Bob Strauss

The action ramps up so much toward the end that there’s really no time to care whether it makes visual or logistical sense. It’s sustained, exciting and increasingly gory fun that’s a pleasure to get to after some of the film’s earlier, dour stretches. It’s sustained, exciting and increasingly gory fun that’s a pleasure to get to after some of the film’s earlier, dour stretches.

It’s hard to believe that the likable British star of “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Lion” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” could be the next actor to become a hard-charging action director. But Patel’s filmmaking debut, “Monkey Man,” makes a bone-breaking case for just that.

Grievous, loving, organic and mysterious. What a celebration.

The movie is silly and fun enough to enchant younger audiences, not to mention impart life-balance lessons that kids from 8 to 80 ought to know.

Even with its floating hookah smokers, this movie feels far more grounded than most shows that grapple with the divine.

The good news is you can bring the kids. When it comes time for swimming lessons next summer, there’s nothing they’ll remember from this that’ll make them afraid of the water.

A very fine actor when he’s not directing bad “Insidious” sequels, Wilson is the only performer here who extracts conflict, growth and genuine wit out of David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick’s surface-skimming script.

No, you don’t have to be a fan of fake wrestling to appreciate “Iron Claw.” A love for classic Greek tragedy wouldn’t be misplaced, though.

While many of the film’s action sequences are in slow motion, it’s the story’s narrative (credited to Snyder, Shay Hatten and Kurt Johnstad) that really crawls.

The main effect this film’s commitment to emotional intelligence has is to show us what has been missing from the franchise all along. That, and to deliver a climax that will bring tears to your eyes — unless you’re some sort of beast.

There’s nothing here to match the ingenious audacity of, say, the hospital-shootout-with-infant sequence in 1982’s “Hard Boiled,” but once Silent Night finally unwraps its gratuitous gifts, the faithful Woo fans should find them worth the wait.

There’s a weepy turn in the sentimental third act, and why not? Nothing else was working.

Downbeat as it inevitably is, the film...is sure to delight for nostalgic Boomers and music historians, with its unseen footage and insights from survivors who were there.

An unforgiving little thriller with a conscience and irony to burn (and boy, do they burn), Your Lucky Day is one of the last chances to see beloved Oakland native Angus Cloud onscreen.

This is a perpetrator’s perspective on the business of violence, carried out with notions of professionalism while slowly shaking the sociopath’s sense of self. Michael Fassbender’s unnamed contract killer is as delusional as he is dead-aimed focused; it’s both chilling and humanizing.

Though Butcher’s Crossing has its share of conflicts and drama, it can move as slowly as the glaciers that cut its imposing scenery.

First-time director Lindsey Anderson Beer and her co-adapter Jeff Buhler have some nice ideas that never quite gel.

Despite some gruesome brutality, Totally Killer has a very light-on-its-feet quality. But as artificial entertainment goes, this one’s put together with ruthless care.

Saw X is “Saw 1.5” chronologically, taking place between the first and second films in this granddaddy of torture porn franchises. Quality-wise, though, it is closer to a 10 than a zero, which cannot be said about most of the other nine movies in this distressingly popular series.

It’s a complicated situation despite how morally straightforward it appears. Scout’s Honor deserves some kind of merit badge for trying to untangle the knotty, awful mess.

Good looks and brutal action can’t hide the fact that the film traffics in Italian stereotypes with the same impunity as simplistic notions of good and evil.

Happily, Blue Beetle comes closest to cracking the code by grounding its slam-bang sci-fi shenanigans in familia. Based on the third incarnation of a comic book character who’s been in and out of circulation — published by several different companies — since 1939, this movie’s Latin flavor feels fresh, with welcome bits of political bite and funny takes on the genre’s over-familiar conventions.

A touching combination of fact and fiction makes The Unknown Country one beautiful road trip.

Though Meg 2 is by far the biggest production he’s ever helmed, director Ben Wheatley doesn’t appear to be in over his head with this; special effects and stunts are proficiently delivered, no matter how ludicrous

Amid all the mayhem, a fairly lucid portrait of disturbed child psychology emerges. Although derivative, Chris Thomas Devlin’s script has enough sick, witty ideas to make the fearsome goings-on seem fresh and immediate. At the very least, after watching Cobweb, you’ll never look at a jack-o’-lantern the same way again.

It’s marked by a polished balance of humor, searing emotion, all the information about the toy business you’d ever want to know, and cautionary advice concerning investments in something silly like stuffed animals — or, by extension, NFTs.

If anything keeps “Red Door” going, it’s Autumn Eakin’s exquisite cinematography. The Further looks like a shadow reflection of the real world, and she and Wilson never fail to come up with aesthetically interesting and sometimes ingenious light sources to illuminate portions of it.

A distasteful, overlong slog, but at least the filmmaker appears to have put everything he wanted to up on the screen.