What’s missing, I think, is a sense of human complication within an inhuman judicial sphere. While Foxx works wonders, especially in his scenes with Jordan, Just Mercy rarely gets under the skin or behind the eyes of McMillian.

A strange tonal mashup that turns the hypermasculine and hyperviolent world of glamorous spies, in the vein of James Bond or “Mission: Impossible,” and turns it into kid-friendly family entertainment.

The latest nerve-shredder from Josh and Benny Safdie is worth seeing, even if it’s not their finest two hours, and even if half of any given audience will resent the hell out of it. Adam Sandler’s excellent.

Is it the worst film of 2019, or simply the most recent misfire of 2019? Reader, I swear on a stack of pancakes: “Cats” cannot be beat for sheer folly and misjudgment and audience-reaction-to-“Springtime for Hitler”-in-“The Producers” stupefaction.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker does the job. It wraps up the trio of trilogies begun in 1977 in a confident, soothingly predictable way, doing all that cinematically possible to avoid poking the bear otherwise known as tradition-minded quadrants of the “Star Wars” fan base.

However freely fictionalized, I like my docudramas with as much moral complication and human shading as filmmakers can provide. Years from now, it’d be wonderful to look back at something more than good actors, with or without wizardly prosthetics, taking our mind off what’s not quite right with the stories at hand.

A different editing rhythm (and a less narcotic musical score) would substantially change the personality of this movie, for better or worse.

The pleasures of Jumanji: The Next Level are not visual or story-based, as they revolve around the ability of each of our stars and their abilities to do impressions.

Richard Jewell is a sincere and extremely well-acted irritant from 89-year-old director Clint Eastwood. It’s destined to get under the hides of different moviegoers in radically different ways.

The second half’s a letdown — the audience knows where the movie’s going, and gets there before the movie does. Nonetheless it bodes nicely for longtime horror producer Travis Stevens, here making his feature debut behind the camera.

Playing a pair of complementary trailblazers that start off on the wrong foot, the duo hand-in-hand elevates Harper’s 1862-set, based-on-a-true-story film, from a flimsy action-adventure to something worth watching on the biggest possible screen, even if it operates on a handful of clichés with little character-based substance to speak of.

I doubt Gerwig read the 1868 Tribune classifieds, but her film is, in fact, fresh, sparkling, natural and full of soul.

It’s reassuring to see Hopkins return to form, after several years of authoritative coasting. As for Pryce, his affinity for morally comprised men of high achievement (“The Wife,” etc. ) keeps his portrayal of the film’s clear moral paragon from hardening into sainthood.

There’s not much justice and very little peace for the characters portrayed by Kaluuya (terrific) and Turner-Smith (more of a novice, but often affecting, and a singular camera subject). Does it overreach? Here and there.

Before long in 21 Bridges, the extent of the corruption becomes the top line of a vision test — far too easy to spot from a distance.

Even with some padding, it’s a whodunit canny enough to take the human stakes inside the artifice seriously. And that allows a fine ensemble of side-eye champs the leeway to make Knives Out funny, too.

The picture’s gliding energy is something to behold, and when Tyler’s predicaments turn to panic, and then worse, the suspense becomes nearly oppressive. In the second half, it’s a different style and a different focus entirely. There’s a scene in that half, a reconciliation of sorts between father and daughter, that’s just about perfect. And that scene is not alone.

But Hanks, especially, keeps the trolley on the rails, and everything Heller is after in this film comes together in a remarkable final shot depicting Rogers alone in the TV studio, having made another friend.

Everything about it flows and pays off better than the ’84 original.

The movie itself occasionally gets lost in those woods, but finds its way back out again.

The Good Liar takes its sweet time to pick up steam and pulls its punches in places where it could have been even darker and more daring. Erring on the side of caution isn’t exactly the approach one should take when it comes to suspense thrillers.

Ford v Ferrari works as a stylish, enjoyable mash note to its era, and the need for speed and all that.

I wish there were as many big payoffs and clever jokes as there are Bosleys in this movie. But Stewart and company have their fun, and we have a reasonable percentage of theirs.

Beautiful, witty, sad and hopeful.

Clarke, among others, deserves so much better. If you watch her amid the suds of “Me Before You” (2016) and now Last Christmas, you see an actor of sound comic and dramatic instincts at the mercy of pushy material. This encourages actors to over-exert themselves in the name of delivering the goods with a smile that threatens to turn into something more like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.”

Midway isn’t bad, really. Certainly, it gets a lot more done than the cinematic cinder block that was the 1976 historical drama also titled “Midway.”

Ozon’s style as a filmmaker favors smooth technique and easy proficiency, and his resume is full of comedy. That would appear to put him at odds with this material. But his handling of difficult subject matter carries a welcome, borderline-dispassionate restraint and a respect for each character’s value.

For all the fresh originality of the first half, why do we have to retread Kubrick’s film again? Leashing the film adaptation so closely to Kubrick’s film is a missed opportunity for this story to realize the full mystical potential promised.