We get something that’s too long for their usual stoner-digestible absurdism, too unfocused to really take on post-Trumpian political targets, and too insular to translate to folks not already invested in their long, drawn-out in-joke.

With the Bard’s words, Henry roused his soldiers to action: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” With this mediocrity, it’s more a case of how the war was wan.

The movie dissects the universal gap between the haves and the have-nots with shocking wit, stinging topicality and gut-wrenching violence. It’s explosive filmmaking on every level.

It’s always a downer when talented artists pour everything they’ve got into a film that stubbornly refuses to come to life. That’s the case with Lucy in the Sky.

Though the formulaic result comes up short as cinema, it’ll make you laugh you ass off. There are worse trade-offs.

The artful symmetry is an Almodovar hallmark, and his cinematic memento is filled with the intimate, indelible moments that made a life. You can feel his passion for cinema in every frame. Pain and Glory is not just his most personal film. It’s also one of his greatest.

As entertainment and provocation, Joker is simply stupendous.

Director Paolo Sorrentino’s gorgeously gaudy, chalice-runneth-over satire, is really about one person: Silvio Berlusconi.

The Laundromat ends on a pre-credits image that feels destined to become a meme. Everyone’s hands are dirty, it tells us. Maybe it’s time hold folks accountable and clean up our act.

Sadly, Abominable fails to carve out its own place in a crowded field. The movie huffs and puffs, but there’s no fear of any houses being blown down.

You’ll want to see this for Zellweger’s bravura turn alone. It’s one of the best performances of the year.

Tyrnauer’s flashes of compassion for this self-hating Jew and homosexual — taught from childhood to feel ashamed of what he was and who he was — remind us that his subject’s toxic, insidious amorality did not go to the grave with him. It’s all around us, among opportunists still looking for their own Roy Cohn — just one of several reasons why Tyrnauer’s doc hits you like a punch in the gut.

The taste of toxicity will overwhelm whatever pulpy grindhouse pleasures you might have experienced. A franchise that started off with a sense of betrayal and righteous anti-authoritarian anger ends by parroting authoritarian talking points that betray what this country is about. Let this please be the last of its kind.

The actors have a ball with the fun and games. And you will, too, unless — as noted — you and the TV series have never crossed paths.

The one thing this Corporate Animals has going for it — the reason you may wanna plunk down cash to see it regardless — is Demi Moore.

There’s a specific, singular madness that this movie conjures up that’s completely its own, a spell it casts that goes way beyond homages or spot-the-reference pastiches.

Gray’s filmmaking is tremendously exciting.

The only achievement in transferring The Goldfinch from page to screen is that it’s a botch job for the ages.

A Best Actress Oscar nomination for Jennifer Lopez? You better believe it. Her see-it-to-believe-it performance in Hustlers is that dazzling, that deep, that electrifying.

The Sound of My Voice ends with a very different voice, as we see Ronstadt, filmed this year, attempting to sing a Mexican folk song with a cousin and nephew. Parkinson’s has clearly weakened her, but she still watches her relatives attentively and opens her mouth to verbalize along with them as much as possible.

So what’s the problem? For starters, It: Chapter Two is an ass-numbing two hours and 50 minutes. That’s a good half-hour longer than Chapter One, proving the adage that less is definitely more. The dragging pace diminishes the film’s ability to hold us in its grip.

Official Secrets remains a compelling tale of injustice on an individual and global level. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been told better, but give it points for being told at all.

The wow factor of Ready or Not helps you jump the hurdles of any plot predictability.

Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles makes itself essential viewing by chronicling the turbulent genesis of a global sensation. But its real miracle is demonstrating why it continues to entertain and illuminate, from Tokyo to a Brooklyn middle school where an African-American girl now plays the role of Tevye’s wife, Golde, and back to Broadway.

A fun ride, spiked with touching gravity, is not a shabby way to end the movie summer. Thanks to Jillian Bell, a comic force of nature with real dramatic chops, that’s what you get in Brittany Runs a Marathon.

American Factory sets out to chart what’s supposed to be a test run for the future of the auto industry and an example of positive international relations. It ends up capturing a cross-cultural car wreck in slow motion.

It may be a bit of a stretch to call what Brügger delivers here a documentary, exactly — it’s a “true” crime story with an emphasis on the quotes.

This eyepopper from Russian director-writer-cinematographer-editor Victor Kossakovsky (¡Vivan Las Antípodas!) is like nothing you’ve ever seen. His free-form documentary on water opens by scaring us to death.