Shyamalan knows what his thing is, he knows we know, and in a charming way, he doesn’t seem to care. His latest film, Trap, might leave some viewers rolling their eyes, but those acclimatized to his brand of weird will forgive the flaws the way they do their dad’s corny jokes.

There’s an old-fashioned panache to the film that just works, offering viewers an undeniably enjoyable journey.

Zhao keeps these far-reaching propositions grounded through the laser-like focus of her vision and the precision of the images dreamed up by her and veteran MCU lensman Ben Davis. For once in a movie like this, ocean waves and cloudscapes carry as much weight as the ultra-choreographed battles between intergalactic interlopers.

You feel the late genius through the way Day carries her body, so lissome yet creaking with the weight of both her talent and addiction. The Rise Up singer not only matches our imagination’s version of Holiday, but somehow beats it: she seems so present yet ethereally sozzled in a manner that suggests she may be operating on another plane.

Speaking of afterthoughts, Olivia Wilde has a bit part as a single mom who unwittingly aids and abets the Brennans in their escape, and Brian Dennehy lurches silently through a number of scenes as John's working-class father. It's jarring to see such big-name actors in such thankless roles.

The new, inferior and totally unnecessary 2017 re-make is a sorry disappointment in which nothing measures up to the Sidney Lumet movie, including the train.

Music video director Director X, making his feature debut, presents it all in a compelling and often intoxicating manner. There is something narcotic and languid about his pacing and camera work that feels purposeful and stylistic when the script is focused but comes off as stumbling and haphazard when the story looses momentum, which is often.

Detachment drives a coffin nail through a noble profession with such ruthless virulence that it makes no point at all.

It’s pretty foreboding, loaded with atmosphere, dark as midnight and thick as a deadly fog. Also very well made and justifiably terrifying.

This is a movie that talks endlessly about emotion but displays none of it — and the same can be said for all that destiny chatter.

As valiant and important as the film is, Alone in Berlin is not perfect. The director is the French actor Vincent Perez, whose commitment to the material is obvious, but whose lack of experience (it’s only his third effort behind the camera) shows badly.

Shot is sobering, suspenseful and exemplary.

Let it be said that Ms. Streep is galvanizing, even as the film slogs through too much information and not nearly enough illumination.

The results are realistic and refined, but uneven and disappointing.

The star-studded After the Hunt has a lot on its mind about human complexities, but largely expresses these notions in didactic form and through dramatic conflict that all but resolves itself halfway through the movie’s languid 2 hours and 18 minutes.

You won't find yourself yawning. It's a great double stretch for an actor and Mr. Cooper plays both the smoldering Latif and the bombastic Uday with combustible energy.

While the presence of both Law and Depp is a little distracting — the film could also be called "The Proxy War of the Long in the Tooth Former Hotties" — the acting is generally strong. But here the film’s best assets are also criminally underused.

In the title role of the sometimes clever but mostly contrived Carrie Pilby, she (Bel Powley) taxes the boundaries of both.

This is their story. It is true. It is history. As a film, it is riveting, suspenseful, harrowing and exciting, and somehow, it also manages to be something rare among war pictures—a big-scale entertainment.

All of which makes me sad about Denzel Washington's disillusioning participation. I forgive him if the money was irresistible enough to pay off a mortgage or put his kids through Harvard, but Safe House is total junk, and he is one of the producers.

It resonates with delicacy, passion and restraint, touching the heart in places where cynics fear to go.

The story behind Touching Home is more inspiring than the film itself, but don't let that deter you. It's the kind of can-do miracle that reminds us all that anything can happen and everything is possible.

The movie doesn’t know if it’s a teen fantasy-romance or a more sophisticated satire that the material can’t support.

Strongly acted, beautifully shot and sincerely aimed at clearing up some of the misconceptions about the Old West that have been passed off as history by Hollywood movies.

The real pleasures are not to be found in the sweeping shots of the Great Smoky Mountains but in seeing how Mr. Redford and Mr. Nolte’s characters learn to get along.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the latest installment, has more dinosaurs, more screams, and more general chaos, but doesn’t make a single move to explore a fresh idea or add a new slant on a tired old formula. As brainless summer-escapism movies go, this one can’t go fast enough.

The enterprise snaps to life only sporadically, primarily when its well-chosen character actors manage to steal moments of vitality away from the profound indifference that surrounds them.

The Neon Demon, which was booed off the screen this year in Cannes, is about jealousy, murder and cannibalism in the Hollywood modeling industry. If it wasn’t so stupid and preposterous, I’d say see it for the laughs, but trust me when I say you’re on your own — and I mean it.

Another teenagers-in-turmoil movie, Quitters has more style than substance, but it’s a cut above most, mainly because first-time director and co-writer Noah Pritzker has a lot of sensitivity toward a familiar subject that renders it real and touching if not exactly original.

A charming, beautifully photographed modern fairy tale about love and gardening, This Beautiful Fantastic is worth seeing in spite of its dumb deterrent of a title.

It’s rare to see a war film you can truthfully label poignant, but The Last Full Measure combines the heart-pounding excitement of "1917" with the urgent, deeply moving emotional honesty of "Saving Private Ryan" to tell a heroic but somehow overlooked story of courage under fire that now emerges as one of the most valuable chapters to emerge from the debacle of Vietnam.

A gallant performance by that wonderful and versatile young actor Andrew Garfield.

Though there are glimmers of greatness tucked away in this film, its full potential goes unrealized and this fantastical, pharmaceutical flick ends up surprisingly unmemorable.

Vile.

The senior set deserves a few crumpets with their tea, and Part Two, which takes up where the original left off, aims to satisfy.

In the end, Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a mixed bag: a ripe visual adventure of limitless imagination hamstrung by an undercooked plot propelled by lackluster heroes.

Desierto is an action thriller that delivers unforgettable punches at a feverish pace. You won’t doze through this one.

Implausible even for an overly ambitious sci-fi monster flick, it also begs, borrows and steals every effect, idea and image from other people’s horror movies that were much better the first time around.

Ms. Bening does a touching, masterful job of conveying real emotional pain.

There’s nothing remarkable or even remotely intriguing about the dyspeptic gang of submental sad sacks in this dull, flat fiasco.

The actors are all completely wasted in this dumb travesty of fumbling, unfocused, oversexed numbskulls who work in the movie business. Everyone connected with Nobody Walks should have done just that-early and quickly.

I’m neither Italian nor Catholic, but I was glued to this massive achievement with unwavering fascination, finding it thoroughly and emotionally captivating.

Burton’s riff on the elephant that could fly and the circus freaks who love him is about as subversive as a Pottery Barn Kids fall catalog. Which is not to say it isn’t beautiful, and sometimes mesmerizingly so.

What I don’t need is more undercooked leftovers: elevator pitches that satisfy the suits (It’s The Hangover with chicks!) because risk-averse studios don’t want to take any chances with that chick stuff and therefore create a self-fulfilling prophecy of estrogen dreck.

Even the film’s title lacks a much-needed punch. Ridley is a strong action heroine, but she deserves better material than this.

A thoughtful coming-of-age story with bracing performances, solid writing and direction by John Gray and inescapable take-home values that give you a feel-good lift.

It is the Oscar winner’s most affected performance to date, which is truly saying something when you consider that she has already played both Katherine Hepburn and Bob Dylan.

Landing in multiplexes more than a year late after some business reshuffling and rewrites (not a good idea for your bad guys to be Ukrainian gangsters at this moment in history), Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre is a slick and empty-headed spy thriller that is almost instantly forgettable.

It’s a touching film that entertains with warmth and humor while teaching us something about history, law and justice with enormous heart, subtlety and compassion, brilliantly acted and skillfully written. Is there anything Helen Mirren cannot do?

A first film by theater director Thea Sharrock, it goes down smooth as sherry.

Young Mr. Eisenberg and a fine cast give Holy Rollers the ballast it otherwise lacks, but we've been down this road so often that there are times when I could only wonder why I was watching it at all.

It was written with empty-headed desperation and directed with minimal imagination by Guy Ritchie, one of the most incompetent filmmakers of the century.

It's definitely worth seeing for Ms. Cattrall. This gal can really act.

This dumb movie turns from dubious to preposterous.

You see, instead of staging a character-driven dramatic thriller with zombies like the first film, Peninsula presents a world hit by a zombie outbreak that responds by turning into a ridiculous, cartoonish dystopia — and it is much better for it.

Lovelace may be a movie about a porn star, but it’s not pornographic. At least, not sexually.

A head-spinning, whirling dervish of an action movie.

A sobering, documentary-style film commemorating eyewitness accounts of what happened in the aftermath of the tragedy, some of them fresh as a new wound, all of them painful but vital to a deeper understanding of one of the darkest chapters in American history.

Historians are already calling Anonymous preposterous humbug, but I found it a complex cornucopia of ideas and panache. You go away sated.

Jack Reacher is mostly grim, violent and stupid.

Plotless and illogical.

The actors work hard to convey terror-especially Mr. Christensen, who proved he could act when he played disgraced journalist Stephen Glass in the marvelous, underrated "Shattered Glass"-but the panic that overtakes the characters never quite grips the audience.

Credulity is strained on every level in scene after repetitive scene. The shallow screenplay robs the actors of success whenever they strive for any kind of badly needed comic relief, which is probably why the acting seems so bland and unconvincing.

True Story trips and stumbles so much in the telling that you don’t know what to believe, and instead of one man’s irony you end up with two men’s lies.

This is a movie where the characters utter the word “weird” enough times to fill an Advent calendar; in truth, the only thing that’s actually weird about it is how middle-of-the-road and mild it is.

As a director, Mr. Crowe’s camera meanders all over the place; as an actor, he mumbles and growls his way through the carnage like it was nothing more important than a re-make of Gladiator, filmed on old sets from Gene Autry westerns.

Here’s the main thing you need to know about The Marvels, the 33rd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: It’s fun. That shouldn’t be revelatory since comic book movies are supposed to be uplifting blockbuster entertainment, but it’s both a surprise and a relief that Nia DaCosta’s MCU debut is genuinely enjoyable.

It’s a poignant, relevant and beautifully made film that must not be missed by anyone with a heart and a social conscience.

Even as the film’s plot tips slightly overdramatic, it hits on something that feels very true, especially for viewers who have experience with addicts.

In their seventh slog around the forbidden tropical island that author Michael Crichton originally created, the prehistoric monsters are noisier, the people they terrorize are prettier, and the screams are louder than ever. Otherwise, it’s business as usual.

The movie has moments, but clichés abound and it runs out of energy and steam early. In a memorably bad summer, count it as another dull indie-prod on its way to home video.

It’s a genuine stab at romantic comedy that stumbles more than it strides.

Grim and hopelessly despondent, but superbly acted and strangely effective as crime on the screen goes.

Most filmgoers will come away only mildly convinced of Bolden’s place as jazz’s inventor and even less sure that the movie they just saw spun a coherent or compelling narrative.

A ludicrously pretentious train wreck masquerading as a movie.

Beautifully shot and reeking with style, Last Night is as slow as sorghum; nothing ever really happens.

It is to her everlasting credit that a famously exasperating perfectionist like Barbra Streisand could survive a limp noodle like The Guilt Trip.

If you don’t fall asleep, there’s plenty to look at, including action scenes crammed with special effects, as well as lush rainforests played by Hawaii, Australia, and — wait for it — Atlanta, Georgia.

A first-rate cast enriches the otherwise dismal Boundaries, a misguided combination road movie and domestic comedy-drama that otherwise qualifies as a box office also-ran.

The value of sensitive, balanced acting to enhance a mediocre movie has never been more evident than in After the Wedding, a ruminative though pointless remake of Susanne Bier’s 2006 Danish melodrama of the same name. Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams are splendid bookends in a well directed yet clumsily written sudser by Moore’s husband, Bart Freundlich.

Written by Mark Rizzo and based on a 2018 Spanish film called Campeones (which is itself based on a true story), Champions is one of those movies that doesn’t swing for the fences or try to change the game. Instead, it wins with good sportsmanship and positivity.

Both the intimacy and the expansive pain and bravery of bigger emotions in My Policeman leave you with a sense of galvanizing hope.

The sum of Ticket To Paradise is less than its parts, which is a difficult feat when you have two major A-list stars at the helm. That doesn’t diminish the film’s general likability and possibility of becoming a Sunday afternoon comfort watch. If you’re nostalgic for a great rom-com, though, this isn’t it.

Letters to Juliet comes off as just another movie that makes you long for a trip to Northern Italy-but not with any of these people.

The prevailing mood of Child of God, published in 1973, is filth, alienation and inertia. You can have it.

Despite its good intentions, this earnest little film seems embalmed.

Considering the rest of the summer’s flotsam, My Mother’s Wedding is hardly a waste of time. In an otherwise grim summer, it goes well with air-conditioning.

With her sweet face, alert eyes, and a tail that forever waves in the air like a maestro’s baton, this is a dog worth following, no matter the breed.

Cowboys & Aliens is one of the silliest movies ever made, but so many otherwise serious people have attached their names to it that, as Arthur Miller wrote in Death of a Salesman, attention must be paid.

Movie plots thrive on the idea of alternative realities or timeline swaps, but it can also become a gimmick if not executed well. That’s the crisis faced by The Greatest Hits, a sweet, well-intentioned romantic comedy with a good concept that’s presented with faltering effect.

Ultimately, Blonde mirrors our surface-level conception of Monroe herself: beautiful but vapid. Its flaws lie mostly within the storytelling rather than the filmmaking, and it’s not a boring watch by any means.

Despite its desperate efforts to justify the homicides, there’s nothing remotely innovative or even goofily satirical about it. The lousy actors, incompetent writer and clueless director remain nameless. That’s my good-deed Christmas gift to all involved, and better luck next year.

With a different cast and director, this movie would be just another fuzzily lit made-for-TV movie. But because of the performances and the rather gorgeous cinematography, one is left wishing that it just could have been something more.

As docs go, it’s not as informatively or entertainingly good as it should have been and not as shamefully self-serving as it could have been, but as wistful as it made me feel about the New York I once loved that will never come again, it put a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.

The acting is first-rate from start to finish, but it is really Mr. Waltz who keeps the action flowing. Both demon and clown, he’s horrifying, appealing and immensely mesmerizing in a film about the pitfalls that await anyone who falls for charm while ignoring the evils that can sometimes hide behind the facade of disingenuous priorities.

The movie is not great, but the star is not bad. This, in some quarters, is high praise indeed.

Sure, it’s a silly R-rated raunchy comedy in which we get both testicle and poop jokes (classic). But it’s proudly open hearted and a funny, if absurd, champion of friendship.

It’s a long haul, but Please Stand By, meticulously directed by Ben Lewin (The Sessions), chronicles the pitfalls, terrors and triumphs of the trip with heart-wrenching realism.