Chris Nashawaty

Neither as satisfying as the remake of "Shaft" nor as objectionable as the remake of "Death Wish," the second coming of Superfly wants to tap into that same ’70s grindhouse allure and put a similarly slick modern gloss on it. The results are pretty mixed.

Hereditary doesn’t reinvent horror cinema so much as polish the cobwebs off of its classics, strip them for parts, and refashion them into something that feels terrifyingly fresh and new.

It’s like a security blanket for our troubled times.

Howard, thankfully, gets more to do than the last go round (and in combat boots, no less!), Pratt busts out his Indiana Jones cocktail of can-do heroism and deadpan jokiness, and Bayona and his screenwriters (Trevorrow and Derek Connolly) test the laws of incredulity with varying degrees of success. At least, until the final half hour when forehead-slapping absurdity finally win out. Up until then, Fallen Kingdom is exactly the kind of escapist summer behemoth you want it to be.

Even the stunts – the whole raison d’etre of a movie like this – seem tame and staged. It cheaps out on the good stuff. And for a movie with so little going for it besides the threat of danger, there’s no excuse for Action Point to play it this safe.

It’s all done expertly and with an unexpectedly deft sleight-of-hand twist in the homestretch that proves once again that Kormakur is the kind of overachieving director that one pigeonholes at their own risk. He has a knack for making the familiar feel more surprising than it is.

More than anything, the film feels a bit like a trial balloon for the relative star power of Jacobs, who’s been promoted from best friend to headliner here.

First Reformed is a bleak, punishing movie and the furthest thing imaginable from an easy crowdpleaser. But Hawke juices it with an austere sense of grace.

Whether he’s washing the feet of prisoners in America, visiting sick children in Africa, or praying with hurricane victims in Asia, Pope Francis doesn’t merely preach empathy, responsibility, and accountability, he lives it.

Speaking of Glover, it’s no spoiler to say that the Atlanta star is easily the best thing in this good-not-great movie.

Pearce takes his time laying out his sleeping-with-the-enemy tale, but his stinginess with plot lends the film an vice-tightening air of mystery that suits it.

This stylish-but-grating pastiche of far better crime flicks is as soft-boiled as they come.

Still, there are enough glimpses of the old master peeking through that it’s hard not to have a bit of a good time. It turns out that even second-rate (okay, third-rate) Woo has its moments.

It feels like Smigel and Sandler just shot the first draft of their script without fine-tuning or polishing any of the jokes.

What saves Infinity War from being just another bloated supergroup tour – and what will end up being the thing that blows fans’ minds to dust – is the film’s final stretch.

Michel Hazanavicius’ new film, Godard Mon Amour, tackles that period in Godard’s life on and off the screen — and does it in a dismissively light-hearted way that I’m sure the auteur himself loathes.

Isn’t aggressively terrible or outrageously offensive. It’s just harmless, pointless, and meh. You’d think with 17 years at their disposal these guys would be able to come up with some jokes that weren’t so half-baked and dumb. Alas, this is low-hanging fruit all the way.

Pretty light on scares and only hangs together with the thinnest (and hokiest) of narrative threads.

Tully feels like the work of a writer who’s matured and lived and become less superficial without giving up any of her natural gift for finding humor in the absurd.

The dialogue mixes Sunday school and the streets, and it’s funny, profane, and occasionally poignant when it’s not a bit too on the nose.

Whatever the case, you’re better off rewatching the fake Linda Blair movie.

Of the film’s two stars, it’s LaBeouf who seems especially well cast here. Until now, the actor has never seemed to measure up to the potential that he promised early on in his career. But there’s something about playing McEnroe that brings out the sort of unpredictable subtlety he’s always been capable of.

It never makes up its mind whether it wants to be a what-hath-science-wrought disaster movie like those old John Sayles cheapie classics Piranha and Alligator, or just a big, dumb, and loud tongue-in-cheek action comedy. It’s a movie that’s afraid to pick a lane.

Sure, showing that girls can be as horny and impulsive and raunchy as guys isn’t exactly the most radical statement. But when it’s done this well, it certainly is a welcome change-up.

Shelton may not be as prolific as the Duplasses (I’m not sure anyone could be – they seem to churn out movies in their sleep), but her work has steadily gotten more assured and quietly powerful. Her continued partnership with the brothers is a tonic for anyone who cares about keeping the Sundance-of-the-‘90s spirit alive.

Never mind the director’s still-prodigious work ethic, the big-screen adaptation of Ernest Cline’s giddily overstuffed, ’80s-saturated best-seller is, in a way, a movie that couldn’t be more bespoke to Spielberg. After all, so many of that decade’s most indelible touchstones poured directly from his brain. It’s the perfect marriage of fabulist and fable.

If you enjoyed 2013’s Pacific Rim but secretly wished it was more like a vapid Transformers sequel, then you’ll love Pacific Rim Uprising. Everyone else can give this heavy-metal howler a hard pass.

The film comes to crackling life during the planning and climactic execution of the raid. And Padilha, the Brazilian director behind 2007’s "Elite Squad," knows how to stage these white-knuckle sequences, especially when he cuts back and forth between the on-the-ground tactical assault and a modern dance performance featuring one of the commando’s girlfriends.