I still don’t know whether all (or even most) of Asteroid City’s ideas coalesce, so scattershot is the film’s pacing and plotting. But from moment to moment, it charms and moves in ways only Anderson can deliver.

The best movies are little worlds that welcome you into the experiences of fascinating characters, giving you everything you need to understand their perspectives and actions. Past Lives does so in spades, painting on a small canvas, but with rich hues of emotion and meaning, knowing that a great story and a great life aren’t necessarily the same thing.

There’s an immense amount of baggage weighing down what proves to be a vaguely competent superhero adventure, albeit one that fails to add anything significant to the genre by the end.

The newest Transformers film, Rise of the Beasts, is a genuinely entertaining summer blockbuster, with its high point being Pete Davidson as Mirage. Highlighting a voice performance as the best quality of a film like Rise of the Beasts could be seen as damning with faint praise, but that's not the case here. Instead, it's an appreciation of how much Davidson's work enhances Beasts as a production, as these films continue to move away from Bay's super-serious vibe in favor of a new, lighter approach.

There are choices here that prove reminiscent of the iconic Looney Tunes cartoon “Duck Amuck” — if “Duck Amuck” was over two hours long, and Chuck Jones had chugged four dozen Four Lokos while directing it.

Bailey is genuinely great in the role. But the changes added to the original story feel superficial, only giving the narrative an illusion of depth.

Fast X, when it comes to the stunts and cars, delivers to some degree, but definitely seems to be feeling the strain of striving for the next jaw-dropping moment, to the point where it all just blends together. Only thanks to Momoa does it feel at all memorable.

Every time you think Hypnotic has fully lost you, it’ll do something just interesting enough to pull you back in.

BlackBerry holds up well as a blunt portrait of BlackBerry’s ascendance as well as its eventual decline, with cinematographer Jared Raab riffing on the documentary-esque filming approach of Succession to keep the action kinetic.

A space adventure that is alternately funny and upsetting, featuring a literal menagerie of the strange and unconventional.

SUGA: Road to D-Day is an hour and 20 minutes well spent for any BTS fan, of course. Beyond that, though, it’s a great introduction to the personality behind one-third of the group’s rapline and a personal look at one-seventh of one of the biggest acts on the planet right now.

Cronin gets that the Evil Dead franchise doesn’t have to be limited to one wisecracking, lantern-jawed battle with the forces of darkness; the Book of the Dead, and its ability to turn those you love against you, is enough to hang a film on if you do it right.

It’s a huge, huge swing, and Aster skeptics will likely scoff at the egotism of it all. But for those of us who’ve been at the receiving end of a classic Jewish-mother guilt trip, Beau is Afraid will serve as affirmation, cinematic therapy, and the most relatably terrifying thing they’ve ever seen.

Affleck knows how to tell a compelling story on screen, and Air does succeed in making the particulars of this deal feel intriguing; it’s a classic underdog tale at its core, and watching this one major contract come together is exciting in the moment.

At its best, Paint is a delightful and occasionally awkward ode to art, and how it defines us as creators and consumers. But at its worst, Paint feels, well, pointless.

For any parents reading this — it might not be the best film of the year, but you're going to be able to watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie more than once without losing your dang mind.

The action’s not flashy but competent, the set pieces are a bit easy to predict but deliver some reliable gags, and there are even a few meta moments that generate a chuckle or two.

Renfield knows exactly what it wants to achieve and does so effectively, anchored by its lead performances and some very enjoyable super-violent action sequences which earn its R rating honestly.

Take away the delusions of grandeur, and the film is a perfectly acceptable – even enjoyable – tour vlog of a particularly interesting set of shows.

It’s all too appropriate that at the center of Honor Among Thieves is a message about the value of found families, and how strong and powerful those relationships can be. That underlying sweetness, the incredibly game nature of its cast, and again, an emphasis on fun make this a film worthy of the brand, one that might even inspire some new converts to discover the adventure possible on their own tabletops.

Fury of the Gods tries to recapture what made the first Shazam! a disarming breath of fresh air, but it just can’t quite do it.

Watching John Wick: Chapter 4 sometimes felt like watching an above-average assembly cut. At an unwieldy two hours and 49 minutes, your eye will immediately be drawn to what cuts through the noise — and there are plenty of these moments. But “moments” does not a well-told “movie” make.

If Sam Raimi were in the director’s chair, rather than just producing, imagine the kind of fist-pumping schlock feast we could have enjoyed.

It’s well-paced, the kills are inventive, and the gags largely land, especially for hardcore Scream devotees. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett finally have a lock on the amped-up Scooby-Doo mystery tone of Craven’s era, and that’s a blessing.

There’s something particularly galling about the laziness of this one — its flimsy gestures toward topicality, the piecemeal nature of the whole thing — that makes its failures acutely horrifying.

Operation Fortune is a spy “comedy” insofar as it generally shrugs in the direction of parody: its characters presume the air of cheeky sendup without actually committing to it, whether it’s Statham’s grumpy skull-cracker or Plaza’s confused deadpan.

There's a confidence to respect in this film, as it tells a story which feels fresh within the established framework.

It all gets a bit too loosey-goosey by its repetitive, redundant climax — there just aren’t enough good jokes left to cover for the fact that, yes, we get it, the bear did cocaine.