The acting and script are so strong that the picture is an outstanding achievement even in the 2D version that most people will see.

It’s a film about heroism and the right to love, told without stirring speeches. Instead, it unfolds movingly in the tiny moments between Richard and Mildred.

In the central role, Miles Teller is impressively bulked up, but there’s a flatness in his performance. It’s a dogged, rather than an inspired, portrayal. The best work is done by Aaron Eckhart, who plays Vinnie’s trainer, Kevin Rooney.

The Edge of Seventeen, in its R-rated way (booze and sex play supporting roles), is a sweetheart — just like Erwin.

There’s room for improvement in the “Fantastic Beasts” universe; perhaps we’ll see it in the next installment or two. Meanwhile — even if you, like me, are a bit Pottered out and wish Rowling would devote herself instead to her marvelous Cormoran Strike detective-novel series (magic comes in many forms) — it’s still a pleasure to revisit the author’s world.

The script’s weaknesses are difficult to ignore.

So much of the pleasure of Denis Villeneuve’s poignant science-fiction drama Arrival lies in watching Amy Adams figure things out.

A deeply resonant literary quality gives what might otherwise seem like a dubious series of coincidences a profound sense of plausibility.

Prisoners is a dark, deeply serious examination of how loss can unhinge us; it grabs onto you, and you may have trouble shaking it away.

So much of Sicario, Denis Villeneuve’s disturbing drama set in the world of law enforcement and Mexican drug cartels (the title is the Mexican term for a hit man), takes place on Emily Blunt’s face.

At 2½ hours, Aquarius is about a half-hour too long for the story it tells, yet it feels like a privilege to be in the presence of such a powerful character and such a quietly commanding performance.

Franco makes the most of his showy scenes, and Garrett Clayton (known for “Teen Beach Movie” and other shows from the Disney Channel) is a convincing hunk. But only Christian Slater’s lonely voyeur suggests what “King Cobra” might have been.

The Charnel House is watchable, even if you can tell very soon what’s really going on behind mysterious doings.

It’s Hall’s performance that jolts Christine, carrying the movie on her slumped shoulders.

Jarmusch allows Pop and the music of the Stooges to be the focus of the film. For most fans, that will be enough: Pop proves to be as likable and riveting on screen as he is on stage.

Barry Jenkins’ beautiful Moonlight seems to have more in common with poetry than with a typical narrative film. It’s less a story than a collection of moments, which leaves its viewer feeling moved and changed, as if you’ve spent time in someone else’s dreams and woke up understanding who they are.

With Andrew Garfield in the lead role and Mel Gibson in the director’s chair for the first time in 10 years, “Hacksaw” is an incredibly powerful picture once it gets to the battle scenes.

So compelling is writer-director Joel Potrykus’ unnerving scenario — with its largely ambiguous tone of horror dramatically offset at times by explicit frights — that a viewer isn’t necessarily bothered by a lack of basic story information about who, what, when, where and why.

Coerced jollity is the order of the day in the kingdom of trolldom in this animated kids movie from DreamWorks. And I do mean order.

Director/co-screenwriter Scott Derrickson generally keeps the massive enterprise moving smoothly along. The trip’s the trip here, and it’s well worth taking.

It’s an unfinished story, which leaves Dancer slightly unsatisfying, as if we’re abandoning a book mid-chapter. But what a pleasure to wallow in the talent of a ballet rock star — and to watch a troubled young man find peace in a split-second of perfection.

The interweaving of animation and nonanimated footage gives the picture a kind of surreal quality that befits the sense of the survivors of how unreal the event seemed to them.

You have, I promise, never seen a movie quite like Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden. It’s a period drama gone mad; a lavishly colorful, beautifully-filmed-erotic-revenge-crime thriller set in 1930s Korea.

There’s magic amid the chaos of Oasis: Supersonic, the exceptional new documentary that charts the rapid ascent of British band Oasis.

12 Years a Slave isn’t easy to watch, and it shouldn’t be; it’s one man’s tragedy, but it’s also the tragedy of countless thousands of souls beaten down, literally and metaphorically.

The chase, chase, chase pace is tiring, not least because it’s not clear who many of these people are and what agendas they’re following. Mixed-up confusion is the result.

The ingenious cinematographer, Bobby Shore, uses the Newfoundland locations to achieve some of his most striking effects. The result is sort of a horror film, but not really. It’s too funny to be categorized that way.

The spell Miss Hokusai casts is a powerful one that lingers long after the lights go up in the theater.