Thanks to the stylish direction by Paul Feig, a whip-smart screenplay by Jessica Sharzer (adapting Darcey Bells’ novel) and performances that pop from the screen, A Simple Favor is a sharp-edged delight.

The problem is, despite the efforts of the talented cast, the supposedly lovable former soldiers aren’t all that lovable, the primary human villain is a cocky fool with cloudy motives — and the predators don’t seem all that intimidating compared to a lot of the Earth-loathing alien invaders we see at the movies these days.

Slice is schlock, but that’s kind of the point. It doesn’t have a tenth of the production values of, say, last week’s violent thriller “Peppermint” (and no doubt it was made for even less than a tenth of that film’s budget). But it has originality, and originality goes a long way.

Writer-director Victor Levin takes an interesting although ultimately tedious and distracting approach to nearly every scene.

In the stylishly directed but gratuitously nasty and cliché-riddled Peppermint, Garner plays essentially two characters cut from the same person.

Everything unfolds pretty much as we anticipate, and at times “Operation Finale” IS gripping and involving — but more often, the story slows to a crawl and actually becomes less involving just when we should be holding our breath. This is a well-made but formulaic, by-the-numbers drama.

The editing is brilliant, as we jump back in forth in time, seeing these three as kids and then as young men, marveling at their skateboard moves and smiling at their rebellious spirit, and wondering if there’s any hope for any of them given all they’ve been through in their young lives.

At times The Little Stranger is frustratingly vague, and some of the developments don’t add up … Until they do. Quite nicely and quite eerily.

The Wife is visually arresting, but Runge wisely opts for a straightforward approach overall, giving center stage to the dialogue and the actors.

It is an impressively staged and appropriately rain-soaked, mud-splattered, bone-crunching tale, more violent and filled with rougher language than its predecessor, if not quite as powerful or moving.

Hope began to die about five minutes into this off-putting, cheap-looking, virtually laugh-free disaster. Hope was dead at the 10-minute mark.

Down a Dark Hall eventually goes Down a Convoluted Tunnel, with some admittedly creepy but also just plain crazy sequences that play like “Eyes Wide Shut” meets “The Shining.”

The real support group at this place is the one formed by a small band of students, who lean on each other and reinforce each other in the face of the small-minded bigotry of the so-called adults in their lives.

Though it crackles with energy and has some impressive albeit gratuitously bloody kill sequences, the Big Picture plot is a dud, up to and including the preposterous final scenes.

Crazy Rich Asians glimmers and sparkles, gives us characters to root for, and is pure escapist fantasy fun.

Kudos to writer-director Frizzell for demonstrating a sharp ear for comedic dialogue, a fine sense of storytelling as a director — and for incorporating Michael Bolton’s “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You?” as well as Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” into the soundtrack.

BlacKkKlansman is one of Spike Lee’s most accomplished films in recent memory, and one of the best films of 2018.

Bell and Grammer are wonderful playing off one another. Funny when the moment calls for funny, authentic and believable when the moment calls for substantive drama.

This is Agnes’ story, and this is Kelly Macdonald’s movie.

McKinnon has so much energy and creativity she nearly jumps out of the frame. It’s an uneven performance with mixed results — but we’re left hoping she’ll be matched up with a better film role sometime soon, one that makes full use of her unique talents.

“Fallout” just might be the best of the franchise, and what a rare thing that is for a long-running series.

Writer-director Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade is a sweet and intelligent and sometimes absolutely heartbreaking slice of modern-day, eighth-grade life, which, in some ways (hello social media), is radically different from the eighth-grade experience of 1998 or 1978 or 1958, but in many ways is absolutely relatable to audiences of any age or gender.

In The Equalizer 2 the great Denzel Washington hits a variety of notes reprising his role as McCall, in a brilliant performance that often rises above the pulpy, blood-soaked material.

We’re not supposed to think about a movie like Skyscraper. This is superficial summer popcorn fare, given a PG-13 because when innocents are mowed down, the camera lingers on the smugly smiling sociopathic villains, not the carnage.

In the alternately exhilarating and heartbreaking documentary Whitney, the Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald (“Touching the Void,” “The Last King of Scotland”) does a magnificent job of taking us through the paces of Houston’s life and times.

We’re hardly in original territory when a movie relies not once, but twice, on truth-serum humor — but even when things get ultra-corny, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” keeps merrily buzzing along.

The only thing less satisfying than the build-up is the finale, which goes from mind-boggling to you’ve got to be kidding me.

Nearly every scene takes a sideways turn, and nearly every expectation we have doesn’t work out the way we anticipate it working out, and that’s what makes the journey so much fun.

Even though Uncle Drew is outlandish and predictable and downright corny, I loved the positive energy of this film, I got a kick out of the winning performances from a cast of All-Star comic actors and All-Star, well, All-Stars — and I laughed out loud at a steady diet of inside-basketball jokes.

This is one of my favorite movies of 2018.

How bad is “Fallen Kingdom”? How terrible is a movie that pounds us with a pretentious, nearly operatic score while indulging in B-movie clichés and calling for the main characters to make idiotic decisions just to keep the story rolling? I have to dig deep into the Awful Sequel Playbook to draw parallels to this exercise in wretched excess.

The long-delayed biopic Gotti is an entertaining and well-acted but uneven B-movie.

We’re not even halfway through 2018, but when it comes time to compile my list of the worst movies of the year, I have a strong sense there will be a moment when I’ll be saying to Tag: You’re it.

It’s a solid double and that’s just fine, but I’ll admit to a feeling of mild disappointment it wasn’t a grand slam, given the greatness of the first adventure and the grand and creative mind of Mr. Bird.

Superfly succeeds at it what it wants to be: an action-packed, sexy, violent, 21st century blaxploitation crime thriller with a stylish look, a downloadable soundtrack, a great-looking and talented cast, a few slick twists and even some genuinely funny moments.

It’s just a muddled, overcrowded, trigger-happy heist movie brimming with clichés while constantly trying our patience.

Positive points to the Hotel Artemis for trying to achieve something original, and for the quality of the cast. But after that bloody boldness, the analogies and the life lessons and the moments of closure are all too predictable and familiar.

The shock moments here (including one that might send one or two viewers running for the exit) are truly stunning, and grotesque, and bizarre — and they will stay with you long after you’ve gone home for the night.

While the spectacularly gifted and enormously likable cast has the firepower and charisma to match the testosterone-fueled ensembles of those earlier films, Ocean’s 8 is more of a smooth glide than an exhilarating adventure.

On more than one occasion, this looks and feels like a parody.

This is director Atsuko Hirayanagi’s feature-length debut (based on her own short film), and it is a most impressive first effort. Oh Lucy! is quirky and offbeat and strange and sometimes quite dark — and yet oddly lovable.

Even when Mary finally gets her due, the film badly fumbles the moment.

Woodley is a stronger screen presence than the low-key Claflin, but they have a lovely and natural chemistry together.

What a remarkable performance by Laura Dern. It’s a beautifully nuanced portrayal of a smart, accomplished, independent woman who finds the courage and strength to confront the past — and to understand that the demons poking at her subconscious all this time were not of her own making.

With First Reformed, Schrader delivers his most impactful work in years, with Ethan Hawke’s haunting and brilliant work as Ernst Toller joining the ranks of great lead performances in Schrader films. This is an inescapably memorable and at times almost unbearably sorrowful piece of work.

This is a well-made, well-acted and sometimes intriguing but also coldly cynical and manipulative murder mystery.

[An] insightful and occasionally revealing look at the 88-year-old Manhattan institution where the rich and famous enjoy being rich and famous.

What a waste of some perfectly wonderful legends.

The real treasures, though, are all those pre-iconic moments, all those launching points for beautiful friendships and future conflicts. In some ways this is one of the “lighter” of the “Star Wars” adventures, as we know beyond any doubt Han, Lando and Chewy will live to fight another day.

Deadpool 2 is wicked, dark fun from start to finish, with some twisted and very funny special effects, cool production elements, terrific ensemble work — and for dessert, perhaps the best end-credits “cookie” scene ever.

Even when it doesn’t work, Terminal is a film with never a dull moment.

I’m giving Life of the Party three stars — a solid B, if you will — on the strength of at least a half-dozen laugh-out-loud moments, some truly sharp dialogue, a tremendously likable cast, and the sheer force of its cheerful goofiness.

It’s a sweet and knowing and lovely and funny story, but occasionally the spell of warm nostalgia is broken by painful moments of family heartbreak and cruel bullying.

Disobedience comes across as a challenging but also deeply respectful and thoughtful meditation on traditions and mores that date back thousands of years.

I can’t tell you I bought every last twist and turn in the final act, but thanks to Niccol’s creative direction and the offbeat but effective chemistry between Owen’s emotionally damaged Sal and Seyfried’s is-she-hero-or-villain mystery woman, Anon kept me in its grips throughout.

The final chapters of Tully take us to a place I certainly didn’t anticipate, causing us to re-examine everything we’ve seen from the outset. It might not be a perfectly constructed journey, but it’s pretty close.

The jokes in The Week Of are big and obvious and sometimes mildly tasteless.

The English-language debut from the brilliant talent behind best foreign film picture nominee “Mustang” is a terribly uneven, borderline absurdist jumble that undercuts its own message again and again.

Infinity War might be the biggest and most ambitious Marvel movie yet, but it’s certainly not the best. (I’d put it somewhere in the bottom half of the Top 10.) However, there’s plenty of action, humor and heart — and some genuinely effective dramatic moments in which familiar and beloved characters experience real, seemingly irreversible losses.

While the members of the Broken Lizard comedy group retain their likability, and there’s something kind of endearing about the disjointed, throw-everything-at-the-wall, “Caddyshack” type chaos behind the comedy, there are simply too many dead spots and cheap jokes and flat gags to carry a full-length feature.

Schumer is doing another slightly tweaked but virtually indistinguishable variation on the same wisecracking, self-deprecating, insecure, if-only-she-could-see-her-wonderfulness underdog she’s played before. She’s clearly in her comfort zone and she eventually wins us over in this uneven, hit-and-miss, broad comedy — but here’s hoping the next time around, she tries something new.

Joaquin Phoenix has never been shy about going big if the role called for it — and maybe even if the role didn’t necessarily call for it — but his performance here ranks as one of his best because of what happens between the outbursts.

Rampage might not be the worst movie of the year so far, but it’s a contender for most pointless.

As the film takes deeper and darker turns, it also becomes something special, something unflinchingly honest, something that will punch you in the gut AND touch your heart.

The stakes in Beirut are deadly serious, but the film itself is not presented as a major political statement or commentary beyond: The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is an old-fashioned spy thriller, and as such it succeeds.

Blockers becomes less interesting and less funny as the onscreen hijinks grow more outlandish and stupid and demeaning and crotch-oriented.

Chappaquiddick does a remarkably economical job of encapsulating the madness of that week without overwhelming us with historical detail. The story moves from moment to moment, day to day, with clarity and great dramatic effect — and (rightfully) condemns Kennedy’s actions without turning him into a monster.

A Quiet Place doesn’t have the pin-you-to-your-seat originality of “Get Out,” or the psychological depth and pure scare impact of “Lights Out” or the wall-to-wall intensity of “Don’t Breathe,” but it is one of the smarter and more involving horror films of the last few years.

Final Portrait has the feel of a work that might be quite effective on a modest stage in a small theater. As a film, it’s well-made and the performances are fine, but it feels slight and thin and inconsequential — quite the opposite of the work Alberto Giacometti left behind.

It’s smart and different and sometimes deliberately odd and really funny — rarely in a laugh-out-loud way, more in a smile-and-nod-I-get-the-joke kind of way.

You need to see this one on the biggest screen possible, and let it wash over you as if you had stepped inside the most incredible video game experience ever created — one in which events in the manufactured universe can have lasting and serious real-world consequences.

Directed with creative style by Anders Walter (with a screenplay by Joe Kelly, adapting his own comic book), I Kill Giants is a good-looking adventure fable that makes great use of the Northeastern coastal locations.

Midnight Sun is cheesy and implausible and manipulative, but it did chip away at my cynicism through the sheer force of its corny and sincere heart.

Claire Foy (“The Crown”) delivers a smashing performance.

It’s an impressively staged, well-acted, thoughtful and faithful telling of the last days of the Apostle Paul — and how Luke risked his life again and again to visit his great mentor in prison and make a written record of Paul’s life experiences and teachings.

Whenever Pacific Rim Uprising gives itself the chance to do something fresh or unique or original, it passes up that opportunity to embrace the cliché.

A wonderful, uplifting, endearing, thoroughly entertaining story.

From start to finish, director/co-writer Armando Iannucci (creator of HBO’s brilliant “Veep”) delivers an audacious and insightful and ridiculous and hilarious send-up that reminded me of the classic Monty Python films of the 1970s and 1980s.

Vikander is in nearly every scene in the movie, and she’s absolutely terrific. Endearing and funny in the early scenes in London, easy to root for as she dives into the cartoon of an adventure. Of course Tomb Raider sets the table for future adventures, but if the future chapters are to be this silly and disposable, one hopes Vikander moves on as quickly from this film as I did as a viewer.

[A] disappointingly listless thriller, in which at least four of the titular seven days feel like place-holders, with everyone holding their positions and regurgitating the same concerns and regrets and debates.

With a movie like this, either you’ll tap out after 15 minutes or you’ll settle in for an evening of popcorn and beverage-of-your choice escapism.

Director Johannes Roberts is clearly a fan of films such as “Christine” and “Halloween.” The production elements are first-rate, including the expansive setting that includes multiple cabins, a playground and a swimming pool.

Movie magic is an elusive thing. A Wrinkle in Time is a bold film that takes big chances from start to finish, in a courageous effort to be something special.... But for all its scenes of characters flying and soaring and zooming here and there, it never really takes off.

Again and again, Death Wish feels anything but real.

[An] uneven but timely and quite funny feminist satire.

There are more than enough laughs and clever surprises in this broad and sometimes violent farce to warrant a recommendation, thanks to a solidly funny script by Mark Perez, some pretty neat camera moves and choreographed action/comedic sequences from directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein — and a likable and talented ensemble cast, led by two of my favorites.

Rogers Park is poetic and lovely and muscular and unforgiving at the same time, much like the area itself and the city as a whole.

Garland (adapting a novel by Jeff VanderMeer that is the first of a trilogy) does a masterful job of building the mystery, dropping plot hints like so many bread crumbs, jolting us with “gotcha!” moments.

The director of the film is Tim Hunter, whose feature career goes back to such 1980s gems as “Tex” and “River’s Edge,” and whose TV credits include everything from episodes of the original “Twin Peaks” to “Mad Men.” That explains why it’s such a good-looking film. Nicolas Cage’s starring presence explains why it’s such a compelling and offbeat little thriller.

On a pure pop level, as a piece of big-time mainstream entertainment, let us also celebrate this: Black Panther is one of the best superhero movies of the century.

It is a terrible film, and it skirts (but does not cross) the line of offensiveness...but it is undeniably watchable in the same way you can’t turn away from a talent show featuring a medley of acts that are pretty awful but quite confident they’ve got something to share.

In the home stretch, Fifty Shades Freed leaves the sexy stuff behind and turns into a combo platter of a cheesy, easily solved mystery-thriller and an overwrought, daytime soap opera melodrama.

Even though of course we recognize the bravery and selfless heroism of the men on that train who risked their lives to save others, and even though there are a few pulse-quickening moments in The 15:17 to Paris, the movie is slow-paced and feels padded, even with that running time of just over an hour and a half.

This is a Western that places the sidekick front and center, and in doing so gives reliable everyman supporting character actor Bill Pullman a rare chance to carry the film, and what a fine job he does with the added responsibilities.

A mildly entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking but ultimately ludicrous deep space thriller.

This is essential viewing for any Bears fan, and for that matter any football fan.

Writer-director Jack C. Newell’s 42 Grams is a smartly executed, well-photographed and at times almost painfully raw profile.

This is quite possibly the most self-referential, inside-jokey, look-at-how-clever-we-are, off-the-charts Meta Movie I’ve ever seen. Sometimes that’s pretty great. At other times, it detracts from the core story at hand.