Brian Truitt

Night School surprises by being an unexpectedly empathetic look at learning disabilities.

Life Itself is a real downer when it comes to death: A few are so out-of-nowhere that it’s like the hipster version of the “Game of Thrones” Red Wedding.

A B-movie at its heart with big-budget ambitions. Full of rampant goofiness, extreme gore, a jumbled narrative and hyperactive pacing, The Predator is also funnier and more clever than you would expect, though at the same time it’s an '80s film that doesn’t realize it’s 2018 in terms of political correctness.

White Boy Rick works better as a working-class father/son drama than a cautionary tale about the American judicial system, though it never comes together satisfactorily as either.

A mix of slow-burn religious mystery and old-school adventure that egregiously fails to utilize its greatest hit: Bonnie Aarons’ terrifyingly freaky villainess of the cloth.

Stuffed full of rampant badness, the scattershot comedy isn’t nearly as clever or subversive as it thinks it is.

It’s breezy and hilarious yet offers enough heartfelt gravitas to give the feel-good date movie needed emotional heft.

Washington (son of Denzel) has an impressive Afro and winning charisma as the first black cop in town.

There’s no end to the schmaltz in Winnie the Pooh’s honey pot, yet Disney’s live-action Christopher Robin also tosses in enough charm and tomfoolery for a sufficiently delightful hang with the iconic bear.

While the movie on the whole isn’t quite the caliber of the last two missions (“Ghost Protocol” and “Rogue Nation”), director Christopher McQuarrie’s action-packed “Fallout” set pieces are outstanding, finding great character moments in the middle of the explosiveness

The superior yet still extraordinarily cheesy "Here We Go Again" suffers from many of the same fundamental problems, though the film exudes an infectious energy and hearty spirit that’ll put you in a powerful Swedish super-pop headlock until you submit.

Between the goofy humor, Adam Sandler’s hallmark gibberish and an unfortunate return of "The Macarena," Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation houses an unexpectedly affecting story of modern love with a creaky vampire dad.

There’s also a relentless darkness in "Soldado" that some fans of the original will love, but the inherent idealism of Blunt’s Macer is missed: When everybody's a shade of bad, it begs for any sort of normal protagonist.

While Ant-Man's technically “the star,” this is most definitely the Wasp’s movie to own, and the smirking, enjoyably no-nonsense role fits Lilly well.

Has all the requisite rampaging dinos, dizzying action scenes and, sure, a few flesh-and-blood heroes running around saving the day. But there’s just not enough underneath that well-trod surface — an intriguing ethical conundrum bears heady fruit at times, yet is just as quickly shelved in favor of roaring lava or unleashed reptiles.

Somewhere between ridiculously stylish and stylishly ridiculous lies "Superfly," a modern so-bad-it’s-kinda-good remake of the 1970s blaxploitation classic that offers as much close-up twerking as kung fu fighting.

Pixar doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to sequels, but this follow-up surpasses most everything without Toy Story in the title. The animation is stellar and detailed in excellent action sequences, Michael Giacchino’s score swings harder than ever, and the first film’s family-friendly warmth is just as appealing now as it was then, even if Incredibles 2 isn’t totally incredible itself.

Hereditary isn’t just a scary movie. It’s much, much, much worse than that.

The illegal goings-on move to New York, where the plot plods until the crew gets together and the movie unleashes its secret comedic weapon: Anne Hathaway.

While Solo is a Star Wars movie that gambles on not really being a Star Wars movie, it’s a winning chapter that only sparingly (though intriguingly) shows its hand in connecting to the bigger universe.

Deadpool 2 is chock-full of all the cartoonish ultraviolence, meta commentary and pop-culture references you’d expect. Where it surprises — and why it works so well — is how it balances an actually touching undercurrent alongside superhero subversiveness.

It borrows from "Animal House," "Back to School," "Old School" and other superior films, leaning less into crudeness and more into female-centric laughs, but offers some sweet moments and a few enjoyably zany characters.

Captures the complete exhaustion of parenthood in funny and profound fashion.

It could have been an unholy mess, but with directors Anthony and Joe Russo at the helm, Infinity War is instead a glorious, multilayered and clever comic-book adventure with loads of emotional stakes and a perfect foe for Earth’s mightiest heroes.

I Feel Pretty offers aspirational touches that match the "Get it, girl" shirt sported by Schumer's character, but the mostly feel-good cinematic parable often has trouble finding the right balance between goofball humor and earnest message.

Per usual, Johnson is the key cog of a movie built for his physical presence, but it's the relationship between Davis and George that fuels the plot, even when everything around them gets convoluted and haphazard.

A Quiet Place is essentially "Alien" on a farm: Even though there are cornfields and land for days, there's a constant state of panic and claustrophobia for a family stalked by monsters who attack anything that makes noise.

A loving ode to a few decades that Spielberg made his own, Ready Player One’s an entertaining nostalgia trip that wears its influences proudly but throws them at such dizzying force that sometimes you feel like you’re buried under Chuck E. Cheese tokens.