Mark Kennedy

Beneath the beauty and the violence is a story about the ties between siblings, fatherly expectations, the modern world’s demands versus traditions and our own legacies.

So beautifully constructed and acted in the first half is “Heretic” that you won’t really notice when it turns into a horror movie.

In the frustrating The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Day gives it her all as Holiday but she can’t save a film that is overstuffed and also thin. Director Lee Daniels and screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks offer an unfocused, meandering work for much of the time, interrupted by devastating scenes that feel like a punch to the gut.

Trachtenberg who previously directed and co-wrote the story of “Prey” in 2022 and the animated “Predator: Killer of Killers” earlier this year, is confident in this world and it shows. He’s created a story about the betrayal of family and the joy of found family — and slicing horrific, nightmare creatures in half with a laser sword. But it’s both parts of Fanning that steal the show.

Problemista is not like a Wes Anderson-type hyper-whimsy, but more like the surreal bursting joy of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It even breaks space and time like the latter. It is absolutely captivating.

A Complete Unknown is utterly fascinating, capturing a moment in time when songs had weight, when they could move the culture — even if the singer who made them was as puzzling as a rolling stone.

Throughout The King, you can feel Jarecki desperately working, slicing, trying to make connections. What could have been a gentle, personal travelogue is reworked and reworked until it’s often guilty of the last sin of Elvis — excess.

It glows with respect for a man who earned it.

The problem with Men isn’t with the acting. It’s with a script that could be described as attempting at something like arty horror and can’t stick the landing. Often it is tedious, slow to build and pretentious.

Beneath it all is the story of a child’s love and guilt — and an education and judicial system letting her down — which propels her to bring her parents back from the dead, but that gets a little lost in the gross-out humor, Addams Family-level weirdness and shock-for-shock’s sake visual gags like a demonic teddy bear. For all the lovingly crafted spectacle, Selick’s agonizing, shot-by-shot film, is as overstuffed as that bear.

The thing keeping this together is Holland. He is utterly endearing as a goofy, insecure now-16-year-old hero with a cracked cellphone and who often makes things worse, apologizing along the way.

Teen Titans GO! to the Movies is the sort of silly film you and your kids can both enjoy, a slice of pure escapist fare in these divisive days.

It’s a documentary, ultimately, about creativity and a singular mind, one who dreamed up a gaggle of friends for life: Big Bird, Cookie Monster, the Count and, of course, Kermit, stitched from an old coat.

With tenderness and toughness, Greengrass has made a great film about a terrible act.

McMurray has a deft touch juggling action sequences, humor and intimate dialogue.

Deep Water, despite an all-star team behind it, barely makes a splash. Although it is being billed as an erotic thriller, it’s tedious and clunky. Trips to the supermarket are more exciting.

It’s a story brilliantly adapted and directed by Sam Esmail, showrunner of “Mr. Robot,” who has made Leave the World Behind into a homage of Alfred Hitchcock, complete with the image of a man trying to outrun a crashing plane and using the master’s discordant loud music.

The uplifting Edie is worthy of your time, mostly thanks to Hancock and Scotland’s natural beauty.

McCarthy’s visual style is too fragmented, happy to capture his scrambling camera and sound operators in the frame and changing up his shots from guerilla-style jerky iPhone images to tasteful, polished portraits.

Just Mercy is not always an easy film to watch, but it is necessary.

As wonderful as Domingo is, it’s the astonishing amount of talent in front of and behind the camera that will take your breath away. No matter how small, each performance brings fire and makes the most of a few minutes on camera.

Gretel & Hansel is as visually arresting as it is tedious, a 90-minute movie that really should have been a 3-minute music video for Marilyn Manson or Ozzy Osbourne. It’s in the horror genre only loosely. It’s more eerie, if that’s a genre. Actually, it’s like dread for 90 minutes. It’s dreadful.

In many ways, the folks behind Jurassic World Rebirth are trying to do the same thing as their mercenaries: Going back to the source code to recapture the magic of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster original. They’ve thrillingly succeeded.

Over two hours ends up being too long. But [Finn] has found a great satirical target, given life to a third film easily and showcased another rising star to watch. That’s a reason to, well, smile about.

Missing, building off the related film “Searching” from 2018, manages to make a film about small screens feel electric on a big one.

Creed II pulls off a rather amazing feat by adding to the luster of its predecessor and propelling the narrative into a bright future while also reaching back to honor its past, resurrecting unfinished business from “Rocky IV” and adding a dash of “Rocky III.” Pound per pound, the sequel might even be better than its predecessor.

A bewildering 90-minute, narrator-less and wordless experiment that’s as audacious as it is infuriating. It’s not clear if everyone was high making it or we should be while watching it.

Hopefully it will attract an audience either tired or turned off by the franchise’s past rigidity and addiction to spectacle. This is what we needed: Smaller, quieter, more human and sweeter.