The perfect teen coming-of-age story is just as rare as a great sex comedy; and exceptional comedies in general are hard to find — which would make Blockers something of a cinematic unicorn for delivering on all counts.

With Steven Spielberg behind the camera, Ernest Cline’s book had potential to transcend its source material. It’s disheartening that the finished product is little more than the cinematic equivalent of a pop culture mashup tee, which takes cherished icons of film and coats them in garish CGI while clumsily smashing them against one another like a child playing with action figures.

What begins as a smart, effective throwback to simple post-apocalyptic survival stories evolves into a knuckle-biting, chest-tightening thriller that combines old-fashioned character work with the modern efficiency of intensity and dread.

It’s honestly a little baffling how so many good choices could produce something so frustrating.

It is tough, bleak, brutally intense, and genuinely scary - not in the cutesy cathartic way of most horror films, but in a way that makes you ponder the nature of existence and leaves you with a pit in your stomach.

Unfortunately, Red Sparrow director Francis Lawrence is no Josef von Sternberg. Like most of his previous films (Constantine, I Am Legend, the final three Hunger Games), his choices are solid but rarely surprising, and despite a twisty storyline, a great cast, and two physically compatible leads, Red Sparrow never quite gets beyond being a merely okay thriller.

Fifty Shades Freed must set a record for the most subplots and supporting characters introduced and then abandoned in film history.

While many Marvel films, even some of the good ones, feel like small pieces of a larger story, Black Panther is an entire cinematic universe unto itself.

At best, The Cloverfield Paradox is a schlock sci-fi movie that (all too appropriately) has the quality of a straight-to-video sequel. And at worst, it should have us worried about the direction of the Cloverfield franchise as a whole.

There are some highlights — mostly the lead performances.

Clichés usually become clichés because they resonate with audiences, and all it takes to freshen one up are a couple of new twists. Proud Mary has just enough of them to make some satisfying out of very familiar material.

It is quite literally the company’s biggest disaster to date; a colossal waste of time, money, and effort.

Don’t get me wrong, the Hugh Jackman-led P.T. Barnum circus musical is a bad movie, but one that’s just enjoyably bad enough to keep you entertained. If you loathe musicals, this definitely ain’t for you. But if you indulge in gaudy show tunes, and can relinquish all desire for a logical plot and developed characters, then, in the melodically whispered words of Hugh Jackman, The Greatest Showman is everything you ever want, it’s everything you ever need, it’s where you want to be.

The Last Jedi checks off all the boxes you want from a Star Wars movie, including one of the coolest lightsaber fights in the series’ 40 years, but Johnson is also interested in exploring new territory, including a consideration of the shadings and nuances to the Light and Dark Sides of the Force.

Phantom Thread is classical and deliberate, with few of his former signatures like ostentatious flourishes of camera, editing, or music. That may frustrate some Anderson fans, but Phantom Thread’s luxurious but restrained aesthetic perfectly matches Reynolds Woodcock’s approach to design.

All I can tell you is The Post is the first movie that ever made me cry about an abstract concept. And when it was over, I found myself particularly happy to see Meryl Streep’s name first in the closing credits.

As showy as that makeup and voice is, and as big and boisterous as Churchill’s speeches are, Oldman finds nuances that few actors do in this sort of role. He’s not all fiery tirades and tearful monologues.

Justice League is a collection of missed opportunities and flubbed ideas.

Every once in a while you stumble upon a near-perfect movie that is so sharp, warm, and genuine you can’t wait to watch it all over again once the credits roll.

Geostorm is so punishingly bad it makes Independence Day: Resurgence look like Last Year at Marienbad. (Or at least its less well-known sequel, Last Year at Marienbad: Resurgence.)

The Snowman Killer is one of those ludicrous movie bad guys who is both supernaturally smart and conveniently stupid.

This movie is so colorful and zippy and packed with outlandish supporting characters, that Hemsworth’s job is relatively easy. He just needs to look great, kick ass, nail the one-liners, and ride off into the sunset (or Avengers: Infinity War, whichever comes first). Thor: Ragnarok is sort of like a giant flatscreen TV hanging on a wall with an enormous hole in the middle of it. The TV is beautiful, but it doesn’t fix the hole. It just covers it up.

Dysfunctional relationships and bickering families are nothing new, but the raw emotion here elevates The Meyerowitz Stories above Baumbach’s previous work. It may slight some of its more compelling character relationships, but it’s still a bittersweet delight.

Firth might appear like an odd choice for an action hero, but he makes a surprisingly convincing one in the Roger Moore mold, the sort of unflappable British gentlemen who can kick your ass without wrinkling his suit. He’s a great straight man for Jackson and some of the movie’s sillier elements as well; Firth has this unshakeable dignity and poise that even the most vulgar moments in Kingsman can’t puncture.

Ford’s memorable performance is just one of the many ways Blade Runner 2049 surpasses the original film. Its clever and compelling storyline is another. And then of course there are Deakins’ incredible images.

It isn’t the charged biopic that a story as fascinating as Seal’s deserves, but it has enough rambunctious delights to get by.

You can see very clearly where The Killing of a Sacred Deer is headed, but it takes a protracted path to get there, prolonging our discomfort until the very act of watching the film feels like its own bleakly comedic exercise.

In Thelma, Trier tries his hand at making a straight-up genre film — a love story between two women cloaked in a supernatural thriller. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Trier’s knack for nuance and graceful storytelling marries beautifully to a tender drama about self-discovery spiked with psychokinesis.

Let’s face it: The LEGO Movies were always better than they had any right to be. At their core, even with their clever writing, colorful visuals, and memorable voice casts, they were still feature-length toy commercials. The LEGO Ninjago Movie is just the first installment in the series that actually feels like one.

This isn’t quite solid-gold filmmaking. But it might be gold-plated.

In a way, though, Robinson’s less-edgy aesthetic is even more subversive than graphic sexuality. By treating the Marstons’ lovemaking the same way arthouse movies have treated heterosexual couples for decades, she refuses to portray them as aberrant or abnormal.

The screenplay, written by director Peter Landesman and based on books by Felt and John D. O’Connor, does a fine job of condensing a sprawling conspiracy into a digestible feature, although it sometimes favors clarity over nuance and winds up enunciating important plot points in glaringly unnatural dialogue.

It’s a heartbreaking love story about loneliness and the transcendent power of language, and it’s simply magical.

Downsizing is all half-empty, big ideas that accomplish very little.

Franco’s performance as Tommy Wiseau is a thing of beauty. Without ever inflating Tommy’s achievements or his talents, and while still having a great deal of fun with his peculiar behavior, he makes him into what he always wanted to be: A true cinematic hero.

It is a movie about how anger consumes and destroys, and how the only cure for that anger is empathy, something that’s in short supply these days but Three Billboards has in abundance.

Love it, hate it, or stuck somewhere in between, it’s something you simply need to see to believe.

With little drama or humor, it mostly amounts to watching a guy complain about his fairly decent life for 100 minutes.

The movie cuts back and forth between the two, and their themes speak to one another in some ways, but the competing narratives barely intersect. At times, it seems as if director and co-writer George Clooney made a movie where separate but equal is not only the subtext but also the organizing principle.

The Florida Project immerses us in more stories that too often get excluded from movies. It finds magic in the mundane, and reminds audiences how to look at the world through fresh, untainted eyes.

IT is better than The Dark Tower in every conceivable way. And beyond the inevitable comparison, it’s just really good. Scary good, even. The new IT is narratively coherent, mythologically complex, and above all, fun. Yes, fun.

The film never figures out how to merge Jeannette’s younger and older perspectives into one cohesive voice.

Good Time is a uniquely exhilarating experience with a sharp, unflinching style and a magnetic performance from Robert Pattinson.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard is not the best movie of the summer, but it is easily its most pleasant surprise. An unapologetically violent and vulgar buddy action comedy, it updates the template set forth by Lethal Weapon and particularly Midnight Run for a new era.

Detroit suffers from muddled intentions and a lack of a clear why. It could have maintained a narrower focus on the lives of the black folks affected by the motel incident. Instead, Detroit tries to accomplish too much too cautiously.

There's certainly a thrill to watching a single woman lead a movie where she's chasing down criminals like an unstoppable killing machine. Is Kidnap inane? Totally. But fun? You bet.

Even when the movie around him is total garbage nonsense, it is fun to watch Idris Elba; the way he walks, the way he stares at people with eyes blazing with intensity. He is an ideal action hero. He looks like the coolest man who ever lived in his fantasy Western garb, and he moves with a rare combination of grace and force, like the greatest possible combination of Gene Kelly and Chow Yun-Fat. He makes an amazing Gunslinger. Sadly, he’s trapped in a not-very-good Gunslinger movie.

There are plenty of words that can describe The Emoji Movie. Here are a few of them: Unfunny. Saccharine. Nonsensical. Painful. And, of course, crappy. (If you prefer the poop emoji, that works too.)

Soderbergh did some impressive work during his break from the movies, but Logan Lucky proves his talents need to be showcased on the big screen, melding crime and suspense with comedy.

Dunkirk would have been even better, though, if any of the characters seemed as fully realized as the aerial and naval warfare. Without that, it works best as pure sensory experience; incredible visuals, intense battles. In the rare quiet moments, we’re invited to observe an unusual instrument featured in Hans Zimmer’s score: The ticking of a clock, a reminder that while Nolan can change the march of time, his heroes cannot.

This movie takes big risks, and many of them pay off. War for the Planet of the Apes proves that big movies aren’t incompatible with big ideas.

The latest from the French filmmaker is a dazzling feast of spectacular visuals and exhilarating set pieces. It’s Besson’s most ambitious film to date, and the most original big-budget adventure you’ll see on screen this season. But such ambition doesn’t always come without flaws.

It is, from start to finish, one of Pixar’s best films.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is a return to form, featuring an incredibly likable cast, a compelling and complicated villain, and a irrepressibly charming Spider-Man. Welcome home, Peter.

The Last Knight is not, in any conventional sense, entertaining or good, although parts of it are spectacular.

While this movie may not reach the heights of Pixar’s finest achievements, it certainly stands as not only the best Cars, but the most mature one as well.

It may unfortunately ring hollow for some, but for those who acutely empathize with the ravages of grief, Shults has delivered a film more horrific than any boogeyman or ghoul in recent memory.

The nonsensical story would matter less if The Mummy would get out of Cruise’s way and let him do what he does best. Instead, it buries him beneath punishing dialogue scenes and surrounds him with unconvincing and unoriginal special effects.

Wonder Woman is exciting, romantic, funny — and my favorite DC Extended Universe movie to date. With her courage and strength, Diana sets an example for everyone she meets, and she holds fast to her ideals even under great pressure. With any luck, she’ll provide similar inspiration to the directors of the DC Extended Universe in the years ahead.

Baywatch’s comedy (credited to six different writers) is second-rate and its action is even worse, with special effects that rank among the absolute worst I’ve seen in a big summer movie in many years.

Dead Men Tell No Tales is the sort of sequel that’s so bad it makes you retroactively wonder why you liked the original film so much in the first place.

The reason to look past the movie’s issues is Fassbender.

A bloated action movie with occasional breaks in the monotony. It’s Perfectly Fine™; entirely competent but unexceptional in just about every way.

Despite a rapidly escalating plot, The Circle lacks any momentum, a problem that’s only made worse by woefully underdeveloped characters delivering painfully earnest and stilted dialogue.

The film deepens the melancholic, existential notes from end of The Trip to Italy, and continues to evolve with its characters emotionally.

The characters and their relationships are strong and the dialogue is sharp, but the whole thing feels like a minor installment in an ongoing series.

Even though Walker is still present, his absence is already felt. It is strange to watch a movie that is this much fun and this sad all at the same time.

There’s certainly a lot to enjoy in The Fate of the Furious, but even the strongest moments are less spectacular this time around.

Its unhurried pacing, complex themes, and magnificent visuals that must be seen on a big screen make it feel like an artifact from an era of big-budget filmmaking that has been rendered essentially extinct by the franchisification of Hollywood.

Conceptually, it’s an ambitious undertaking; but as fascinating and perplexing as it all is, I’m not sure McDowell’s film really achieves its goals.

The biggest problem is that Ghost in the Shell has nothing smart or interesting to say — it just thinks it does.

McGrath and screenwriter Michael McCullers are too preoccupied piling on chase and action scenes to exploit their title’s potential to its fullest.

Life jolts audiences with relentless ferocity, but it’s not interesting.

Power Rangers is fun when it leans into the original series’ campy sensibility.

Win It All is appropriately unfussy, letting the characters and performances speak for themselves. Johnson takes a played-out character type and transforms him into someone who is actually endearing and likable.

Director Evan Katz’s follow-up to 2013’s Cheap Thrills is a lean, mean neo-noir that addresses an age-old question: Do people ever really change?

In this current era of spoiler-driven pop culture, films like Gemini, which place a higher premium on storytelling, performances, and character-building than on the “big twist” at the end, feel like an act of beautiful rebellion.

Between the haphazard zooms and the odd editing meant to evoke the way we re-stitch fragments of memory in hindsight, Porto reads like a short student film pointlessly extended to feature length.

This derivative sequel might please devoted fans looking for a quick fix of nostalgia, but with nothing new to say, it seems not even Boyle and his cast are sure why T2 Trainspotting exists.

Charlize Theron is the hero we need right now: As devilishly self-serving and smooth as Bond, as physically dynamic and stoic as Wick, Lorraine is confidently equipped to join the legacy of great movie action heroes and she doesn’t need your permission to do it.

Baby Driver, Wright’s first-ever solo screenplay, is a thrilling and original cinematic joyride that pays homage to heist masterpieces while creating a legacy of its own.

Malick has found a way to translate how a familiar song has the ability to transport you back to a particular time and conjure a specific set of emotions. Whatever he’s been exploring over the past few years pays off here. Song to Song is far from his strongest film, but it’s his best and most exciting work since The Tree of Life.

Bill Condon’s live-action update of Beauty and the Beast is more reimagining than remake, a lavish and lovely take on a familiar tale (as old as time, no doubt) that enriches its source material without betraying it.

This is a creature feature, plain and simple — and, at least on a visceral level, a satisfying one.

You can try to enjoy The Great Wall as a delightfully crappy blockbuster, but when you remember this is a Zhang Yimou film, it’s just a disappointment.

It’s a mature consideration of the ideas underpinning its comic-book motifs. It’s also easily the best Wolverine movie of the three, and an impressive sendoff for Jackman’s version of the character.

It’s Verbinski’s eye that makes A Cure for Wellness such a wild, nightmarish treat.

A righteous follow-up that’s bigger and maybe not better, but just as good as its predecessor.

Fifty Shades Darker is a very faithful sequel; a milquetoast continuation of a bland romance between two boring people.

Like The LEGO Movie before it, The LEGO Batman Movie is far more entertaining than a giant piece of crass commercialism has any right to be.

Ultimately it’s Finley’s sleek and stylish visual language that makes Thoroughbred a must-see, and one of the best surprises out of Sundance. He composes his shots with such precision, control, and confidence.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the movements in the film, Manifesto is still a brilliant display of Blanchett’s unstoppable talent and Rosefeldt’s ability to use one art form – filmmaking – to explore so many others.

Guadagnino does a remarkable job of capturing the tension and anxiety that comes with not only first love, but first-time queer romances.

It does what all great horror movies do: turn real-world anxieties into the stuff of nightmares.

This is one of those stories when reality was stranger, and more entertaining, than fiction.

The crime story, involving the hunt for the men who murdered this girl, is strictly by-the-numbers (and there are a few clue that still don’t fit together in my mind) but Sheridan proves himself a surprisingly effective director of action.

There’s a novelistic quality to Mudbound that elevates it from what could have been a traditional and singular story about struggle and oppression into a layered, multi-dimensional one.

On paper, The Little Hours sounds like a combative anti-religious tract, but Baena’s less interested in mocking the church than in basking in the gulf between humanity’s lofty aspirations and its baser instincts.