Alison Willmore

Lowery — who made A Ghost Story and The Green Knight, and whose last film was a live-action Peter Pan remake that Disney shunted directly to streaming — is too compelling a stylist and has too earnest a heart for what he’s made to be easily shrugged off.

Christy, which was directed by Animal Kingdom’s David Michôd from a script he wrote with his partner, Mirrah Foulkes, isn’t rote Oscar bait, and Sweeney isn’t doing the sort of studied showboating that so often comes with the territory.

It’s so devoid of bangers or any remotely memorable tunes that there’s nothing to distract you from the movie’s lack of clear stakes, or meaningful drama, or antagonists with any personality.

It delivers the goods, thanks to Washington’s performance and Fuqua’s zest for going graphic.

While Sohn has said Elemental was inspired by his parents, his upbringing in multicultural New York City, and his own mixed marriage, the lack of deeper consideration his film gives to its ideas leads to some ugly reductiveness.

It begins as a comedy, takes a turn toward the earnest, and ends with a sort of genial blasphemy. There’s definitely nothing else like it out there, for better and worse, and even if it doesn’t work, there’s something admirable about how at ease the film is with its own erratic rhythms.

This Is Spinal Tap is a comedy about how the desire to be seen as a rock god collides with the humiliations of actually being human, and the visual of a group of guys in their 70s and 80s unable to move on from the styles of their youthful heyday is as effective a continuing riff on this theme as any. It’s also the only one fully realized by the new film.

Dicks: The Musical is never as outrageous as it clearly would like to be . . . But its determination to avoid any trace of self-importance or greater meaning is admirable in its own right — embracing the freedom to just be ridiculous.

Despite the mercenary nature of its existence, Road House is better than it has any right to be — perfectly enjoyable schlock that’s helped along by how unserious it is.

Waititi hasn’t always been the most precise at mixing pathos and humor (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, yes, Jojo Rabbit, no), and the calibrations in Love and Thunder are all off.

As a thriller, The Burnt Orange Heresy is entirely underwhelming, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching.

Evans has assembled a worthy cast and has crammed his film full of what should be fun elements, and yet the final result is weirdly without joy — akin to filling your plate with all your favorite foods at a buffet, only to sit down and realize you have no appetite to eat it.

Like Shelley’s much-adapted creature, The Bride! is a creation of enormous ambition. It’s also an incoherent disaster — and not of the noble folly variety. It leaves you with the sinking feeling of watching someone fight their way to the front of a crowd to speak, only to realize when the spotlight is finally on them that they’re not actually sure what to say.

Alpha is more evidence of Ducournau’s genius for evocative imagery and striking compositions, but it also suggests she’d benefit from boundaries to push against.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which was written by Abe Sylvia, is unable to decide if it wants to understand its subject or make fun of her, and ends up never really committing to either.

One senses this is a mundane story that’s trying to be something stranger and more buoyant — the film’s off-kilter sensibility keeps threatening to fade away, like it’s stuck at the tail end of a high.

Watching the movie summons the distinct sensation of arriving at a party just as the guests are starting to leave.

The film plays more like it was made by an AI versed in the existing movies but not quite up to spitting out something coherent itself.

Wright’s movie, aside from its mess of an ending, is a propulsive and generally fun affair that sends Powell careering around the Eastern Seaboard like the Tom Cruise successor he’s so determined to become, even if he’s not entirely plausible as a guy who’s volcanic with anger.

Wuthering Heists is Fennell’s dumbest movie, and I say that with all admiration, because it also happens to be her best to date.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is the 15th feature from Guy Ritchie, and while it’s not very good, it’s also hard to dislike something that has the genial tone of a day-drunk romp.

Shyamalan . . . feels caught between the more emotionally considered movies he used to make, and the leaner, meaner ones he’s done more recently. His filmmaking can’t make up for the fact that Old is hovering indecisively between the two halves of his career, unable to commit to either direction.

Everything Everywhere All at Once may be a kaleidoscopic fantasy battle across space, time, genres, and emotions, but it’s an incredibly moving family drama first.

The sequel is a string of callbacks and remember-this moments that ask an awful lot of something whose charms and cultural impact were modest at best — a feature-length effort at congratulating the audience for having shown up for the original film a decade ago.

Frankie is a messy movie that spreads itself too thin over this sprawling cast of characters.

Kendrick and Lively have an undeniable chemistry that allows you to buy that these two characters really do like one another, despite the circumstances. But that only matters when those circumstances mean something, and by the end of Another Simple Favor, they don’t — nothing matters at all.

Last Rites comes from Michael Chaves, the same director as that last film, but returns the series to what it does best, which is dealing with a supernaturally infested home.

Chemistry is nothing to sniff at, but P.S. I Still Love You does come awfully close to arguing itself out of its central romance.