G. Allen Johnson

The Nun II has some interesting ideas and some thrilling sequences.

Wright is perfect, and Edee is an interesting character for her to play, but it’s fair to say that when Bichir first appears he livens up the film considerably. They work well together, and there is an economy of words between the characters that tests both actors’ ability to communicate visually.

Nattiv, working from a sharp script from Nicholas Martin, expertly mixes in documentary footage to convey a sense of the times and the war.

At its heart, it’s a darkly comic drama about a man trained to be a killing machine who must rediscover his own humanity before his daughter loses hers. Along the way, a family of quirky characters is formed.

The movie is nonetheless strongly written, with a game cast. Wu is especially a revelation, with a layered and often moving performance that shows off dramatic chops not seen by many of her fans.

What makes Chemical Hearts so good is it’s unafraid of its feelings. It tackles complicated emotional issues such as depression, suicide, sex and love with a straightforward honesty. For once, a film about young people is completely free of snark and irony.

Jerome and Lopez build an undeniable chemistry that powers the movie, and it wouldn’t work at all unless Jerome wasn’t excellent as well. He is.

I Am Greta does show why she is a powerful voice. The key to her appeal is her honesty and her “innocence,” or as some would say, naivete.

Using movie clips, animation and news footage, Ascher creates his own alternate universe in A Glitch in the Matrix and explores phenomena such as the Mandela Effect, a real-life wonder in which masses of unconnected people claim to “remember” something that is simply not true.

With a sense of eccentric macabre that recalls Roald Dahl and Charles Addams, The Willoughbys arrives on Netflix with a winning, eclectic energy that should have kids — like the animated moppets in the film — bouncing off the walls. In a good way, of course.

Even though the film is by the numbers, it offers younger generations who know nothing of Poitier’s life and groundbreaking work a look at this important actor and activist.

There are so many rich, colorful scenes that it’s a worthy watch just as an ethnographic record of our planet in a moment of time.

Gladstone (“Under the Bridge”), Oscar-nominated for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is the heart and soul of “Fancy Dance,” which in other hands might have been a noirish thriller. But writer-director Erica Tremblay has something else in mind: a finely crafted drama about a woman and her niece who are unwilling to let the hopelessness of her situation define her.

Bolt tries mightily to make this weighty subject digestible to the average civilian, with some fancy, intricate animated sequences to show us how CRISPR and DNA manipulation work, and while I can’t say I came away from this film being able to coherently explain it, Human Nature works as a glimpse into possible futures and a moral dilemma that doesn’t have easy answers.

A demanding, rewarding (if overlong) and - yes - a personally felt experience.

Radical follows a predictable formula, and Derbez, a major star in Mexico whose last American projects were the Hulu film “The Valet” and the Apple TV+ series “Acapulco,” lifts the material with his typical vibrant energy.

Landscape With Invisible Hand is a bizarre, off-kilter experience that shows us how we are destroying ourselves, no aliens necessary.

While False Positive has lapses in logic and could have a quicker pace in the second half, it fully embraces a bizarre sense of the macabre that is irresistible.

Just to re-emphasize, Relic is not a documentary about dementia, or a medically accurate look at the disease in the way that films such as “Away from Her” with Julie Christie or “Still Alice” with Julianne Moore were. It is a film that springs from the id, from deep-seated fear of a disease we don’t fully understand.

It’s a probing, searching movie by one of the medium’s best American directors whose reach, like his protagonist’s, exceeds his grasp.

Truth be told, the latest Darren Aronofsky film, which Oakland native Charlie Huston adapted from his own novel, is well made and contains terrific performances. It is a true original. But it’s also depressingly soul-killing and nihilistic, with a plot twist that fairly deep-sixes it for this critic.

Decker proudly revels in Lennie’s scattered uniqueness, even as Lennie navigates the minefield of her choices and says some truly kooky things (“I wish my shadow could get up and walk beside me”). YA movies might not be your bag, but if they are, perhaps the NorCal vibe of “The Sky Is Everywhere” will strike a weepy chord.

Although much of the footage is unseen, perhaps the freshest part of Apocalypse ’45 is hearing the veterans debate whether the U.S. should have dropped the atomic bombs, and how America has progressed in the decades since.

An idiosyncratic, oddball movie that is funny and moody.

Naomi Kawase’s films don’t hammer toward arbitrary plot points but flow like water, so “True Mothers” doesn’t unfold like a Hollywood blockbuster, or indeed, even most arthouse films. It courses along softly and confidently, with unexpected ebbs and estuaries.

The cold, efficient and really British spy thriller stars a marvelous Michael Fassbender (“The Killer”), a sly Cate Blanchett (“Tár”) and an underused but most welcome Pierce Brosnan, who all help overcome a ridiculous premise.

The most lethal weapon is de Armas herself. She twirls through “Ballerina” with a bone-crunching tenacity. Her and the stunt team more than earned their pay with every kick, chop, punch and glass-smashing body hurl.

This is an irresistible throwback to not only old-school horror, but old-school television.