There are moments in Infinity Pool where it’s a test of wills to keep your eyes fixed on the screen, but beyond all the gruesome violence, Cronenberg’s screenplay is filled with sharply honed observations about culture and class differences, and some wickedly satisfying twists and turns. This is a film that is bat-bleep crazy but knows exactly what it is doing.

All due respect to Lopez’ longevity and acknowledging that some of these films have their diehard fans, J. Lo has never scored with a classic romantic comedy, and though she once again gives it her all and dives into another ludicrous premise, there’s no salvaging this deliberately over-the-top, mixed-genre effort that plays like a slapstick take on “Die Hard” at a wedding.

Right up until an ending straight out of a mediocre rom-com from the early 2000s, You People never feels like more than a series of stitched-together scenes making some legitimate but obvious points about racial differences.

It was a feel-good story that turned horribly tragic.

Eisenberg is a fine writer and shows clear promise as a visual storyteller, but it becomes a chore to spend even an 88-minute movie with his increasingly off-putting characters. We know they’re not supposed to be likable, but they should be more interesting.

Given that director and co-writer Florian Zeller’s “The Father” was a powerful and nuanced and creatively presented original work with Anthony Hopkins winning an Oscar for his moving portrayal of a man with advancing dementia, it’s truly shocking how Zeller’s “The Son” is such a tone-deaf, emotionally manipulative, leaden stumble into the abyss.

With a dialogue-driven, authentic screenplay by Alanna Francis, an effectively poignant score by Owen Pallett and powerful work by Kendrick and Kaniehtiio Horn and Wunmi Mosaku as Alice’s best friends, this is the kind of intimate drama that sticks with you long after the viewing experience.

The Drop has the feel of an extended improv exercise while spotlighting characters who are thinly sketched and often as boring as they are wickedly boorish, with the talented cast engaging in hit-and-miss dialogue that often falls flat.

One of the unique things about the original “House Party” from 1990 is while there was an abundance of energetic and exhilarating dancing, the party itself was almost secondary to all the action that took place OUTSIDE the party...Not so much with the massive, bloated, epic, over-the-top bash in the “House Party” reboot, which marks the second time LeBron James has put his enormous clout behind a new take on a beloved 1990s film (after the “Space Jam” reboot) — and the second time the results were underwhelming.

The movie they made is the movie they made, and while there are some genuinely moving moments, and filmmakers Josh Tickell and Rebecca Tickell clearly took great care in respecting Indigenous People culture and getting the details right, too much of On Sacred Ground focuses on William Mapother’s cliché-riddled Daniel.

For all its cleverness and pop-culture savvy and meta references, M3GAN also indulges in tropes we’ve seen in a hundred slasher movies, but the dark laughs keep coming, and of course we get an ending that leaves the door open for a potential franchise. She’s the living doll of your nightmares, and you can’t just power her down, kiddo.

Throughout, Bill Nighy carries the film effortlessly on his slender shoulders, reminding us of why he’s an international treasure.

This is a revenge Western we’ve seen dozens of times before, and the villains aren’t nearly as intimidating and pitch-black evil as they need to be. The end result is a passably entertaining shoot-’em-up with very few surprises.

A small and warmhearted gem starring one of our finest veteran actors in a well-crafted and emotionally involving remake of a film about a widowed curmudgeon who begins to grow and change after experiencing some major life setbacks.

Though the subject matter is intense and shocking, the intuitively sensitive and subtle Polley teams with a brilliant ensemble cast to tell the story with grace and empathy and even some much-needed doses of earned humor. It’s a film you won’t soon forget.

Even when writer-director Cooper’s adaptation of Louis Bayard’s acclaimed novel takes some insanely big dramatic swings and doesn’t always connect, Bale is immersed in his performance — equally powerful when he’s quietly revealing a painful moment from his past or exploding with the earth-shattering rage.

Despite some admittedly impressive production design and the star-power presence of Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, Babylon comes across as a hard-R cartoon that will have you feeling like you need to take a shower once it finally collapses at the finish line with a faux-sentimental, movie-within-the-movie ending that rings hollow.

Houston basically gets the “Bohemian Rhapsody” treatment in that the film glosses over some of the darkest moments in her life. (in fact, Anthony McCarten is the screenwriter of both films), but it works beautifully as a feature-film biography highlighting one of the most incredible voices and one of the most infectious star personalities of a generation.

Fraser becomes Charlie and infuses him with intelligence, pathos, humor and heart. It is one of the best performances of the year in one of the best movies of the year.

Pandora remains one of the most amazing worlds we’ve ever seen on the big screen.

The Mean One has a handful of inspired lines, e.g., “Time to roast this beast!” but the production values, editing, score and photography are average at best, and we’re left with a film that will be remembered mostly for a cleverly twisted marketing hook.

For all its obvious love of movies and of the shared experience of watching movies, Empire of Light is a decidedly downbeat effort that tries to say too much and ultimately winds up saying very little.

There’s something irresistible about the story of the former pizza guy who invented the modern concealable bulletproof vest, and Richard Davis isn’t about to let the doubts about his origin story or some of the terrible missteps he made along the way get in the way of that tale.

Director Showalter (who mined similar territory in “The Big Sick,” one of the best movies of 2017) and screenwriters David Marshall Grant and Dan Savage display a deft touch for blending wry humor with heartfelt drama, and Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge have a natural and comfortable chemistry in a story that hits a lot of familiar notes but contains some creatively clever devices while packing, yes, a whole lot of heart.

Writer-director Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale,” “Marriage Story”) delivers an effectively unsettling, carefully crafted, at times brilliant but uneven adaptation of Don DeLillo’s postmodern dystopian classic from 1985, with Baumbach regulars Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig leading an outstanding cast in a three-pronged social satire.

Now comes the gruesomely bloody, cheerfully tasteless, fantastically naughty and entertaining Christmas thriller Violent Night, which is basically “Die Hard” with candy canes in a mansion.

Despite the undeniable importance of this story and the obvious passion of those involved in telling it, Emancipation is more than anything a relatively standard-issue, period-piece action film — and that’s a shame, because we see glimpses of how it could have been something much more than that.

Christmas With the Campbells is like a weirdly creative holiday drink; you wouldn’t expect those ingredients to work together, but somehow, they do.