Day’s performance is a beacon surrounded by mediocrity and mismanagement.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo of “Avengers: Endgame” fame, the well-worn drama gets high marks for style and proficiency, but you don’t have to be Nostradamus to know exactly where it’s going every step of the way. At the movies, stories like this one are a dime bag a dozen.

The film, directed by Chloé Zhao, is an awards-season favorite, and it doesn’t let you forget that for a second. Beneath the veneer of prestige, however, is a prescient and affecting story of a lost American class: van dwellers.

The promising satire then shifts to a typical thriller with bloody shoot-outs, druggings, tazings and a car dramatically plummeting off a cliff. That business wears thin fast. I Care a Lot is almost two separate films, and I much prefer the first one.

The source material explodes with wit, but this hackneyed screenplay has swapped the crackling repartee for bargain-bin joke book lines delivered at a snail’s pace.

Music is totally unwatchable.

Wright is relaxed and almost meditative as she takes in the beauty of the horizon, and her simple directing captures the majesty of nature.

Beyond simply embodying the quirks and look of a historical figure, Kaluuya’s passion makes you believe the masses would actually follow him.

Washington and Zendaya, freed from lockdown, dig into the dialogue with zest, and they’ve got a palpable chemistry even in the midst of some horribly hurtful exchanges.

A couple of grand, intriguing ideas does not a movie make. Say it with me, folks: It’s the little things.

Subtlety is kicked to the curb in favor of volcanic drama, and nary a moment goes by without some screaming or an inspiring message.

For a film with the nuance of a nuke, Palmer’s by-the-numbers journey nods along like elevator music.

The real find here is Gourav, who gives a pressure-cooker turn as Balram, a guy who can no longer smile and nod at his own oppression. He switches rapidly from sweet to deranged, gullible to Machiavellian, generous to bloodthirsty. This guy’s got more layers than spanakopita.

Some will accuse Our Friend of being sentimental, and it is, but not in an “Oh no! The golden retriever was kidnapped!” way. It’s subtle. The wisdom of Brad Ingelsby’s script is that Dane’s assistance is unnoticeable until very late in the movie. His acts of kindness sneak up on you.

If you didn’t know Kirby before this film, get used to hearing her name a lot. She’ll be nominated for every major acting award this year.

It’s an intimate film that moves at the deliberate, careful pace of an excavation and, in so doing, uncovers a few gems along the way.

With one slight wobble toward the conclusion, Ashe’s screenplay is terrific at letting its characters speak and act honestly: His dialogue is heartfelt and realistic. “Sylvie’s” is a love letter to the delights of a well-told love story.

The first film was set during the happiest time in human history: World War I. A tormented Wonder Woman took to the trenches and endured a solid hour of smoke and soot. Squint and you could maybe spot the main character. Wonder Woman 1984, by contrast, is visually dazzling with kaleidoscopic color and buoyant action sequences. The plot, thank Ares, is no longer so self-serious, even if it is a bit knotty.

At the film’s most entertaining heights, it recalls the novels of Ray Bradbury and the Matt Damon flick “The Martian.” But its final twist is an extremely implausible, easy way out.

Hanks and Zengel, a 12-year-old German actress, form a believable, loving bond.

Soul amounts to more than technical wizardry and intelligent dialogue. Why artists keep pounding the pavement despite never finding commercial success is a meaty topic.

Butler’s pretty bad — not horrible — but the movie itself is quite watchable, if a lot bleaker than your average disaster flick.

Blunt and Dornan’s chemistry eclipses anything the hunky actor ever managed with Dakota Johnson in “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

The material, filled with peppy pop songs, is admittedly funnier than Murphy and his cast make it. Barry (played on Broadway by the brilliant Brooks Ashmanskas) was a riot onstage, but Corden’s bland performance is generically kind, fey and mostly joke-less. Someone like Nathan Lane would’ve made a meal of every line. That said, the story is more moving here than it was at the theater, which comes as a surprise.

The action-adventure aspects of “Christmas Chronicles,” with sleigh chases and a reindeer fights, are cluttered. More appealing are the real-world storylines, such as the siblings dealing with their mom getting serious with a new beau.

Talk about toxic masculinity — Buddy Games leaves you feeling dead inside.

It’s a pleasant watch with some solid jokes.

Tonally, Happiest Season is a bit uneven; it can move from broad hijinks to high emotion a little too quickly. But it also delivers wonderfully heartfelt moments.

This is a Disney adaptation, beautiful but frequently treacly.

The film is overstuffed with comedy material, though. There’s a time-period-appropriate gag for everything — the TV is just a hole in the wall that they watch birds through — and the jokes are nonstop. The best moments of animated films are often the most serene.

Watching Chadwick Boseman in his final movie, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, is pure heartbreak.

Of course, nobody watches a Jackie Chan movie for the sophisticated plots or deep characters. They come for the martial arts. But those, too, settle for being not much more than a kick in the park.

Being a lesbian period piece, the film’s earned inevitable comparisons to last year’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Sure, it’s similar, minus the chemistry, humor and joy. There are definitely corsets in both.

The book is a fascinating, insightful, touching window into a unique community with immense struggles. On-screen, it’s exploitative.

Gibson’s got another strong performance in him, I think, but this Christmas crapola sure ain’t it.

Lane and Costner are swell, but the film jolts to life the second we walk into Blanche’s dimly lit kitchen, occupied by even dimmer men. The villainous Manville acts like a rooster, clucking, crowing and, worst of all, pecking. A sickening scene in a motel won’t have you taking the kids to South Dakota anytime soon.

The sleepy horror movie is an onslaught of spooky images that, while well-done, are watered down by sheer abundance. We stop being scared after the first 15 minutes because there is nothing new to see.

The actress is absolute bliss in her new Italian drama, The Life Ahead.

Throughout, Dirisu and Mosaku enliven a fascinating character study.

Also making a meal of a morsel is Chloë Sevigny as Paul’s mom. The actress probably has fewer than 20 lines, and still she brings depth and palpable regret to her scene.

Bad Hair is about 10 minutes too long. You don’t salivate over Anna’s home life as much as you do her office from hell, and a few of those scenes could have been trimmed. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see horror let its hair down again.

For the most part, the film is second-rate horror, but watchable enough.

Decent movie, same old Borat.

Hathaway floats in the air a few times and the sides of her mouth are slit, a la Heath Ledger’s Joker, but even that deformation doesn’t make her frightening or threatening. You’re supposed to believe this woman wants all children dead, and instead, you believe she is sometimes rude to Bergdorf’s employees.

Scott Thomas sounds like she’s about to pull out a shiv and knife her new boss right then and there. The actress is so good, you wish she could reprise the role in a better film that actually deserves her.

It’s an impressively realistic touch from a studio that’s neither Disney nor DreamWorks.

You’ll find that out in the film’s last — and best — moment, which belongs to Redmayne. Is it sentimental? You betcha. But it sure takes you back to the TV magic of President Bartlet.

Laughter and enjoyment is stifled by the constant question of whether we’re allowed to laugh or enjoy anything at all.

“Grandpa” is, at least, not as moronic as much of De Niro’s recent résumé. But that’s a low, low bar.

Sandler, like him or not, is a master at bringing ‘90s heart and sentiment to his dumb schtick, and he’s disarmingly quiet and warm here. And his best jokes have nothing to do with Halloween.

Most of this film is humorless and with not so much of a score as a subwoofer.

It’s a low-key rest-stop story that appreciates life’s banalities and the struggles of ordinary people.

Thanks to Marvel, many films are trying to cash in on cape-and-spandex mania right now, but unlike the MCU, they look like crapola. If you’re going to make a superhero movie today, you gotta have a budget. “Secret Society,” perhaps, had Microsoft Paint.

The Artist’s Wife can, at times, come off as a collage of other, better movies.

What any of us wouldn’t give for a spontaneous night of rule breaking and lounge hopping with a genuine NY character, like Murray’s, again. Coppola’s funny and slyly emotional film, which should be cherished, is the closest we’ll get to that for a while.

A purely entertaining, scary flick will infuriate the culturati who like their movies like they like their Atlantic articles: long and academic. However, despite some issues, this Janelle Monáe film is a breathless watch.

Although the film can be a tad unrelenting, it’s highly watchable.

The film’s worst offense is that it works way too hard for it to be a light watch.

I’d have been curious to see more about Reddy’s interactions with the women’s movement, but the film mostly has room for this one woman. Thanks to Cobham-Hervey’s performance, it’s an engaging, if fairly familiar, story.

And now, your love-it-or-loathe-it movie of 2020.

While not totally original, transitions to live action with real guts and reinvention.

Trying to understand the story can make you feel like you’re sitting on a stool in a dunce cap.

Director Josh Boone’s goal was to jettison the usual comic-book trappings and make The New Mutants a horror film. He succeeded on the first part, but not the second. Nothing is scary or heroic. Perhaps unsurprising coming from the guy who directed “The Fault in Our Stars,” it’s all teenage troubles: love, sex obsession, a tinge of self-harm.

The entire cast is wickedly good, and their overblown characters are what keep the Dickens spirit alive.

This whole half-baked sequel is a forced exercise, willed into being by the so-called “Keanussance” — society’s renewed love affair with Reeves. He’s a nice guy and a decent actor, but he’s made a lame movie. It’ll let down even hardcore fans.

As the horror genre has, in recent years, grown more sophisticated and clever, you heave a sigh of relief to be handed a thriller that’s so dumb.

The director of all this airiness comes as a surprise — Thea Sharrock, the British theater artist known for her Broadway production of the play “Equus,” in which a naked Daniel Radcliffe stabbed the eyes out of a stable full of horses. “Ivan” is about as far from that as you can get.

There is enough detail and psychological nuance in Mattson Tomlin’s clever script to make Project Power more intriguing than most of what Marvel and DC have to offer, even if it could barely match their catering budgets.

Firth, who can still be a heartthrob when he wants, douses the smoldering embers of old romance and turns Archibald completely tense and awkward. It’s a wise choice that makes his eventual transformation more poignant.

If you’re into seeing Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson play truly despicable government officials, have I got a movie for you!

Regina Hall is always extraordinary — even in projects that are mediocre.

Director Andy Tennant’s tone, by the way, resembles that of religious films, like last year’s “Breakthrough” with Chrissy Metz. Holmes is wholesome, and her third-wheel suitor, Tuck (Jerry O’Connell), is well-intended, if tortilla-flat. The music is cheesy and inspirational. But the whole thing is covered in materialist grime.

Taps into our worst fears of what could happen during a quiet holiday with heart-thumping realism.

It’s long, dumb and there’s nothing below these high-school students’ conspicuously perfect complexions.

Making an outlaw flick — not so easy, is it?

Oh, the movie is brilliant without a doubt, but it’s dotted with such shocking moments, and there isn’t a whiff of pretentiousness to be found. Only guts and incredible visuals.

Cool though the skirmishes are, director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s film could use some more visual panache, given the unique historical backgrounds of her characters. The look, by and large, is rudimentary action flick. Still, it’s good fun and has more than a few winning one-liners.

Perhaps the sharpest casting is J.K. Simmons as a gruff wedding guest named Roy, who got trapped in the time-loop earlier after a misguided cocaine binge with Nyles. He pops up occasionally to hunt Nyles with a bow and arrow or a shotgun to seek revenge. You will cherish the 65-year-old Oscar winner’s interpretation of being high on coke.

Such a comedy cannot depend solely on its supporting cast, especially when they’re tasked with lifting up subpar material.

The Outpost really is not a movie of wit or soaring inspirational speeches, but of no-holds-barred emotion. A story of young men in their 20s, with dreams and loved ones back home, who had the courage to risk it all for each other.

Hamilton the film is just OK.

A terribly funny sendup of the show that famously gave us “Waterloo” by ABBA in 1974, and now gives us a year’s supply of crazy. The Netflix film is the most enjoyable music industry parody since Christopher Guest’s folk satire “A Mighty Wind.”

Worse, it’s as funny as a political science class.

The film begins at ugh and ends at dang. You don’t yell at the screen so much as yawn at it. An intriguing plot then turns into a telltale heart that doesn’t pulse.

It’s the most touching dramedy about young women battling over a sash since “Little Miss Sunshine.”

This fantasy flop is sunglasses-and-fake-mustache bad.

Good for Lee for being a director of many ideas in a heartless Hollywood of sequels and franchises.

The final shot of Apatow’s movie is the iconic Staten Island Ferry, bringing to mind “Working Girl,” “Manhattan” and countless other New York City classics. The King of Staten Island joins that list.

"I need something bad and fast,” criminal Graham Bricke says to a weapons dealer early in The Last Days of American Crime. The Netflix action film definitely fulfills one of those criteria: It is so, so bad — but it is ever eye-gougingly slow.

Whatever sophisticated point Decker and screenwriter Sarah Gubbins aim for here is undone by its pretentious academic characters, whose arrogant droning would make you switch seats if you were next to them at a coffee shop.

If Canadian director Bruce McDonald’s dreams are anything like the disgusting underworld we see in his new movie Dreamland, get the man a doctor.

The Vast of Night goes cold-turkey on most of the elements that have come to define science-fiction in recent years. There are no explosions, car chases, superheroes, hot aliens or lack of self-respect here. Instead, it boldly goes where great sci-fi used to go.

The lovable Ross, who does her own singing, doesn’t have her mom Diana’s diva energy, and Johnson speaks with only a rote understanding of music. The film’s one twist is as predictable as tomorrow’s itinerary.

Most of their scenes come off as low-stakes dueling stand-up routines, rather than a plot that builds.

The CGI, by the way, looks awfully cheap in a market that includes boundary breakers such as Pixar and DreamWorks. Hanna-Barbera was never the animation powerhouse that Disney and Warner Bros. were back in the day, but it overcompensated with personality. Warner Animation Group’s Scoob! has got none of that.

For those of you who thought Al Pacino yukked it up too much as Jimmy Hoffa in “The Irishman,” get ready for this ham dinner.

If you want to celebrate the life of legendary actor Brian Dennehy, who died last month at age 81, start with one of his final films: Driveways. His performance as a widowed veteran is right up there with his finest screen work, which makes his passing all the sadder.

We learn very few specific details about this somewhat monotonous guy, and yet that vagueness makes him and his quest more relatable.