Chris Nashawaty

Directed by another great character actor, John Carroll Lynch (Zodiac, American Horror Story), Lucky is an elegiac and ultimately affirming meditation on mortality, regret, and smiling through hardship. You couldn’t ask for a more poignant swan song from a more singular artist.

The movie spins like a top for two hours. With his pearly shark’s grin, always-underestimated comic timing, and macho daredevil streak, Cruise rips into the role and summons a side of himself that he rarely lets his guard down enough to reveal.

If the first Kingsman, at its best, felt like a dry martini of a joke, then this one is more Jack and Mountain Dew — unsubtle, unrefreshing, and unnecessary.

The title isn’t the only thing about the film that has an exclamation point; every scene comes with one – and also seems to be in blaring, buzzing neon. The movie doesn’t know when to stop.

It is essentially two movies. The better by far (and it’s very good) is the one that feels like a darker Stand by Me — a nostalgic coming-of-age story about seven likable outcasts riding around on their bikes and facing their fears together... Less successful are the sections that trot out Pennywise. The more we see of him, the less scary he becomes.

The whole thing feels like the pilot episode of a third-rate comic-book vigilante TV show.

A fizzy, twisty Southern-fried heist flick that’s more enjoyable the less you try to dissect it.

It’s festooned with so many triumph-of-the-underdog clichés (including a climax you can see driving down the Garden State Parkway from a mile away), it’s like déja-vu with a breakbeat. The most remarkable thing about the film is how little you’ll actually mind by the end.

Annabelle: Creation isn’t a terrible film. Not exactly. The set-up is promising, and it offers some decent early jump scares. But eventually the thinness of the material becomes overwhelmingly obvious.

The whole thing feels a bit like an Arabic riff on "Chinatown" or "L.A. Confidential" — a neonoir with a tawdry edge where our imperfect hero will eventually be doomed. It’s not a question of if, only when he will lose.

How many times can you watch two middle-aged men impersonate Michael Caine? Your answer to that question will determine whether you should tag along with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon on their third and latest fictionalized (and largely improvised) eating tour of Europe.

His video essays may have hinted at an artist with a gifted eye, but Columbus is proof that Kogonada also possesses heart and soul as well.

The pounding ’80s soundtrack (New Order, Depeche Mode, Ministry) couldn’t be cooler, the ultraviolence is relentlessly brutal, and Theron’s guns-and-garters wardrobe is sexy as hell. So it’s a shame that apart from the gender flip, the plot is so derivative.

The result is a slight, handcrafted indie that’s sweet, skewed, and feels a bit like a skit stretched out to feature length.

This is visceral, big-budget filmmaking that can be called Art. It’s also, hands down, the best motion picture of the year so far.

There’s a provocative idea at the center of Oldroyd’s beautifully photographed film — repression exploding into madness and violence. But as the body count rises, Lady Macbeth loses its secret weapon: sympathy.

During the film’s intoxicating first 30 minutes, for example, I couldn’t decide whether what I was watching was brilliantly bonkers or total folly. Then, as the story went on, it came into sharper and sharper focus: Valerian is an epic mess.

City of Ghosts shows us what journalism can do in the face of evil. Its message is haunting, humane, and ultimately hopeful.

Some, no doubt, will find Lowery’s playfully surreal experiment (a ghost story told from the POV of the ghost) haunting, lyrical, and moving. Others (ahem, guilty as charged) will just find it maddening, inscrutable, and alienating. Check it out, then take your side in the debate.

Okja in it. It’s the antithesis of cookie-cutter, made-by-committee filmmaking. Prepare to be amazed, grossed out, provoked, punchdrunk, and tickled.

Like Caesar and company, the films seem to be getting more intelligent and human as they evolve.

As far as cheap warm-weather junk food goes, it will suffice. It will have to.

Megan Leavey is one of those strong-arm soaps, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that it has a certain secret weapon in the forced-waterworks department—an adorable bomb-sniffing German shepherd. All together now: Awwwwww.

With his follow-up, It Comes at Night, Shults has conjured another master class in anxiety, claustrophobia, and dread. He’s a natural-born filmmaker.

I’m not sure that this aimless, lukewarm take on The Mummy is how the studio dreamed that its Dark Universe would begin. But it’s just good enough to keep you curious about what comes next.

As a result, the movie comes across like a bunch of “bits” when it really should be getting at deeper emotions and truths. Then again, Woody Allen, another comedian-turned-writer/director, ran into that same problem back at the beginning of his career. And he ended up doing okay.

Wonder Woman is smart, slick, and satisfying in all of the ways superhero films ought to be. How deliciously ironic that in a genre where the boys seem to have all the fun, a female hero and a female director are the ones to show the fellas how it’s done.

It’s a smart, sharp spitball of a film, but it would’ve been better with a smaller, subtler hammer.