To call this a field of dreams would be pushing it. But it’s a lovely way to pass some time.

In an extremely physical, committed, even exhausting performance, Pattinson takes what could have been an unwieldy mess and makes it much less, well, expendable.

Nyoni and her cinematographer David Gallego make this a transportive, stylish and unforgettable experience that powerfully transcends the specifics of its setting, while also taking audiences into an culture that’s likely unfamiliar.

It feels strange to want a movie to be longer, but in the case of Last Breath I was both desperate for it to end, for anxiety reasons, and also wanting more.

The movie’s earnestness carries it through these less smooth moments. So does the cast. Any opportunity to see Freeman or Harris, still at the top of their games, is a chance to be treasured.

Not all of it works, but it’s never uninteresting or uncreative — especially when it comes to finding inventively horrible (or horribly inventive) ways for people to die.

Old Guy feels very of this moment in the fact that it looks good and has a good cast and yet can’t seem to deliver something that’s either entertaining or meaningful. But unlike so many of its peers, this one amazingly was not made by a streamer.

Rankin’s film, his second following the also surreal “Twentieth Century” (2019), is propelled less by narrative thrust than the abiding oddity of its basic construction, and the movie’s slavish devotion to seeing it through without a wink.

The tonal swings, not to mention the gloss that covers the whole enterprise, make “The Gorge” an intriguing but empty genre mash-up and streaming-only exercise.

What makes “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” especially enjoyable, then — and the best since the 2001 original — is not that Bridget finds a way yet again to triumph over doubts and obstacles. It’s that she still makes us care so darned much.

Director Julius Onah does well with the action but fumbles the quieter moments and supervises editing that’s the opposite of crisp, not helped by script writers who ape military language — “Negative, the package is the priority” — and grandiose sentiment — “The country is lost.”

If some of King’s Wes Anderson-inspired pop-up book designs and skill with fine character actors is missing, the bedrock earnestness and unflaggingly good manners of its ursine protagonist remain charmingly unaltered.

Artificiality as an aesthetic is all fine and good, but Love Hurts feels a little too much like the charmless, ripped-from-the-Magnolia-showroom homes that Marvin is hawking to perky yuppies around Milwaukee.

It’s a promising debut from Tøndel, nonetheless — a film that will keep you engaged if not entirely satisfied.

No Other Land is a piece of resistance but also humanization.

Like any good high-concept comedy, Kinda Pregnant is predominantly a far-fetched way for its star and co-writer, Schumer, to riff frankly on her chosen topic.

The combination works well enough, though it’d be fairer to deem “You’re Cordially Invited” a funnier-than-average wedding movie than it would be a top-grade Ferrell comedy.

Peter Hastings, director, screenwriter and animal voice of Dog Man, has had a hand in Pilkey’s much better adaption of “Captain Underpants,” but this time smashes together characters and plot lines from several of the books in a way that is hard to follow even for fans.

Kudos to Hancock for making the film crackle along wittily, drawing in even those of us prone to shudder at movies with a fast-rising body count.

But no one emerges unscathed from this funny-when-it-shouldn’t-be mess. The movie’s slogan is the weird “Y’all Need a Pilot?” but it should be “Y’all Need a Filmmaker?”

Kids movies so often bear little of the actual lived-in experience of growing up, but Yamada Naoko’s luminous anime “The Colors Within” gently reverberates with the doubts and yearnings of young life.

The camera is the ghost in Steven Soderbergh’s chillingly effective, experiential haunted house drama “Presence.”

The action comes fast and furious, and the banter is pleasant enough. Diaz, especially, makes the proceedings decently enjoyable and some of the sillier lines believable.

It is deeply personal and imbued with the kind of tenderness that is extremely difficult to see or appreciate in the moment.

For an actress who’s hustled to get to this point, “One of Them” days is perfect platform for Palmer, scrappy and unstoppable.

Slack when it should be terrifying, “Wolf Man” suffers from cheap sentimentality, laughably obvious script reveals, poor continuity and a creature that is less predatory than painful. Pity comes to mind.

“Let me entertain you,” Williams seems to be screaming through every scene. Mostly, he succeeds.

Hard Truths runs just 97 minutes, but it’s the kind of film and character that will stay with you long after — especially and most importantly when you find yourself having a Pansy kind of day.

A Complete Unknown is utterly fascinating, capturing a moment in time when songs had weight, when they could move the culture — even if the singer who made them was as puzzling as a rolling stone.

Morrison is a celebrated cinematographer known for “Black Panther,” “Fruitvale Station” and “Mudbound,” making her feature debut as a director. And it’s a promising one, full of beautiful shots, unexpected choices and rousing fights inside the ring, anchored by a thoughtful, engaging script and compelling lead performances.

Babygirl, which Reijn also wrote, is sometimes a bit much. (In one scene, Samuel feeds Romy saucers of milk while George Michael’s “Father Figure” blares.) But its two lead actors are never anything but completely magnetic.

Bring your hand warmers, toe warmers, heart warmers and soul warmers — this update of the 1922 silent vampire classic will chill you to the bone...But it may not terrify you. Everything in Robert Eggers’ faithful, even adoring remake, from his picturesque 19th century German town to those bleak mountain snowscapes leading to that (brrr) imposing castle in Transylvania, looks great. But with its stylized, often stilted dialogue and overly dramatic storytelling, it feels more like everyone is living in a quaint period painting rather than a world populated by real humans (and, well, vampires) made of flesh and, er, blood.

Though not for everyone, it’s a film that can justifiably be described as “epic” in ambition and design. And, wouldn’t you know, ambition and design are precisely what the movie’s about.

What absolutely, undoubtedly does work is Moore and Swinton together. If some of the more melodramatic or crime-movie flourishes feel forced, the central relationship of “The Room Next Door” is consistently provocative.

Mufasa: The Lion King has one very important thing going for it: an original story.

The threads do come together, but it requires a bit of patience and giving yourself over to the film, which is both formally and emotionally eye-opening. Adapting great literature can sometimes send filmmakers running towards the conventional; Thank goodness Ross charted his own path instead.

The film looks of its time, but it also feels fairly modern in its sensibilities which makes it always seem more like a re-telling than an in-the-moment experience. This may be to its detriment, yet it’s still an undeniably riveting and compelling watch.

Kraven the Hunter can climb sheer walls like a gorilla, snatch fish out of streams like a bear and outrun deer. But there’s something this slab of human beef can’t do: Anchor a decent movie.

The film, set 183 years before the events of “The Hobbit,” is a return to Middle-earth that, despite some very earnest storytelling, never supplies much of an answer as to why, exactly, it exists.

Of all the post-apocalyptic landscapes we’ve been treated to over the years, none is as beautiful nor peaceful as that of “Flow.”

Somewhow Adams, who also produces here, makes these things seem, if not quite natural, then logical.

You’d have to be a certain kind of grinch not to get swept up in the hurdles and triumphs, especially with such a compelling lead performance from Jharrel Jerome. And yet for a story about a guy who shattered expectations, the film itself is rather conventional.

Is it all a little much? Of course, but that’s kind of the point of Maria.

Queer is best when it’s a character study of Lee, who in Craig’s hands is charming, selfish, arrogant, abrasive, foppish and sometimes unable to read a room. It’s a million miles from 007, even if Lee carries a pistol.

Only a few times does the banter between Moana and Maui really remind you of the fun that characterized the original.

Joy is not all joy. There is frustration and loss and tears along the way, but it is a triumphant film about the way humans can make the world better and how a baby’s cry can be a priceless gift.

If people breaking into song delights rather than flummoxes you, if elaborate dance numbers in village squares and fantastical nightclubs and emerald-hued cities make perfect sense to you, and especially if you already love “Wicked,” well then, you will likely love this film. If it feels like they made the best “Wicked” movie money could buy — well, it’s because they kinda did.

The film is a reminder of the transcendent power of cinema, even, and perhaps especially, when not all that much is happening.

Red One comes off a little like the holiday version of “Cowboys and Aliens” — enough so to make you nostalgic for leaner tales about folkloric figures starring Johnson, like “The Tooth Fairy.”

Gladiator II isn’t quite the prestige film the first one, a best-picture winner, was in 2001. It’s more a swaggering, sword-and-sandal epic that prizes the need to entertain above all else.

Regardless of your familiarity with Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, “The Piano Lesson” is a worthwhile, captivating and moving watch full of charismatic performers.

Bird may go down as a rare miss for Arnold but you can still see the keenness of her eye and the nimbleness of her camera, with her regular cinematographer Robbie Ryan. And that’s true never so much as when the camera is on Adams, a talent, whose melancholy eyes say more than all the theatrics around her.

So beautifully constructed and acted in the first half is “Heretic” that you won’t really notice when it turns into a horror movie.

It’s quite a journey for one film. All credit to Eisenberg, and his superb co-star, for making the road trip so thought-provoking.

Blitz feels stuck between a conventional war drama and something more adventurous and probing. It doesn’t coalesce the way McQueen’s best work does, but the frictions that drive Blitz make it a singular and sporadically moving experience.

It is fun and wild at times, and Gomez fully commits to the bit of this woman who is being gaslit into insanity. But she and the film crescendo into absurdity, with little in the way of relief or catharsis.

Here fails to connect all these centuries of human experiences, other than to celebrate the human experience in all its messiness, triumph and sadness.

Conclave is sure to ruffle some Catholic feathers — provocation is in its DNA. But for the rest of us, this juicy, smartly crafted thriller, is simply a great watch.

I kept rooting for the surprisingly lifeless “The Last Dance” to pull way back on its save-the-world plot (and its CGI) and lean more into its most potent effect: Hardy’s split-personality double act.

A film that’s as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint.

Woman of the Hour will surely send many looking up this stranger-than-fiction story. But Kendrick’s achievement is in capturing, from a woman’s point of view, just how hard it can be to pick a serial killer out of an all-male line-up.

Over two hours ends up being too long. But [Finn] has found a great satirical target, given life to a third film easily and showcased another rising star to watch. That’s a reason to, well, smile about.

It’s not trying to pretend that it’s not exploitative on some level; that might even be the point. And anyway, you might be surprised just how quickly you commit to this once-in-a-lifetime ride.

It is charming and silly and sometimes cringey — other people’s relationships always are— and in the end it works exceedingly well because of them and their wonderful chemistry.

This film’s biggest lack is the connective tissue — we don’t ever really understand, alas, how young Trump became President Trump.

It is deep and surreal and often adorable. Is it high concept or low? Like Williams, it’s a bit of both.

It’s not surprising that “Folie à Deux” originated in concept as a stage show. It’s stuck in place, with only Phoenix’s dazzling contortions to marvel at.

It’s a little by-the-book — exactly, perhaps, what you might expect from elevated historical fiction aimed at young adults. Being a good-hearted, straightforward film that might even have you shedding a few tears is no crime against cinema.

[Ronan] gives one of her finest performances in a two-hour study of addiction that is poignant, sometimes beautiful but always painful to watch — and would likely be too draining if not for the luminous presence at its core.

This “Saturday Night” may have a legacy of its own; a lot of this cast, I suspect, will be around for a long time. And, ultimately, when the show finally comes together, it’s galvanizing.

Megalopolis is not a disaster, but it’s far from a success. It’s a bacchanalia that’s bursting with so many ideas, so many characters, so many great lines and truly terrible ones as well that it’s nearly impossible to digest in a single, baffling viewing.

Is this the best animated movie of the year? Totally, so far. It might even be the best movie of the year.

Yes, there’s a lot you can predict from the outset, not to mention lines you could have pre-written, word for word. But that doesn’t mean your heart won’t be caught up in this deeply felt, poignantly told story from Navajo country, especially when the last player takes that last shot in those final seconds — never mind some heavy-handed moments.

If there’s a critique to be made about the film, it’s that the satire and caricatures are a bit heavy-handed, with most of the male characters being not-so-subtle misogynists. But that overkill is part of what makes it so much fun.

It’s an absorbing ride, and Schimberg works with confidence and brio.

Thankfully, someone has come to the not-hard-to-deduce realization that Clooney and Pitt are good together.

It’s a pressure cooker and a wonderful showcase for three talented actors.

The saddest thing about “Transformers One” is the wastefulness of another dull outing in a universe geared toward kids just learning to transform themselves.

Director-writer Megan Park has crafted a wistful coming-of-age tale using this comedic device for “My Old Ass” and the results are uneven even though she nails the landing.

Director James Watkins and especially his excellent troupe of actors, adult and children alike, do a nice job of building the tension, slowly but surely. Until all bloody hell breaks loose, of course. And then, in its third act, “Speak No Evil” becomes an entertaining but routine horror flick, with predictable results.

Theater critic as tyrant is a juicy premise; “The Critic” just can’t live up to the promise.

In the Burtonian spirit, let’s just say it took a long time to bake it, yes, but the director has recovered the recipe — at least enough to make us smile, chortle, even guffaw, for 104 minutes. And we can be happy with that.

It’s a triumph of small-budget, naturalistic filmmaking, where cars on a gravel road kick up choking clouds of dust and arm bones crack when pressure is applied.

This is a 135-minute film that demands a lot more depth. And, so, to co-opt a political phrase from Bill Clinton, whom Quaid also has played: It’s the script, stupid.

Kravitz almost pulls it off. With the help of a terrific cast, she offers strikingly confident, brashly entertaining filmmaking, until everything seems to break down in a mess of porous storytelling.

In his attempt to give new life to the cult hero of comics and film, [Sanders has] given us plenty of beauty at the expense of depth or coherence.

There is a wonderful feeling in “Between the Temples” that anything can happen at any moment.

There’s just not enough there — action, comedy, romance, art — to demand (or, rather, earn) your full attention.

Mostly, Jackpot! is an action-comedy vehicle that pairs Awkwafina and John Cena for a romp through a few clever economic inequality gags and a lot of cartoonish mayhem.

Time is the fundamental metric of prison life, which makes a documentary like “Daughters,” filmed over years, uniquely, maybe even monstrously capable of capturing its passing.

This is a very big, very (very!) loud, very jumpy horror flick, and the screams will come, and they’ll be audible. Which is precisely what “Alien” fans are surely waiting for.

All of the acting is terrific and so naturalistic that it’s easy to forget that these are actors performing lines that they’ve memorized in front of a camera.

But It Ends With Us doesn’t end quickly enough — more than two hours drag — with tangents and poor editing, like sudden scene cuts that leave viewers looking for clues to where they are.

As with many horrors, the big reveals were, for this critic, a little underwhelming — a strained attempt at a unifying theory for this weird place that doesn’t add much ultimately.

This is a popcorn movie, with a surprising turn from an underrated star. And ultimately, it’s a pretty fun time at the theater.

Though Liman knows how to mix action and comedy as well as anyone, “The Instigators” is better whenever there’s less going on.