Soren Andersen

The interweaving of animation and nonanimated footage gives the picture a kind of surreal quality that befits the sense of the survivors of how unreal the event seemed to them.

Röhrig’s performance is an extraordinary feat of minimalism. His expressions convey a deadened spirit. Yet behind his eyes and at the corners of his mouth are signs of a spirit that won’t be crushed.

Last Jedi is deep. It’s also rollicking. It’s right up there with the very first “Star Wars” in terms of its enjoyability factor. It’s a triumph.

“Fury’s” pace is delirious, the stunts are incredible — such crashes, such explosions, such a lot of flying bodies — Hardy’s performance is a marvel of subdued conviction and Theron brings an impressive gravity to her work as Furiosa. Put it all together, and you’ve got a rousing crowd-pleaser that hits on all fast-revving cylinders.

Thewlis voices Michael with weariness and despair until the character encounters Lisa. Leigh mixes eagerness...and an abashed vocal quality that emphasizes her character’s vulnerability.

At 2½ hours, Aquarius is about a half-hour too long for the story it tells, yet it feels like a privilege to be in the presence of such a powerful character and such a quietly commanding performance.

As far as truly caring about anything that goes on in this epic, well, that’s a chore. And with a run time of more than 2½ hours, that chore becomes ever more burdensome as the minutes tick away.

This is history brought to life, something absolutely unprecedented in the annals of humankind.

At more than two hours, it’s simply too long. However, thanks to Collette’s work, “Hereditary” is a horror movie that really sinks its claws into you.

Into the Spider-Verse is pure fun, nonstop from start to finish.

The movie becomes an immersive experience that sweeps the audience into all-encompassing venues of imagination.

The fight scenes, full of swordplay and gunfire, are choppily edited and somehow lackadaisical. It’s as though Schwentke was operating from a checklist of expected action-movie clichés and hurries through them all.

Complex and lively, The Wild Robot is thoroughly delightful on every level. It’s a rare treat, not just for kids but for adults as well.

Along with the kids’ sorrow, Barras works uplift and lightness into the story, and there are moments of great joy. In the end, it’s positivity that prevails.

Linklater gets it right in every significant regard.

The pacing of the picture is problematical. It’s curiously inert in the early going, with a lot of time spent in cars with the characters as they drive around and around on freeways, side streets and boulevards in Hollywood.

Shot in stark black and white, the picture’s sense of place and time is strong — pungently so.

Eggers’ depiction of the family’s psychological decay and his relentless piling up of deeply disturbing imagery make The Witch an unnerving and fresh-feeling horror masterwork.

Gosling, who previously worked with Chazelle on “La La Land,” is perfectly cast.

In this, his feature directorial debut, Möller makes a whole lot out of very little: a whole lot of dramatic forcefulness out of the most simple and basic of elements, a solitary man struggling to do the right thing.

Director Scott Cooper really lays it on thick. He brings no modulation to the horror elements in his frightfest. Everything is gloom, gloom, gloom. And doom.

There’s such a thing as something being too personal. James White is that thing.

Weirdest. Feminist. Movie. Ever.

In the midst of that hostile physical and psychic landscape, de Clermont-Tonnerre has made a stringent tale of a struggle for redemption.

Serkis again proves that in the highly specialized realm of performance-capture acting, he has no peer.

Throughout, the fragility of the native cultures and of the rain-forest environment that is their home is underscored by Guerra in this fascinating, melancholy movie.

Though his character bears Fails’ name and the picture is autobiographical, it’s not a documentary. Fails and co-screenwriter Rob Richert have embroidered on his experiences to create a story that melds realism with make-believe.

The visuals relegate the acting to secondary importance. They overwhelm the story. And they make The Assassin unforgettable.

In terms of the imaginative ways it expands on the themes of the first movie, it is the rare sequel that is at least the equal of its iconic original.

Monster-movie fans will certainly get their money’s worth in this one.

In the matter of searching for work in a difficult economy, Get a Job traffics in fairy tales that come complete with happily-ever-after endings.

It’s heart that’s overflowing with love, poignancy, humor, color and music.

See the movie. It’s a treat. And educational, too.

Everything in the picture, from the characters’ clothes and hairstyles to the vessels they sail, bear the stamp of authenticity. But Moana’s greatest strength is the verve in which they move the action along and the sheer joyousness evident in every aspect of their storytelling.

It’s nuts. It’s fun.

The effects work rivals the likes of “Saving Private Ryan” and, well, “Independence Day.” It’s spectacular and realistic-looking. That’s to be expected. What’s not expected is how serious-minded and well-acted the picture is.

There’s no problem keeping up with these Joneses. The audience is way ahead of them every step of the way.

Ridley is the picture’s real find. Her Rey is fearless, forceful, resourceful, and with a hidden side to her personality that slowly manifests itself and will surely be more deeply explored in the sequels.

The eye is enchanted by the richness of the picture’s spectacle.

The mood of the picture is relaxed. The vibe given off by Redford and his principal co-stars Casey Affleck and Sissy Spacek is one of accomplished professionals feeling supremely comfortable inhabiting their roles.

The visuals are gorgeous. The mood is unsettling from start to finish. Annihilation is a strong sophomore effort from a very talented filmmaker.

The silence in Silence is deep and profound.

A knowledge of the novel is helpful as well.

This “Naked Gun” tries hard, but the magic simply isn’t there.

All in all, this “Buster” is something else.

Green Room is one nasty piece of work. And I mean that in a good way.

Using a rich trove of archival footage and interviews with Cernan, members of his family, other former astronauts and key Apollo mission figures, director Mark Craig charts the flight path of Cernan’s life.

With all of Shults’ dark-night-of-the-soul mood manipulations, the film promises more than it delivers. Its buildups are impressive, but in the end its frights are mild.

Directed once again by Chad Stahelski, the one-time stunt man who has become a first-rate visual stylist and master of pacing over the years of directing “Wicks,” “Chapter 4” is dazzling.

In fact it’s really writer-director Schrader who is Isaac’s true co-star in “The Card Counter.” A product of a strict Calvinist upbringing in Michigan, the filmmaker’s trademarks — guilt, redemption, a soul in torment — are all here.

Hunnam speaks in low tones, practically murmuring his lines in many scenes, which seem at odds with the underlying fierceness of Fawcett’s resolve. His manner is almost diffident, yet he’s steadfast in his purposefulness.

Adapting a prizewinning novel by Canadian writer Patrick deWitt, Audiard has made an atmospheric Western in which the four lead actors portray their characters with remarkable subtlety.

Zootopia delights, in ways big and small.

It’s not the best Dracula movie of all time, though it aspires to that. Murnau’s original still leads the pack. But it certainly is the most stylish. Eggers is a filmmaker with astonishing visual flair.

Under Chukwu’s steady, sensitive direction, Deadwyler’s performance is such that it overshadows everyone else in the movie.

It’s essentially a plotless montage, a spellbinding filmic tapestry. Its visuals are out of this world, quite literally in the early going, as it presents the story of the creation of the universe.

It’s a detective story. It’s a spy thriller. It’s a cautionary tale. And it’s true.

It’s fun, but it’s not prime Peele by any means.

Jackman and Stewart give perhaps the most heartfelt performances that they’re ever brought to an “X-Men” movie. Though the tone of the movie is pervasively downbeat, they’re both going out on a very high note.

"Guardians” stands apart because it’s somehow truer to a comic book’s essence than any Marvel or DC-derived picture you can name. Which is to say it’s pulpy, kind of cheesy and giddily exaggerated (and aware of it) in a way that, say, the “Thors,” the “Captain Americas” and Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies are not.

The picture is a long tease, artfully constructed. Mood is all-important, and it’s a mood designed to keep the audience off balance and on edge until the very end.

DiCaprio’s performance is an astonishing testament to his commitment to a role.

Board games, threats from Howard and desperate escape planning by Michelle take up most the picture. And then, first-time feature director Dan Trachtenberg and the screenwriters, apparently realizing that not much has been going on so far, ramp up to a full-bore CG explosion extravaganza finale...Too little. Too late.

Capernaum is a searing, unforgettable work.

It’s all kind of funny, actually, and deliberately so. Director Chad Stahelskii, a former stunt man, stages a flailing fight down a seemingly endless flight of stairs that is like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

There is fragility in the beauty we see. The picture drives home the need to safeguard it. It is, after all, our home.

Who emerges as the winner of this “Civil War”? The audience. The picture delivers in a big, big way.

It’s remarkable.

A fast-moving, clever and funny picture.

The spell Miss Hokusai casts is a powerful one that lingers long after the lights go up in the theater.

Both star and director are at the top of their game here, and that’s as good as movies get.

Freidel illuminates the inner struggle Elser goes through as, buttressed by his conscience and his Catholic faith, he finds within himself a strength of character and brave defiance that defines him as a hero in the truest sense of the word.

It’s all pretty silly, but the way “Parabellum” keeps topping itself and then topping the toppings makes the picture eminently watchable. It’s a guilty summertime-movie pleasure for sure.

The special-effects sequences are up to the usual high standards of Marvel excellence, but by far the best elements of “Homecoming” are the writing, which brims with humor, and the performances.

The sweetness in the original is absent in the sequel. The players, including Judy and Nick, have an edge to them. Maybe that’s to be expected in that the main characters are now more settled in their parts, but there’s a sharpness in tone that makes them hard to warm up to.

Bong covered many of the same aspects of “Mickey” in his 2013 sci-fi epic “Snowpiercer,” a more streamlined and hard-bitten work of social commentary with the have-nots battling the heedless rich. ”Mickey 17” is less focused and not quite as satisfying a production as that earlier movie.

Phantasm remains a pretty effective fright fest.

Jolie draws restrained, naturalistic performances from her all-Cambodian cast, particularly young Sareum Srey Moch. There’s a stillness and a stoicism in her portrayal that makes her an unforgettable figure in this unforgettable movie.

Under the direction of Joseph Kosinski (“Oblivion”), a large cast headed by Josh Brolin and Miles Teller bring great vitality and sensitivity to their performances.

Blade of the Immortal is a pretty good title for a samurai movie. I’ve got a better one: “10,000 Corpses.”

Director Ma has made a quietly merciless picture, a horror movie, really, about a decent man, an ordinary man, left alone, bereft, embittered, ruined by his act of decency.

It’s a world of fantasy, but as depicted in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, it has a solidity and imaginative depth that makes it seem astonishingly real.

The film’s action scenes are masterpieces of stately choreography, with elements of humor incorporated.

Freighted with symbolism and beautifully mounted, Youth is dreamlike and at the same time stultifying.

Horror is a fragile thing. Suspension of disbelief is key to its effectiveness. A sudden inappropriate guffaw from someone in the audience can be enough to break the spell. In Midsommar, the spell breaks at the end and the picture collapses.

Gore and guffaws attend this very dark horror comedy in roughly equal measure.

Director/co-screenwriter Scott Derrickson generally keeps the massive enterprise moving smoothly along. The trip’s the trip here, and it’s well worth taking.

Gunn masterfully mixes humor and bloodshed and manages to give a surprising number of characters room to develop their personas. And when it comes to staging set pieces, he’s at his best.

Sachs’ A Space Program is a disarmingly delightful out-of-this-world trip.

All in all, a brilliant piece of work.

When it’s good, Ralph Breaks the Internet is very, very good. When it’s not, it’s annoying, cloying and LOUD!

With Andrew Garfield in the lead role and Mel Gibson in the director’s chair for the first time in 10 years, “Hacksaw” is an incredibly powerful picture once it gets to the battle scenes.

What the movie makes clear is that that deeply spiritual moment represented a triumph of management.

This is a picture whose subject, loudly and frequently proclaimed, is magic. But there is precious little of the genuine article to be found in it.

Frequent, fiery battle scenes are well mounted, and in between are tenderer moments.

There’s a lot going on here, which leads to a whole lot of gassy exposition to explain it all.... Think of it as torture by blah-blah.

In his third outing as the Captain, Evans seems totally comfortable in the role. He manages to convey his character’s goodness without making him seem like a self-righteous stiff. There’s an ease in his performance, and a sense of humor that makes him very appealing.

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris is all sweetness and light. So sweet it nearly dissolves one’s fillings, especially at the end. So light it practically floats off the screen. It’s a gossamer fairy tale. Pleasant. Charming. A trifle, though not without some substance.