For starters, the follow-up to 2016's Sicario is not in the same essential-viewing category as the original – that's what happens when you remove inspired director Denis Villeneuve from the equation.

The thrill of the film is watching Ant-Man and the Wasp team up and raise hell together. Rudd is a winning combination of sass and sincerity. And it's a kick to watch Lilly break out and let her star shine.

Damsel won't work for everyone. It's too quirky for that. But it goes its merrily deranged way with prankish enthusiasm and a genuine sense of the absurd.

Boring is the last word you should use for a sports-hero-turned-spy story like this; it's the only one that comes to mind after you've seen the film.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when this random, scattershot, overreaching movie stops spinning its wheels and starts flying on a cumulative power that floors you. But when it happens – kapow! By the end we’re looking at Elvis, America and ourselves with new eyes and wondering, once again, if the truth really can set us free.

It helps that Davis is insanely charismatic onscreen, but her ability to showcase the vulnerability and scar tissue beneath this human embodiment of an extended middle finger gives the movie a semblance of depth.

This sequel has the perfunctory vibe that comes from filmmakers who cynically believe the public will buy anything T. Rex-related, no matter how shoddy the goods or warmed-over the plot.

John Travolta, trying earnestly to act his way through a ton of lousy makeup and an even heavier slab of bad screenwriting, plays mafioso John Gotti in this chaotic biopic that jumps all over the place but still fails to manifest a pulse.

As a movie, Tag is all over the place, with gags too hit-and-miss to cohere into anything truly memorable. But the partytime atmosphere – as if "Dodgeball" mated with "Game Night" – might be just what you're looking for on a hot summer night. With these actors, there’s no downside to watching them let it rip.

At least it looks super fly. It's too bad that Director X (born Julien Christian Lutz), the Canadian short-form film master for the likes of Rihanna, Drake and Nicki Minaj, stumbles when he has to stretch a scene past video length.

This follow-up is every bit the start-to-finish sensation as the original, and you'll be happy to know that Bird's subversive spirit is alive and thriving.

A hack would have turned Frank and Sam into overnight sensations. Instead, the writer-director recognizes the compromises that reality forces on dreams – and this soft breeze of a movie emerges as a scrappy surprise that's hard to shrug off.

In these troubled times, it's a good feeling to see a funny, touching and vital doc that is both timely and timeless.

Ocean's 8 is a heist caper that looks gorgeous, keeps the twists coming and bounces along on a comic rhythm that's impossible to resist. What more do you want in summer escapism?

It's Collette, giving the performance of her career, who takes us inside Annie's breakdown in flesh and spirit and shatters what's left of our nerves. Her tour de force bristles with provocations that for sure will keep you up nights. But first you'll scream your bloody head off.

A few primo bits sneak through.... But mostly we’re watching the bawdy life being drained out of a once subversive franchise. Action Point is the first Jackass-related movie to play it safe. Now that is truly painful.

What keeps Adrift from feeling like just a travelogue tacked on to a tragi-sploitive star vehicle is, ironically enough, its star. Shailene Woodley has always been great when it comes to bringing the radiance – she's like a sunbeam made sentient – and even better when she can use that California Dreamin' glow semi-subversively a la "The Spectacular Now" or "The Descendents."

Baker makes the strongest impression not just with photography on the surf and underneath it – kudos to "water cinematographer" Rick Rifici – but through understanding how surfing allows these boys to aspire as well as dare.

American Animals is a high-style caper that touches a deeper chord of youthful indiscretion and moral imbalance. You won't be able to stop talking about it.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties is all feedback. It talks loud and says next to nothing.

Not only is this faith-in-crisis drama one of the legendary writer-director's most incendiary films ever, it's one of the year's very best – a cinematic whirlwind that leaves you both exhilarated and spent.

Some may feel like this smirking sex farce goes down easy. Others may choke on it – or worse, feel like they've wandered into the cinematic equivalent of Christian Grey's Red Room of Pain?

She's glorious, as she always is. But even Ronan can't totally cut through the academic stuffiness that comes with this posh literary adaptation.

The movie ride delivered by Solo: A Star Wars Story is more mild than wild, a pleasant way to pass the time instead of a game-changer.

Deadpool 2 throws everything it has at you until you throw your arms up in happy surrender.

McCarthy falls into the same trap she did in "Tammy" and "The Boss," the two other movies she wrote with her husband/director Ben Falcone. By that we mean she allows her laugh instincts to get buried in a blanket of bland.

Yes, you read that correctly: zero stars. When talented people create one of the worst movies ever made, you have to ask: What the hell happened?

What makes this documentary more than just a feature-length DVD supplement is how these peeks behind the curtain are offset by a connect-the-dots case study of obsession and devotion taken to extremes.

Dazzling, sometimes hilarious and surprisingly emotional documentary.

The listless, leaden acting, writing and direction in this breathtakingly stupid bomb-ola defies audiences to stay conscious through its drag-ass 88 minutes.

Purists may object to the cuts the filmmakers have made to Chekhov's text in the name of pacing. (And nuts to that tricked-up ending!) But The Seagull still flies on the wings of humor and heartbreak that made it a Chekhov classic in the first place.

The snotty rich bastard? That role goes to Eugenio Derbez, Mexico's biggest star, who's allowed to speak a big chunk of his dialogue in Spanish, complete with subtitles. It's the one original idea that this retrofitted Overboard has to offer. The rest of the movie wears out its welcome muy rapido.

You just wish the film itself was half as compelling as its subject; not defaulting to piano-tinkling sentimentality or old-people-sure-are-adorable cutesiness at every opportunity would have been a bonus as well.

Mostly, it's a collection of spare suspense parts that someone ransacked at the movie dump and is trying to resell as fresh product. Good luck with that.

Davis gives an absolutely electrifying performance that lends the movie a kick of outrageous originality. This Canadian actress, so good in Halt and Catch Fire and one of the best episodes ever of Black Mirror ("San Junipero") takes it to the next level, suggesting even more exciting things to come.

A gorgeously acted, written and directed spellbinder.

What we have in the misbegotten mess called Kings is a film of countless good intentions – one that starts going bad in its first scene, gets worse form there and then dissolves into pure chaos.

Avengers: Infinity War leaves viewers up in the air, feeling exhilarated and cheated at the same time, aching for a closure that never comes ... at least not yet.

Pfeiffer gives an incredible performance as a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The problem here isn't excessive pandering; the sheer existence of this second movie is already 100-percent fan service. It's that it doesn't give you much beyond a very subjective view of what these guys find hilarious.

What we have left in Godard Mon Amour, after the laughs dry up, is a thin sketch of a filmmaker who inspired a hero worship in his young bride that dissolved in squabbling, as had Godard's first marriage to another of his leading ladies, actress Anna Karina.

But still: Is it really OK to get off making plus-size jokes just because you tack on a moralizing ending that teaches a lesson about body positivity? Can you have it both ways?

Poetic is a word that gets thrown around willy-nilly, but it fits perfectly here. So does woozy. It feels less like a film than a high fever, burning slow but hot in order to incinerate a virus.

Anderson packs the film with atmosphere spiked with intrigue. And Hamm gives his role a James Bond-meets-Don Draper appeal, tossing off one-liners with a weary insouciance. His scenes with Pike give the movie a resonant power it wouldn't otherwise have.

Once The Rider hooks you – and believe me, it will – there's no way you will ever forget it.

These performers keep you mesmerized, making the most of what they're given even when the film sinks into a swamp of whose-dick-is-bigger competitions and sports clichés about product endorsements.

It's easy to root for George. The movie deserves the finger.

The film is corrosive in its take on the injustice that allowed Ted to live and prosper in a protective bubble of privilege. Clarke makes it clear that the man himself most likely felt the same way.

Sobs are earned the hard way in this moving drama, which grips you with such scrappy humor and no-bull grit and grace that you'll be hooked.

It may feel insubstantial at times, but somewhere out there, there's a twin of this film that lays on the L.A. Self-Owns Itself mojo in thick clumps. Gemini is the good-sibling version. It's worth a whirl.

Don't get me wrong – the movie lays on the raunch, and there are more gut-busting laughs than you can count. But no one gets objectified or patronized.

The acting is flawless, with Simmonds and young Jupe making every minute count. Blunt (Krasinski's wife off screen) is in a class by herself, taking a near-silent role and building a tour de force of expressive emotion.

Joaquin Phoenix is simply stupendous in You Were Never Really Here. His performance is damn near flammable — dangerous if you get too close.

Enduing a full 120 minutes of this sh*tstorm takes its toll. Bitterness, anger, malice, bad blood – that’s acrimony, baby. And that's what you'll feel if you blow the price of ticket on this hack job.

Spielberg's visual inventiveness is unflagging.

This is Transformers-level inanity. This is a blow to your head from a mallet. It will not make you feel like a 10-year-old, but it will make you feel 10 years older than when you first entered the theater. It is certainly not personal in any way, shape or form, just strictly chilly, corporate to a fault and somehow both chintzy and wildly overblown.

Foy's performance is something you don't want to miss. Whether spewing f-bombs, kneeing a suspected assailant in the balls, or promising a blowjob to Nate for a few minutes on his secret cell phone, Foy comes on like gangbusters. Fans of her prim, proper regent on "The Crown" are in for a shock.

In Final Portrait, art achieves a permanence that trumps an evanescent feast. What holds us through all the exasperating starts and stops is Rush, a live-wire actor of such effortless charisma that we’re drawn to his every utterance and gesture. Hammer, as a stand-in for the audience, can only stare in wonder as we do.

As for the animation, it's spectacular in every sense of the word and lifted by a superb Alexandre Desplat score, featuring taiko drums, that marks a new career peak for the Oscar-winning composer of "The Shape of Water."

Tomb Raider may be a less camp, more cunning take on the arts and Crofts that have made the brand a hit, but to call this a better-than average videogame movie is to damn it with faint praise. Don't hate the players. Hate the genre.

Love, Simon is a John Hughes movie for audiences who just got woke. And for all its attempts not to offend, it's a genuine groundbreaker.

Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland can do anything – except, perhaps, save this sentimental drool bucket of senior cinema.

It can't decide whether it wants to be magnificently toxic or merely mediocre. Mileage may vary on where the movie eventually lands, but either way, this is a "romp" that's keen on going nowhere ... and sloooowly.

The late actor (Anton Yelchin) brings a sly wit and bruised conscience to the role that marks him again as a consummate actor and another reason that the feverishly hypnotic Thoroughbreds gets inside your head and stays there.

Who'd have thought the demise of a kill-happy Russian dictator could leave you laughing helplessly? That's The Death of Stalin for you, a slapstick tragedy – and for the funniest, fiercest comedy of the year so far – from the fertile mind of Armando Iannucci, the British political satirist behind the HBO's Veep and the sensational, Strangelovian In the Loop (2009).

This Wrinkle in Time is undoubtedly flawed, wildly uneven and apt to tie itself in narrative knots in a quest to wow you with sheer Technicolor weirdness. It's also undeniably DuVernay's movie as much as Disney's, and works best when she puts her feminine energy, high-flying freak flag and sense of empathy front and center.

The one light at the end of this long, slogged-through tunnel is, surprisingly, Willis.

Submission – despite valiant performances from Stanley Tucci and Addison Timlin as the parties involved – lacks the spark it needs to spring to life.

Foxtrot makes demands on audiences and then richly rewards them. It's a riveting, deeply resonant achievement.

A punishingly long (133 minutes), shamelessly shallow downer that makes the mistake of taking itself oh-so-seriously. Big mistake.

It's a moody horror movie that favors metaphor over mayhem until its violent, chaotic final third, at which point the screaming starts in earnest. A bit more balance between gnawing guilt and plain old gnawing would have done this scare-parable wonders. Its bark is worse than its bite. But you hear every point that bark is making loud and painfully clear.

Bateman's dazzling deadpan can raise tired zingers to raucous life with only a throwaway eyebrow lift. And McAdams takes to comedy with a natural actor's grace and precision. Talk about fun company. They're it.

It's both gravely serious and a demonically funny, a blend meant to catch audiences off balance. Mission accomplished.

Garland need make no apologies for Annihilation. It's a bracing brainteaser with the courage of its own ambiguity. You work out the answers in your own head, in your own time, in your own dreams, where the best sc-fi puzzles leave things. Get ready to be rocked.

Aside from Alyosha, there's no one to root for here, and Zvyagintsev paints the bleakest of picture. But his filmmaking has a driving force that hurtles you along, and like his 2014 masterpiece "Leviathan," this micro-focused drama allows the director to turn the story of one family into an X-ray of a nation's bruised soul.

The laughs hurt so good, and the guests at this shindig treat each other like dartboards for 71 minutes. Yes, that's short for a movie, but your nerves couldn’t take more.

You inherently felt that he had incredible work in him if you could simply wait out his enfant terrible phase. Golden Exits is the first of Perry's people-behaving-badly pieces to start to make good on that promise.

To use the film's terms: You go expecting a World Cup qualifying round. You leave having just seen a decent enough exhibition match.

With this last entry, we have officially hit the bottom of the barrel. Whips, chains, butt plugs and nipple clips are nothing compared to the sheer torture of watching this movie.

The complex movie that might have been is still on the drawing board, teasing us with a deeper story that's disappointingly out of reach.

Say this about Black Panther, which raises movie escapism very near the level of art: You've never seen anything like it in your life.

It shouldn't happen to anyone, much less a Dame – not a movie of such barreling awfulness as Winchester, which strands the great Helen Mirren in a gothic house of cards that collapses on actors and audiences alike.

A Fantastic Woman catches a human being in the challenging and exhilarating process of inventing herself. The result is unique and unforgettable.

The Death Cure plot is the essence of rehash.

Still, the excitement is palpable, and Karam and El Basha (he justifiably won the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival) give the kind of performances that keep you riveted. Even at its most blunt and obvious, this is a movie that stumps for empathy. Who can argue with that?

What chills most about The Final Year is how unprepared Team Obama was for the victory of Trump and the ease with which many of its hard-won policies could be unraveled. Was it blindness, hubris or a combination of both?

Every paying audience member deserves their 12 bucks back.

What 12 Strong does deliver, however, is a rousing tribute to the bravery of soldiers whose contributions went unheralded for years. That impact cannot be denied.

In the doldrums of January, the movie pulls out every trick in the suspense-thriller book to keep us grinning at each new absurdity. Silly? You bet. Irresistible? Totally.

Happy End is a puzzle and it's our job to connect the pieces. If it doesn't drive you crazy first, you'll find yourself maddened and mesmerized to the bitter end.

What an astounding actress Annette Bening is. And she’s at her very best in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool playing Gloria Grahame.

Molly's Game bristles with fun zingers, electric energy and Sorkin's brand of verbal fireworks – all of which help enormously when the movie falters in fleshing out its characters.

Bale, in a piercing, quietly devastating performance, holds the film's center with commanding authority. It's a film whose brute force tempered with contemplative grace. It's a potent and prodigious achievement.

Taking full measure of Phantom Thread may require more than one viewing – a challenge any genuine movie lover will be eager to accept. Our advice for now: just sit back and behold.

The problem with setting a familiar story in a foreign universe is that you have to establish the parameters of said universe or risk losing your audience. That's world-building 101, folks. Bright does not care about that. Bright's attitude is closer to "fuck you for not somehow keeping up with our cool shit" before doing a lot of push-ups.

Though the rest of All the Money in the World expertly skims the surface of this true-life drama, Scott makes it a hell of a ride.

I'm convinced there is a good movie trying to punch itself out of The Greatest Showman. What a shame that Gracey buried Jackman and company in a pile of marshmallow.

Downsizing brims over with the pleasures of the unexpected, a hallmark of Payne's artistry.