Kyle Smith

For all of the moments of splendor and awe in The Mountain, I’d have preferred a less open-ended film.

For those who can tolerate—or better yet, relish—extreme violence, The Equalizer 3 is diverting enough. If the script is so-so, the beautiful Italian locations, Mr. Washington’s still-world-class charm and an eerie, frightening musical score by Marcelo Zarvos lift it (slightly) above average for the action-thriller genre.

As directed with a wonderful combination of whimsy, deadpan humor and childlike exhilaration by Ms. Regan, the film is impish and full of bounce.

Ms. Mirren and the film do us all a service in declining to paint Meir as a legendary figure but instead observing that although she was a strong leader who can rightly be credited with saving her country from annihilation, crisis forced her to make grueling decisions whose psychic burdens she bore heavily.

Though it may have some novel elements, the franchise already feels tired, and isn’t much more promising than recent DC efforts “Black Adam” and “The Flash.” This beetle doesn’t have much juice.

Strays is wildly inappropriate. It’s also wildly funny.

It’s difficult to watch but beguilingly genuine in its exploration of the tortured dynamics of three adult siblings whose mother died five years earlier and who haven’t been together in three years.

A general sense that things aren’t heading anywhere too exciting pervades this cinematic chunk of corporate synergy.

Filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon, a native of the state, has done a breathtakingly expressive job of capturing the strangeness, the beauty and the devastation of her homeland in the poetic, entrancing documentary King Coal.

Dreamin’ Wild is an elegant appreciation of the many textures of aging, balancing the feel of rhapsodic memories and shuddery regrets.

The latest and best “TMNT” movie contains a little more substance than may at first be apparent, and this sci-fi reptile comedy admirably advances a message that we can and should all get along, majority and minorities alike.

At its best it’s entertaining in a quaint, late-’60s way, which makes it a pleasant summer surprise.

In balancing the two sides’ competing motives, Mr. Sorogoyen has fashioned not only a taut drama but a parable that is widely applicable across many cultures at this moment.

Mr. Nolan’s utterly enthralling film lasts three hours. But despite being as talky as a math seminar, it crackles, hurtles and whooshes, generating more suspense and excitement than anything found in the alleged climaxes of the recent superhero pictures (which owe much to the director’s Batman films).

Barbie is a template for how not to write a crowd-pleasing Hollywood feature.

The Miracle Club may not be a miraculous cinematic achievement but it does a fine job of dramatizing the healing power of forgiveness.

The narrator tells us that a doctor said to him, “War is like an X-ray. All human insides become visible. Good people become better; bad people, worse.” Such astute observations, together with the harrowing imagery, lift “20 Days in Mariupol” to the ranks of the great war documentaries.

This all-you-can-eat thrill buffet easily bests most of the recent big-budget movies and reminds us that Mr. Cruise remains a showman par excellence.

To the extent this literary feud evolves into a thriller, it’s not an especially thrilling one.

It isn’t until the last half hour that the film finally switches tones from aggressively and charmlessly filthy to thoughtful.

The warm performance by the ageless Ms. Gainsbourg and the soulfulness of the two younger leads (Judith is a subordinate figure of little importance) make for an absorbing two hours.

"Dial of Destiny” is, if anything, even more breathless and filled with stunts than “Raiders,” but everyone’s feats look like insipid fakery.

It was one of the last moments when the balance between 1940s-style uplift and what became known as cinema’s American New Wave still held; within a few years, boomer culture simply subsumed all else. “Desperate Souls” does a fine job of exploring the tectonics of that shift.

Uneven though it is . . . No Hard Feelings devises some smart new twists for the teen sex comedy while expertly counterbalancing Mr. Feldman’s doe-eyed innocence with Ms. Lawrence’s vamping.

The pair’s growing fascination for each other is as unmistakable as the beauty of their surroundings, and so a film about inanimate elements turns out to be a delightfully human love story.

Asteroid City may be infused with the powers of the Atomic Age, but no Anderson movie except “The Darjeeling Limited” runs so low on energy.

Although the climactic battle sequence is, as usual in these movies, teeming with spectacle . . . it feels busy rather than exciting.

The age when such images held firm positions in the culture may be over, but Mr. Corbijn’s film has given it a glorious and stirring elegy.