Noel Murray

The filmmakers and Hardy sharply capture a particular type: the performative rebel, laser-focused on pushing other people’s buttons even while fleeing a demon.

Chait and company have a hard time coming up with enough plot to justify “Wolf Hound” stretching past two hours; and the long shootout scenes in the movie’s midsection do get taxing. But the extended aerial combat sequences at the start and end of the film are genuinely impressive for a non-blockbuster, and ought to grab the attention of genre aficionados.

Nothing that happens in Hollywood Stargirl is consequential or surprising. But the cast is likable, the music is good (featuring winning covers of canonical California songs like Brian Wilson’s “Love and Mercy” and Cass Elliot’s “Make Your Own Kind of Music”) and, as with “Stargirl,” there’s a bone-deep decency to this sequel that’s pretty disarming.

The dark twists and bloody mayhem of the film’s final third feel disappointingly abrupt and rote after all the thoughtful set-up, but the picture still mostly works, thanks to an energized cast, Croft’s sharp dialogue and Grant’s punchy style.

The multiple perspectives in Hold Your Fire add up to a fascinating look back at a still-raging debate over the true purpose of policing.

The movie becomes noticeably clunky whenever anyone stops to explain what’s going on. But Exposure 36 has stretches that work remarkably well — and feel incredibly relevant — as a moody portrait of a city emptied out by a crisis, left to people unwilling to accept that their round-the-clock party may be over.

Castro’s Spies becomes genuinely challenging once Aslin and Lennon get to the trials of these men, who argued they were acting within the bounds of U.S. law to push back against the actions of a country that had interfered in Cuban affairs for more than a century.

Homebound burns too slowly in the early going, but the tension and confusion in the first half eventually explodes into chaos. Throughout, Loftus gives a gripping performance as a woman desperate to make a good impression on a family that may be evil.

For the most part this is a captivating mood piece, held together by Ricci’s take on a woman who is chasing an impossible idyll while being trailed by something dark and murky.

Senior Year is not an ambitious movie, but it’s mostly a sweet one, and frequently funny.

Operation Mincemeat isn’t groundbreaking cinema, but it’s well-crafted and thoughtful; and when the heroes are inventing the personal details for their dead soldier and imagining all the real lives they’re affecting, the movie becomes appealingly bittersweet.

When it’s a cautionary tale about an unusual family who’ll never know a moment’s peace because of their past choices, Firestarter is worthy of its source material. When in its last half-hour it turns into chapter one of a potential new superhero franchise, it joins the long list of Stephen King movies that are all gimmick, no guts.

The cast and creative team’s memories are vivid and moving, as they describe — often while on the verge of tears — how this experience changed their lives, forged tight friendships and transformed their understanding of art, performance and what it means to be alive.

It’s a fascinating story, mostly told by Crow herself, who is disarmingly honest about the capriciousness and cruelty of the music business — and about how the best way to survive for decades is to learn how to connect with people.

This is a poignant and poetic film, where the strife just outside the characters’ little bubbles is ever-present and always visible.

Trocker’s insights into a family crumbling due to a lack of trust aren’t all that fresh or keen, but his movie is tense and absorbing regardless, because he and his cast excel at dramatizing the lingering resentments and passive-aggression that foul the air between loved ones.

While the plot here is thin (and slow-paced, and oppressively grim), Owen has a remarkable facility for generating atmosphere. He’s made a film where one man’s internal strife has been effectively externalized as an inescapable, picturesque purgatory.

Veteran action director Louis Leterrier delivers exactly what audiences expect: some banter, a couple of surprise plot twists and a few thrills. He does so more than capably, with two sequences in particular.

This movie is mostly just another brisk recounting of a much-scrutinized actor’s tragic life, coupled with some unconvincing and often confusing coverage of the conspiracy theories surrounding Monroe’s death. The results feel tawdry and shallow.

Brunner does a fine job of conveying how the harsh, forbidding landscape where Johannes and Maria live distorts the way they engage with the secular world.

The movie’s aggressive hipness can be a turnoff at times. But once it settles down into a more typical coming-of-age story, Crush becomes disarmingly sweet and relatable.

Frankly, this is the kind of soft-core smut where it’s the character development and dialogue that feel gratuitous.

An excellent cast and some skillful direction goes a long way toward making “The Aviary” feel genuinely revealing.

During their heyday, Cypress Hill pretty much went from high to high (no pun intended), which means this movie about the group is low on drama. But it’s filled with great music and welcome insight into some under-appreciated innovators.

This film is reminiscent of black-light posters and underground comics — though the overall approach is more innocent and hopeful than sketchily “adult.”

The payoff to The Earth Is Blue as an Orange is incredibly powerful though, in ways that just about anyone can relate to, as these budding artists share their work with neighbors whose emotional reactions speak volumes about their shared nightmare.

Bloody Oranges isn’t a heavy-handed polemic. It’s more a genre-hopping experiment: sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying. Meurisse’s pluck is admirable, even though — or perhaps because — he’s made something often incredibly unpleasant.

The film is part lament and part tribute, honoring the legacy of women who today — had American progress been less relentless or thoughtless — might be leading a thriving nation of Indigenous people, rather than fighting to keep their communities alive.