It’s too bad that the movie isn’t as vibrant, funny, and entertaining as the community it wishes to represent — but it’s a start.

It adds up to a fascinating, if often baffling first effort from Johannson and Kamen, one not afraid of big emotional wallops, but not always able to carry them into truly revelatory spaces. It’s a little predictable, a little bizarre, a little funny, and very sad, but it’s also an ambitious swing at what movies can still be.

It’s an imperfect debut, but it holds thrilling promise for what comes next.

A complaint that’s also common to contemporary horror films nags at The Black Phone 2, in that all of the best things about this movie come from other movies, whether they be the creative team’s previous efforts or iconic titles from decades past.

Though Get On Up never congeals into a satisfactory whole, its fragmentary portrait of the singer at the height of his fame — intercut with his troubled single-parent childhood — effectively shows his invasive power in popular culture.

More frustrating than a misfire, “Jeanne du Barry” suffers instead from near total myopia, roaring to life with wit and ingenuity when the constellations align and the lead’s star can shine, and dwindling before the risk of any possible eclipse. The film burns hot and bright — and quickly flames out.

What this story reminds us isn’t that a woman named Sara Jane Moore was radicalized into action, but that history — for all of the larger than life sweep that word implies — is ultimately written on a level too personal for textbooks to ever understand.

Last Breath is so taut — and the story it tells so remarkable — that you might just start to doubt even the most obvious of assumptions. That’s all the more impressive in a movie that is this happy to be hackneyed.

It’s unable to channel the essence of what made Powell and Pressburger’s films unforgettable. Sadly, it’s not really trying.

Pleasant and preposterous in almost precisely equal measure, the film never offers anything less than two all-time British actors having the time of their lives, which makes it hard to get frustrated that it seldom offers anything more.

Get Away works better on paper than as a visceral entertainment experience, as its raison d’etre of subverting folk horror expectations sometimes feels more like a screenwriting class exercise than a fully immersive world.

What emerges is the definition of a mixed blessing: a film of (often literal) peaks and troughs, scattering occasional moments of grace.

It’s hard to shake the feeling that Dupieux’s outré premise would have worked better as a short, as the unusual narrative struggles to make the scenario palatable even at the bare minimum for a feature-length treatment.

While Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project doesn’t wholly breach the bubble surrounding Giovanni, by the end, Brewster and Stephenson, through tender immersion and lyrical invention, inspires viewers who have maybe never read Giovanni to seek out her poems, the one that say everything about the spirit of the woman who cannot wholly be captured on camera.

Much like Wicked, Wicked: For Good works its way up to a massive duet between the pair, so emotionally resonant than even the most wicked of audience members will still likely shed a tear (the song is, of course, “For Good”). It’s an unmitigated high note, but it’s a lonely one indeed. Is it alone worth the wait? Maybe, why couldn’t the entire film feel that way?

The problem is that, while the film is conceptually solid, its story gets shakier as it goes along.

Even with a ridiculously fun premise and more than a few twists, the film never fully regains its initial suspense after the bomb explodes relatively early in the film.

While Baena and Brie, who wrote the film together, don’t exactly flip the script on this seemingly well-trod subgenre, the duo (plus a star-packed cast) certainly add some spice to it.

Deadpan in her delivery and facial expressions, Zadie is indeed a mess, but she’s working her way toward something better, and Meghie’s frisky comedy gives her the space to make some strides. As the weekend amusingly crumbles around her and the rest of her cohorts, Zamata tentatively approaches something like maturity (and definitely like getting the hell over Bradford), giving shape to a mostly freeform narrative.

Within his means and interests, Posley continues the legacy explored at length in the must-see 2019 documentary “Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror,” while still experimenting with original elements that expand its possibilities.

No matter what form it takes, The Great Hack exists as a giant contradiction sure to evoke strong responses from anyone impacted by its drama, which is basically everyone.

The end feels somehow both slow and rushed, but Gray Matter showcases its strengths earlier on.

While Will & Harper has moments both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny (a hot air balloon scene in Albuquerque is genius, and lifted even higher by a cameo from Will Forte), Greenbaum’s filmmaking is often far too reticent, as he tends to play things “straight” and take pains not to offend.

Despite a cool backdrop and a daring idea, the heist itself feels like a third-tier Soderbergh joint, one that’s temporarily bolstered by the same jazzy music and quick cuts that marked the filmmaker’s trilogy, though carried out with considerably less energy.

While this flinty and forever relevant medieval drama perfectly embodies the struggles of its heroines, it also shares their fatal inability to reconcile personal strife with political strategy.

Gabrielle is at the center of all things, but what about her center? Well, it’s not going to hold. And there’s no one better to portray that than Drucker, who has become one of our foremost portrayers of women on the edge.

The problem, as with most romantic comedies, is that there are no shocks in the story.

Adrift is told with an inimitable sense of place and a rare attention to detail, both of which help to ensure that we never lose sight of the terror at hand. When all else fails, which it sometimes does, Woodley is there to right the ship.