Every dog in this sweetly earnest movie seems to have a strong sense of responsibility.

One of the great pleasures of moviegoing is seeing an actor perfectly cast, in a role that takes all of the performer’s trademarks and quirks and transforms them into something we haven’t seen before. Such a performance is at the center of Paul Feig’s sly thriller/comedy A Simple Favor, and the actor is Anna Kendrick.

Similar to the scenario of the original picture, it’s a band of grizzled soldier types who battle the alien menaces. Missing, however, is a formidable leading-man presence in the Schwarzenegger mold.

Much like David Lynch’s “The Straight Story,” a broken-down Abraham is forced to accept the kindness of strangers along his journey. In return, this proud Jewish tailor bestows the life wisdom that came at a terrible price.

Close owns this movie, from beginning to end; it’s a performance of such intelligence and subtlety that only when the movie is long over do you start wondering about whether the plot holds up.

Director Corin Hardy lards on the frights so relentlessly that the moments don’t build to any sort of sustained narrative momentum.

A charming, moving and over-too-soon portrait of a country, and of what it means to have a longer than expected life.

As rom-coms go, it’s pretty much everything you want, even if it’s not quite distinctive enough to linger.

The Little Stranger is a haunted-house movie, but not one with cheap scares. In fact there are few scares at all — it’s mostly just an atmosphere of lingering, musty dread — and horror-movie fans should be warned that it’s all quite subtle. But it’s haunting, in its quiet way.

It is the scenes in a Buenos Aires safe house between Eichmann (Ben Kingsley) and Mossad agent Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac), the leader of the abduction team, where “Operation Finale” departs from usual espionage-movie scenarios.

“Scotty” the documentary, entertaining as it is, leaves its hero’s surface mostly unscratched; his life seems a story still not fully written.

A joyless experience.

Mile 22 is one nasty piece of work. It’s an action picture that’s hard-core to the core, populated entirely by killers with nary a truly sympathetic figure among them. But it does deliver.

Hughes’ handling of the material is unfailingly serious but the picture’s tendency to stray into the ridiculous robs it of the majesty the director so clearly hoped to achieve.

Is it as good as the book? No. Did it make me happy? Oh yes, and how nice to be reminded what a gift a joyful rom-com can be.

It’s all good, goofy fun; make it an air-conditioned double feature with “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” and you might just have the very definition of “summer movies.”

Chloë Grace Moretz’s revelatory performance is undoubtedly the highlight of The Miseducation of Cameron Post. Though Cameron is more comfortable nurturing a silence than speaking her mind, Moretz’ wry smile and weary eyes convey volumes of emotional turmoil.

BlacKkKlansman manages that tricky balance of being both entertaining (some of the performances are quite comedic, particularly Paul Walker Hauser as a mouth-breathing Klansman) and devastating.

Dog Days is in some ways a very strange movie, in the way it straddles the worlds of weirdo comedy and family-friendly fare. But ultimately, it’s the pooches who steal the show.

As sweet as honey but without the stickiness, Christopher Robin is a gentle delight — for children, and for former children.

Thanks to McKinnon, “Spy” is a fun summer picture that is truly, weirdly special.

It’s an absorbing character study of a most intriguing man.

Both inviting and confrontational, Blindspotting shakes viewers in their seats and announces Diggs as a star-in-the-making leading man.

Mission: Impossible — Fallout is definitely everything we expected, and more. You might need to go lie down afterward, in a good way.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again doesn’t pretend to be anything more than what it is: sweet, silly, sun-splashed absurdity, with a thumping disco beat. The world is a mess these days; some of us might just need this movie.

There’s the old cliché that says, “so-and-so is such a great actor he could read the phone book (whatever that is; as I said, it’s an old cliché) and make it interesting.” That’s pretty much what Washington pulls off in EQ2.

The film is over quickly, before I’d seen quite enough of Westwood’s fanciful clothing, or heard quite enough of her voice.

Skyscraper, which lacks the lunkheaded charm of “Rampage,” isn’t the ideal vehicle — its special effects are murky (I saw it in 2D; it’s probably even muddier in 3D), and a bit of wit wouldn’t have been unwelcome. Nobody in this film has a personality; they’re just evil, stoic, mildly badass (particularly Neve Campbell, as Will’s resourceful wife) or The Rock.