Jocelyn Noveck

I Swear — at a perhaps overlong run time of two hours — is full of warmth and even humor, with Davidson occasionally laughing at himself and inviting us to join in.

A movie as frothy and insubstantial as the foam on a nice cappuccino. It’s also about as believable as some of the woefully stereotypical Italian characters here.

Jittery, tense, fast-talking and always on edge, this is a Hamlet, above all, in a rush.

It’s hard to pinpoint why this next level of Grace’s very bad wedding night, again directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, feels darker and heavier — and hence, less enjoyable — than the original, which managed to maintain a bouncy feel, even with bodies combusting at an absurd rate. But if we have to blame someone, we’re gonna go with the doctor from “The Pitt.”

Unlike Robert Eggers’ 2024 “Nosferatu,” which was beautiful but bleak to look at and featured an ugly, fearsome vampire, Besson imbues his main character with a swashbuckling sexiness that suits his star’s craggy appeal.

This sequel may be focused more on emotion and character — since the whole comet thing happened long ago — but the problem is, none of this is compellingly rendered, and is forgotten when convenient.

No matter how you feel about the history here, it’s a visceral performance that simply demands to be seen.

[A] nerve-busting adrenaline jolt of a movie starring a never-better Timothée Chalamet.

A deeply felt film about one teetering marriage, and a work whose power sneaks up on you slowly.

It’s hard to understand how “Ella McCay,” the first original feature from writer-director Brooks in 15 years, goes so utterly haywire.

Zhao, co-writing with O’Farrell, goes straight for the tear ducts, with crucial help from a superb cast led by Buckley — who, like her character, seems to have an extraordinary ability to dispense with artifice and access a wildness simmering beneath the surface.

Certainly the film has a fascinating premise, one that would have worked well enough were it totally fictional — but works better with the knowledge that it’s based on fact.

The mashup of genres may feel a bit tonally rough, but it ultimately works, not least because of its unifying factor: Sweeney, who imbues her no-holds-barred portrayal of Martin with both sweetness and rage, with brio and real vulnerability.

There are some sweet kisses (otherwise, it’s very chaste) and some nice declarations of motherly devotion (credit to Williams for doing her best) but the cheese factor is regretfully high.

Usually a cinematic heist is spectacular — in its success or its failure. Reichardt has removed all spectacle, telling instead a moody tale of a man who makes a dumb mistake and slowly loses everything, like a tumble down a mountain in slow motion.

The film is a wonderful collaboration between [Byrne] and writer-director Bronstein, who drew inspiration from her own experiences with motherhood. It also has given Byrne, an actor of effortless appeal in lighter films, a chance to display versatility and grit in surely the toughest dramatic role of her career.

The first and most important thing to say about “Anemone,” a bleak, somber, absorbing but also sometimes frustratingly opaque collaboration with his director son Ronan, is that it’s brought Day-Lewis back.

This final movie will give loyal Downton fans what they want: a satisfying bit of closure and the sense that the future, though a bit scary, may look kindly on Downton Abbey as long as Mary is in charge.

In the end, we’re left to ponder not only grief but loneliness, and the lengths people will go to fight it. Shakespeare had a line about that, too, referring to “the mystery of your loneliness.” In Sweeney’s disturbing but also oddly satisfying tale, that essential human condition retains its mystery.

The script could certainly be sharper, the comedy more clever. But for two hours on Netflix, Coopers Chase is rather a comfy place to be, with some moments to cherish.

The chief weakness of “Freakier Friday” — which brings Curtis and Lohan back for an amiable, often joyful and certainly chaotic reunion — is that while it hews overly closely to the structure, storyline and even dialogue of the original, it tries too hard to up the ante.

Nobody’s perfect, though Bobo may think she is. But in Venter’s performance, Davidtz has found something pretty close: a child actor who can carry an entire film and never seem like she’s acting.

A smart rom-com that tries to be honest about life and still leave us smiling — that math seems to add up just fine.

The early scenes in this wacky place high in the mountains are the best part of “Ballerina” — they actually contain deft surprises and even a glimmer of humor, which is hardly something we expect in a John Wick film.

A vivid presence despite her dry-as-dust tone, Threapleton makes a splendid Andersonian debut here as half the father-daughter duo, along with Benicio Del Toro, that drives the director’s latest creation. Their emerging relationship is what stands out amid the familiar Andersonian details: the picture-book aesthetic.

Some people hate horror films of any kind. They’re not the intended audience here. But for those who don’t, or are mixed, it’s true: You may watch “Final Destination Bloodlines” through fingers covering your face. But chances are high you’ll be smiling, too.

Yes, the cinematography is what stands out here. There are also several compelling performances, though Baldwin’s somewhat halting, somber turn is not among them.

How Coogler pulls everything off at once — and makes it cohere, mostly — is a sight to see.

What’s never quite fleshed out here is why this all should resonate with us — or how these haphazard moments, albeit compelling, weave together in the cohesive way the filmmakers seem to promise.

The Alto Knights, despite its pedigree, doesn’t rise anywhere near the heights of its glorious predecessors. It is, rather, an enjoyable if choppily paced look at a relationship between two men, where unfortunately we’re arriving pretty late in the game.

In an extremely physical, committed, even exhausting performance, Pattinson takes what could have been an unwieldy mess and makes it much less, well, expendable.

Not all of it works, but it’s never uninteresting or uncreative — especially when it comes to finding inventively horrible (or horribly inventive) ways for people to die.

What makes “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” especially enjoyable, then — and the best since the 2001 original — is not that Bridget finds a way yet again to triumph over doubts and obstacles. It’s that she still makes us care so darned much.

Kudos to Hancock for making the film crackle along wittily, drawing in even those of us prone to shudder at movies with a fast-rising body count.

The action comes fast and furious, and the banter is pleasant enough. Diaz, especially, makes the proceedings decently enjoyable and some of the sillier lines believable.

“Let me entertain you,” Williams seems to be screaming through every scene. Mostly, he succeeds.

Bring your hand warmers, toe warmers, heart warmers and soul warmers — this update of the 1922 silent vampire classic will chill you to the bone...But it may not terrify you. Everything in Robert Eggers’ faithful, even adoring remake, from his picturesque 19th century German town to those bleak mountain snowscapes leading to that (brrr) imposing castle in Transylvania, looks great. But with its stylized, often stilted dialogue and overly dramatic storytelling, it feels more like everyone is living in a quaint period painting rather than a world populated by real humans (and, well, vampires) made of flesh and, er, blood.

Though not for everyone, it’s a film that can justifiably be described as “epic” in ambition and design. And, wouldn’t you know, ambition and design are precisely what the movie’s about.

Somewhow Adams, who also produces here, makes these things seem, if not quite natural, then logical.

If people breaking into song delights rather than flummoxes you, if elaborate dance numbers in village squares and fantastical nightclubs and emerald-hued cities make perfect sense to you, and especially if you already love “Wicked,” well then, you will likely love this film. If it feels like they made the best “Wicked” movie money could buy — well, it’s because they kinda did.

It’s quite a journey for one film. All credit to Eisenberg, and his superb co-star, for making the road trip so thought-provoking.

A film that’s as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint.

This film’s biggest lack is the connective tissue — we don’t ever really understand, alas, how young Trump became President Trump.

[Ronan] gives one of her finest performances in a two-hour study of addiction that is poignant, sometimes beautiful but always painful to watch — and would likely be too draining if not for the luminous presence at its core.

Yes, there’s a lot you can predict from the outset, not to mention lines you could have pre-written, word for word. But that doesn’t mean your heart won’t be caught up in this deeply felt, poignantly told story from Navajo country, especially when the last player takes that last shot in those final seconds — never mind some heavy-handed moments.

It’s an absorbing ride, and Schimberg works with confidence and brio.

Director James Watkins and especially his excellent troupe of actors, adult and children alike, do a nice job of building the tension, slowly but surely. Until all bloody hell breaks loose, of course. And then, in its third act, “Speak No Evil” becomes an entertaining but routine horror flick, with predictable results.

In the Burtonian spirit, let’s just say it took a long time to bake it, yes, but the director has recovered the recipe — at least enough to make us smile, chortle, even guffaw, for 104 minutes. And we can be happy with that.

This is a 135-minute film that demands a lot more depth. And, so, to co-opt a political phrase from Bill Clinton, whom Quaid also has played: It’s the script, stupid.

Kravitz almost pulls it off. With the help of a terrific cast, she offers strikingly confident, brashly entertaining filmmaking, until everything seems to break down in a mess of porous storytelling.

This is a very big, very (very!) loud, very jumpy horror flick, and the screams will come, and they’ll be audible. Which is precisely what “Alien” fans are surely waiting for.

For all these characters, something about being subjugated by someone else provides a perverse sense of comfort.

The story here is simple and heartfelt. It’s a coming-out tale, but with the twist that the person coming out is 32, a decade (or even two) later than in most stories we see.

Atlas, an often ridiculous sci-fi epic with dialogue cheesier than a Brie wheel but also an old-fashioned, human heart o’ gold, is a J.Lo movie. Through and through.

The issue is simply that with all the artistic resources and refreshing ideas here, there’s a fuzziness to the storytelling itself.

All these elements, wacky or not, come together in a charming mishmash that adds something ultimately very important to the childbirth comedy genre: the message that childbirth is profound, yes, and full of wonder. But also, like life, it can be funny — and a bit of a mess.

Something about the detail and clarity with which Jane Schoenbrun evokes ’90s suburbia in “I Saw the TV Glow” makes you remember growing up there — even if you didn’t.

With flashy, colorful and user-friendly graphics, the film traces industry consolidation: the few companies who have 70% of the carbonated drinks market, for example, or 80% of the baby food market. Such realities violate the spirit of antitrust legislation, they argue.

Assuming it’s true, the film is a poignant and moving coda to a career spent chronicling personal indignities amid broader social ills like poverty and unemployment.

The emotional payoff takes a while to arrive, but once it does in the last act of this film, you’ll have a hard time forgetting Hopkins’ face.

It’s a pleasant and occasionally mesmerizing ride, thanks in no small measure to Sandler’s skillful empathy and yet another absorbing turn by Mulligan, who never disappoints. In the constellation that is Hollywood, her star continues to be one of the brightest.

Despite the compelling source material, “Ordinary Angels” is one of those movies where you can predict developments with certainty.

If the plot feels truly chaotic, blending (deep breath here, please) mythology, astrology, autobiography, confessional, modern romantic comedy and Old Hollywood glamour (still with us?), it is so J.Lo — so very, very J.Lo — that it feels logical, too.

A slick, fizzy bit of entertainment that’s occasionally delightful and usually fun, even if the translation to 2024 definitely has its rough spots.

Çatan and co-writer Johannes Duncker, who in fact attended school together, are making the point that even a middle school is a microcosm of society and all its tensions and ills.

There is not much “edge” here, but Clooney and team prove that sometimes, slow and steady — or should we say, pretty and pleasing — can still win some races.

It’s a film that tells its stunning tale with heart and conviction, yet seems somehow reticent about pointing a truly critical finger at either the brutality of a sport that broke this family, or the man who seemed to give his sons no choice in the matter: family patriarch Fritz Von Erich.

In his meticulous and harrowing film The Zone of Interest, writer-director Jonathan Glazer has found a way to convey evil without ever depicting the horror itself. But though it escapes our eyes, the horror assaults our senses in other, deeper ways.

Make no mistake, the clever writing is here, as is the style, the sleek technique, and some terrific performances (Rosamund Pike is especially delicious in a supporting role). What’s missing, or muddled, is the message — and perhaps even more, the heart.

We walk away from this funny, sad, scary film acutely reminded that if fame has two sides, one of them is pretty darned horrible.

Ultimately, Pain Hustlers feels like a retreading of the same ground covered in other recent works, bringing nothing especially new to the table and, in splitting the stylistic difference between slick/breezy and poignant/authentic, succeeding fully at neither.

The rebelliousness of each of the strong women here — mother and daughter — somehow coalesces into understanding. Such moments can be sappy, but here, as with her lovely opening shot, Keshavarz does it well. She sticks the landing.

[Scorsese] has called his work an offering to the Osage, and to other Native peoples. It also feels like an offering to those who love cinema, allowing us to watch a master of the craft continue to force himself, unlikely as it seems, to stretch and learn. May he keep stretching — himself, and us.

The celebrated folk singer and activist was singing about civil rights, of course. But what we learn in the thoughtful, thorough and sometimes harrowingly intimate Joan Baez: I Am a Noise is that Baez was also seeking to overcome much on a personal scale: anxiety, depression, loneliness and, late in life, troubling repressed memories about her own father.

The dialogue is head-spinningly mundane. The flow of testosterone is, well, head-spinning.

Richardson, throughout, gives an empathetic and endearing performance, and Hardy matches her for charm, even if he doesn’t convince as a self-described “maths nerd.”

If “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” felt like a pale imitation of the buoyant original, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3” feels sorta like a pale imitation of that pale imitation. Or, to analogize with a favored franchise food item: like a thrice-warmed piece of baklava.

There’s a lot of gross, both kinda and mega, over this film’s 93-minute running time. Also a lot of poop jokes, and penis jokes, both canine and human. You get the picture.

At a certain point, somebody says “I just hope this goes better than last time.” It’s a cheeky reference to the first film, but also a rather dangerous line to include in a sequel, because they almost never go better than last time. This one doesn’t either, but at least it’s upfront about what it’s doing: just making stuff bigger and crazier.

The neatest trick is how Barbie, starring a pitch-perfect Margot Robbie — and after a minute you’ll never be able to imagine anyone else doing it — can simultaneously and smoothly both mock and admire its source material. Gerwig deftly threads that needle, even if the film sags in its second half under the weight of its many ideas and some less-than-developed character arcs.

The plot — outlandish and sometimes contrived as it is — offers plenty of room for comic possibility. And more. Screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao explore themes of identity, assimilation and anti-Asian racism both overt and casual — and within the Asian community itself.

By the end of this illuminating film, we’re forced to confront something much deeper and more insidious: society’s need to divide humans into a binary system, and the sometimes disastrous results for those born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that isn’t neatly “male” or “female.”

At one point in this 184-minute drama, I started wondering if I was seeing a bunch of disco balls trying to destroy each other. But maybe this was a moment of sensory overload.

Time and again, Song, who both writes and directs here, makes the unflashy, understated choice — and in so doing, darned near breaks our hearts, with a tale that feels universal yet rich in detail, urgent yet unrushed.

Despite some satisfying moments, by the increasingly cringe-worthy last third of the movie you’re just annoyed that it seems to want to cover all bases — to have its, er, cannoli and eat it, too.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, hotly awaited by devotees of the decades-old role-playing game, makes darned sure to be fun, and funny — enough to laugh at itself. And that’s the thing that makes it work.

The sequel, again directed by David F. Sandberg, feels less breezily funny, less fresh, less fleet of foot.

It’s an odd paradox that this movie feels both high-minded and also at times frustratingly pedestrian.

Luckily we get to look long and and hard at this Emily, brought provocatively to life by O’Connor and her star. Strange or not, it’s hard to look away.

Parallels to “My Best Friend’s Wedding” come early and often.

All the charm and style in the world, and J.Lo has more than anyone, can’t make up for the bizarre tonal imbalance of “Shotgun Wedding,” a movie too violent to be funny and too funny (in the odd, weird sense) to be fun.

Most crucially, it’s a film so original in approach that one feels only Diop could have made or even conceived of it.

The destination may be startling but, thanks to a magnetic star turn from Krieps, the voyage is never boring.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is clearly not aimed solely at kids, but rather is banking on the fact that adults, too, will be drawn to the striking visuals and mature themes at play.

At times Spoiler Alert feels like an edgy, clever film that plays wittily on the main character’s lifelong obsession with TV. At others, it feels like a more formulaic, holiday-themed tearjerker — the passing years are marked in a Christmas card montage! — that wrings our tears in unsubtle ways.

Lawrence’s novel may have been shocking when it was published — most famously, it was the subject of a major obscenity trial in Britain — but it is not shocking now, no matter how frank the sex scenes. So any adaptation needs more to distinguish it than heaving bodies, however attractive.

Disney’s pleasantly entertaining, gorgeously rendered but slightly heavy-handed meditation on climate change and father-son dynamics.

She Said, a worthy entry to a film genre that includes “Spotlight” and of course “All the President’s Men,” isn’t just about the power of journalism. It’s also about courage, from the women who suffered sexual harassment or assault at Weinstein’s hands and came forward at personal risk — to their careers, reputations or well-being.

Guadagnino gives us a lesson in the history of Hollywood itself, not to mention the birth of the “movie star” and the role fashion has played in that. (It’s great fun.)

To the filmmakers’ credit, they don’t manufacture a motivation where there wasn’t one. There’s no need. The unembellished horror of this real-life tale is way more than enough.

The biggest challenge for Styles, and for the studio that lists him as one of a six-actor ensemble — albeit at the top of the list, they’re not stupid! — is to mute the confident pop-star magnetism, in service of the story. This he does. At times, though, it seems he’s pressing too hard on that mute button, erasing personality from his portrayal.

Did you want closure in a satisfyingly coherent way? That’s not what you’ll get. Did you want to see Curtis in one more (we think) badass performance as durable Laurie Strode, whom she’s been playing for some 45 years? You’ll get that. Did you want to see more gore and guts, with a disturbingly creative scene involving a record turntable? You’ll get that, too.

What “Blonde” IS is ambitious. Far-reaching, at times perhaps too far.

At the end, one feels gratitude not only for Stigter’s painstaking work, but to author Kurtz and of course his grandfather, just a man with a camera whose fleeting footage is a powerful response to those who intended to eradicate the existence of these people and millions like them.

Food, family, a big karaoke scene … and a spotlight on an immigrant community underrepresented in Hollywood. There are worse ways to spend 96 minutes.

It’s hard not to think of the title when contemplating the overall effect of a film that spares no expense to entertain, yet ends up feeling a little aimless, perplexingly bland, and — what’s the word we’re looking for? Oh yes. Gray.

All the buzz and talent around a tale that’s sold more than 12 million copies can’t thoroughly mask a sometimes corny, often clunky script, even if most of the lines are delivered by Daisy Edgar-Jones, whose poignant, grounded lead performance is the distinguishing highlight of the enterprise.

Of course, you might ask, at a time of such turbulence in the world, what do 19th century upper-class romantic machinations have to do with, well, anything? To which we say: Whatever! Bring it on. Distract us with your lovely frocks flowing straight from the bosom, your exquisite bonnets with feathers, your real-estate porn in the countryside and your smart dinner-table repartee. We could do a lot worse.

Raiff’s writing and direction keep the action moving crisply, and he knows his world — set not in Dallas but in Livingston, New Jersey — very well.

Rylance is also one of those few actors who can power an entire film, and The Phantom of the Open definitely rides on the strength of his signature quirky energy as it tells the true-life story of Maurice Flitcroft, a shipyard crane operator from northern England who stunned the golfing world in 1976 by entering the British Open under false pretenses — he’d never played a round of golf — and shooting the worst qualifying round in Open history.

In the end, “A New Era” is a misnomer of a title — not much has changed, which actually may be the best gift to “Downton” fans. After a tough couple of years, you could do worse than this, the latest in what may end up being a line of sequels as long as the Crawley bloodline.

Not surprisingly, Carmichael proves a director who is nothing if not confident and comfortable with the UNcomfortable. He keeps the action moving — at a few moments, the film even feels like an action pic.

[Michell] imbues his last film with so much charm, wit and good storytelling that he, too, cannot help but win.

In Arnold’s careful, unhurried hands, it is a sobering lesson, though one without a clear agenda. Arnold simply seems interested in telling us Luma’s story. And that is enough.

Memory is selective, memory is jumbled, memory travels in different directions. And so does “Mothering Sunday,” Eva Husson’s affecting and visually pleasing — if languorous — meditation on love and loss, based on a woman’s memory of an impactful day that reverberates through her long life.

Master ultimately suffers the fate of many promising films with many good ideas and not enough time to develop them — some paring down would have improved the latter part of the film.

The question does arise not long into this, the 10th movie in the “Chainsaw” oeuvre: Did we really need another? And sadly, given the lack of imagination, creativity or even basic attention to logic in a perfunctory and downright silly script, the answer seems a resounding “Nope.”

As for Neeson, what can we say? He could keep doing this ’til he’s 80, but surely there’s something better out there.

If the format of a lecture is inherently limiting, the directors do a superb job of weaving a compelling visual — and emotional — experience.

No matter how cursed or unlucky the so-called “Scottish play” is in theater lore, the stars seem to be aligned here.

Perhaps there’s something in this tale of two women — or really, three — that speaks to all who try to pretend that it’s unnatural to sometimes be ambivalent about motherhood. And that motherhood is not, in ways and at times, a struggle for nearly everyone.

That the comet is a stand-in for climate change is hardly a secret going into Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay’s exceedingly watchable, funny and star-studded yet somewhat chaotic satire.

Karam is adapting his own Tony-winning work here, a play inspired by the 2007-2008 financial crisis. In doing so he achieves something quite rare: He makes an intimate and devastating family drama even more intimate and devastating.

For older viewers, though, it may be hard to ignore some of the clunkier moments of a script that, in trying to update a story created in 1963, gets in its own way with dialogue that while sometimes funny and sweet, can be awkward and occasionally even off-key.

Rarely have the hues of black and white, cinematographically speaking, looked so beautifully lush as in Passing, the hugely impressive directorial debut of actor Rebecca Hall.

The violence is expertly choreographed, but some of us surely could have done with less bloodshed (there are Tarantino-esque flourishes here, too) and more dialogue to deepen some of the tantalizing relationships Samuel introduces.

Whatever your level of familiarity, Haynes’ doc — the first for this accomplished director — is so stylistically compelling, it doesn’t really matter what you knew coming in.

Writer-directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly offer up a commentary on the value of work. There’s a critique of capitalism, and an intriguing buddy relationship between two women with very different lives but shared goals.

A feminist recasting of the familiar story is welcome, of course, but the screenplay focuses so insistently on its female-empowering message that it feels at times like we’re just getting hit over the head with it.

Heder, who adapted her screenplay from the 2014 French film La Famille Belier, makes crucially effective decisions throughout, but none more important than the casting, with three extraordinary deaf actors playing the deaf family members.

Of course, it all comes down to a Shyamalan-style final twist — the most entertaining part of the film, but it comes way, way too late. Listen, we’re all up for some summer fun on the beach. But by the time we’re allowed in on the secret here, we’re feeling a bit tired.

One cannot fault Roadrunner for not coming up with clear answers. There rarely are clear answers, anyway, and this film seems to want to be about a life, not a death. A fascinating life, parts of which will forever remain unknown.

Luckily, Neeson has a way of lending his rough-hewn dignity to even the most perfunctory of plots — because this one, it must be said, is perfunctory.

All characters are beautifully cast, but a standout is Hawkins, who has the soulful voice of a young Christopher Jackson (the original Benny, who has a cameo here) and charisma that burns through the screen.

Stone is always compelling, and with an ace nemesis in Thompson, she’s having a blast.

A well-cast and often entertaining but campy and sometimes obvious thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and James Norton.

Monday has an artsy, improvised feel, but also falls prey to some pretty standard rom-com tropes.

Concrete Cowboy, an impressive debut by writer-director Ricky Staub that overcomes formulaic dialogue and we-saw-that-coming plot twists with its sheer heart, is based on a novel, Ghetto Cowboy by Gregory Neri.

Without spoiling any secrets, the film progresses in horror-film mode before, in its third act, tying things up in a somewhat clever, unexpected way. By then, though, you may have given up on this group.

Again, it all feels like a 30th reunion — maybe because it IS one — where the liquor flows, old stories are rehashed, the men haven’t aged quite as well as the women, the kids steal the show, and by the end you’re happy to have gone but feel no need to be at the next one.

Luckily, The Mauritanian, directed by Kevin Macdonald, gets one thing very right: Tahar Rahim’s masterful central performance. The French actor achieves something his big-name costars — Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch and Shailene Woodley — do not, presenting a multi-layered, subtly shaded and deeply moving portrayal that proves hard to forget.

Talk about timing. When he began making Little Fish, an intimate and affecting romance in a sci-fi setting, director Chad Hartigan had no idea the world would be coping with a real pandemic in the real 2021. Watching this fictional society begin to fray in panic feels just a tad too close for comfort.

It should be required viewing for anyone who cares about free speech and democracy.

The tone shifts radically from one moment to the next, and humor is a regular companion to mayhem, pain, even violence. That brings us to the wild and harrowing ending. It’s an ending that may not be expected — well, it’s definitely not expected — but Fennell has said it was the truest way to end a real story of female revenge, not a comic-book version.

Eventually, the movie does seem to get where it’s going. A scene between Alice and Roberta touches upon issues of literary ownership and artistic license that haven’t yet been fully mined. It’s a bit late in the game. But the ride has been pleasant.

It goes without saying that the performance is brilliant, and yes, electric, but it’s also heroic. If there had to be a final role, what a gift that it was this, an exclamation point to a career that seems ever more momentous.

The story itself is unremarkable, even thin — there are no surprising twists or turns, no big lessons in the script by Nicolaas Zwart — but the relationship at its core is hugely entertaining to watch.

This hypnotic film experience is a badly needed shot in the arm for all of us — music lovers, theater lovers, dance lovers, culture lovers, life lovers. It’s also one of the best concert films in recent memory.

A diversion like Save Yourselves! might just save your week.

At the end, you might be a bit confused by what has really happened, or is yet to. But the journey has been absorbing.

Because seeing what happened to Furie and his chill stoner frog dude — spoiler alert, he became a hate symbol of the alt right — will likely make your blood run cold. It sure makes for a chillingly effective internet-era cautionary tale.

At certain points that strain all credulity, you’re just hoping Crowe will look up and wink, and maybe whisper his famous “Gladiator” line: “Are you not entertained?” Because then we could laugh along with him — as we can with a humorous tweet he recently sent, promoting the film.

A novel like Coetzee’s invites readers to fill in the blank spaces. On a screen, we tend to crave more specificity. The result, coupled with a too-languorous pace, is a film that’s intermittently engrossing and always interesting, but less potent than it could have been.

Franco has made a briskly entertaining debut feature, a nice way to spend an escapist summer evening. Not from your Airbnb, though.

Greyhound is perhaps not so much a thriller as a very spare, economical drama.

Irresistible has its smart laughs and real pleasures.

The tension escalates quite effectively, but the payoff feels weak, because the thing — or person, or whatever — that we’re supposed to be most scared of is hardly as scary as the buildup.

Absorbing, brash, exhausting, urgent, sometimes brilliant and sometimes unapologetically messy

Yes, you’ll likely guffaw at one key moment, but it probably won’t spoil the fun. And when you catch yourself saying, “That wouldn’t happen!“— well, let’s remind ourselves that this is precisely the time for a little escapism.

What distinguishes this debut feature from Andrew Onwubolu, aka Rapman, is firstly its storytelling structure, making welcome use of the writer-director’s rap talents to serve as a Greek chorus. And secondly its cast, with several vital performances of note, especially from heartbreakingly vulnerable newcomer Stephen Odubola.

The misunderstandings are too numerous to describe. But the proceedings are beautifully paced, and the movie feels light and airy, like a pleasant dream.

Ultimately it all rides on Robbie, who, along with her blond, color-dipped pigtails, brings an appealing blend of looniness and grit to the role, and a hint of something sadder and darker. Still, one gets the sense the filmmakers weren’t quite sure how far to go with the feminism thing. When she says sadly that “a harlequin’s nothing without a master,” you don’t immediately get the sense that this is a post #MeToo Harley Quinn.

The expressive Garner does a lot with a little. She has no big speeches, no tantrums, no floods of tears. It’s the ultimate unshowy part. If there is a word to describe Jane, it is small. Garner seems to shrink as the day goes on.

It’s really not a good sign when a movie ends with a bold, shocking flourish and much of the audience can be heard muttering through the credits: “Wait, um ... WHAT?”

Yes, it’s a dazzling technical feat. One could also consider it a gimmick, or at least a method that threatens to distract the viewer’s attention. But that ignores the fact that this very filmmaking style is also hugely effective at delivering this particular story, in the most visceral way possible.

Does all this work? Well, it depends on how you feel about ... Cats. Did you love the show? You’ll find stuff to love here. Did you hate it? Ditto! Or maybe ... you’ll have both reactions? That’s possible too.

It’s obvious that Sandler, the actor, is capable of extraordinary range — not in the traditional, Meryl Streep sense, but a range of incredibly good (“Punch-Drunk Love”) to painfully bad (the horrendous “Jack and Jill”) and incredibly good again, as in Uncut Gems, a frenetic, compulsively watchable, exhausting and exhilarating collaboration with Josh and Benny Safdie.

A film in which everything feels stunningly fresh, raw and new.

Rarely has a movie’s title been so apt as that of Waves, a film that makes you feel like you’ve been knocked flat over by a fierce current — only to be rescued by a gentle, soothing flow of warm surf that arrives in the nick of time.

It just doesn’t have the exciting, lightning-in-a-bottle feel that the wonderful original had. Perhaps that was too much to ask.

The issues it addresses are, to say the least, crucial ones, and even though it trusts its audience to trudge through some dense material, the audience should repay that trust. Here’s hoping it will.

At one point we get an action-flick style montage, which feels odd, as does the often overly obvious, swelling musical score. It’s hard to go too far wrong, though, with a story as compelling as Tubman’s and an actress as vivid as Erivo.

Waititi injects enough heart and wit into this enterprise to make a case that artists like him should at least be trying to find creative ways to educate new generations about the horrors of the past.

Some may find the film too loosely plotted, a series of vignettes more than a single, tight narrative. But they only need to sit back, listen to the beautiful score by Alberto Iglesias, and let Almodovar weave it all together _ from the first meditative shot of Banderas to the satisfying surprise of the ending shot _ as only Almodovar can.

You may know the outlines of the soccer legend’s life, but there’s no way you won’t learn something from Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia’s absorbing and exhaustive new film.

Let’s offer up some praise for this sequel-to-a-movie-based-on-a-smartphone-game, for finding a way to actually improve on the 2016 original in a way that’s clever but not snarky, sweet but not syrupy.

Once the plot is set in motion, things begin to go haywire. Despite compelling work from the leads and excellent supporting work from character actors like Margo Martindale and Bill Camp, it all starts to feel choppy and forced and then just tonally off — way off.

[An] absorbing new documentary.

For every laugh-out-loud moment in the smartly paced first half, there’s a sigh later as to what might have been.

While it’s a nice way to spend just short of two hours, it seems he could have sucked a little more out of those dusty old graves.

Sincerity is what anchors this film — especially Swinton Byrne’s astonishingly sincere performance.

Some have argued that the film glorifies its subject. It doesn’t, really. But it doesn’t explain him, either. And that leads to another question, which is, if there’s nothing really new to say about Ted Bundy, need we be saying anything?

A sort of high-gloss, nicely crafted daydream with a good score and generous references to LA noir films.

Hawke takes a fairly one-dimensional character and gives it an intelligent and shaded performance.

While much of Bissell’s film is poignantly rendered, especially the spirited lead performances by Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell, it has its flaws and its omissions.

The final moments are unexpected, and perhaps frustrating. But the title comes back to you. This film may leave you exhausted but also somewhat dazzled. It’s best not to look away.

By the end of this film — perhaps not Farhadi’s most piercing work but surely a polished, textured, and very engaging effort — you’ll look at the final two faces on the screen as they sit down to talk, and will likely still be asking yourself: Did everybody know?

Rodriguez and her fans deserve better than Miss Bala, a disappointingly bland and formulaic Hollywood remake of a much grittier and bleaker Mexican thriller.

Vice is frenetic and fun, flippant and frustrating.

It’s sweet news indeed that Mary Poppins Returns, a sequel 54 years in coming, provides just that spoonful of happiness in the form of Emily Blunt, practically perfect in every way as the heir to Julie Andrews.

Hedges is as excellent as he was in “Manchester By the Sea,” but it’s fair to say the movie belongs to Roberts. It’s a career peak, and a performance that deserves to be seen no matter how crowded your holiday moviegoing schedule.

Somehow, this amusingly chaotic mashup of genres finds a way to strike a final note that’s simple and true.

It’s not complicated. But there are worse things in life than 88 minutes of uncomplicated chuckling.

Gosling’s task here is not merely to give dimension to a mythical American hero. He also has to play a man who famously kept his emotions in check. That may not be an asset for a movie character, but sure was an asset for the first human to set foot on another world.

Were it not for Redford, the film would be — well, why even ask, because Redford is the point. He chose the role, optioned the New Yorker article, chose the director. It’s a perfect role for his swan song. But hey, Mr. Redford? We won’t hold you to that.

Whether Moore’s frenetic but absorbing work here — the cinematic equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, where you throw everything and some of it sticks — pleases or frustrates you, one thing is clear. Moore’s at his best when hitting a subject dear to his heart.

The main problem with The Spy Who Dumped Me is its strange dissonance of tone. There’s nothing wrong with trying to be a hard-knuckle action film and a goofy comedy all at once. But here, that effort results in moments of occasionally stunning violence that simply don’t mesh with the light-hearted vibe the filmmakers seek elsewhere.

Much ink has been spent analyzing this enduring phenomenon called Tom Cruise, and what motivates him, onscreen and off. “I just want to entertain people,” he said recently. That’s one mission he can still nail.

Teamwork. Friendship. Family. Playing for the game’s sake, not money. All these themes come together in a warm-hearted but highly predictable way.

Book Club has a script that’s often so heavy on the corn — make that corn syrup — that it strains credulity and leaves you groaning. But then, darn it, suddenly it makes you tearful, with an unexpectedly genuine moment, or laugh out loud. It’s a credit to the cast, and the cast only.

The real problem with I Feel Pretty, written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, is not in its message or conception, but in its ragtag execution.

A Quiet Place may not have the weighty social meaning or piercing comedy of another recent high-profile horror thriller, “Get Out.” But like that movie it is smart, it moves fast, it has a hugely satisfying ending — and it deserves to attract a much broader audience than the usual horror film devotees.

A fascinating and poignant look at the less-examined final years of the man’s life, timed for the 50th anniversary of his death.

It’s also all over the map, in every way possible. It’s visually gorgeous at times but then boring to behold at others, emotionally poignant at times but stunningly cloying at others. It’s also confusing (though to be fair, many might call the book confusing, too.) Mostly, it’s just a frustrating whole comprised of some pretty promising parts.