Eric Kohn

Boundaries breaks no fresh ground and sags into conventional story beats on autopilot, but it’s rewarding enough to hang with these characters and roll with their mudslinging.

It runs too long and drags a bunch in its final third, but make no mistake: This is Spielberg’s biggest crowdpleaser in years, a CGI ride that wields the technology with an eye for payoff.

There’s an innocence to this premise that lends freshness to every vulgar turn.

The script lacks bite, save some wry meta-commentary on the movie’s existence (including a passing reference to “horror transmedia”). Nevertheless, Susco follows the well-worn path of using the horror/thriller genre to explore the eerie ambiguities of modern times.

Utilizing the pure physicality of a cast you can count on one hand, the movie maintains a minimalist dread throughout, with every footstep or sudden move carrying the potential for instant death.

They Remain, the new thriller from director Philip Gelatt (“The Bleeding House”) hews closely to some predictable beats, but it’s an engrossing exercise in boiling familiar ingredients down to pure, unbridled creepiness.

Mute is ludicrous, but within the confines of its referential logic, also pretty cool.

The movie casts an unmistakable spell out of Pfeiffer’s ability to imbue Kyra with a profound sense of sorrow.

At once a gripping jungle survival thriller and an alluring sci-fi puzzle, Garland’s heady gambit confirms he’s one of the genre’s best working filmmakers.

Somewhere in this material is the potential for tense exploration of private desires afflicting people enmeshed in extreme psychological disarray, but this sleepy drama never approaches the sophistication (or pulpy fun) that would allow it to succeed on that mission.

The elegance of Francis Lawrence’s direction, cinematographer Jo Willems’ measured camerawork, and James Newton Howard’s ominous score adheres to a familiar set of beats, but it’s the rare big Hollywood mood piece and mostly satisfying on those terms.

Shelton’s work is understated, but elevates seemingly forgettable scenarios with a wise, humane approach that makes even a lesser work like Outside In a cut above the market standard.

Eastwood remains a deeply purposeful filmmaker, and The 15:17 to Paris clearly has a plan — it builds to a riveting showdown, with a unique kind of payoff enhanced by the authenticity of its design. It’s a fascinating gamble even when it doesn’t hold together.

The movie falls short of deep insights, but its most prominent qualities — scrappy, ephemeral, a little bit lewd — mirror the chief attributes of Callahan’s endearing work.

With Shaye’s performance as its anchor, the movie is often a perceptive character study, at least until it’s hijacked by the same bland trickery that so often fogs up horror movies with more to offer.

As an experiment in filmmaking trickery, All the Money in the World is an extraordinary viewing experience; without that, it’s a compulsively watchable rumination on the worst of the one percent.

Under the fastidious guidance of writer-director Johnson, The Last Jedi turns the commercial restrictions of this behemoth into a Trojan horse for rapid-fire filmmaking trickery and narrative finesse. The result is the most satisfying entry in this bumpy franchise since “The Empire Strikes Back” in 1980.

The director’s most outwardly accessible movie in ages, Phantom Thread is at once an evocative period drama and a magical fable about lonely, solipsistic people finding solace in their mutual sense of alienation.

The resulting 119-minute pileup of showdowns and one-liners is an undeniably tighter, more engaging experience. It’s also a tired, conventional attempt to play by the rules, with “hold for laughs” moments shoehorned between rapid-fire action — a begrudging concession that the Marvel formula works, and a shameless attempt to replicate it.

Even as the high-concept premise wears thin, Palka manages to generate an unexpected degree of sympathy for the floundering couple, and the wordless finale allows for a complete transformation that extends beyond Jill’s bizarre condition.

The New Radical magnifies an emerging desire for major changes to the global marketplace and makes a compelling argument for how those sentiments have gained traction.

Whereas “Creep” suggested that the annoying man-child is scarier than you think, Creep 2 shows just how much scarier he gets with age.

Its atmospheric sophistication holds strong throughout, channeling a wonder for the natural world reminiscent of Terrence Malick with an air of existential dread straight out of Andrei Tarkovsky.

Thor: Ragnarok doesn’t break fresh ground by Marvel standards, but it livens up the proceedings just enough to grease up the wheels of this franchise behemoth as it careens along.

Winslet delivers her most powerful, emotionally resonant performance in more than a decade.

The plight of the alienated monkey is at turns absurd and genuinely bittersweet, not to mention a whole lot better than its premise might suggest.

Alfredson’s direction proves yawnsomely methodical, ticking off surviving plot points as though filling in some I-Spy Book of Scandinavian Crime Cliches.

The movie is so cautious about avoiding disaster movie tropes that you can practically sense the resistance to arriving at the tragic finale. The result is a tasteful, well-acted bore, but so out of sync with traditional studio filmmaking it deserves some kudos anyway.