Clermont-Tonnerre comes from a place of defiance, and her fearless instincts surge through every frame. Each time you think you have this movie pegged, it’ll knock you for a loop.

A stuffy, soggy slog of a movie that fails to generate sparks or a lick of dramatic sense.

The best thing about The Highwaymen by a long shot is seeing Costner tap back into that Gary Cooper mode he once perfected and add older, wiser touches to it.

Hollywood retreads of foreign films are rarely a good idea (did you see Miss Bala?), but Gloria Bell is a playful, pleasure-giving exception.

Somewhere along the road of development hell, the movie settled for delivering standard-issue jolts for jocks.

The film’s low-key charm and quirky humor grow on you and create a rooting interest in what happens next. It doesn’t take the Supreme Intelligence of the universe (who we always figured would resembled Annette Bening) to know it’s wise to play the long game. Captain Marvel is not just another wonder woman. She plans to build an army.

Wherever you find yourself in the Perry equation, Medea herself deserves a final high-five. Perry hints that she may come back in a younger version, not played by him. But Medea will never be the same without her creator. In A Medea Family Funeral, she hosts a memorial service that defines the term hellzapoppin. And Perry correctly and adoringly gives her the last word in which she lets all the women have for letting any damn man abuse them. Hallelujah, sister!

Long after the dance-movie thrills are in the rearview and before the images turn themselves upside down — before the movie becomes a literal danse macabre — you find yourself impressed by the fact that he’s not out to recreate a bad acid trip. He’s trying to create his own bad trip sans the drugs. And the fucked up thing about it is: You end up wanting to go along for the ride.

It takes you right up past the stratosphere alongside these souls. Then it brings everything back down to Earth with equal agility and grace. It is a revelation.

What’s missing are the moments in between that actually make up a life and give it emotional resonance.

Jordan, working from a script he conjured up with Ray Wright, is in it for suspense tinged with laughs. But with these two dynamo actresses front and center, this nail-biter keeps you riveted.

The Hidden World is the best Dragon yet — an animated action phenom with moonstruck passion in its heart and a spirit that soars.

Part anthropological study, part rise-and-fall epic and all-out mesmerizing, this regional spin on the “family business” saga makes you rethink the notions behind why we watch crime flicks past the vicarious thrills. It’s both foreign and familiar.

Thanks to the comic tornado at its center, Isn’t It Romantic is still your best bet for a Valentine’s date at the movies. You could do worse.

The movie even plays like a wrestling match. It’s Underdog Cinema 101.

Ruben Brandt, Collector is always a feast for the eyes, but it’s the intellectual curiosity on display that raises the bar.

Now, after a deluge of comic book epics and other CGI-filled sci-fi fantasies, the movie feels like it’s way past its sell-by date. Alita: Battle Angel looks ready to rock, but time has sucked the life out of the party.

It needs a Soderbergh, who invests this tale of outrunning and outgunning organizations — be they sports leagues or studios tied to old distribution/exhibition models — with a sense of energy, verve and mischievous glee.

Henson looks ready to come out firing on all cylinders, but the comic cowardice of What Men Want leaves her shooting blanks.

Somehow, though, he made a movie that, to paraphrase an album from the director’s former musical endeavor, has seriously missed the Black Mark.

Working in Spanish for the first time, the filmmaker somehow allows the interweaving threads of his plot to get tangled into a jumble even he can’t satisfactorily unravel. It’s a damn shame.

The fans show up for this kind of movie to watch Neeson knock heads with bad guys, and Moland lets him rip. There’s no dawdling over sentiment. If you want to see a snowplow used as a weapon of mass destruction, you’ve come to the right movie.

There’s even a new song called “Catchy Song” that you can’t get out of your head no matter how hard you try. (And you will try.) Another tune, “Super Cool,” plays over the end credits simply to extol the coolness of end credits. Lego 2 never stops, which is part of the problem. Can there really be too much of a good thing? [Pause.] Nah.

Piercing is not exactly a sophomore slump for Pesce, nor is it an embarrassment for anyone else involved. But the longer you watch it, the more inadvertently ironic the title becomes.

Without the unyielding forward charge of the original, however, the far-fetched story doesn’t really work. And the movie’s attempts to explain its characters doesn’t make them any deeper; quite the contrary, it renders them simplistic.

Velvet Buzzsaw is never less than a feast for the eyes even when it reduces the plot to B-level butchery. What’s missing is the potent provocation that Gilroy seemed to be developing at the start.

What takes Arctic to the next level is Mikkelsen’s stirringly expressive face. Known for playing villains — the dead-eyed 007 nemesis Le Chiffre in "Casino Royale" and the title killer in the TV series "Hannibal" (2013-2015) — Mikkelsen invests Overgård with a bracing humanity that you root for every step of the way.

Technology has allowed Jackson to erase the barriers of time and speak to a new generation about what war does to youth. His humane and heartbreaking film is a profound achievement.