The story isn’t complicated, and it’s one we know well, rendered with spooky, atmospheric aesthetics and intensely gnarly violence that provide cover for the thin premise, nagging plot holes and flimsy characterization in the script, which traffics in poorly explained archetypes. It’s sufficient enough, but the strength of the filmmaking is not in the writing, but in Barker’s command of style, pace and performance.

What you might not expect is how moving this whole story actually is. It’s not just the fun of figuring things out among this cast of colorful characters, rendered with a storybook look, it’s actually a tale about the importance of finding, and tending to, a flock.

Hokum might start in a bleak place, and the entire experience might be profoundly, existentially bone-rattling, but McCarthy’s dark fable argues that opening yourself up to the forces beyond the veil might just shake something loose, and might heal something, opening up a space for hope — or at least a different kind of ending.

Streep once again unnecessarily proves she’s the best in the business with her performance, delivering more in a single quiet line delivery than most actors can achieve.

I Swear is a film that was made with a lot of bravery and heart. It’s an important extension of John’s advocacy, but it’s also deeply moving and very entertaining.

The song remains the same, but it’s all in the way you play it. Karia, Ahmed and Lesslie prove that "Hamlet" still hits after all these years.

Most importantly, You, Me & Tuscany is sentient. It’s transporting and ridiculous and knows exactly what it is, and therefore, we do too. So go ahead, enjoy a little dolce vita, as a treat.

It is thought-provoking, to be sure, but does he finish the thought, or just provoke it?

They Will Kill You is both irreverent, and reverential to its references, and cartoonishly violent in increasingly surreal ways, but it also maintains the emotional core at the center, which is Asia’s blind big sister protectiveness over Maria, powered by the guilt she feels over not being there for her. It’s a simple, but primal character motivation that Beetz sells with a wild-eyed ferocity.

Executed with incredible craft and style and a whole lot of heart, Project Hail Mary verges on the edge of being too saccharinely sweet. But sci-fi can serve many different purposes for audiences, and maybe that sweetness, combined with a story of cooperation and collaboration for self-preservation, is just the kind of balm we need to take the edge off right now.

It’s not always easy to navigate the tonal landmines of a Colleen Hoover yarn. That Caswill, Monroe and Withers do so with aplomb and emotion proves what these films can be: deeply felt, transporting romances to be taken seriously.

It’s an exhilarating cinematic experience, whether you’re an Elvis fan or not — but Luhrmann makes sure you are by the end.

Ultimately, Ford hedges his bets with How to Make a Killing, and lands in an unsatisfying no man’s land.

Crime 101 overstays its welcome and is rife with bland story filler, but there’s no denying that it is handsomely made and rarely boring, offering the nominal pleasures of a good-looking serious adult crime drama, which is all too rare these days.

The edgy and explicit Pillion might be set within the parameters of a relationship that many would consider “alternative,” but the heart of it is the same as any love story that becomes a lesson in self-love.

Park’s mastery of tone reflects his mastery of cinematic craft, which has only become more surgically refined in the past few years.

The film is shockingly violent and bloody, but there are also profoundly poetic moments and images that pop up like wildflowers in a field.

Other scenes work better, like a joyous birthday party, and a school concert, and there’s an affability layered throughout Is This Thing On? that makes it more of a hangout movie about a tepid midlife crisis than forward-moving drama.

There’s an important lesson at the center of Song Sung Blue, about abandoning self-consciousness in a relentless pursuit of a dream. Despite the obstacles, their age, the setbacks, there is a pot of gold, not at the end of the rainbow but within it, in their shared dream.

Marty Supreme is a truly staggering American epic about finally learning that hustle is never going to love you back — even if chasing it can be a thrill, at least for a moment. In this anxiety-riddled portrait of the corrosive nature of American capitalism, sports is merely the vessel, but it’s still the kind of movie that will make you want to stand up and cheer.

Feig stylishly waltzes us through this steamy, twisty mystery with ease, but not necessarily sophistication — this is the kind of frothy entertainment that you can still enjoyably comprehend after a glass or two, which in fact might enhance the experience.

[Cameron's] anti-colonialist, pro-Indigenous cri de coeur is inspiring, if a bit on the nose, but we can forgive that, because the visual spectacle is just so breathtakingly beautiful, the emotional stakes palpable, and the intention is so earnest. It’s good to be back on Pandora.

For Mendonça Filho, who has poured his love for his city, his country and its people into this masterpiece of a film, his favorite way to process anything is through making and watching movies. It’s his best film, and the best film of the year.

While 100 Nights of Hero sports compelling actors and beautiful visuals (often best seen in montage, animated by editing), its storytelling about the power of storytelling is unfortunately less than riveting. The urgency of the message remains, but the delivery leaves something to be desired.

As an actor, Fraser’s second act has been a sight to behold, and he is the emotional anchor of this wonderfully life-affirming and quietly resonant film about the importance of being together that announces Hikari as a major talent to watch.

Wright makes the argument that in such a dystopian, fascist state, there are only a few things that will save us: class solidarity, physical media and literacy. It’s a powerful and potent message that cuts through any and all of the bombastic busyness of The Running Man.

It’s campy, it’s cheesy, it’s way more fun than you expect it to be, but there’s a knowingness to the whole endeavor on behalf of magician and audience. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is the kind of lightweight, harmless and ephemeral entertainment that allows us to be escape artists from reality for a minute — so go ahead and indulge.

While the subject matter makes Nuremberg worth the watch, the film itself is a mixed bag, with some towering performances (Crowe and Shannon), and some poor ones. It manages to eke out its message in the eleventh hour, but it feels too little too late, in our cultural moment, despite its evergreen importance.

This film is not an easy watch, provoking anxiety, discomfort and even judgment about parenting and motherhood. Her love for her son is never in question, but Grace is a wild animal, and it is at times terrifying to be asked to dive into the cracked psyche of a brilliant but troubled mind with such immediacy and presence.

This touching and somewhat grotesque story is the perfect gateway for younger kids to dabble in more spooky, gothic content, as well as to take in the true lessons of Shelley’s original monster tale.

Anniversary is a deeply nihilistic film that can’t be described as a cautionary tale — that horse has left the barn. Rather, it’s a hypothetical question as character study, an examination of how this happens, and an assertion that a system like this shows no mercy, not even to its most loyal subjects, despite what we want to believe.

For the majority of the run time, Bugonia is the kind of film you respect more than you enjoy, as the archness and absurdity of Stone’s character is too dissonant with the sincerity of Teddy’s sadness at the core of this story.

The film is a more quiet, wintry contemplation and tortured soul-searching. If not entirely successful, it’s still a fascinating take on how we put rock stars on screen, and a valiant attempt to understand how they make the music that moves us.

Dickinson, who became a heartthrob in movies like “Beach Rats,” “Triangle of Sadness” and “Babygirl,” announces that he’s much more than a pretty face, he’s got something to say, and the message of humanist compassion he delivers in “Urchin” is incredibly powerful.

Roofman is predominantly a one-man showcase for the full range of Tatum’s talents, but the entire ensemble is crucial for any good caper.

Rønning, who helmed a later “Pirates of the Caribbean” film and “Young Woman and the Sea,” provides serviceable direction of the material without offering much innovation. The film loses fidelity toward the end, as it becomes a crashy, pixelated monster movie, as the real world has no capability for hosting the sleek, bloodless appeal of the grid.

It becomes clear that Safdie is intentionally denying a big, flashy “win the game” kind of film, offering instead a cerebral examination of the quotidian, workmanlike drudgery of being a professional athlete who never became a superstar household name, still shouldering the work, the struggle, the bad days, quibbling over contracts and rules, taking every hit without complaint.

One Battle After Another isn’t just an explosive revolutionary text but a story of fatherhood — the values we pass down to the next generation, and how we care for them, with love and generosity; with fear, anxiety, a little bit of hope, and above all, a whole lot of faith.

This movie looks so good, it’s tempting to overlook things like character, story and theme. As a purely sensorial experience of sound and image, it’s sensational. As a searing examination of the body horrors of football, fandom and fame, it’s weak.

It’s a stunning showcase for the acting talents of the young ensemble.

With a mix of old characters and new, worldly upheaval and small-town dramas, Fellowes illustrates what "Downton" has always done best, which is a social examination of how much things have changed and how they haven’t changed at all.

Preparation for the Next Life is a powerful assertion of dreams, humanity and hard work — arguing that every person has a past, a future and a story to tell.

“Sunday Best,” from director Sacha Jenkins (who died this past May), is a fine effort that explores Sullivan’s commitment to pushing back against network forces, sponsors and other interested parties who were opposed to the presence — the celebration, really — of Black people on the show.

Covino’s filmmaking is tremendously appealing, buoyant and playful, and in Splitsville, he dials everything up from The Climb, especially the comedy.

A model of conventional thriller suspense, the movie isn’t. A stimulating cry for “Black culture and artistic integrity,” in King’s words, and for the true value of a well-made commodity, whether it’s shoes or songs — that, the movie surely is.

Some of Cregger’s swings between straight-up horror, missing children mystery and deliriously gory comedy may lead to mass audience whiplash. But it’s pretty gripping, fiercely well-acted and — paradoxically, given its devotion to pitch-black cold creeps — one of the bright lights of a generally disappointing movie summer.

Even when Shanks hits the primary theme of his movie a little too insistently, the actors are vivid throughout. Brie, especially, is spectacularly effective in every emotional register, in the keys of D (Distress), E (Eh what’s going on with our suction-lips?) and C (Commitment is all).

It’s not great superhero cinema — the verdict is out on whether that’s even possible in the Marvel Phase 6 stage of our lives — but good is good enough for “The Fantastic Four.”

Fleifel’s film favors well-paced if slightly schematic prose, though the actors are more than good enough to keep you with these people every fraught minute.

When Aster lays off the easy comic despair in favor of more ambiguous and dimensional feelings, interactions and moments, Eddington becomes the movie he wanted. His script has a million problems with clarity, coincidence and the nagging drag of a protagonist set up for a long, grisly comeuppance, yet Eddington is probably Aster’s strongest film visually.

It’s nicely packed and quite funny, when it isn’t giving into Gunn’s trademark air of merry depravity.

There are flashes and occasional whole sequences when Edwards’ directorial eye snaps into focus.

Without exposition dumps or pressurized contrivance, Friedland reveals facets of Ruth’s life, scene by scene, in the 85 minutes of screen time.

F1 is a pretty decent summer picture, and if it were half as crisp off the track as it is on the track, we’d really have something.

The funniest -- and almost the saddest -- silent comedy. [20 Apr 2001, p.C1]

Without playing with anyone’s life, A Photographic Memory makes beautiful sense of the connections between mother and daughter, work and love and other mysteries.

It may make true love look all too Hollywood-easy in the end, but en route it’s still a Celine Song film.

A beautiful mixed bag, let’s say, all told. But I’ll see The Phoenician Scheme a second time sometime for Cera, who will surely return to the Anderson fold.

The new “John Wick” spinoff Ballerina is recommendable, -ish, primarily for the way Anjelica Huston, as the Russian mob boss, makes a meal out of a single-syllable word near the end, delivered after a pause so unerringly timed it’s almost too good for this world.

Piani did the right thing in casting Rutherford, whose physical embodiment of Agathe suggests a tall, gangly, striking woman trying not to be seen. The actress leans into the character’s unsettled, often sullen side, though not at the expense of the comic tropes.

The climax of “Final Reckoning” is likewise impressive and scenic, but paced and edited less for the good of the overall movie and more for risk-verification purposes. That said, this franchise has class.

Besides being super-duper gory, of course, the new movie is jaunty, good-looking and full of what you might call esprit de corpses.

It works, even when the material’s routine, because Pugh’s forceful yet subtle characterization of a heavy-hearted killing machine with an awful childhood feels like something’s at stake. She and the reliably witty Harbour work well together.

The movie is tightly packed with incident, maybe overpacked, but Saxon’s fairy tale is an intense, lived-in experience, its centuries-old folkloric atmosphere dotted with all the usual intrusive elements of progress.

It’s consistently, thoughtfully engaging. And, yes, often very funny in its open-hearted embrace of the DIY spirit, legal or otherwise.

Sinners is all over the place yet somehow all of a piece. Its themes aren’t new, but the variations feel fresh.

The rhythm and plotting of Misericordia subverts expectations, not with story twists but with a tonal game of three-card monte.

The film may be a silly thing, with manic swings from intimate (and pretty rough) violence to abrupt comic relief. But Fahy and Sklenar provide the glue.

It’s a specific sort of achievement, without the full dimension or larger resonance of a classic. That’s a lot to ask of any film, especially one that does so much so rigorously and well.

Contrivances come, and go, but The Ballad of Wallis Island rolls along, with just enough casual wit to buoy the story.

Writer and director Alex Sharfman’s splurchy dark comedy carves itself into halves, a clever first half followed by a more routine second one. Yet it’s a feature film debut signaling a filmmaker of actual wit. So you go with it — I did, anyway, most of it, more or less — even when its sense of tone and direction goes sideways.

The movie’s a rom-com at heart, but there is no other one like it.

Places come; places go. Every human being deals with loss differently. “Eephus” acknowledges that, but it’s a sweet, sidewinding paradox of a sports movie: sentimental in a quietly unsentimental and offhandedly comic fashion.

Director Marc Webb moves it along, with a rock-solid lead, very well sung, courtesy of Rachel Zegler.

This is a poetic-realist vision with grace notes of wit and surrealism. It is a calm, visually assured statement of shared rage.

Black Bag may be modest, and frivolous, but it’s sharp-witted. Every performance feels right.

It’s a lot. Seyfried, who has worked with writer-director Egoyan before on the super-ripe erotic drama “Chloe” (2009), finesses some zig-zaggy tonal swerves confidently and well. The writing, however, wobbles.

Even a first-rate director can get a little lost in the tone management and narrative streamlining process.

While I hope Perkins doesn’t lean into jokey sadism as a dominant creative impulse — we have too many jokey sadists with movie deals as is — The Monkey asserts his stealth versatility as well as his confident technique.

Rounding, named after the hospital rounds medical students conduct with their mentors, casts enough of an atmospheric spell in its tale of psychological demons haunting a young medical student to linger in your psyche a while.

It’s a riveting and humane experience pulled from the rubble of a never-ending war.

If You’re Cordially Invited strains to bring its amped-up, often wearying feud to a satisfying conclusion, the stars give it their best shot, while the ringers do their thing with blithe assurance.

Torres is one of those screen veterans with a surgically precise relationship to the camera, never pushing, always searching for emotions expressed even as they’re being hidden, or held in check, because someone’s watching.

The movie operates with a nicely unpredictable rhythm, both short and longer shots ending abruptly, sometimes comically, popping us into the next one.

What’s missing, even at its trim, tidy run time, is the sort of glancing realism and true nuance of a Paul Greengrass docudrama such as “Bloody Sunday.” What’s there, though, is enough for a consistently absorbing version of what the media did right and what it did wrong.

The results are equal parts marital crisis, sins-of-the-father psychodrama and visceral body horror. They’re also a bit of a plod — especially in the second half, when whatever kind of horror film you’re making should not, you know, plod.

Palmer delivers an on-the-fly masterclass in overlapping comic skills, sometimes heightened (I love her eyeblink-quick, frozen-statue reaction to the good-looking, possibly homicidal hunk named Maniac, played by Patrick Cage), sometimes subtle and heartfelt.

The results in this, Coppola’s third feature, are roughly half-good, half-less. The good comes when the director, working with cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, focuses on evocative silent footage serving as interludes and visual grace notes capturing Shelly, primarily, in moments of reflection. The dialogue and the dramaturgy, in contrast, strain for jokes and over-ladle the pathos.

The Brutalist is many things: some blunt, others loose and dangling, still others richly provocative, most of them remarkable.

Nickel Boys is a subtly radical act of adaptation, with a striking intuitive and meticulous visual strategy, and the result is fully equal to Whitehead’s achievement but in a new direction.

The actors, by and large, are first-rate. And the songs don’t hurt.

Kidman rises to the occasion, and while one-note mediocrities like “The Substance” offer gallons of fake blood where the provocations should be, Reijn’s film — seen the second time, at least – only needs its nerve and its interest in what Kidman can do, which is more than I even realized.

Gere remains a unique camera object, with a stunning mastery of filling a close-up with an unblinking stillness conveying feelings easier left behind.

At its best, Nightbitch is many things at once: funny, unruly, bizarre, tender.

We know where The Order is going; the actors ensure our interest en route.

Fundamentally the film succeeds because the musicians themselves are good storytellers.

Moana 2 is more of an action movie with a few accidental musical numbers of varying quality.

This is sublime work, with poetry and prose in unerring balance, thanks to writer-director Payal Kapadia.