Johnny Oleksinski

Although the film is about Paige’s unlikely rise to TV stardom, what grabs us most is the eclectic Knight family running a scrappy professional wrestling gym on a shoestring. It might be the biggest missed reality-TV show opportunity ever.

With hero flicks getting as weighty and self-important as “The Handmaid’s Tale,” it’s a relief to watch one let its hair down. These gloomy films could use more exclamation points.

Beyond the requisite lessons, there are some witty touches.

Most importantly, Halloween recovers its long-lost gravitas and self-respect. It makes us remember why we loved Carpenter’s original in the first place: It was artful, frightening and supremely well-acted — not “Scream 4.”

This time, ‘Zilla and Kong face off in ginormous Hong Kong — a destruction junkie’s dream battlefield. Neon, chrome and oversize animals clobbering each other. Also around is another adversary whose reveal will have fans drooling. See Godzilla vs. Kong on the big screen if you can.

Ultimately “Mad About the Boy” is much like Bridget herself: endearing, silly, messy, wacky, kind. I like it… just as it is.

M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller, Old, is campy, poorly written, candy-colored and subtle as Eurovision.

J.Lo has delivered an over-the-top song-and-dance camptacular, both gravely serious and deliriously funny, providing one cuckoo moment after another.

While not totally original, transitions to live action with real guts and reinvention.

Some will accuse Our Friend of being sentimental, and it is, but not in an “Oh no! The golden retriever was kidnapped!” way. It’s subtle. The wisdom of Brad Ingelsby’s script is that Dane’s assistance is unnoticeable until very late in the movie. His acts of kindness sneak up on you.

Freddie Mercury may have had the better voice, but it’s Elton John who gets the better movie. Rocketman, director Dexter Fletcher’s trippy new biopic about the flamboyant rocker is braver, deeper and more enlightening than last year’s slobbering piece of Queen propaganda “Bohemian Rhapsody” (which he also partly directed).

If the title makes you wince, know the movie is a lot better than it deserves to be. You’ll actually care about what happens to the prickly blue dude, even if you never cared about getting to zone seven.

This comedy soars squarely on small moments and big jokes.

The film is empty-headed good fun that’s blessedly under two hours and has just enough character development to make you kind of care when someone gets bitten.

Most of DC Comics’ dreadful movies deserve to be violently squished, but not Blue Beetle, a refreshingly spry new film featuring the lesser-loved, bug-shaped superhero who’s been crawling around in some form since 1939.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, the sequel to the 2006 comedy that’s not at all about Anna Wintour, is a good time, even if the high-pressure world of Vogue, er, Runway magazine is no longer the epitome of New York luxury and glamour it was back in the aughts.

The gory-as-hell movie is as campy and fun as any chapter in producer Sam Raimi’s four-decade-old horror series. But trapping kids in an apartment — as opposed to college-age friends in a cabin — raises the stakes and brings on legitimate scares. And some hearty laughs, too.

Dunham has made a really attractive and cohesive film, merging her modern, punky sensibilities with the dirt-and-stone drear of the time period.

It’s the most touching dramedy about young women battling over a sash since “Little Miss Sunshine.”

Unlike Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there is nothing serious about The Suicide Squad. That’s a good thing.

Lane and Costner are swell, but the film jolts to life the second we walk into Blanche’s dimly lit kitchen, occupied by even dimmer men. The villainous Manville acts like a rooster, clucking, crowing and, worst of all, pecking. A sickening scene in a motel won’t have you taking the kids to South Dakota anytime soon.

While the movie could be a notch scarier, the unsettling imagery and slow build to chaos make me want another movie by this director stat.

This dramedy, which began filming in 1970, is more than just a museum exhibit for film geeks. It’s a solid, entertaining, complex story packed with eccentric performances.

The action film is as unpretentious as Charlie Sheen eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut at Six Flags. In short: blissfully dumb entertainment.

Boy Erased is the second gay conversion therapy movie of the year, after “The Miseducation of Cameron Post.” Both are worthwhile. Where “Cameron” was an intimate charmer focused on the importance of camaraderie to get through hard times, the more dramatic Boy Erased is about accepting our family for who they are, in whatever condition they arrive in.

A terribly funny sendup of the show that famously gave us “Waterloo” by ABBA in 1974, and now gives us a year’s supply of crazy. The Netflix film is the most enjoyable music industry parody since Christopher Guest’s folk satire “A Mighty Wind.”

The beefcake Swayze role, Dalton, is taken over by an intense Jake Gyllenhaal in this entertaining and, for better or worse, less mockable update of the cult classic.

The film is an often ugly character study of a hard life that only got worse the more famous Martin got.

A funny-but-tortured femme-fatale performance from Florence Pugh as Russian assassin Yelena Belova, brutal and tactile fights and a merciful lack of confusing backstory makes for the most enjoyable MCU entry in a while.

The John Wick action series doesn’t get bogged down in such silly trivialities as character development, plot, dialogue, morals or any of the usual rubrics most films follow. Instead, these fun flicks are just loosely connected, extremely violent fight scenes starring Neo from “The Matrix.” And why the hell not?

What I love about Green’s style is he has both a sense of the grand — he gives Michael’s mask the cinematic weight of Moses’ Ten Commandments slabs — and the goofy.

But like he seems to do with every project these days, Grant runs away with the movie.

As the horror genre has, in recent years, grown more sophisticated and clever, you heave a sigh of relief to be handed a thriller that’s so dumb.

Many modern teen issues are touched upon — depression, anxiety, eating disorders — and because of the honest performances from Smith and Fanning, you ache for them.

Keeping logical track of all the comings and goings is like trying to focus on a single bird in a flock. The details, names and faces blur a little more every time a character rounds a corner, just as they would for the ailing Anthony. With its narrative boldness, however, The Father never stirs or fully satiates.

Emancipation, which is an otherwise well-tread period drama about the horrors of slavery, features more of Smith’s rich emotionality and laser-focused intensity that he’s uncovered late in his career and that won him the Oscar for last year’s “King Richard.”

We hold Pixar to a higher standard because of the true art it has achieved over the past – gulp – 30 years. If “Inside Out 2” doesn’t quite reach those heights, it is still a promising step on the studio’s difficult quest to rediscover its own sense of self.

Although “Ben” can get a little sentimental at times, Roberts and Hedges are a team to root for.

It’s a low-key rest-stop story that appreciates life’s banalities and the struggles of ordinary people.

What’s best and most consistent about “2” is how flippin’ funny it is.

Nothing salacious, and no dropped bombs here. Stan & Ollie portrays the pair less as hot-headed collaborators than a bickering married couple.

The song that rolls at the end credits is Bob Dylan’s “Not Dark Yet.” It’s a perfect coda for Linklater’s movie — it mimics the steady pulse of “Flag”, its warmth and Doc’s cautious optimism in the face of personal tragedy.

What a refreshing break from what usually constitutes an epic nowadays — mixing Ant-Man and the Hulk.

Taps into our worst fears of what could happen during a quiet holiday with heart-thumping realism.

Support the Girls is one of the sneakiest bait-and-switches at the movies this year. You come for the cheeky title and stay for the relevant, empathetic story about working-class women.

For the most part, though, Luca is light and effervescent as a summertime Bellini, which is something parents can drink while the kids watch this.

A sweet, science-fiction family film with a loud environmentalist message (speaking of “Avatar”) that’s good fun. It’s also nicely self-contained.

Don’t be fooled by its awful title. The Spy Who Dumped Me is the rare secret-agent spoof that doesn’t double-O-suck.

The Drama, for all its heat, is not perfect. I wasn’t won over by its climactic series of calamities that fall in rapid succession like dominoes at the end. However, most movies are completely forgotten by the time the credits roll. This one, like it or not, lingers for days. It’ll likely wind up one of the most controversial movies of the year.

It’s a pleasant watch with some solid jokes.

Hamilton the film is just OK.

Forty-three years later, “Tron: Ares” is groundbreaking for being the first “Tron” film with a discernible plot.

A very fine follow-up to the most successful horror film ever.

It’s an impressive first effort from Kravitz that, like the island and the women, immediately has us in its grip.

A riotous dark comedy in which a cute suburban get-together becomes a lethal nightmare.

While a tad too light, as these films often are, nobody is making animated characters as funny or likable (or marketable) as the Minions.

Being obvious nostalgia bait for children of the ’90s, director Rob Letterman’s film has no right to be as good or well-crafted as it is. The plot takes major twists that come as legitimate surprises, and seeing those old cartoon characters plopped into our world rendered in CGI is enormously satisfying.

If McKay crafted the most enjoyable parts of his satire with a scalpel, somebody should’ve handed him a machete to chop the script down some. The film clocks in at nearly two hours and 10 minutes, and we grow exhausted by it as the surprises stop and the ending becomes inevitable.

Though the cast is a decade older, Zombieland: Double Tap is no less funny. Thanks to some new additions, it’s even more riotous.

There’s a lot going on here, but Washington’s complex, emotionally turbulent performance makes it all work.

Panahi, who defied a filmmaking ban from the Iranian government to make this, is a director always worth supporting.

Ritchie is tops when it comes to getting a group of guys (and, occasionally, gal) together to complete a bloody, belligerent task. And this is as taut an ensemble of his as ever.

Wood, like fellow mega-franchise star Daniel Radcliffe, has found a comfy home in indie films. And he has the perfect presence for this one, in particular.

Leonard takes advantage of one of Rylance’s greatest strengths — the ability to instantly switch from weak to strong. Behind every tiny smile is ferocity.

It is a phenomenal showcase for Ronan, who dares to be unlikable for the rare time in her career. Her natural charm and whimsy we’re used to from “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” is but a glimmer in Rona’s eye — and that little light is why the viewer roots for this troubled woman as hard as they do.

The entertaining movie from director Rose Glass, whose first feature was “Saint Maud,” is unsparing in its graphic depictions of violence, abuse and extreme aspects of the body. Many will find all of that stuff gratuitous, but it fleshes out this unsavory world and ratchets up the plot’s tension.

“Old Man” isn’t hilarious or sleek. It’s mellow, like a campfire tale, or your grandpa’s stories set to whiskey. Redford’s voice never becomes louder than your average therapist’s.