With The Conjuring: Last Rites, this venerable franchise finally (one hopes) gives up the ghost, not with a bang, but a whimper.

There’s an argument to be made, and I’m willing to make it, that Kung Fu Panda 4 is the best film in this series.

The fourth film of a franchise that probably should have packed it in at least two movies ago, this by-the-numbers sequel offers absolutely nothing unexpected, starting with its opening beaches-and-bikinis montage to the climactic standoff with the villain.

Clearly Aïnouz wanted to leave his mark on this alien genre, but Tudor-watchers may part ways with several characterizations, especially that of Katherine herself, updated as a political reformist and arch-feminist by a serious-looking Alicia Vikander.

While this sassy cyborg with the deadpan baby voice remains a brilliant comic creation, the movie’s messaging is muddled. For all of the laughs and thrills, we’re left with a satire about technology that still wants to play nice with AI.

It’s the absence of Lawrence — or at least of any young performer matching her charisma — that’s a key part of the problem here.

The film’s intentions are unquestionably noble, but the execution falls wildly short, even with so many talented artists involved.

For Favreau, philosophy and world-building is obviously the stuff of the TV show; now that it’s a movie, it’s time for fun and thrills.

This remake doesn’t desecrate the memory of that modern classic, but neither does it ever transcend it.

You, Me & Tuscany has all the heft of a squash blossom, and it’s similarly tasty without being filling. But sometimes, you just want one anyway.

The film doesn’t stop to give the six characters time for major exposition and backstory, which would only get in the way of the film’s B-movie sensibility, accentuating scalpel-edge thrills above all else.

Sorrentino somehow makes it work in a film that is truly a sensual pleasure to watch.

Usually, the architecture of a thriller involves introducing a complicated scenario and then slowly but surely ratcheting up the tension; with Trap, Shyamalan has chosen to set it and forget it, spelling out the circumstances of the titular snare and then rarely bothering to introduce new elements or to elevate the suspense.

Despicable Me 4 plays like an assemblage of note cards that have been stapled together in a rough approximation of a screenplay. There are about 20 different plot threads that aren’t woven together as much as they’re shoved into one ungainly knot.

Is Karate Kid: Legends corny and predictable? You bet your obi. But this too-familiar tale is told with such winning spirit and brio that it works all the same. It’s merely a building block in an IP renovation, but it’s remarkably sturdy.

Even if it starts better than it ends, Wolf Man merits a look, not only for the craft on display but also for the powerful performances from Abbott and Garner, not to mention Jaeger and Firth in smaller roles. A cast this strong deserves a script with more to tear into.

It’s an entertaining, if shambolic, 105 minutes, yet one can only imagine how much of a treat this film would have been if given permission to fully transcend business as usual.

The film’s best moments are an outlandish pleasure, far outshining the highlights of the similarly-plotted and mostly by-the-numbers sequel Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. But the latter at least maintains a consistent level of energy from start to finish. The initial dynamism on display in They Will Kill You contracts and collapses. Death be not dull.

Jurassic World: Rebirth doesn’t go anywhere particularly unexpected — besides being a big-budget, corporate-backed franchise film advocating that medical advancements should go public rather than be patented by drug companies — but the cliffhangers are choice.

As with so many of the ideas on display here, Snow White can’t have it both ways or even decide which way it wants.

An epic tale of love, revenge, youth, rage, and class, Beating Hearts (original French title L’Amour Ouf) is an extraordinarily lively work of cinema.

For all its potential, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken remains stuck in the shallow end.

And while it’s always commendable when a disaster movie establishes early on that any member of the cast can die at any moment, the film makes a fatal error in killing off the funniest of its teen characters, with only a bunch of earnest Breakfast Clubbers in their place.

Tear-jerkers are valuable to cinema; they can provide emotional catharsis as satisfying as any other kind of popcorn entertainment. It’s hard to get misty-eyed, however, over a film that never stops reassuring you that everyone’s going to get a happy ending. Let the audience feel bad for a while, so they can feel good after; failing that leaves everyone feeling nothing.

What’s surprising is that Waugh and his team shine in the quieter moments.

TRON: Ares throws in a few half-baked ideas about ethics in the tech world, but its main agenda is to be big, loud, fast, and eye-popping, and on that level — and only that level — it’s a complete success.

Obvious jokes, facile insights, and emotional Band-Aids are all that’s on the menu.

Gran Turismo is a piece of salesmanship that never stops selling — the movie constantly reminds us how much the real races resemble the accurate simulation of the game, and even the Sony Walkman gets a fair amount of screen time — but the vroom-vroom of it all delivers enough adrenaline and character-building to make this a solidly entertaining piece of late-summer cinema.