At its best, Love, Gilda intertwines the comic’s own narration — drawn from audiotapes, interviews and journals — with reflections from her current-day admirers.

French director Yann Demange doesn’t clean up the story or make a hurting neighborhood look pretty. The film stays foreboding, gritty and honest. Merritt’s no-frills style is the film’s greatest asset, while McConaughey brings an authentic paternal concern to his usual trailer-park persona.

Racially offensive quips, flagrant sexism and Tourette syndrome gags all contribute to this witless, scare-free junk.

It’s a lot of fun . . . until it becomes a mystery thriller so convoluted and tonally wacky, Angela Lansbury would have quit in a huff.

The upper-crust British characters in The Little Stranger, the new horror film from “Room” director Lenny Abrahamson, are so rigid they make the Crawleys of “Downton Abbey” look like the Osbournes. The effect is occasionally spooky, but more often snoozy.

Support the Girls is one of the sneakiest bait-and-switches at the movies this year. You come for the cheeky title and stay for the relevant, empathetic story about working-class women.

The story is far less gripping than the consistency of the hunky lead actor’s facial hair. For most of the two hours or so, the beard is perfect. Frozen in time.

The son of Muppets creator Jim Henson has delivered a cliché-ridden, laughless bore that wastes lead actress Melissa McCarthy’s prodigious comic talents and beats well-trod territory with a mallet.

The tale is so bizarre that it’s sometimes comical, and often disturbing. The unrelentingly intense BlacKkKlansman can be very hard to watch.

These dynamos don’t need a screenplay to hold anyone’s attention.

The rom-com ain’t dead yet. Crazy Rich Asians is a defibrillator for a genre that flatlined ages ago. This heartwarming, well-acted — and decadent — film takes you back to the greatest hits of Nancy Meyers, Richard Curtis and Nora Ephron.

She also doesn’t satisfy. At all. After experiencing Meg, you’ll crack open your Little Shark Book and call up Jaws.

I was surprised to find “Cameron Post” a sweet indie film in the tradition of John Hughes. Calmly directed by Desiree Akhavan, the movie doesn’t get tangled in the weeds of politics, but instead focuses intensely on its lovely characters.

Don’t be fooled by its awful title. The Spy Who Dumped Me is the rare secret-agent spoof that doesn’t double-O-suck.

In Hot Summer Nights, Chalamet proves he’s learned Hollywood’s most important trick of all: consistency. His performance here is every bit as good as those past credits — more so, in some respects, thanks to his comedic chops — even if the film’s prestige is dampened by, well, tons of pot, cocaine and gnarly murders.

Writer and director Christopher McQuarrie borrows just the right amount of familiar spy tropes in his second “M:I” outing, and his film, while intelligent and witty, never becomes too self-serious or chatty. It’s the best night out at the movies so far this summer.

“The Equalizer” should be locked in a room with “The Terminator.” Then this lousy series would finally be killed off.

In a nice change from Seyfried’s 2008 turn as the ingénue, we want to befriend James’ Donna, not mute her. She’s as gorgeous as she is committed, as funny as she is emotionally true. A big talent.

The plot swerves around just enough to make you think something more complex is going on. Ultimately, it really isn’t — certainly not enough to make up for the clichés and sexist tropes that litter Lucas’ path toward a confrontation with the bad guys.

As an addiction memoir, it works well enough; there are a handful of deeply felt moments.

A masterful ode to one of life’s most universally awkward phases.

There’s no better time than summer for a fun, brainless thriller. All you need is three key ingredients: a charismatic hero, a hateable villain and a snappy screenplay...Skyscraper, regrettably, cuts likable star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson off at the knees by failing to deliver on the other two.

Without a humanizing element like Blunt’s character, this whole grim affair is just a race to the bottom in which everyone loses.

As a snarky, stylish Santa Fe couple, Paul Rudd and Steve Coogan deploy a wit drier than the sprawling landscape surrounding their desert mansion. If you enjoy your comedies devoid of easy sentimentality (as this reviewer does), this one’s for you.

More wobbly moments of Woman Walks Ahead seem to teeter on the edge of both white-saviorism and becoming a Harlequin romance.

The first flick had a lot going for it: clever cinematography, a refreshing irreverence and Paul Rudd’s boyish charm. But “Wasp” is scant, man.

Charmingly profane, with a buzzing riot-grrrl soundtrack, “Izzy” is a stylish twist on an ’80s trope: Here it’s the woman as pathetic supplicant, trying to win back someone who’s moved on.

I’d rather wake up next to a severed horse head than ever watch Gotti again.