Manohla Dargis

Sex is a curious movie, with a mix of moods and intentions that are, by turns, inviting and seriously off-putting.

Is heterosexual romance doomed, is the romantic comedy? Those questions swirl with light, teasing provocation in Celine Song’s “Materialists,” a seductive, smartly refreshed addition to an impossibly, perhaps irredeemably old-fashioned genre that was once a Hollywood staple.

Ejiofor fills in Marty with dabs of personality and a sense of decency that suggests that while humanity is lost, not every individual is. It’s too bad the movie doesn’t stick with Marty, who warms it up appreciably.

"Final Reckoning” is flat-out ridiculous, but it’s a model example of blockbuster entertainment at its most highly polished, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, despite its clichés, extravagant violence and gung-ho militarism.

A tour de force that is at once an affecting portrait of a people in flux and a soulful, generous-hearted autobiographic testament from one of our greatest living filmmakers.

What is undeniable is that because Rust looks as good as it does, every time riders on horseback appear against a florid sky, it isn’t the characters you think about — it’s Halyna Hutchins.

The only sure thing is that Pugh deepens the material, investing Yelena with real feeling and a lightly detached ironic sensibility that’s reminiscent of Downey’s Stark. Pugh is the best thing to happen to Marvel in a while.

April is easy to admire, but Kulumbegashvili’s use of art-film conventions can be wearyingly familiar, especially when the leisurely pace turns to a crawl.

All that counts in The Accountant 2 is that it’s adroitly paced, unburdened by narrative logic (there are almost as many coincidences as corpses) and buoyed by its well-synced, charismatic leads.

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a big-screen exultation — a passionate, effusive praise song about life and love, including the love of movies.

The highest praise I can offer Warfare, a tough, relentless movie about life and death in battle, is that it isn’t thrilling. It is, rather, a purposely sad, angry movie, and as much a lament as a warning.

A sleek, modestly scaled entertainment about families, secrets and obligations, it features fine performances and some picture-postcard Burgundian locations.

There’s an amusing, low-fi thriller here amid what prove to be too many twists and thickets of cinematic allusion.

The low-key charms of the coming-of-age story Holy Cow emerge gradually but steadily.

Here, at least, the performers — who include Téa Leoni as Odell’s wife, the very funny Will Poulter as the Leopold son and Anthony Carrigan as a put-upon servant — have the kinds of ductile faces, rubber-band moves and vocal dexterity that can keep even sluggish material moving.

Zegler has enough charm and lung power to hold the center of this busy, overproduced movie with its mix of memorable old and unmemorable new songs.

Lesage’s characters may talk a lot, but because he avoids exposition, he ends up overloading the story with dramatically heightened episodes. These keep things simmering, but they often overstate the obvious as much as any telegraphing dialogue might.

By the time Pierce Brosnan shows up, you may find yourself giggling at the whole meta deliciousness of this enterprise. You may also find yourself feverishly hoping that when it comes time to revive the Bond series, someone has the brains to call Koepp and Soderbergh.

[Nyoni] says all she needs to with each lapidary image, with every resonant silence and with the undaunted power of Shula’s gaze.

Bong keeps things zipping along, and with such nimbleness that the movie’s heavier ideas never weigh it down. He jabs rather than pounds as he takes on targets — authoritarianism, comic-book heroics, the vanity of power — while playfully mixing moods and acting styles.

Everyone is engaging, the art is magnificent and the whole thing pleasant, if overly cozy and hagiographic. That’s too bad. Then again — with “Maus” and his other work — Spiegelman has already produced his definitive biography.

Tregenza is the kind of authentic independent who’s always worth seeking out; when he is behind the camera, he holds you rapt from the get-go.

“A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story” is a largely enjoyable, cozily intimate movie that plays like it was made by a fan.

Presence is another ideal trap to trip for a filmmaker who enjoys challenges and changing it up artistically as much as Soderbergh does.

Modestly scaled and loosely plotted, it is an unusually tender movie and an ideal vehicle for Coppola’s gift for expressing the intangible and the ephemeral.

While I don’t remember seeing any fingerprints dotting their forms this time around, the tender care that went into fashioning each of Wallace’s toothy expressions and Gromit’s quizzically raised brow remains palpable. The love, well, that you feel, too.

For her part, Kidman takes “Babygirl” to its breaking point with a performance that risks your laughter and which — as she dismantles her character’s perfection piece by piece — exposes a raw vulnerability that can be shocking. It’s the rawest thing in this movie, and it’s bliss.

Chalamet proves an ideal conduit in A Complete Unknown because the music and its maker have such power. As with any great cover band, it’s the original material that carries you through the night.