It may not be as thematically cohesive on a first watch as some audiences will wish for, but the longer you mull it over the more the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit and the common threads start to emerge.

It’s windy and overstuffed, frequently baffling and way too talky, quoting Hamlet and The Tempest, Marcus Aurelius and Petrarch, ruminating on time, consciousness and power to a degree that becomes ponderous. But it’s also often amusing, playful, visually dazzling and illuminated by a touching hope for humanity.

This is one film that’s definitely worth catching on the big screen.

Anya Taylor-Joy is a fierce presence in the title role and Chris Hemsworth is clearly having fun as a gonzo Wasteland warlord, but the mythmaking lacks muscle, just as the action mostly lacks the visual poetry of its predecessor.

There’s much here to appreciate, not least of which is the admirable attempt to simultaneously provide belly laughs for children and emotional resonance for adults. IF may be guilty of trying too hard, but it’s a refreshing change from so many family movies that barely seem to be trying at all.

The Second Act is probably his strongest film yet, and certainly the first that could stir up any controversy. Not only is the script cleverly written, but the cinematography, including four epically long tracking shots, and the editing, which times all the jokes perfectly, are well-mastered.

Even when it chooses to put the rosiest gloss on things, though, the film is bracing and inspiring, giving some talented conductors much-deserved visibility.

This tightly focused character study is a tiny film, with an emotional effect in inverse proportion to its size.

Alas, the film is an inept, ill-made mess — or as my grandmother would call it, a mishegoss, so muddled and misbegotten it’s hard to perform an evidential postmortem, based strictly on one viewing, of where it all goes wrong.

Its topic is unquestionably a crucial issue for our age and its approach to that topic both has journalistic rigor and represents a thoroughly admirable depiction of journalistic rigor at a moment at which we put too little value on such things.

This is a handsomely produced, solidly acted thriller that’s certainly watchable, though the perplexing subtitle is not its only issue. Unlike its riveting predecessor, it’s absorbing but never quite gripping.

Josh Friedman’s smart screenplay takes its cue from its recent predecessors in reflecting the politics of its time. But the movie works equally well as pure popcorn entertainment, packing its two-and-a-half-hour running time with nail-biting thrills but also allowing sufficient breathing space to build depth in the characters and story.

For those willing to put aside reality for 90 minutes, as Unfrosted does with gusto, the Netflix movie whips up a frothy sendup of storytelling tropes and clichés.

Merced’s fine performance anchors the uneasy mood in a deeply empathetic character.

It’s surely not without emotionally satisfying moments and it does a persuasive job of emphasizing the importance of Reading Rainbow and of star LeVar Burton, but the documentary is slight in its artistic and thematic ambition.

If the film’s strength lies in its affection for its title heroine, its greatest flaw is a comparative lack of attention toward the characters surrounding her — yielding a film that, for all its likable beats, feels flimsier than it should.

Power exposes the myth of good policing for what it is: one of the most expensive and calculated PR campaigns in history. And by extension, the film dismantles the idea of America as the land of the free, emphasizing that freedom only belongs to those with enough power and social capital to avoid the oppressive boot of law enforcement.

The result is a finely observed study of modern manners and mores on a micro-budget that’s nevertheless rich in feeling, especially the cringeiness one might experience from watching other people bicker or hearing people have sex through thin walls.

There’s just a lot of media landscape stuff that Rather either can’t or doesn’t want to do justice — which returns me to my initial point that if you come from a perspective of youth this will be illuminating, but if you lived through it you’ll hardly get anything fresh at all.

Something You Said Last Night testifies to its director’s dexterity with constructing subtly meaningful moments, but without more insight into its protagonist, the film can feel unintentionally impenetrable at times.

The tyro directors manage to thread a tricky needle with their first feature, navigating the chasm and the overlap between agitated and quiet, between cartoon brightness and angst.

Snyder provides an ample display of the visual flair and skill for action that have endeared him to legions of fans who exhibit so much dedication that they’re willing to sit through numerous versions of his films.

Breathlessly paced and filled with the sort of black humor that makes it as much a comedy as a horror film, Abigail is wildly entertaining for most of its running time, although it becomes overly burdened with baroque narrative flourishes.

Ultimately, what keeps Nowhere Special from being nothing special is the film’s delicacy, its unfussy simplicity, its perceptiveness. The empathy it brings to one man’s crushing decision makes this an affecting portrait of parental devotion.

Combining comedy, action, drama and an impressive number of different animation styles, The People’s Joker is a self-conscious, intentional cult film, crafted with genuine love for everything in the margins.

Chronicling a covert World War II mission manned by a band of renegades, the movie is diverting but remains awkwardly stuck between a larkish caper and a more gripping combat action thriller.

Baloji has constructed four fascinating characters, played persuasively by these performers, but trying to figure out where their arcs overlap, even faintly, too often distracts from the beauty before us.

Smart, seductive and bristling with sexual tension, Challengers is arguably Luca Guadagnino’s most purely pleasurable film to date; it’s certainly his lightest and most playful.

At its strongest, In Flames teases out how the patriarchy — a large, unruly force — fractures the relationship between mother and daughter.

That the film proves as affecting as it does is largely due to Knoxville’s understated, terrific performance that makes his character fully sympathetic despite his many flaws.

If some of the jokes can be broad and childish (the film probably plays best for the 10-and-under set), the overall tone is so tender that you can’t help but be moved by Linda’s nonstop adventures.

Indeed, the film’s main strength is not its overly familiar if convoluted plotting but rather the strong performances all around.

Fine performances and powerful visuals only partially compensate for the inevitable air of familiarity that accompanies Marco Perego’s debut feature.

As loving a portrait as this film is, it’s not entirely hagiographic either and I don’t think Ray and Saliers would ever let it be anyway. Throughout the one-on-one interviews, you get the sense that these people are their own biggest critics.

After its darkly comic set-up, the mild proceedings seem generally undercooked, lacking the subversiveness that could have given the remake a reason for being. It coasts along mainly on the charms of Jones, who displays considerable comic chops as the beleaguered Tanya.

Back to Black is, like its heroine, flawed and fallible but frequently very affecting.

What’s fascinating about Martin Brown’s keenly observed and amusing debut is the twist it offers on the famous Big Apple adage that, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

Writer-director Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping for Beginners (Domakinstvo za pocetnici) is a fizzy, huggable portrait of a self-made, roughly blended queer family.

While the events in the first Omen seemed to be taking place in a real world that just happened to include demonic figures, this film seems more like a fever dream, its outlandish storyline taking a back seat to a nightmarish vision that’s more about mood than narrative coherence.

By the time the mainstream world came to embrace MoviePass, we all already knew it was doomed, and I wish the documentary had illustrated what the alternative might have been.

The result is a film that takes the idea of beauty seriously and works, with deceptive ease, to show us the tiny pleasures that make up life in Cabrini-Green.

Ultimately, the characters’ motivations, like their titular instinct, are weakly delineated, but viewers are well-advised not to worry their pretty little heads about any of that and just concentrate on the pantsuits.

Amusing, uplifting and about as sugary and teeth-sabotaging as caramelized popcorn, The Beautiful Game celebrates the healing power of team sports for those who might feel more pushed to society’s margins by misfortune or choice.

Crowe himself, as usual, is the best thing in the film, once again upgrading less than optimal material with his indelible screen presence.

Director Adam Wingard (reuniting with Stevens after the terrific 2014 thriller The Guest) orchestrates the monster madness with impressive visual flair even if he relies on an excessive number of ‘80s-era pop song needle drops to make things seem more exciting than they actually are.

While filming Transition, Bryon was on assignment, working on a feature film in the final stages of post-production. Even when the documentary doesn’t fulfill its ambitions or potential, it does preview the exciting work coming from its director.

Tragically, The Truth vs. Alex Jones doesn’t deliver any closure. What it does provide is a disturbing reminder that the fight against evil will likely be never-ending.

Terrestrial Verses is a marvel of potent understatement.

The Contestant is a missed opportunity. It’s a documentary about voyeurism that, in the absence of freshly delivered insight, just reintroduces and rehashes the voyeuristic impulse it’s largely condemning.

I Don’t Understand You is a lot fresher and more enjoyable than its generic title might suggest. That’s largely because Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells make such an effortlessly funny and convincing couple that they smooth over the rough transitional patches.

Nonetheless, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire tries hard, very hard, to satisfy the series’ fans with plenty of nostalgic throwbacks and mainly succeeds.

It’s an intriguing premise. ... But The Greatest Hits is the kind of film that should sweep you away with its charm and emotion. Instead, it’s too transparently button-pushing to go beyond the stale tropes of the weepy drama.

The Idea of You functions best as a carefree treat — a feel-good romantic comedy that delivers some laughs and bursts with the magnetism of its lead. That it manages to wiggle in some lessons about self-discovery is merely a bonus.

Sora has made a work of magnificent minimalism. Its vision of immortality might be most stirring in the moments when Sakamoto’s elegant hands hover above the keyboard at the end of a piece. It’s as though he’s coaxing the final chords to resonate just a bit longer before they fade into something like silence but now, after his conjuring, much richer.

Part of the problem of Jacqueline (Argentine) is that it wants to be a film of many layers but Britto doesn’t have the know-how to keep each layer legible separately, with the final result feeling messy and impenetrable rather than admirably complex and, well, layered

Despite its high-concept premise and lengthy spells of laboratory work, Britto’s movie is fundamentally an intimately humanistic exploration of death and acceptance.

The vigilance of the character building doesn’t translate to the narrative. The story at the center of My Dead Friend Zoe — a young woman suffering from PTSD and tasked with caring for her aging grandfather — is oddly unyielding, never relaxing enough to fully engage or move us.

Despite a juicy hook built on heated emotions and drastic actions, Magpie proves too cold and ultimately too timid to spark much of a reaction.

The film gets across the weird weight of lockdown, a time of tension and anxiety but also an opportunity for creative growth none of us saw coming.

Desert Road will surely invite repeat viewings to discern its hints and untangle its logic. More than that, within its very specific subgenre, this unlikely intersection of Memento and It’s a Wonderful Life just might prove an enduring classic.

Together, Leguizamo and Ferreira share a chemistry as warm and lively as the campfire their characters share over one meteor-filled night.

It may be conventional but it’s never uninteresting, thanks to King and a strong ensemble in the key roles. And no one could argue with its value in bringing Chisholm’s achievements to the attention of younger generations perhaps unfamiliar with her legacy.

Silence is both the film’s main asset and its principal limitation, creating moments of suspense but also leaving us in the dark, to the point that it feels more like a gimmick than anything substantial.

Garland has always been a director of big ideas, and Civil War is no exception when it comes to that ambitiousness. But he’s also reaching for an intimacy here that his screenplay doesn’t quite deliver on.

These are problems that exist only around the fringes of a film that is, at its center, a sturdy and focused thing. Like so many of my favorite documentaries in general and sports documentaries specifically, Copa 71 exposes an obscured chapter in history and thrusts its heroes into a well-deserved spotlight.

Most of Arcadian’s potential lies in its performances (including compelling turns from Martell and Soverall) and the design of the monsters.

Unfortunately, the exhaustive repetition of the most familiar parts of her narrative — plus an over-reliance on poorly utilized footage from an ethically compromised earlier documentary project — left me more irritated than moved by Stormy, however persuasive I found its main character.

Immaculate works best when it abandons its attempts to be a kind of surrealist portrait of Catholic terror and leans into the campy horror of B movies.

Obviously, being a dog lover goes a long way toward one’s enjoyment of Arthur the King. But even if you’re not, you won’t be able to resist this canine thespian who manages to convey a world of information merely through barks. And he doesn’t even need those.

Leitch strikes a balance of showmanship and mechanics. He teaches audiences to appreciate the number of people it takes to pull off a car crash or a human torch stunt. The action sequences in The Fall Guy vary, but each one offers a level of gripping precision.

With Monkey Man, Patel offers an allegorical story that combines the technical and heroic sensibilities of his favorite action figures (Bruce Lee, John Wick) with the mythologies rooted in his ethnic identity.

Director Tom Gustafson (Were the World Mine) has crafted a sweet if plodding love story but it’s hard to truly hate on this whirling candy-colored poetic fairytale — it’s just too sincere, much like the musical source material.

Mooney eagerly mines the trove of Y2K cultural references to shape a narrative fine-tuned to a particular millennial sensibility, but struggles to meet the very low demands of its internal logic.

Although Babes nails its comedic swings, the film strains to build the narrative tension and stakes needed to land its more serious moments.

Liman flexes his stylish direction, especially during the bloody confrontations.

Imaginary, which starts out as a relatively low-key suspenser with intriguing psychological depth, eventually succumbs to the inanities plaguing so many recent horror efforts (like the killer pool in the same company’s Night Swim).

Fresnadillo’s film puts on fewer airs of disruption than other versions of this story, so the narrative comes off as less self-satisfied. Still, it struggles to sustain an inspirational tenor.

A sad demonstration that what was once considered outrageous, transgressive and anarchic now just seems crass, tired and witless.

Many of the gags are either derivative or homages, depending on your perspective, including the vicious killer bunnies that bring to mind Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But that doesn’t make them any less funny.

The film, which feels overlong at 145 minutes, suffers both from repetition and an over-reliance on melodramatic plot devices. But it nonetheless delivers a compelling portrait of a heroine whose story is too little-known.

It all feels quite silly, but Outlaw Posse manages to be fun anyway, thanks largely to the terrific ensemble of veteran character actors (including Neal McDonough and M. Emmet Walsh, making brief appearances) who fully embrace the film’s daffier qualities.

By giving the patients considerable time and space to bare themselves before the camera, Philibert grants us access to the the darker sides of the human psyche, portraying mental illness with an innate sense of compassion and understanding.

At a time when many question whether art should be separated from the artist — whether it’s the movies of Woody Allen or the songs of Michael Jackson — this revealing documentary shows how, when it comes to hip-hop, prosecutors across America have been conveniently refusing to distinguish one from the other.

The feeling arises more than once that De los Santos Arias is cluttering up a captivating story with obscure distractions, random shifts between color and B&W and constant shuffling of the film’s style. And yet, the slow accumulation of pathos exerts a grip.

Like his other recent films, this one isn’t easy to sit through, though it’s definitely original and, per custom, impeccably made. You can accuse Dumont of many things, including testing the viewer’s patience, but at least he hasn’t sold out yet and gone over to the dark side.

Given no one is a novelist or a poet or a filmmaker here, this represents a bit of an adventure for Hong beyond his usual milieu. That said, this is still profoundly slight stuff, thin and ineffable as mist.

The film stays close to its subjects and testifies to the resilience of the Masafer Yatta community. It takes courage and conviction to rebuild after every act of destruction.

Observed with granular detail and imbued with a pulsing sense of place, this novelistic drama takes time to connect its central triangle but does so with a suppleness and restraint that amplify the emotional rewards of its lovely open-ended conclusion.

Instead of taking us in, Black Tea gently pushes us away, even if the world depicted is certainly one worth exploring.

Diop folds the poetic into the political, without ever becoming didactic.

The film begins to sag the deeper we get into Sam’s story, which requires more digging than Peretti can give us. The jokes are rarely the same, but they hit similar notes; the problems with the characters feel repetitive; and the movie circles the same ideas until plot points need to be tidied.

With its intriguing performances, narrative restraint and unanswered questions, the movie delivers a strong pull of yearning as well as tantalizing currents of suspicion and dread.

After a compelling first hour, the director can’t seem to get to the dramatic and emotional crux of the epic story, which runs a bloated three hours. When he finally does get there it’s in the dreaded Big Speech, which even an actor of Rogowski’s generous gifts can’t make into anything but a teachable moment.

For a piece of speculative fiction about a subject as sensitive as the grieving process, Another End becomes distancing, a near-future sci-fi drama too muted to deliver significant rewards.

A lot of solid craftsmanship has gone into Spaceman, and there’s a disarming guilelessness to the solemn storytelling that has some appeal.

The knockabout humor just isn’t all that funny; its transgressive spirit too often feels forced.

Part Two is plagued by a nagging shallowness when it comes to portraying the Fremen, an indigenous people fighting for self-determination within the empire; the film has difficulty fully embracing the nuance of Herbert’s anti-imperial and ecologically dystopian text.

Swank makes it work with a canny performance that conveys her character’s inner turbulence, much of it derived from her troubled relationship with her estranged grown son.