Amy Nicholson

Rian Johnson’s darkest, funniest and best installment yet in his three-film detective series.

Hamnet’s sweetest note is 12-year-old Jacobi Jupe playing the actual Hamnet. The script hangs on our immediate devotion to the boy and he stands up to the challenge.

Helander and editor Juho Virolainen pace the carnage like slapstick. They have a nimble rhythm for how many times a victim can dodge disaster before splattering. The violence is so big that it becomes comedy, even getting us laughing at a severed head, twice.

“For Good” is a worthwhile return to Oz. The extra scenes and rejiggered duets justify the running time (even if the 160-minute length of the first film remains unforgivable).

There’s little urgency or outrage. Instead of a funhouse mirror of what could be, it’s merely a smudged reflection of what is.

Sirāt is taut and riveting and nearly all mood. You feel the exhilaration of veering off the path, the self-exile of speeding toward nowhere, the dread that this caravan has veered too far for its own safety.

There’s a crack running through “Sentimental Value” too. A third of it wants to be a feisty industry satire, but the rest believes there’s prestige value in tugging on the heartstrings. The title seems to be as much about that as anything.

Hurling herself into every scene, Lawrence puts her full faith in Ramsay. It’s not a trust fall so much as a trust cannonball. As good and committed as Lawrence is, there were times I wanted to rescue her from her own movie, to protect her from the fate of Faye Dunaway when “Mommie Dearest” turned another blond Oscar winner into a joke.

Now that Linklater has ascended to the establishment, he’s encouraging cinema’s future by turning to its inspirational past with Nouvelle Vague, the lively story of how Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) directed Breathless with a tiny bit of cash and a ton of ego. It’s the origin story of Godard, and, in a way, of himself. Even more importantly, it’s a manual for what Linklater hopes will be a fresh wave of talent storming the shore any minute. (I’m counting on it.)

Bugonia is a hilarious movie with no hope for the future of humanity. What optimism there is lies only in the title, an ancient Greek word for the science of transforming dead cows into hives, of turning death into life.

With apologies to Ibsen’s ghost, DaCosta’s tweaks have sharpened its rage. I don’t think that long-dead critic would like this “Hedda” any better. I think it’s divine.

This deservedly anticipated Frankenstein transforms that loneliness into stunning tableaux of Victor and his immortal Creature tethered together by their mutual self-loathing. One man’s heart never turned on. One can’t get his heart to turn off. Ours breaks.

Earlier incarnations of this story had activism as the end goal, Valentin for his principles and Molina for his new friend. Condon is more focused on their humanity. Caring for each other makes this bleak world worth fighting for. Without joy, we’re already in chains.

He’s made a mystery with no curiosity, a cautionary tale with no good advice. It’s unclear if Guadagnino’s elites believe their moral arguments don’t apply to themselves or if they’re just stupid — or if the script makes them do stupid things to keep the audience off guard. Regardless, raise a glass of Pinot anytime someone says “This was a mistake.”

Having stripped away most of the documentary’s narration and sit-down interviews with Kerr’s family and friends, the film barely explores anyone’s psychology — and Blunt’s railroaded Dawn loses her chance to speak for herself.

I liked the plot better on a second watch when I knew not to expect Jamie Lee Curtis on all fours. The ending is great and the build up to it, though draggy, gives you space to think about the interdependence between our species.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s fun and fizzy adaptation views its Molotov cocktail as half-full. Yes, it says, the struggle for liberation continues: ideologues versus toadies, radicals versus conservatives, loyalists versus rats. But isn’t it inspiring that there are still people willing to fight?

The film is so stylishly done that I could accept it on those plain terms.

Like Kogonada, I believe that artifice is a useful tool to dig up honesty. But a script with this much contrivance only works if it’s delivered with snap and confidence. “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” is sticky sweet and sludgy and so cloyingly aesthetic that the roadkill bleeds ropes of twee entrails.

It’s the kind of intimate tour of New York that usually gets called a love letter to the city, except the corners Aronofsky likes have so much grime and menace and humor that it’s more like an affectionate dirty limerick.

Roach has insightfully made this about people, not societal scapegoats. He and McNamara have changed up nearly everything in this disaster except its vibrations of dread.

As sloppy as it is, there’s no denying that Honey Don’t! works as a noir with a pleasant, peppery flavor. Yet, there’s a snap missing in its rhythm, a sense that it doesn’t know when and how its gags should hit.

Lurker is a teeth-grittingly great dramedy that insists there’s more tension in the entourage of a mellow hipster than a king.

Freakier Friday won’t trade places with the original in audience’s hearts. But this disposable delight will at least allow fans who’ve grown up alongside Lohan to take their own offspring to the theater and bond about what the series means to them — to let their children picture them young — and then pinkie-swear, “Let’s never let that happen to us.”

A former sketch comic, Cregger knows how to work a crowd. The combination of his assurance and his characters’ confusion is wonderful in the moment, as though you’re listening to a spiel from someone who sounds crazy but might be making all the sense in the world.

[Schaffer's] Naked Gun doesn’t want to regress; it wants to surprise and surpass while never punching down. The film is so committed to its PG-13 rating that it manages to pull off some truly filthy, bawdy slapstick without exposing a frame of skin.

Nothing about Together screams comedy, yet that’s precisely how it’s put together. Awkward humor is the skeleton under its prestige nightmare surface, even as it’s wonderfully, heartbreakingly tragic to watch our leads roil to melt together like mozzarella.

Brooks can merely offer this flawed pair more kindness than they grant each other (or themselves). Which makes “Oh, Hi!” a pleasant if perilous date night film. Having spent an enjoyable evening with it myself, I have to admit: I like the movie fine, but I’m not in love.