Soren Andersen

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.