While a handful of the characters and the actors playing them have appeared in previous entries, there’s a disarming freshness to this first-time assembly, not to mention something even more unexpected: heart. That’s due to an appealing ensemble cast but also to the new blood of a creative team with a distinctive take on the genre.

With Hardy in fine form at the wheel, Havoc knows what its audience wants. It also looks great.

In massage parlor reception areas and backrooms, working-class restaurants and karaoke bars, Tsang and her strong cast, with superb contributions from production designer Evaline Wu Huang, have captured something evanescent and life-giving, and grounded it in kitchen clatter and workplace chatter, the gritty day-to-day.

Their low-key chemistry and obvious affection for each other despite their past issues are still very much on display, delivering a nostalgic kick that you don’t even have to be high to enjoy.

It’s a juicy piece of entertainment that also engages sincerely with its painful, topical subject matter.

I’m happy for DiFranco’s accomplishment while acknowledging that the visual document depicting it isn’t exactly one itself.

The pangolin is such a unique beast — this one hilariously feisty and driven — and Thomas’ dedication to its care so touching that the captivating movie never loosens its hold.

The Encampments is not just critical in capturing the real-time makings of a movement, but in laying bare the consequences of this response.

As much arthouse as grindhouse, it’s a blood-drenched mix tape that shouldn’t work. But it does, thanks to Coogler’s muscular direction, a terrific cast, enveloping IMAX visuals, body-quaking sound and music that stirs the soul while setting the pulse racing.

Once the principal heroes and villains have been established and the perfunctory narrative throat-clearing is out of the way, G20 finds its groove as a solid popcorn action flick.

The thing about James Hawes’ film of the 1981 Robert Littell novel is that while it prompts raised eyebrows with the contrivances of its plotting and the seeming ease with which the underestimated protagonist outwits everyone, it at least looks and feels like a real movie.

What makes A Minecraft Movie so dispiriting is how it fails to spark the imagination, betraying a core tenet of the game on which it’s based.

Filled with beauty and fury, the film offers an immersive portrait of an endangered community.

As courageous as the platoon members are, Warfare is not to be confused with a movie about heroism; it’s a movie about hell that leaves you shaken.

Some genre fans will be disappointed by the film’s slow-burn style and the cryptic nature of Sam Stefanak’s screenplay, including its twist ending that’s open to interpretation. But for anyone more interested in cerebral horror and less in watching arteries gushing and entrails popping out, The Woman in the Yard offers considerable rewards.

Statham’s simmering charisma is on ample display here, and if he never quite convinces as an average Joe, he’s more than convincing as someone a bad guy should never want to see coming.

As a mood piece, the Samir Oliveros-directed The Luckiest Man in America is plenty evocative, full of retro flair tinged with dread or dreaminess. But as a character study or a narrative, it’s too rooted in its particular place to extend its impact beyond it.

There’s no escaping the fact that Eric Larue is a downer, but it’s a work of thoughtful intelligence and restraint, elegantly shot and graced by a striking score from Jonathan Mastro full of dissonant strings that often evoke a sense of nerves about to shatter. Most of all, it’s beautifully acted.

It all plays as artificially as it sounds, but as tautly directed by David Yarovesky (Brightburn), Locked manages to maintain its silly but arresting premise throughout its fortunately brief running time.

For all its fun, F*cktoys isn’t exclusively interested in filth and farce; AP’s search for spiritual salvation is also dotted with more earnest moments about desire and companionship.

Sparkling entertainment, even with the little-person issues.

He’s more than capable of handling the daunting assignment — he’s De Niro, after all — but the net effect is ultimately so gimmicky that it saps the movie of its intended seriousness. It’s a fatal miscalculation that consigns The Alto Knights, Levinson’s first theatrical film since 2015’s Rock the Kasbah, to being a footnote in the distinguished careers of both its director and star.

The problems with The Rivals of Amziah King emerge in the stitching, when Patterson (working with editor Patrick J. Smith) must turn a series of fine vignettes and memorable musical interludes into a coherent narrative.

There’s a distinctive eye here, and a promising sense of ambition. But in its current form, there’s not enough meat on its (admittedly cool-looking) bones to justify its 106-minute run time.

Anvari’s movie strikes a keen balance between psychological thriller and eerie folkloric horror. Its disturbing ambiguities take on whole new shadings after an unexpected reveal in the end credits.

Good Boy works well enough on its own terms, managing to sustain sufficient tension throughout the course of its smartly concise 73-minute running time.

My problem with The Age of Disclosure isn’t the lack of opposing voices. It’s that there couldn’t be experts debunking anything here. Nothing is proven, and thus nothing can be refuted.

Like many advocacy documentaries, October 8 does some cherry-picking of facts and draws some questionable conclusions. But there’s no denying the importance of its message and the need for corrective action by political, academic, religious and civil leaders.