Badlands is a decidedly B-movie that thoroughly utilizes and enjoys the freedoms allowed when any prestige ambition is eschewed. The film simply wants to be the best version of a zillionth Predator installment that it can be. If it has to complicate — and, yes, soften — the branding to do that, so be it.

It’s certainly entertaining enough while you’re watching it, thanks to the expert performances of its four lead actors, but it’s unlikely to make as much of an impact in the cultural zeitgeist.

While the film doesn’t chart any particularly new territory, it benefits greatly from Franklin’s subtle screenplay and performances infusing it with emotional power that sneaks up on you.

Whatever its shortcomings, The Old Guard 2 is a better-than-average original streaming feature — well acted by a highly capable cast, peppered with enough action to satisfy most appetites, and underscored with a melancholy vein of introspection about the conflicted roles of superheroes.

Ramsay’s film is hard to love, but that beautiful visual casts such an intense glow it pulls the whole unwieldy thing together.

As unwieldy as this melodrama is, much of it proves that Roustaee remains a gifted young director who surely has more stories to tell.

Here I Come still comes out ahead, in the end, delivering enough of the good stuff to keep a fan yelping and laughing and cheering throughout.

It’s a minor work for the director and its emotional heft feels softer than usual, but even his lesser films can be compelling, and Beer is never less than transfixing.

Caught between sophisticated comedy and silly fluff, between Hitchcockian mystery and zany amateur sleuth caper, A Private Life (Vie Privée) is a lot more fun than it probably deserves to be thanks to the disarming chemistry of its seasoned leads, Jodie Foster and Daniel Auteuil.

The film approaches its action tropes with an effective sense of absurdity, but it’s the stars’ kinetic commitment to the bit that makes this relentlessly silly film work.

The handful of overly contrived moments disappoint, but don’t amount to an insurmountable betrayal, because Echo Valley delivers where it matters.

Although I think there are gaps that DiMarco and Guggenheim could have filled in, the documentary is elevated by its exceptional quartet of central heroes and by its effort to tailor the storytelling and aesthetic approach to the unique aspects of this movement.

What does it mean to lose faith in one’s role models and form an identity outside their ideological purview? It’s a conventional narrative drama, but Amrum approaches this question with commendable tenderness.

Throughout, Hayakawa maintains a steady control of this delicate story. There are moments toward the end when Renoir takes sentimental turns that feel a touch too obvious for its subtle framing.

There’s a satisfying balance between biography and pop-culture history.

Thanks to the engaging ensemble and the breezily improvised feel to many of its funnier line readings, Good Fortune coasts along agreeably on all those good intentions.

A mystery about retirees who solve cold cases for fun, it is as gentle as a game of Clue and as cozy as an Agatha Christie novel, but its glittering cast and a touch of self-awareness make up for that lack of originality. This modestly entertaining film is uncool and filled with stock tropes, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything more.

Diciannove is unflinchingly honest about what it’s like to be 19, and, for the most part, totally lost. And Tortorici’s insistence on capturing that feeling while avoiding the usual narrative tropes is what makes his film both fascinating and somewhat impenetrable.

The superbly acted drama yields rewards, making astute observations about mental health, inherited trauma, self-determination and absent or unfixable fathers.

Should you see Thug Life? Yes, because so many masters are at work here. But go in knowing that though the film has sparks which blaze momentarily, they never ignite into a glorious fire.

Even when the explanations don’t pass muster, the pictures strike a chord.

The film confidently highlights the delicate relationship between people and their spaces, while also acknowledging the understated harshness of a job that requires you to assess, with a certain degree of remove, one of the more intimate elements of another person’s life.

Seyfried builds a powerful force around Ann’s convictions, but there’s too little intimate knowledge of this historically significant woman to convey much beyond her zeal.

As for those over-the-top, extremely gory action sequences, they’re tremendously visceral, the eye-popping animation, propulsive musical score and deafening sound effects (there’s a reason Sony wants you to see the film, released in both Japanese and English-dubbed versions, in IMAX and other premium formats) delivering an enveloping, nearly psychedelic experience.

The film is better-looking than it is written, although there are funny take-offs on such things as hip-hop videos and cheesy sports promotional films.

With its sly, unsettling mix of politics and psychology, Anniversary is both over-the-edge and utterly recognizable.

What’s most striking about Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, whose title is how Hassona describes venturing outdoors when she can be killed at any moment, is the way it forces the viewer to experience the blunt repetition of death and devastation faced by its central figure.

Few documentary subgenres have been more burgeoning in the past couple of years than the sports doc, with Yogi Berra and Willie Mays getting very solid standalone films. If you’re a devotee, you can add Clemente to the ranks of the good ones.