With The Irishman, America’s greatest living director creates his late-career masterpiece, a deeply felt addition that vibrantly sums up every landmark in his crime-cinema arsenal, from 1973’s "Mean Streets" through "Goodfellas," "Casino," "Gangs of New York," and the Oscar-
winning "The Departed."

It’s not a bad film, just a generically bland one.

The film, bathed in gorgeous shadow and light by cinematographer Joe DeSalvo, gets more personal as it moves along. You can feel the romantic ache when Bruce and the missus duet on “Stones.”

The film stubbornly resists coming together as more than a series of hit-and-miss vignettes. Only near the end, in a stunning tableau that illustrates how individual desire laughs at the plans of God — and the ringmaster Frankie — does Sachs turn his wisp of film into something funny, touching and vital.

Black and Blue, hyped by Geoff Zanelli’s pumping score, moves along without actually getting anywhere. Harris deserves better. So do audiences.

Turns out a double dip of Zombieland goes down easy when you see it for the irresistible escapism it is.

This misbegotten sequel to 2014’s not-so-hot Maleficent is a torturous exercise in brightly-colored monotony that chokes on repetitive screenwriting, amateurish directing, paycheck performances and digital hardware for a heart. Kids under five (months) might be fooled, but sentient filmgoers know a scam when they see one.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry — sometimes at the same time. But love or hate Jojo Rabbit, it’s damn near impossible to shake.

You’d have to search hard to find a movie this hypnotic and haunting.

When you have Vince Gilligan operating near the peak of his powers, and taking the time to fix one of the few things the show didn’t get quite right, it makes for one hell of an entertaining gift.

All the green-screen magic it takes for Smith to mix it up with a mass of pixels passing for a Fresh Prince-era version of himself does not compensate for a dull plot, achingly familiar characters and dialogue that’s no fun at all.

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.