The atmosphere in Serenity, by design, imparts a slightly uneasy and hermetic feeling. In Baker Dill, who sounds like a line of gourmet pickles, Knight has the makings of a compellingly messed-up antihero. That’s a start. If movies were all start, then this one might’ve worked.

It’s a choppy, frustrating affair, periodically bailed out by some very good actors.

Kulig comes with everything the role of this sullen, reckless siren demands, and then some.

It’s full of life, guided by first-time screen performers portraying versions of themselves. And because Esparza’s a dramatist, not a melodramatist, the experience of watching Life and Nothing More becomes truth, and nothing less.

Way back in “Unbreakable,” Jackson’s Mr. Glass bemoaned how comics superheroes “got chewed up in the commercial machine.” Glass proves it.

Even the cute factor of A Dog's Way Home can't obscure its narrative weaknesses.

A tedious picture about a remorseless serial killer, played by Matt Dillon.

A sleekly fashioned true-crime story without much on its mind.

It's a crazy amount of ground to cover, but only rarely does 13th sacrifice clarity for cinematic energy.

Bathtubs Over Broadway offers plenty of evidence that these shows contained material from songwriting greats.

It's reflective of the Ginsburgs' real-life egalitarian marriage, almost never seen in Hollywood films. But the role is so much more than just the typical gender-swapped "spouse on phone" roles most often seen, and Hammer is a delight as the sunny Marty.

What Baldwin does with words, Jenkins does visually. It’s what Blanche DuBois says in “A Streetcar Named Desire”: “I don’t want realism. I want magic!” In “Beale Street” that magic can be crushing, and soul-stirring, sometimes simultaneously. Jenkins’ epilogue, not found in the novel, may go a little far in its embrace of the affirmative. But that’s hardly the worst thing you can say about any film, let alone one as lovely as this one.

What Vice says, and how it says it, will have half its audience nodding in angry, contemptuous agreement, and the other half calling it a liberal smear. In other words it’s like everything else in the culture right now.

This prequel offers Bumblebee a chance to shine, and you'll come away with a newfound sense of affection for the most lovable alien vehicle in the universe.

Good cast, nearly hopeless script.

Welcome to Marwen is a misjudgment only a first-rate filmmaker could make.

The original “Mary Poppins” was exuberant, fueled by terrific Sherman brothers songs. Mary Poppins Returns is often just pushy.

Visually, it's busy, hefty and propulsive, but emotionally and thematically, it's as light as air. These engines could have used a bit more in the tank.

If all you do is look at their performances, the historical drama is worthy of praise. Step back, and the overall production stumbles through writing mistakes, has a drab look and a storytelling structure that puts the main event so deep into the tale it's almost an afterthought.

It brings me no joy to relay this: From an irresistible “tell me more!” of a true story, Eastwood and his “Gran Torino” screenwriter Nick Schenk have made a movie that feels dodgy and false at every turn.

This addiction drama is primarily a showcase for its superb leading performers, and in its compressed time frame (24 hours around Christmas) it feels like a well-made play more than a fully amplified feature film. The acting is enough, though.

Vox Lux is the sardonic yang to the sincere, heart-yanking yin of this season’s big awards fave, “A Star is Born.”

Watching this movie is like spending two hours and 27 minutes staring at a gigantic aquarium full of digital sea creatures and actors on wires, pretending to swim.

It’s zippier than “Incredibles 2,” and nearly as witty as the first “Lego Movie,” with whom it shares a very funny screenwriter, Phil Lord.

Roma gives you so much to see in each new vignette, in every individual composition, in fact, that a second viewing becomes a pleasurable necessity rather than a filmgoing luxury.

The results take neither the high road nor the low road, settling instead for an oddly bland middle course.

Throughout Becoming Astrid, August acquits herself brilliantly; the woman we come to know is a tangle of impulses and qualities, and feels vibrantly alive.

But for all the pondering The Possession of Hannah Grace inspires, it’s also true that at 85 minutes, it still manages to feel tedious at times. The dour environment doesn’t help, the humor doesn’t pop, and disappointingly, the scares just don’t land.