Peter Hartlaub

Best of all, the laughs often arrive in small moments, not in the obvious ones.

Abominable delivers all the notes you expect from family-friendly animation these days. And, thankfully, a little bit more.

It’s a good sign for the intelligence of your science fiction movie, when it’s easy to imagine the story working as a stage play with just two actors.

It’s mostly delightful; a fun movie that successfully hits the reset button for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A strikingly immersive movie, a slow burn filled with subtleties and nuance, with its message nestled in the details as much as the greater story. While other filmmakers have effectively captured San Francisco’s landmarks and topography, story co-writers Fails and Talbot seem to be filming San Francisco’s streets with a microscope.

It’s like combining the anything-can-happen excitement of playing a slot machine, with the grace of a ballet, and the prolonged and escalating violence of a good gladiator battle. Reeves has sustained his career through consistently trying 20 percent harder than most of his contemporaries.

An unexpected pleasure that’s heartfelt at times and humorous throughout. Yes, the plot is ridiculous and often coarse. Yes, the story is predictable. Yes, a condom stuck to a women’s jacket is played for laughs. But it’s a very steep uphill climb from there.

Does nothing to elevate the form — and yet it doesn’t disappoint.

Besides the huge smiles on your faces, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse offers mainstream moviegoers an overwhelming feeling of optimism. If this kind of risk-taking and artist-driven creativity can exist in Hollywood’s biggest money-making genre, then our superhero movie future is filled with hope.

If “The Jungle Book” is like taking a trip to Disneyland, then “Mowgli” is a hike straight into unknown woods with nothing but some duct tape and a Bowie knife.

As much as anything we’ve seen in recent years, the film is confirmation that artists, not paranoid executives, continue to make the big calls at Disney. And as long as that continues, a few glitches in the plot won’t ruin anyone’s good time.

Curtis makes an all-in return to the Strode character, and the filmmaking team builds a solid framework around her, in the propulsive and entertaining new Halloween.

Beyond some network television-quality production values, the sequel to the 2015 film is completely satisfactory family entertainment. It's hard to imagine anyone putting "Goosebumps 2" on their end-of-year worst movie list. And not just because it's hard to imagine anyone even remembering this film beyond next Tuesday.

This is a quality movie, carefully disguised as a mediocre one. It’s a chore to get through the beginning, but builds a strong story, and leaves legitimate good feelings on the way out of the theater. Smallfoot is not a “The Lego Movie”-style surprise classic, but it’s better than most.

It’s scattered and messy and startling and electric and fun.

The end result is flawed, but also funny, heartfelt and inclusive movie making.

It’s charming and filled with wonderful performances, and has a nuanced story that will have adults walking out of the theater thinking about their own inner Pooh, and questioning why the hell they’re working so hard.

One of the more thoughtful and valiant feature film directorial debuts in recent memory.

Upgrade is a movie by Leigh Whannell, who wrote “Saw,” “Insidious” and other memorable horror movies. But other than the occasional moment of stunningly gratuitous gore, it’s nothing like those films.

This is a filmmaker who cares less about horror cinema as a theme park ride, and more about mood.

The film is charming throughout, literally from the beginning of time to the final goal.

Yes, the two-minute trailers were an atrocious affront. But it turns out the other 91 minutes include thoughtful characters and some clever humor in between the pratfalls.

The visuals themselves are inconsistent, but never boring. The sidekicks seem considerably less painstakingly rendered than the leads. A few of the merchants have the unnatural look and jerky movements of Pirates of the Caribbean animatronics.

Coco is the best-looking Pixar movie since the tonally uneven “The Good Dinosaur.” The colorful afterlife is the centerpiece, but excellence is found in unexpected places.

Miles Teller as Brendan McDonough is a standout, beginning as a dead-eyed drug user, then gradually turning into a responsible adult.

The fly-on-the-wall style is a slow build that leads to an immersive experience, and then an ultimate payoff as the change-minded department detours into another scandal. The Force is like watching a drug addict take a few meaningful steps toward recovery, only to relapse again.

Stronger always feels right in the moment, solidified by an outstanding central performance by Gyllenhaal, and some wonderful ensemble work, especially the actors just below the top billing.