment and it’s by far the best of the lot. A great deal of credit for that goes to Robert Downey Jr. Full review. Multiple theaters. — Soren Andersen, Special to The Seattle Times

★★★ “Bad Boys for Life” (R; 123 minutes): Martin Lawrence is back, baby, with Will Smith in the third installment of the series. It is a delightfully dizzying love letter to action filmmaking of yore and respectfully preserves the franchise’s best elements. Full review. Multiple theaters. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

“Les Misérables” (R; 102 minutes): Ladj Ly’s French crime drama, set in a Parisian suburb, is both culturally relevant and dramatically compelling, finding a way to balance artistic metaphor, hugely involving storytelling and criticism of a system that allows crushing poverty to survive and prosper. It’s up for an Academy Award. In French, with English subtitles. Seattle 10, Meridian. (The Los Angeles Times does not provide star ratings with reviews.) Full review— Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Also opening

“Queen of Hearts” (not rated, for mature audiences; 127 minutes): More films from women, and starring women, means more stories about complicated women, and that’s what’s captivatingly on display in May el-Toukhy’s domestic drama — about a lawyer wife (Trine Dyrholm) who becomes attracted to her teenage stepson (Gustav Lindh), then seduces him. The film was Denmark’s submission for this year’s Oscar for best international feature film. (The Los Angeles Times does not provide star ratings with reviews.) In Danish and Swedish, with English subtitles. Grand Illusion. — Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

★½ “The Song of Names” (PG-13; 113 minutes): The film opens with the disappearance of a 20-something, Polish-born violin prodigy (Jonah Hauer-King). Or perhaps “no-show” is a better term, since the 1951 vanishing act that sets the stage for this mostly London-set mystery — which jumps backward to World War II and then forward to 1986 — is by a character we haven’t yet met, and won’t, except in flashbacks, until very late in the film. When he finally does show up, in the guise of Clive Owen with a bad fake beard and a doleful expression, it’s a deflating, off-key letdown that spoils the serviceable setup that came before. Pacific Place. — Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post