Sometimes, miscasting can be very interesting, in the hands of an actor who knows what she’s doing — and Kidman is definitely that. Here, she creates a nuanced and believable version of Ball (and of “Lucy,” the character Ball played on her sitcom “I Love Lucy,” though we don’t see much of her), meticulously introducing us to a serious, thoughtful woman obsessed with the details of comedy, who understood what it meant to have power at a time when few women did.

And the 89-year-old Moreno, creating an effortless bridge between this movie and the previous one, gives us a gift late in the film that had me reduced to tears; it’s a deeply touching choice that I won’t spoil.

House of Gucci is no masterpiece, but it’s often crazy good fun.

You wait and you wait, through many overamped special-effects action sequences, for the cavalry to save the day, but by the time it finally appears, the picture has been long dead.

It’s a unique ride of a movie, beautiful and disturbing and haunting — in other words, it’s a Jane Campion film.

King Richard, though perhaps a tad overlong, is as irresistible as the young legends at its center; you watch with pleasure, thinking of the many future champions it might inspire.

Shot in soft black-and-white, with color occasionally peering in at the movie houses where Buddy spends rapt hours, Belfast is brief, tidy and lovely; a heartfelt story of family and home, and how where the former is, the latter resides.

Clifford the Big Red Dog has a decidedly innocent throwback appeal.

You watch wishing this story, in the real world, could have had a different ending; and marveling at how Stewart finds new, close-to-the-bone layers in a character we thought we already knew.

Director Scott Cooper really lays it on thick. He brings no modulation to the horror elements in his frightfest. Everything is gloom, gloom, gloom. And doom.

It’s a long sit, but a day later I find myself still thinking about Chan’s quiet, mesmerizing presence at the film’s center, and how Zhao had the confidence to let that performance speak so softly. It’s a different kind of superhero movie; not to everyone’s taste, but made for us all.

The plot doesn’t matter in the slightest; young and old fans of the first movie will be lining up for the wit, for the inventiveness of the characters, for the breathtaking visuals — and just the sheer fun of it all.

Though Wright can’t quite sustain the tension through the final half-hour, Last Night in Soho is full of dark pleasures.

Ultimately, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is made enjoyable by its human and feline actors, despite the sadness of the material, and it left me wanting to know more about its subject, which I suppose is the point.

The French Dispatch is an elegant ode to good writing, and to those who quietly stand behind the words.

In trying to do too much, Halloween Kills ends up doing nothing at all, other than tarnishing this franchise’s good name.

It’s remarkable.

Director Ridley Scott, who knows a thing or two about how to mount sweeping historical epics (see “Gladiator”), is in his element here.

The Addams Family 2 feels as if it’s lost the spark of the first one. The jokes that felt fresh in the first film are stale here, with the story’s twists glaringly predictable.

No Time to Die has moments of pleasure, lots of them, but ultimately it feels heavy in a way a Bond movie shouldn’t; its pacing is off and it can’t quite sell the earnestness and even sentimentality of much of its storyline.

The effort put into making this film work is palpable, but the result is something deeply surreal and strange. Perhaps this story simply can’t work as a film, or perhaps it wasn’t a very good musical to begin with. It’s a question that may be debated for years to come.

As Chon calibrates a wide variety of emotions, allowing space for all the agonies, ecstasies, repressions and excesses, he crafts a tale of intergenerational traumas and personal redemptions that is an emotionally complicated yet ultimately cathartic viewing experience.

It’s frustrating, because a couponing crime lord (crime lady?) being pursued by an obsessed grocery store employee is a story that has so much potential, but the lazy storytelling and on-the-nose direction suck all of the laughs that could come out of the situation.

In fact it’s really writer-director Schrader who is Isaac’s true co-star in “The Card Counter.” A product of a strict Calvinist upbringing in Michigan, the filmmaker’s trademarks — guilt, redemption, a soul in torment — are all here.

In the film, we’re able to see Ailey during the Kennedy Center honors, watching intently as “Revelations” is performed; he looks like he’s carefully checking it, making sure it’s perfect, wondering if it could be better — the artist watching the art. You leave Ailey hoping that, somewhere, he’s watching still.

The plot may be nothing special, but Reynolds most certainly is. He’s just so relatable, genial, nice, in an unforced sort of way that he makes the movie, which he also produced, a fun ride.

Gunn masterfully mixes humor and bloodshed and manages to give a surprising number of characters room to develop their personas. And when it comes to staging set pieces, he’s at his best.

For most of its length, Stillwater goes along as a meticulous examination of its central characters. And then suddenly near the end it jumps the tracks.