Not all of Hustlers is beautiful, to be sure, but it’s always a kick.

It’s a good story, well told, though you have to forgive Hood for indulging in a little journalistic cliché.

The Goldfinch feels like a series of often-elegant moments, in service to a story that never quite comes into focus.

Rather than using the extended running time to dig deep into these characters, director Andy Muschietti, who also directed the original, piles on the frights in a manner that builds to an ending drenched in hysteria.

The film’s better than you’d expect from a late-summer offering, mostly due to a strong cast led by the great Oyelowo.

Angel Has Fallen plays out exactly as you would expect from a potboiler of this type. No surprises here, other than that it exists at all. It’s the kind of movie one expects to be released at the shank end of summer. Time to turn the page to fall.

Is After the Wedding a great movie? No, not especially. Are these two women treasures of cinema? Absolutely.

Other than a few blips, Blinded by the Light is a production that is as strong as any Springsteen anthem and as inspiring as any lyrics by the Boss.

Like Bernadette, the movie’s lost; you’ll need to read the book to truly find her.

Very, very late in ECCO’s two-plus hour running time, answers come. It’s a long wait for clarity. From the viewer, much patience is required.

If “golden retriever voiced by Kevin Costner” rings any alarm bells for you, steer clear.

All of this silliness is actually great fun, particularly the bantering chemistry between Johnson and Statham, who spend much of the movie squabbling and calling each other names.

The pacing of the picture is problematical. It’s curiously inert in the early going, with a lot of time spent in cars with the characters as they drive around and around on freeways, side streets and boulevards in Hollywood.

"The Farewell" is so unexpectedly and deliciously funny that watching it feels like a tonic — an immersion in love and art.

A taut, gripping documentary about one young woman’s dream ... Maiden is wonderfully suspenseful — especially if you, like me, have no idea how the race turned out.

The new version amplifies and deepens all that is good in the original. The key is in the visuals. Photorealistic computer-generated imagery renders its African landscapes and animals with astonishing realism.

Ultimately, despite Nanjiani’s best efforts, it’s a disposable fast-car summer movie, neither terrible or good, for those biding their time before the next “Fast & Furious” installment.

This film celebrates Halston’s work but shows more interest in the man — and the unexpected corporate drama — behind it.

Much of the film’s pleasure is in hearing Morrison speak.

Horror is a fragile thing. Suspension of disbelief is key to its effectiveness. A sudden inappropriate guffaw from someone in the audience can be enough to break the spell. In Midsommar, the spell breaks at the end and the picture collapses.

Yesterday offers no answers or explanations. It presents its idea and runs — and you either buy it or you don’t.

Sometimes, a movie can just make you feel better, and that’s no small gift.

The most interesting revelations come early as Wyman, in voice-over, describes his upbringing in a rough section of London.

Dauberman’s control over the camera and mastery of suspense is impressive, especially for a first-time director. But the film is strung too tightly, rarely breaking bad, denying the cathartic chaos one craves in this kind of film.

None of these stories feel monumental, and all of them resolve themselves neatly in a quarter-hour or so. But they have a kindness to them; a way of seeing people as they are, with their flaws and their goodness.

All Is True is handsomely mounted, filled with shadowed interiors underscoring the darkness of its story, the darkness artfully interrupted by candlelight and firelight. The movie’s impressive appearance notwithstanding, Shakespeare’s domestic problems do not a classic make.

Though his character bears Fails’ name and the picture is autobiographical, it’s not a documentary. Fails and co-screenwriter Rob Richert have embroidered on his experiences to create a story that melds realism with make-believe.

Like the toys of a child now-grown, or an antique lamp gathering dust on a shelf, “Toy Story 4” isn’t needed. But it is, for many of us, very much wanted: one last adventure, one last chance to say goodbye.

Although the film is a beautiful tribute to Pavarotti, the less-inspired approach Howard took to the film plus a slower editing beat (the running time is 114 minutes) compared to his examination of the Beatles makes the project seem like a small step backward.

The wedding of strong actors with a solid script is what makes Plus One worthy of saying “I do” to enjoying it.

Like Kaling’s Molly, Late Night is immensely likable; so much so that you wish it were perfect.

The Dead Don’t Die isn’t just deadpan — it’s dead.

What we have here is a standard-issue comedy-tinged crime thriller indifferently directed by Tim Story (the “Think Like a Man” and “Ride Along” movies). Its nothing-special plot, the product of writers Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow, features ill-defined villains and briefly touches on Islamophobia and military veteran PTSD and drug abuse — and never follows up on any of those issues.

You feel for the actors, who you know are better than this stuff, and you wonder if director F. Gary Gray (“Straight Outta Compton”) just threw up his hands. And you wonder if, somewhere, Smith and Jones are chuckling. At least somebody was.

Phoenix goes off the rails in the second half when Kinberg piles fight scene atop CG-enhanced fight scene, backed by Hans Zimmer’s oppressive pounding score, until the picture devolves into a chaotic mess.

The Souvenir reveals itself slowly, calmly, with great deliberation.

Egerton is commanding throughout. His performance is truly a marvel. Rocketman as well.

Curiously though, director Michael Dougherty and his filmmaking team obscure the battle footage in darkness, smoke and downpours, making murky much of the imagery.

Campy and goofy, vicious and bloody, if that sounds like a good time, you might have a lot of fun partying with Ma, even if you won’t remember much tomorrow.

It’s got a flying carpet. It’s got an enchanted lamp. It’s got a shape-shifting genie. But alas, Aladdin lacks real magic.

Olivia Wilde’s raunchy yet adorable high-school comedy Booksmart understands a basic truth: For so many former teenage girls, your first love is your high-school best friend.

It’s all quite wistfully romantic, and mostly winningly so, despite the sometimes wise-way-beyond-their-years dialogue and not always plausible plot.

It’s a haunting, heartbreaking story, told by a movie that never quite makes a case for itself to exist.

It’s all pretty silly, but the way “Parabellum” keeps topping itself and then topping the toppings makes the picture eminently watchable. It’s a guilty summertime-movie pleasure for sure.

Hathaway and Wilson, instead of exuding odd-couple comic chemistry, seem to barely be in the same movie; they don’t click, with each other or with a bland Alex Sharp as their tech-bro mark.

It’s a movie full of small pleasures.

There’s a lot of exposition involved in making all this palace intrigue clear. But Zhang balances the talky sections with breathtaking outdoor scenes. Zhang’s trademark, preternaturally balletic fight sequences also do not disappoint.

Overlong set-piece action scenes pitched in the key of chaos, full of running and screaming and a whole lot of falling down, ultimately turn “Pikachu” into a wearying slog.

It’s a raunchy comedy, with a plot that ends up hinging on a very R-rated video. And, most surprising of all, it’s also a conventional and rather sweet rom-com.

There’s exactly one good jump-scare, which probably would have caused me to drop my popcorn if I hadn’t finished it already; otherwise it’s fairly uninspired. But something about Quaid’s delivery had me giggling throughout — or, at least, until things got rather too dark in the final minutes.

You sense that this woman has spent a lifetime not saying things, and that all she wants is to quietly be allowed to fade away.

Thanks to the excellence of its two key performances, “Stockholm” an uncommonly effective thriller, one with a heart and a brain.

Oh yes indeed. Avengers: Endgame brought it...This film had an insanely difficult job to do — to gracefully and tidily wrap up a 22-movie Marvel Comics cycle with a cast list bigger than the Hulk, and to do so with both poignancy and hold-your-breath action — and it delivers.

Watching Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s multilayered “Birdman” is like unfolding a piece of intricate origami; it keeps opening in unexpected directions.

Fascinating.

It’s a quick, funny movie.

The true power of “Penguins” lies in the breathtaking visuals of Antarctic scenery and overhead shots of penguins, thousands upon thousands of them, moving across ice fields, black dots on bright white background stretching to the distant horizon. When it steps back from the schmaltz, “Penguins” becomes an impressive piece of work.

But Martin — who at age 10 came up with and pitched the idea for this movie (she’s now 14) — carries this movie on her small, resolute shoulders.

Painstakingly reassembled by producer Alan Elliott (Pollack, who never gave up hope on the project, died in 2008), Amazing Grace shows us an artist at the peak of her powers.

“Link” is fun as far as it goes, but from Laika we expect something with a little more depth.

The picture’s real weakness is that the reanimated dead display a great deal more vitality than the characters in their pre-killed state.

A rare charmer from the DC Comics universe.

The changes Bissell makes to the story are overly contrived, and the writing and editing are shaky. Most egregiously, Ann’s perspective is completely underwritten, without any personal history and the single humanizing factor of one daughter, who appears only briefly.

In the midst of that hostile physical and psychic landscape, de Clermont-Tonnerre has made a stringent tale of a struggle for redemption.

It’s a horrifying tale, and Maras, a Greek-Australian filmmaker, does not shy away from showing the carnage.

Burton’s command of this material and his masterful visual sense makes this Dumbo an engaging delight. Like that winsome elephant, it really does soar.

In only his second movie as a director, Peele is already a master of tone, and Us is full of memorable, vivid touches.

Moore lets us see, through her quietly shining performance, that Gloria believes in love, in the way an old song can make you feel a little younger, and in the power of dressing up and hitting a dance floor by yourself, moving as if in a trance, letting the music take you to a better place.

Along the way, Hummingbird offers cogent commentary on the way unbridled avarice drives the search for even the smallest advantage in the cutthroat world of high finance.

Even with that major miscue, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase works well for its target audience. It shows that anyone can stand up to peer pressure, bullying or even a ghost if they are smart and strong enough. As for the mystery of how good the movie is, the case is closed on a positive note.

It’s colorful. It’s predictable. And also quickly forgettable. Genuine wonderment is in short supply in Wonder Park.

The Wedding Guest is a thriller without thrills.

Because the film is such a technically dazzling marvel of staging, cinematography and sound, it is as physically and visually intoxicating as the punch, but Noe has loaded the transfixing, orgiastic display with land mines that will always keep you on your toes.

There’s gunplay aplenty here, but nothing about “The Kid” sets it apart from the many Billy the Kid movies that have preceded it.

When greed runs up against conscience, you’ve got a story. It does in Triple Frontier, and the story of that collision is a violent and thought-provoking one.

In other words: yes, it’s fun.

There’s a lovely sense, throughout the film, of how real life sometimes interrupts things, the way a child’s prattling disrupts the pretty wedding ceremony, or how even in the midst of grief breakfast must be made.

Greta is a disappointment from Jordan, who’s made far better movies (“The Crying Game,” “The End of the Affair” and, more recently, the elegant vampire film “Byzantium”), but Huppert seizes hold of the film and chills it, in a way that’s both shiver-inducing and bracing.

This is history brought to life, something absolutely unprecedented in the annals of humankind.

Take “Billy Elliot,” trade the refined world of ballet for the “soap opera in spandex” of professional wrestling, swap the preteen boy for a young woman, throw in The Rock — because every movie is better with The Rock, right? — and you’ve got Fighting With My Family, a shaggily likable underdog tale.

Frequent, fiery battle scenes are well mounted, and in between are tenderer moments.

With tonal inconsistencies and poorly written characters, any awe inspired by Alita: Battle Angel is replaced with a profound sense of confusion.

Isn’t It Romantic both spoofs rom-com conventions and embraces them; it’s a tricky balance, but it doesn’t fall off the wire.

If tense man-against-nature arm-wrestling is your jam (think Robert Redford in “All Is Lost,” but with snow and Mads Mikkelsen) this film makes for a compelling hour and a half; you know where it’s going, but you never quite believe it’ll actually get there.

Capernaum is a searing, unforgettable work.

It’s a bunch of plastic blocks that have an adventure, and it’s basically insane; not quite as pleasantly so as the first movie (the element of astonished surprise isn’t there), but hey, that’s a high bar. Everything is … oh, damn it, there I go again.

What we have here is mostly a straight-up, mildly raunchy rom-com, where everyone learns lessons and gets a happy ending. But Shankman gives it all an agreeable bounce, and Henson (better known for dramatic roles, in “Hidden Figures,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and TV’s “Empire”) zestfully dives into the comedy.

Rodriguez does just enough to keep things mildly interesting.

Its primary tone is wistful; a slow, reluctant goodbye, not just to an act but to an era. By its end, all you want is to see that dance, just one more time.

Let’s just say that things aren’t always what they seem, and that there is not enough popcorn in the world to make this particular twist go down.

Cold War seduces its viewer, in its brief running time. You might find, in the quiet of its poignant ending, that it has left its mark on your heart.

M. Night Shyamalan has crafted a very effective creepshow with Glass.

The picture’s ultimate destination is marked with an obviousness so bright it can be seen from space.

The Aspern Papers, brief as it is, needed more of a lightness of touch; if you weigh down melodrama too much, it dies.

While the structure occasionally feels a bit awkward, On the Basis of Sex has the kind of crowd-pleasing story that skims over any minor shortcomings; by its end, you’re ready to cheer.

If Beale Street Could Talk is a film about injustice, about patience and anger, beauty and despair — but, ultimately, it’s about love.

The film’s light, sardonic approach is a tricky match with its subject matter: 9/11; power-crazed, empty-souled politicians; dark ambitions. It’s entertaining, sure, but a lot of us might not feel like laughing.

It isn’t “Working Girl” — Second Act is more earnest and less funny — but it’s a pleasant enough diversion, helped along immensely by Lopez’s warm screen presence and by a first-rate Sassy Best Friend performance by Leah Remini.