Sara Stewart

Sometimes, it’s enough to walk out of a film with your heart warmed — even if your brain’s still craving a little something more.

Only the Brave is at its best at two extremes: in the middle of the action, as the firefighters do things like improbably light fires to contain bigger fires; and at home in the midst of banter between Eric and his wife Amanda.

Hard to say what percentage of Haynes’ adult audience will dig this one. I found it lovely to look at and emotionally underwhelming.

Overall, Gibney does a fine job documenting the timeless nature of Armstrong’s fall from grace. It’s undeniably satisfying to see the man himself lay it out: “It’s very hard to control the truth forever,” he says, awkwardly. “This has been my downfall.”

Poehler isn’t quite cynical enough to pull off a comedy in which, to paraphrase “Seinfeld,” there’s no hugging and learning, but Wine Country could have been improved by keeping its emotional scenes more in reserve — like a high-end cabernet.

Director Daniel Algrant chose well with Badgley, who transcends the rather made-for-TV vibe with a decent rendition of Buckley’s haunting falsetto.

Mirai is somewhat mired in outdated gender roles, with Cho’s character hopelessly clumsy as caregiver while his wife goes back to work. But the biggest pitfall I found with Mirai, which may be more of a selling point to new parents and children struggling with sibling rivalry, is that Kun spends half the film in tears, shrieking or whining.

The audio design of Little Joe is meant to be unsettling, but it may be for naught if audiences can hardly bear to sit through it.

If you can handle the glacial pacing and lack of dialogue, there is a certain squirmy satisfaction to watching this well-worn story of love, cruelty and madness play out minus the long-winded speeches and romantic catharsis.

The addition of Glover and Danny DeVito keeps Jumanji: The Next Level afloat, even with barely the whisper of a plot.

Like most of Eastwood’s work (with the exception of last year’s disastrous “The 15:17 to Paris”), it’s a tightly paced feature, with strong performances all around. It’s also one of the season’s most politically polarized films.

Director Ben Wheatley (“Kill List”) is masterful with arresting imagery set in a dystopian spin on the ’70s; less so with a compelling narrative.

If only director James Mangold had taken the route the Wachowskis did with “Speed Racer,” which had psychedelic colors to spice things up.

Being a lesbian period piece, the film’s earned inevitable comparisons to last year’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Sure, it’s similar, minus the chemistry, humor and joy. There are definitely corsets in both.

Wilson doesn’t have the emotional heft, or the narrative arc, of Johnson’s last film, but it does remind you how much fun it is to watch Harrelson. In real life, Wilson would just be a straight-up a - - hole.

Ultimately, this is a film from a group of terrific talents that never quite comes together the way you'd hope. It's just too fluid to wholly take shape.

Though both Tierney and Bomer’s characters also veer into stereotype — her uptight disapproval, his sassiness — writer-director Timothy McNeil still crafts a fairly moving tribute to the notion, as Lin-Manuel Miranda once put it, that “love is love is love.”

In a movie season - and a month - filled with so much gunfire, bloodshed and human despair, it's refreshing to sit back and bask in the sheer joy with which these brightly costumed, stunningly agile performers navigate fire, water and air.

Jane's friendship with Sadie is the one thing that cuts through the numbness - though the film's so low-key, even emotional revelations feel pretty muted.

The element that really makes it work — when it does, which is not always — is Edward James Olmos, playing to perfection a weary retired police detective.

It may fall into some conventional paces as a triumph-over-adversity story, but Desert Dancer does manage to movingly convey the chilling, ultimately triumphant experience of Ghaffarian’s struggle for creative expression under a regime that tried to crush it.

Charmingly profane, with a buzzing riot-grrrl soundtrack, “Izzy” is a stylish twist on an ’80s trope: Here it’s the woman as pathetic supplicant, trying to win back someone who’s moved on.

This is a Disney adaptation, beautiful but frequently treacly.

Without a humanizing element like Blunt’s character, this whole grim affair is just a race to the bottom in which everyone loses.

First-time feature director Clare Niederpruem gives it her very earnest all, but falls short both on continuity issues (a smoldering curling iron, for example, is dropped to the floor and immediately forgotten) and on making her gradually aging cast match up.

Overall, the insubstantial Lucky Stiff feels like community theater with an extravagant budget.

Director Suri Krishnamma capably depicts the darkness in Jim’s head with his shadowy surroundings, misanthropic inner monologue and increasingly frequent hallucinations, and Griffith’s vulnerable performance is a standout. But the film’s final third seems needlessly graphic.

What begins as a clever action-comedy a la “Pineapple Express” or Eisenberg’s earlier “Zombieland” devolves into a standard shoot-’em-up, with gore splashed around to distract us from the dearth of wit.