Detroit, despite its flaws, is compelling and deeply unsettling. Its thriller and horror elements gain resonance because, at least to some degree, they’re based on real events.

The Emoji Movie proves unable to provide even a modicum of content capable of capturing or retaining the attention of an adult. Nap time.

The result, while at times a little too visually chaotic, is bracing.

The core problem with Girls Trip is its length. What might be a fun, frivolous affair at 90 minutes turns into an endurance contest as the clock ticks toward the two-hour mark.

The Midwife has two things going for it: Catherine Frot and Catherine Deneuve. There’s no disputing the quality of acting in this film, at least insofar as the leads are concerned. Unfortunately, almost everything else in Martin Provost’s staid character study falls considerably short of the bar set by the two Catherines.

Director/co-writer Gillian Robespierre is nowhere near as self-indulgent as Noah Baumbach but she’s aiming for the same audience.

On a purely visual level, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets deserves mention among the most technically accomplished works of those three. But as a complete motion picture experience, it falls considerably short.

Although Dunkirk is technically a war film, its tone and style are those of a high-octane thriller. For his most serious-minded film to date, Christopher Nolan has employed all the weapons in his arsenal to craft something that, despite the Oscar-unfriendly July release date, will almost certainly be remembered when the Best Picture nominations are handed out.

Despite a few instances of profanity, the film could be at home fifty years ago. Lost in Paris is a capricious diversion with enough English that subtitle-phobes won’t feel completely adrift.

This is a vital, original, and emotionally potent chapter to one of the longest-running movie series out there. It will easily be one of the summer of 2017’s best films and, at the end of the year, it will likely find a space on many respectable Top 10 lists.

The Big Sick has the qualities that could make it a sleeper hit. It’s funny, touching, and perceptive.

While the Peter Parker stuff is enjoyable, that’s only part of what the movie is giving us. Every time Peter puts on the Spidey suit, we know exactly what we’re going to get, beat-by-beat.

All-in-all, however, even though Chaplin is fitfully entertaining, it fails to touch enough emotional chords to make it of more than passing interest.

Despicable Me 3 is an example of how even the most promising animated franchises can hit a wall if allowed to continue too long.

Despite being broadly classified as a “monster movie” and featuring sequences that are as wildly bizarre as any Monty Python skit, Okja has serious messages about consumerism, ecology, and food production.

At its best, The Journey is riveting drama, with Paisley and McGuinness acting as proxies for the two sides in the long-simmering, bitter civil war that divided Northern Ireland for 40 years along sectarian lines.

It’s a near-miss that offers a captivating atmosphere and strong performances to go along with an uneven tone and a climax that’s so overcooked that it bursts at the seams with unintentional humor.

Wright is savvy enough to realize that suspense and tension require characters that are more than human figures in a CGI playground. He does just enough with the men and women populating Baby Driver for us to get a sense of who they are.

For better or worse (emphasis on the latter), it was unlike anything else on the multiplex landscape. In 2017, it’s becoming difficult for Bay to distinguish his brand of brain-dead spectacle from the brain-dead spectacle of many other sequels, prequels, and remakes.

The final chapter of the trilogy has saved the best for last and will at least deflect the most serious concerns of those who think this series has taken too many extra laps.

There’s enough variety here that everyone’s funny bone should be tickled from time-to-time.

Like Jeff Bridges in "Crazy Heart," this is an opportunity for a sometimes-underrated actor (Elliott has never been nominated for an Oscar) to show his range and capabilities.

Suspension of disbelief is an oh-so-tricky hurdle for a movie like this to overcome and The Book of Henry fails to achieve it.

Narratively incoherent and full of cheese and camp, this movie makes it clear that the mummy should have remained dead and buried.

With impeccable period detail, strong character development, superior acting, and a surprisingly fast pace, this film represents welcome counterprogramming to the typical loud and vacuous summertime multiplex fare.

Horror isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s not a child’s genre. It isn’t meant to be comfortable. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of a recent movie that’s as uncomfortable and disturbing as It Comes at Night.

The movie is fresh, fun, and breezy.

While having a female director perhaps gives Wonder Woman a subtly different perspective, the real strengths of this production are its lead actors, the period piece setting, and an unexpected emotional resonance that one doesn’t expect from a popcorn movie.