Michael O'Sullivan

The geometry of filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s masterful, moving Parallel Mothers, which follows the stories of two women who give birth almost simultaneously in a Madrid hospital, is really a crisscrossing set of two fascinatingly entangled lines.

The film, whose title may or may not refer to a slang term for a dog’s erection, often teeters between compassion and something that feels perilously close to cultural voyeurism.

Tender also is an apt description for the gently heartwarming tone of this appealingly low-key, faded Kodachrome coming-of-age story, capably directed by Clooney from a screenplay by William Monahan (“The Departed”).

If the story is fun — and it is fitfully, only after a protracted, sloggy set up — it’s a lot less so than either of the first two films.

For more casual consumers of the costumed comic-book superhero’s exploits, mileage may vary. But there’s a whole lot to like here.

It’s a noir tale for contemporary audiences who have developed an appetite for sensation from comic book movies, not literature. The film doesn’t need all that spectacle, and it is at its best when it is at its simplest, relying on the power of storytelling and vivid language, not gory effects.

As a fairly soggy, two-hankie melodrama, “Swan Song” is effective. But I wouldn’t recommend thinking about it for too long.

There is so much going on here, yet the director handles the film’s constellation of themes and sweeping emotion with impeccable assurance and an at-times breathtaking sense of the poetic.

Imagine a 10-episode podcast about the making of a single episode of the 1950s marital sitcom “I Love Lucy” — a podcast dense with behind-the-scenes details about the show’s real-life husband-and-wife stars, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, who played wildly caricatured versions of themselves on the hit show for six seasons. Imagine a trove of inside-baseball trivia about the early days of television, as well as details about the stars’ real lives, including Ball’s 1952 pregnancy, which Arnaz — a TV pioneer who popularized the three-camera setup — wanted to weave into the show’s plot. Then imagine dumping all that material, like a box full of marbles, into a two-hour movie.

Fortunately, Ahmed (an Oscar nominee for last year’s Sound of Metal and more recently seen in the niche Mogul Mowgli) delivers another one of his reliably watchable performances.

Being oneself is (or, again, seems to be) the theme of Wolf, which at times plays like a clumsy allegory about, say, the challenges faced by trans youth — there’s a poster on the wall of the clinic about “species dysphoria” — yet most of the time is simply a more generalized fable about finding your groove, your bliss, your true, inner self — and running with it (naked, if need be, and on all fours). If it’s an allegory, it trivializes whatever it’s allegorizing.

None of which would be a problem, if “Gucci” were half as much fun as I’m afraid about to make it sound. After all, who doesn’t love a good, tawdry scandal?

The First Wave feels simultaneously hard to watch and vital, tragic and uplifting, like a backward glimpse over our shoulder at a period of conflict and struggle — in more ways than one — that we’re not quite done living through yet.

Shamelessly catering to fans of the original film, while giving them nothing new, its story and humor are also inexplicably calibrated for a much younger demographic than those old enough to have seen the first film when it came out.

The narrative moves toward its foregone conclusion with the low energy of a slow-moving locomotive on train tracks leading to a broken bridge.

Antlers obeys the rules of horror — many of which are familiar, even at times cliche — while also bending them. It’s a creature feature at heart, yes, but its footing is grounded in the tragedies we hear about in the news every day.

There’s lots to like about Soho’s constituent parts, but not much time to genuinely savor any of them.

Cousteau is a thorough if somewhat by-the-book profile of a pioneer in the field of marine ecology and an activist for better environmental stewardship.

There is no narration. There are no interviews. Just rote, monotonous activity — a recipe for repetitive stress injury — and the occasional fly-on-the -wall conversation on which we are allowed to briefly eavesdrop between several representatives of what Ascension suggests is as a nation of strivers, with hearts set on achieving what might be called the new Chinese Dream: wealth and success, in the world’s second largest economy.

There’s a lot going on here — a quasi-biblical space opera, part Lawrence of Arabia and part mobster movie — and spreading it out over two movies has allowed [Villaneuve] to take his time with the story and tell it richly, and without rushing

There’s a lot of baloney — along with bodies — sliced up by the end, with Laurie bloviating about how Michael has come to “transcend” something or other. But there’s nothing transcendent, let alone new in Halloween Kills.

The Rescue isn’t just a movie about cave divers, or a recap of a well-reported humanitarian operation. It’s ultimately a film about the triumph of altruism, ingenuity and perseverance in the face of almost impossible odds, by the very people you might initially have dismissed as not up to the task.

Lamb is weird and disturbing, even by the standards of the movie’s indie distributor, A24, which is known for its eclectic and times unsettling content. But it’s also strangely beautiful.

Daniel Craig’s fifth and final outing as the secret MI6 superagent James Bond is also a fittingly complicated and ultimately perversely satisfying send-off for the actor, whose character as the film gets underway isn’t even Agent 007 any more, but a retiree (as Craig is about to become, from this franchise).

It’s a heady dramedy, albeit without terribly many tears or laughs, except those that arise, perhaps unintentionally, from the incongruity of Stevens being repellent.

Blue Bayou strikes a nerve, of that there is no doubt. But then it keeps poking at it, pointlessly.

Maybe it’s true that it’s never too late to find a new home. But in some ways, it feels like “Cry Macho” has missed the bus. Perhaps Eastwood should have kept his hand on the reins of this pet project while letting someone else sit in the saddle.

Though there’s no reinvention of the genre here, Louder’s mesmerizing mouse proves more than a match for the assembled tomcats — all exuding machismo — with whom she must deal.

There is a revealing narrative here: a conflict, a climax and a denouement that you may not expect. The Alpinist has built-in drama, simply by virtue of who and what it sets out to document.

Candyman can’t seem to decide whether it wants to scare you or make you think.

It remembers to have fun. It’s a kick to watch — often literally — and the kind of popcorn movie summer is made for.

The Protege may not rise to the level of art, but like Anna herself, it does demonstrate a mastery of a certain set of skills, however limited.

Di Girólamo delivers a performance that is, like the combustible fuel inside the tank strapped to her back here and there throughout the film, intense, hot, destructive — and hard to look away from.

Warts and all, The Night House is, in the truest sense of the word, kind of haunting.

Nine Days is, in the end, meant as a wake-up call: a bracing splash of fake seawater in the face that somehow, against all logic, feels like the real thing.

The yarn that Lowery spins is rich with incident, but ultimately simple. Its enjoyment lies less in the story, but in the marvelous mystification of its telling.

This is an untaxing, big-budget summer popcorn movie for the whole family. Like the ride itself, it requires no more mental engagement than you would devote to any theme park visit (excluding the thrill rides, which actually raise a pulse.)

Like his other films, this one takes an admittedly slender thread of an idea — one that would make a perfectly good premise for a four-minute comic sketch — and stretches it to almost the breaking point, and sometimes beyond, twisting and intertwining it with other nonsense along the way, just for the heck of it.

Although Miller is excellent as the doomed teen, Wahlberg seems out of his league here, except in the actor’s rendering of Joe’s acute discomfort with public speaking and confrontation — which is odd in a movie that wears its heart, and its lessons, on its sleeve.

Like the character at the heart of Pig — who is not, as it turns out, a pig at all, even metaphorically — it is smoldering and gentle.

Billed as a spoken-word musical, but only occasionally utilizing the visual idioms of song and/or dance — and only rarely harnessing the two together — the film is nevertheless an exuberant hodgepodge of everyday joy and frustration (and the occasional mild trauma).

The film’s title is apt: Gregory was one of a kind. But despite the film’s argument that its subject’s activism was part and parcel of his comedy, and not an afterthought, it’s the jokes that are given short shrift here. One wishes there might have been room for a few more of them.

There’s a nugget of . . . maybe not wisdom, but something gristly worth chewing on here, if you have the stomach to stick your hand into gaping intestines, pull it out and wipe off the blood. I wouldn’t call it food for thought, but it gives “Forever” a slightly higher nutritional value than some of its predecessors.

No Sudden Move could also refer to the snail’s pace of social change. But race is just a subtext — albeit an enriching one — in a piece of entertainment that feels like watching, say, Ocean’s 11, but with a social conscience.

The first Latina actress to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony — the “EGOT” superfecta — Moreno doesn’t just seem to keep getting better and better, but more and more interesting.

It ain’t worth the price of admission, but it is, in one of the drowsiest, dullest summer movies ever, a bit of an eye-opener.

If you’re looking for that kind of moral-rich message, delivered with equal amounts of sincerity and syrup, congratulations: You may have found the mythical source from which all other malarkey springs.

Directed and co-written by Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox, whose films often deal with gay themes, Sublet feels like it’s setting itself up, just a little bit, as a same-sex version of How Stella Got Got Her Groove Back.

The scenery of wind-and water-eroded mesas and stone archways is lovely, but the voice performances are largely inert and unremarkable. Other than the risky shenanigans of the PALs, which ought to give any parent pause, so is the film.

Blind faith, I’d say, is beside the point here. As with all the films in the Conjuring universe, — really exorcism films in general — sitting back and enjoying the ride, to whatever bowels of heck it might take you, is enough.

Like A Quiet Place, Part II is a lean, nearly flab- and gristle-free piece of sci-fi steak.

There are plenty of left turns (and the occasional dead end) here, but Riders of Justice is no waste of time. The mayhem is mixed with unexpected thoughtfulness.

Collette certainly brings spirit and character to this project, elevating the film, although Dream is not her best or most interesting work.

Final Account aims to provide insight into the psychological mechanism that would allow otherwise good people to stand idly by (or actively participate in) the perpetration of mass murder. As such, it’s only partly effective, and frustrating.

There are no real surprises here, except maybe one. It would never work, Finley warns us, and it seems she might as well be talking about this cornball movie. But thanks to something ineffable — Redgrave, leprechauns, moondust, or maybe just understated performances from two appealing protagonists — Finding You kinda, sorta does.

Spiral, which involves the hunt for a serial killer by the police force of a nameless metropolis, is a thriller, a mystery, a police drama, but it hews closely to “Saw’s” grisly curriculum.

Still, there’s something about Screenlife that’s not just gimmicky — like the found-footage craze that preceded it — but numbing. All this technological terrorism should be terrifying, but it mostly just feels like eyestrain.

The domestic drama, like the heist story line, fizzles out in the end.

As the title of the film suggests, it tells a story involving as much human drama as geopolitical maneuvering. It’s a story of personalities and, at times, the fragile male ego.

What sets Four Good Days apart from the many other films of its ilk are Close and Kunis, who sharpen and elevate its well-worn contours with vivid performances that are honest and grounded. These are characters you can connect to, on both sides of the equation.

Surprisingly, it isn’t heavy-handed, moralizing, polemical or sentimental. And you can enjoy the film without knowing any of that.

It’s tempting — and not entirely inaccurate — to call this oddly moving little film a comedy-drama, but if so, it’s a dark one at that.

It isn’t laugh-out-loud funny. It simply zigs when you expect it to zag. This is a small, simple story, free from emotional pyrotechnics and, mostly, false notes. It has something to say about the deeper meaning of alone-ness, without being pretentious.

You’ve got to give Wheatley credit: In the Earth is like nothing else you’ve seen — although some might wish it were a little less, er, original.

The sci-fi thriller Voyagers is grounded in very real current fears. But otherwise, it’s a bit of an airhead.

At times, The Man Who Sold His Skin plays like a cultural parody, but its aim is dead serious, and more sobering. The pathos and tragedy of the global refugee crisis is its target, not the pretensions of the international art market, and it, from time to time, delivers a sting.

One half of Godzilla vs. Kong wants to tell a human story. Believe it or not, it partly succeeds. The other half just wants to break stuff.