To its credit, Dark Night does not exploit or glamorize the gun culture, nor does it attempt to hammer us over the head with social or political views. Sutton is undeniably talented. Better, deeper, richer work is almost sure to follow.

Dying Laughing is a movie about stand-up with no performance footage. It’s like a documentary about baseball with no game footage — but it’s great and it’s valuable and it’s wonderful, because we love seeing and hearing these all-time greats talk about what they do with such passion and candor.

The real star of the film is writer-director Jordan Peele, who has created a work that addresses the myriad levels of racism, pays homage to some great horror films, carves out its own creative path, has a distinctive visual style — and is flat-out funny as well.

Had I been attending Fist Fight as a non-critic, any number of scenes might well have catapulted me out of my seat and out the door.

The Great Wall is so fantastically misguided and so wonderfully bad, I could see some coming for the action and staying for the camp laughs.

Thanks in large part to the genuine movie-star charisma of David Oyelowo and to the breathtakingly beautiful on-location cinematography in Botswana, here we are with the arrow pointing up.

When Alone in Berlin reaches the end of its journey, it’s the performances of Gleeson and Thompson that ensure we’ll never forget the bravery of Otto and Anna.

This is one good-looking, occasionally titillating, mostly soapy and dull snooze-fest.

Just when we thought Keanu Reeves was destined for a career of mostly forgettable films piling up in our straight-to-video cues, the guy is headlining a bona fide, first-class action franchise. Whoa.

Director Chris McKay keeps things zipping along, alternating between smart and often hilarious rapid-fire exchanges of dialogue, and big, big, BIG action sequences that fill every inch of the screen with brightly colored, fantastically kinetic action.

With The Comedian arriving in theaters, it’s safe to say I now have only nine spaces left on my list of the 10 Worst Movies of 2017.

For fans of “Resident Evil,” I believe this final film will not disappoint, but it also will likely encourage newcomers to the saga to go back and play a bit of catch-up by watching the earlier movies.

The acting is the purest thing in Gold.

Sure, we get the obligatory slapstick dog-shtick in the form of overturned food carts and disastrous dinner scenes and wacky chases, and there are some uplifting moments — but the overall mood of Lasse Hallstrom’s pup-point-of-view film is … melancholy, sometimes even grim.

Director Adam Smith (shooting Alastair Siddons’ inventive script) doesn’t hit the mark with every chance he takes, but for the most part this is an admirable and successful effort.

Paterson is a fable, brimming with symbolism and inside literary references and nods to playwrights and authors from decades and centuries gone by — but it’s also authentic and plausible, in its own weird way.

With the chilling, creepy, bold and sometimes bat-bleep absurd Split, the 46-year-old Shyamalan serves notice he’s still got some nifty plot tricks up his sleeve and he hasn’t lost his masterful touch as a director.

It’s some of Keaton’s finest work. It’s also the first great movie I’ve seen in 2017.

There’s not a single false, “actor-y” note in Bening’s work. It is a master class in nuanced acting, and it is deserving of an Academy Award.

Overall, this is a Boston Strong film about one of the worst terrorist attacks ever on American soil, and a community’s resounding response.

A curiously unfocused Prohibition-era gangster epic with some well-choreographed action scenes, a few provocative plot threads — but an increasingly meandering main story line that goes from intriguing to confounding to preachy to what exactly are we even watching here?

Arsenal is garbage. The cast includes familiar faces...but it’s still a trashy, blood-spattered, sadistic thriller with a goes-nowhere plot, overwrought dialogue and a throbbing soundtrack that’ll leave your ears ringing.

It aims straight for our hearts, sometimes hitting the target, especially in some of the quieter scenes with Conor and his mother. But then the preachy tree rears its thorny head, and it keeps on talking and explaining, long after we get it, we get it, we get it.

What beauty. What brutality. What madness.

Calderon and Larrain (also director of the Golden Globe-nominated “Jackie”) have taken great dramatic license with Neruda’s story, and the payoff is more than worth the risk.

Lion is a beautifully told, uplifting story of courage and determination.

What works: the brilliant dialogue, and the raw intensity of the performances. It’s a privilege to watch Washington and Davis lay it all on the line.

You might just find yourself applauding during certain moments of dramatic triumph in Theodore Melfi’s unabashedly sentimental and wonderfully inspirational film, and yes, some of those moments feature people working out high-level math problems.