Tom Russo

If there’s any way that Roach slips back into a creative pigeonhole, it’s by being overly keen on sticking his actors in prosthetic makeup. Richard Kind’s Rudy Giuliani, for one, elicits an unintended chuckle. And while Theron’s makeover is, again, uncanny, Kidman’s cleft chin is needlessly distracting. We’d buy her performance without it.

What’s most entertaining here, ultimately, is the performance that Stewart turns in as outspoken, play-it-loose Sabina, a completely unexpected, who-knew mash-up of sexy and offbeat.

Not surprisingly, Doctor Sleep splits the difference, dutifully attempting to honor both King’s writing and Kubrick’s film simultaneously. The movie actually manages to pull it off for a time, until in the last act revisited concepts start to play more like ill-advised retreads.

What we’re left with, then, is yet another “Terminator” far easier to appreciate for isolated bits of inspiration than for any stroke of genius it manages overall.

This franchise might be all about shedding light on lost details, but “Mistress of Evil” sometimes leaves us in the dark.

Pattinson and Dafoe dig into their roles, all right, with both actors crazily, mesmerizingly toggling from workaday to recriminating to maniacal and on and on. Together with Eggers they deliver a masterful study of souls trapped on a rock alone, but also trapped together, with all the twisty complexities involved.

Yes, as it turns out — not only is Abominable as amusing as the competition, it boasts a lyricism and sweetness uniquely, sublimely its own.

The biggest narrative justification for “Downton” getting feature treatment might be the sweeping quality to all the character developments and showcase moments being juggled here. The intricacy is managed without ever playing like Fellowes took a couple of routine postscript episodes and simply stitched them together.

The character-isolating bits furnish us with immolating heroines and dread-laden glimpses of Pennywise unmasked — you know, stuff to fill the quiet moments between arachnophobe nightmares and a predatory scene even more perverse than the saga-opening storm-drain vignette.

For all of its engaging performances, this thoughtful yarn from the filmmaking tandem of Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz is limited by a quaintly straightforward story line. Every choice the characters opt for, every bit of self-discovery they make, is as scripted as a rasslin’ baddie’s folding-chair cheap shot.

Unless you’re familiar with the various particulars, you’ll likely find yourself experiencing the film in aptly wavelike fashion, cresting with optimism about the crew’s prospects before plunging into apprehension, again and again.

This time, the over-the-top craziness that Spencer slyly serves up fills more than just a pie plate.

You’ll just have to look to your own effects-jazzed inner child to find a kid who’s relatable here.

Compared to a second installment that expanded the established Keanuscape in ways the “Matrix” sequels only wish they had, “Wick 3” fumbles for compelling, organically incorporated territory to explore.

One quibble: For such a legendarily elusive spot, the snowmen’s Himalayan hideaway seems awfully well trodden these days. If you thought the similarity between, say, “Coco” and “The Book of Life” was a case of animators not looking resourcefully enough for inspiration, how about the trifecta of “Smallfoot,” “Missing Link,” and DreamWorks’s upcoming “Abominable”?

Shazam! is pretty entertaining. It’s a lark that aims to distinguish itself from too-familiar DC dourness a bit like “Guardians of the Galaxy” playfully tweaked Marvel’s formula.

Maras and his cast craft such a chilling, narratively grueling dramatization of the episode — chaos worsened by the lack of tactical response forces in Mumbai — it’s tough to view quietly-played everyman heroics as the story’s takeaway. These striving unfortunates are just too hopelessly, fatally overmatched for that. Audiences are likelier to leave horrified or, at best, numb.

It’s the mark of many a standout sports movie that you don’t necessarily have to be a fan to enjoy the story. The real-life pro wrestling portrait Fighting With My Family is a hugely entertaining case in point.

For all of Alita’s she-Pinocchio charm — and her Cameronian estrogen-charged badass-itude — she can’t quite carry the audience all the way across that pesky uncanny valley.

An unexpected portrait of the legendary comedy duo on a mostly forgotten stage tour at the twilight of their careers.

At its best moments, Creed II manages a feat nearly as striking as anything that Michael B. Jordan’s Rocky Balboa protégé pulls off in the boxing ring: It doesn’t play all that much like a sequel.

The imaginative, touching, and dizzyingly animated Ralph Breaks the Internet is a sequel with a rich, broad vision that addresses all of these issues faster than you can say Fix-It Felix.

The particulars are often fascinating, but all the solemnity does work against a more rousing finish. The Netflix-distributed feature might equal “Braveheart” (1995) in its gritty authenticity, but that standard-setter’s memorably transportive quality was ultimately a far battle cry from this.

It’s as if Hill took his familiar sly humor and sneaked it into a segment from Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood.”

Go figure that the year’s most outrageously harrowing action movie turns out to be an arthouse doc from National Geographic.

Everyone from Channing Tatum to Danny DeVito to Hollywood transplant LeBron James is here voicing the movie’s winsomely rendered snow creatures, but it’s the creative story more than the routine-if-likable characters that makes this one so engaging.

Tricky territory to navigate, but it ultimately lends some genuine poignancy to the story’s familiar accidental-family themes. If there’s someplace Roth makes a mark, it’s here.

Kendrick’s interplay with Lively crackles, whether they’re going for laughs or something darker. Both are big selling points — as is their director, even if it’s not as advertised.

Notoriously remembered as a mastermind of the Final Solution, Eichmann was also infamous for the just-following-orders dispassion he maintained all the way through his trial, a banality that Kingsley channels expertly.

Some of this smutty irreverence is undeniably hilarious, goosed along by Melissa McCarthy’s game presence as Phil’s estranged LAPD partner and human foil. (In other felt-free casting, Maya Rudolph is equally entertaining as Phil’s trusty secretary, even if Elizabeth Banks and Joel McHale go to waste.)

Berg and Wahlberg deliver a relentlessly paced, addictively slick paramilitary thriller actively catering to fans of gonzo brutality and turbocharged machismo.

The stylishly crafted film mostly succeeds in its engaging (and tagline-ready) ambition to chronicle “how mankind discovered man’s best friend,” even if its naturalistic strengths are swapped out for an exaggeratedly epic tone in the later going.

Why can’t the film maintain its subtler shadings throughout? It’s a puzzle.

It’s surprising to see how straight McGregor plays it for director Marc Forster (the J.M. Barrie portrait “Finding Neverland”), allowing the CG-animated Pooh and friends to endearingly steal the show.

It’s fast, it’s funny, it’s superficial, it’s full of likable stars and scientific mumbo-jumbo, and, above all, it taps into the human urge to see big things become little and little things get big. It’s as close to lizard-brain entertainment as superhero blockbusters get, and as the mercury pushes toward 100, I’ll take it.

Hawke delivers a strong melancholy variation on his familiar emotional cool as Reverend Toller.

What’s most unexpectedly gratifying is how much energy veteran standup director Jeff Tomsic and his splashy cast pour into ensuring that this is legit entertainment, packed with gonzo wit and even some sentiment.

The drama palpably, potently conveys the group’s misgivings, their jangling nerves, the foolhardy resignation pushing them on despite themselves.

Veteran London theater director Dominic Cooke (the BBC’s “The Hollow Crown”) and acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan adapt the fractured-narrative feature from McEwan’s book, enhancing the elegant prose with additional bits of rich characterization and handsomely shot scenery.

Keener’s performance keeps the film grounded even as blunt scenes of the opposing camp’s machinations flirt with soap opera villainy.

The pervasive, absorbing bitterness and hurt falter only when the story eases off its characters’ cynical insistence that people don’t change. Sudeikis knows how to play jarringly nasty — see “Colossal,” for one — but choked-up can be a reach here.

The engaging dynamic between our hero and his gargantuan, computer-generated pal is the movie’s best surprise, with silly and straight bits both working mostly as intended for director Brad Peyton (Johnson’s “Journey 2” and “San Andreas”).

As nifty as any of it is a witty, touching story thread about Adlon’s trepidatious geek wrestling with her sexual orientation even as she wrestles with peer pressure to hop into bed. And guess what? She and the movie make the smart call.

A story steeped in emotional remoteness manages to command our attention in Thoroughbreds, first-time filmmaker Cory Finley’s darkly satirical portrait of the young and disconnected in old-money Connecticut.

A hard-R espionage thriller heavy on themes of sexual degradation and graphic, sometimes sadistic violence.

The film can be naggingly vague and patchily written where precision seems called for, but the familiar procession keenly digging into the wistful material does hold interest.

If the freneticism gets repetitious, the target audience won’t mind, at least not judging by a preview crowd’s delirious reaction to a recurring electrified-doorknob gag.

Danish photojournalist-turned-director Nicolai Fuglsig channels his experience into a credibly stark snapshot of war, one that helps audiences further grasp why the region has been so hellishly problematic for American troops.

Neeson’s financially strapped character might vent even more convincingly if he didn’t somehow still have a BMW parked back at the depot, but we’re on board with him all the same.

The numbers just aren’t as dynamic as we might have hoped for from director Trish Sie, whose credits include alt-rock act OK Go’s “treadmill video” and other addictively innovative shorts.

The group’s thematically, comedically broad inversion of the source material is consistently entertaining, and squeezes in some nicely played character growth to boot.

The good news is that while the movie is susceptible to some pandering, it also takes the story’s charming core elements and gives them a contemporary luster.

Consistently intriguing as all the lit-process tidbits are, the film struggles to mesh footnotes and somber notes.

Thor’s bloodsport detour diverts an inordinate amount of the filmmakers’ attention, and ours, from the whole end-of-days buildup. Hopkins gets short shrift, as does Idris Elba’s returning interdimensional gatekeeper, Heimdall.

What’s most compelling is the near-documentary quality of Teller, Koale, and Bennett’s characters playing against a VA backdrop of prosthetic limbs and catheter bags, of desensitized clerks and overwhelmed therapists.

The film concerns itself more with beauty shots of the region’s rugged, intimidating vastness than with “Backdraft”-rivaling imagery of combustion as art.

With its inventively nutso action, youthful vibe, and subversive topicality, the “Kingsman” franchise feels more relevant than even Daniel Craig’s James Bond. Screen espionage doesn’t come any hipper these days.

Ultimately, cast and crew conjure up horror that’s more efficient than terrifying.

There aren’t sufficient words to describe the remarkable visual environment; suffice it to say that the production designers are the stars here as much as the cast. More so, really.

Sincerity turns out to be the default tone for Brigsby Bear, making this indie’s odd concept of an accidental man-child wrapped up in a Teddy Ruxpin fantasy world feel odder still in the execution.

Hirschbiegel and Friedel win credibility points for painting Elser as noble without painting him as a saint.

The laughs here are more about the colorfully zany action than the ho-hum material the cast gets.

Stay patient through those Seinfeldian stretches in which Martin isn’t so much acting as performing, and you’ll be treated to the bonus of some surprising emotional depth and poignancy.

In short, the film owns its immaturity. And the argument it appealingly offers in defense is that it’s healthy, even vital, to be able to laugh at scatological silliness, adults included.

For all her “Clueless” comedy cred, Silverstone just might be at her best conveying a mother’s special knack for witheringly guilting her boys.

The film’s casting in general is a strength, however deep the resonance of what the actors are playing. Schreiber’s ex-girlfriend, Naomi Watts, is a brassy, savvy presence as Wepner’s bartender soulmate.

Watching Taylor-Johnson’s character engage the enemy this way is intriguing, but also a bit removed from the realism the film is after. Can you say catch-22?

The movie also plays as an extended reminder of why we love Goldie. It’s enormous fun seeing Hawn up to her old tricks — at 71! — even if they’re tweaked to help sell someone else’s brand of comedy.

Monkeys end up supplying the movie’s real drama. While parentally overlooked mischief-maker Tao Tao gets up to the requisite, well, monkey business, he’s also witness to a stunning snatch-and-fly attack by an opportunistic goshawk. It might not be nature on demand, but it’s some scene.

Polar chaos notwithstanding, “Fate” delivers action with more consistent visual precision than in the last couple of films, as newly enlisted director F. Gary Gray accesses the flair he brought to 2003’s “The Italian Job.”

You may find yourself wishing that Webb (“500 Days of Summer”) would just power through court. We’d gladly watch more of Grace and Evans silhouetted against the sunset, their connection evident in his indulgent posing as her makeshift jungle gym.

At least a plot point about “secret formula” is sort of clever. The rest comes across as gibberish.

Kudrow and Robinson are intriguing casting and they get some sharp Bickersons material, but the movie unconvincingly shorthands how they got together. And Revolori’s horndog just feels like the film coasting on his quirky persona from “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

It says something about Deutch’s appeal that she does manage to pull the story from the vexing hole it digs itself into. She takes us on an absorbing journey through the various stages of Sam’s time-stalled predicament.

Jackman and Stewart’s fond, easy dynamic helps to balance some very provocative brutality, as the movie pushes Wolverine’s berserk nature to graphic new extremes.

Luke Wilson, Eddie Izzard, director Ash Brannon (“Surf’s Up”), and crew combine these ingredients into something that’s uniquely likable, and even unique-looking at times.

The movie is sufficiently in touch with current comic books that it’s keen to explore Batman’s psychology — breezily, but still.

For audiences with an extremely high tolerance for brutally fetishized shootouts and bloodletting, this continuation of Reeves’s potential-filled reluctant hit man saga is electrifying, both visually and in its cracked narrative ambitions.

A lean indie horror flick that manages to creep us out even before getting to the part that’s meant to be truly unsettling.

Between Josh Gad’s charmingly earnest voice-over performance and more of the arthouse gloss that Hallström has drizzled on everything from “The Hundred-Foot Journey” to “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale,” it’s a weepie that can be tough to resist.

It’s a movie eager to examine the stigma of mental illness and the dynamics of victimization, to a point. Past that, it’s just distressing, narratively convenient exploitation that gets by on the strength of McAvoy’s fearless, electrifyingly adaptive performance.

A Monster Calls is a portrait of coping that’s both fascinating and heartbreaking.

A James Franco-Bryan Cranston teaming that’s not as wild as intended, but reasonably diverting just the same.

The result is entertainment whose pace and sound, while dizzyingly brisk at points, still accommodates characters and a setting that are terrifically rich — a menagerie more fully, memorably realized than “Zootopia.”

If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to visit this corner of the world, you’ll instantly recognize the blissful natural grandeur that Moana captures, as well as the Pacific’s intimidating vastness.

This is less a throwback to cutely misunderstood Molly Ringwald than to “My So-Called Life” — but with our high-school heroine stuck in a spiral like Claire Danes never knew.

A Cinderella subplot involving the prince’s scullery maid (Zooey Deschanel) is similarly both familiar and tonally refreshing, from the whimsical vocals to the disco skate that subs for a glass slipper.

The upshot: The movie develops a distinctively trippy identity.

The best moments come in seeing Galifianakis’s costars try to keep up with him as he finally, frantically lets loose.

It all makes for competent but routine suspense.

The movie bogs down only toward the finish, when it turns into a metahuman free-for-all.

The result is a story that’s awfully scattered thematically, but one with such inventive wit and screwball-quick pacing that issues like spongy motivation hardly seem to matter.

Aussie Rosalie Ham’s quirky gothic novel is too tonally erratic to be completely satisfying. But we do get two Kates for the price of one, in a sense, as this crazy quilt of a movie allows her to play both entertainingly vampy and vulnerable.

Krasinski infuses The Hollars with familiar wry humor, but he also delivers a film that’s unexpectedly rich with sweetly moving moments.

The film comes across as an irksome contrivance. What’s meant to communicate the mysterious, even taboo allure of playing chameleon instead just leaves us scoffing.

The highlight is Duran and Arcel’s bonding in the corner between rounds. We’ll take more of this revealing brand of drama anytime.

Lowery’s update turns out to be one of the summer’s best surprises, a gorgeous, magical reworking that deftly strikes that once-elusive balance between contemporary and quaint.

It’s comedy with a hint of honesty — but we’re fine with shallow and sparkly, dahling.