This sequel may be focused more on emotion and character — since the whole comet thing happened long ago — but the problem is, none of this is compellingly rendered, and is forgotten when convenient.

It plays a little loose with facts but the righteous rage of “Dog Day Afternoon” is present enough in Gus Van Sant’s “Dead Man’s Wire,” a based-on-a-true-tale hostage thriller that’s as deeply 1970s as it is contemporary.

No matter how you feel about the history here, it’s a visceral performance that simply demands to be seen.

The very threat of zombies keeps things kind of interesting, perhaps because of all that’s come before, but this film seems to be suffering the same plight as its protagonist. Both are searching for closure, a bigger point, something that might give the whole thing meaning.

Polinger’s film isn’t a comfortable watch and it’s not meant to be. It gets under the skin.

There’s something comforting about the fact that Jarmusch is still doing his thing, exactly how he wants to, and that so many great actors are lining up to be part of it. He’s a singular voice in a landscape that’s always in danger of flattening.

The tone is so farcical that the gruesomeness of some of Man-su’s acts come slyly.

[A] nerve-busting adrenaline jolt of a movie starring a never-better Timothée Chalamet.

It might not be the best of the bunch, but the infectious childlike spirit (and intestinal fortitude) remains firmly intact.

Overall, it’s just not so good, so good.

A deeply felt film about one teetering marriage, and a work whose power sneaks up on you slowly.

Based on Freida McFadden’s novel, “The Housemaid” rides waves of manipulation and then turns the tables on what we think we’ve just seen, looking at male-female power structures and how privilege can trap people without it.

For those whose trips to Pandora have made less of an impact, “Fire and Ash” is a bit like returning to a half-remembered vacation spot, only one where the local ponytail style is a little strange and everyone seems to have the waist of a supermodel.

This is a piece about characters and Winslet gives her actors space to build people that by and large feel pretty real — the standouts are really Flynn, as the sensitive son still living at home and closest to his parents, and Spall, believably oblivious in that charmingly British way.

Hosoda grafted “Beauty and the Beast” into “Belle,” to sometimes awkward, sometimes illuminating effect. But in “Scarlet,” he struggles to bridge “Hamlet” to today. It’s a big swing, the kind filmmakers as talented as Hosoda should be taking, but it doesn’t pay off.

It’s hard to understand how “Ella McCay,” the first original feature from writer-director Brooks in 15 years, goes so utterly haywire.

It’s an incoherent mess, something that, back in the day, would be straight to DVD. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 has an after-school special vibe with no real horror and no real awareness that it should.

If the idea was to make something for the moms, “Oh. What. Fun.” is about as thoughtful as a hastily scribbled card on a piece of printer paper the morning of her birthday. We can all do better.

A satisfying conclusion awaits but, truth be told, it has been a bit of a slog, with soft digressions into social critiques and the meaning of faith grafted onto a setup that, by the third movie in the franchise, shows its seams instantly. Wake up, indeed.

Like the infectious and haunting needle drops, from Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” to local hits of the time, “The Secret Agent” is the best kind of personal film, imbued with so many things that Mendonça Filho loves, both resurrection and elegy.

For a movie that was in so many ways about a country mouse (bunny) coming to the big city and finding endless varieties of wildlife, both upright and shady, the “Zootopia” sequel spends too much of its time away from its mammalian metropolis. Even Nick Wilde — no longer scheming, more in touch with his feelings — doesn’t feel quite so wild now. The fun caper spirit of the first movie is alive enough to carry Bush and Howard’s film, but you can’t help feel like sequel-ization also means domestication.

Zhao, co-writing with O’Farrell, goes straight for the tear ducts, with crucial help from a superb cast led by Buckley — who, like her character, seems to have an extraordinary ability to dispense with artifice and access a wildness simmering beneath the surface.

Apparently even death is no respite from earthly puzzles like the love triangle. Sure it’s messy and confusing for those involved but it’s also one of the great storytelling setups for a screwball comedy. And this particular film, imaginative and shrewdly whimsical with an utterly charming cast, delivers on the promise. Lucky us.

Certainly the film has a fascinating premise, one that would have worked well enough were it totally fictional — but works better with the knowledge that it’s based on fact.

Bentley’s film is haunting and patient, a dreamlike journey through a world that was disappearing in real time and an ode to the beauty that’s remained.

Could the movie have hit harder at the self-involved stars we often worship? Of course. But what makes it powerful is not the Hollywood drama. This is a movie for any of us who have missed a child’s school recital, asked an assistant to work late or skipped a family dinner because a client was running behind. It’s about time. It’s about where we choose to spend our time.

All the momentum that “Wicked: For Good” does gather is owed significantly to its stars. To a large degree, these movies have been the Erivo-and-Grande show, a grand spectacle of female friendship that rises above all the petty biases and misjudgments to forge a vision of harmony in opposites. It’s a compelling vision, and Chu, as he did in the triumphant “Defying Gravity” culmination of part one, knows how to stick the landing.

Edgar Wright’s new big-screen adaptation is fittingly but awkwardly timed. Arriving in the year of King’s imagined dystopia, its near-future has little in it that isn’t already plausible today, making this “Running Man” — while fleet of foot in action — feel a step, or two, behind.