The performances feel wonderfully lived-in, particularly Jackson’s weary, noble Doaker and Deadwyler’s brave, watchful Berniece, a widowed mother determined to make a good life for her daughter and leave the past in the past.

Not a perfect movie, but a truly moving one.

Heretic needed some trimming, but Grant’s performance is just the right size.

There’s nothing remotely fresh about Juror #2, but that’s what makes it fresh — it’s simply a story about neither heroes nor saints, but a group of people trying hard to do the right thing.

Ultimately “Pérez” seems strangely underwhelming, like a lavish party that falls just a little flat.

It’s a scalpel of a film that cuts into how stacked the deck is and how solidarity — or the lack of it — can determine whether you survive unscathed.

Its settings and cinematography are beautiful, filled with marble hallways and vivid red carpets that seem to be punctuating the scenery with a slash. . . And its performances are a pleasure, everywhere you look.

“The Last Dance” brings nothing new to the series. In fact, it brings less than the previous two movies

Finn brings bigger, and even more effective, jump scares than the last time, which will keep the popcorn flying. The sound design booms and rattles, the delusions are even more elaborate, and the body horror is even bloodier and more disturbing.

Ultimately, it’s a wild experiment that mostly falls flat.

A Different Man spins out of control in its final act, but still leaves you pondering its questions.

Megalopolis is a misfire from the start.

Complex and lively, The Wild Robot is thoroughly delightful on every level. It’s a rare treat, not just for kids but for adults as well.

Canadian filmmaker Megan Park’s comedy is a touching charmer about growing up, and about that gradual, heartbreaking realization that everything has a last time. If all this sounds a little gooey, let’s remember that this movie features Aubrey Plaza, a wonderfully sardonic performer apparently incapable of goo.

Wolfs is a great idea for a crime comedy, but it isn’t a particularly great movie.

In the midst of all the mayhem it’s sometimes hard to stay awake.

That’s why we watch films like this, for that sensation of safely squirming from our comfortable seats — and for performances like McAvoy’s. With a smile like a demon elf — his teeth practically seem to be vibrating — and eyes that seem to pierce the house’s malevolent darkness, he’s wickedness personified. It’s a huge, pitched-to-the-balconies performance, and shivery fun to watch.

Should you be looking for narrative cohesion, look elsewhere. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is bananas, in its high-end way — bananas wrapped in gorgeous Colleen Atwood costumes, and performed by actors who are clearly having a ball.

Azazel Jacobs’ His Three Daughters is one of those films that’s so intimate you feel like you’re in the room with the characters, breathing the same air.

The film goes on longer than it needs to, and as with so many in its genre, its director loses control by the third act. But “Blink Twice” is a promising debut that’s haunting for its performances (Ackie gives a vivid, vulnerable star turn; Tatum finds, behind his good-guy smile, an eeriness he’s never shown on-screen; Geena Davis pops up to steal a few scenes, as is her right) and for its feminist sensibility.

Awkwafina and Cena, who gamely tolerate everything this movie throws at them, deserve better. Would somebody please make them a smart rom-com, soon?

The movie’s unrelenting sensory onslaught is exhausting. It’s torture to sit through.

A film is a different experience from a book, and the movie “It Ends With Us” doesn’t really bring us inside Lily’s head; it simply leaves us puzzled and horrified.

Winner of the best film award at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, Greg Kwedar’s “Sing Sing” is a gentle reminder of the power of art to transform lives.

Deadpool & Wolverine is the ultimate love letter to Marvel fans: The cameos and references are aplenty and brilliant (the audience at the press screening gasped more than once), the source material is treated with respect and, best of all, it’s pure, unadulterated fun. It finally looks like Marvel is back in fighting shape. (P.S. Yes, the equally sweet and crude credits are worth sticking around for.)

As a summer disaster movie, Twisters works well enough, though other than Powell it lacks the enjoyable goofiness of its predecessor.

Someday, someone will pair up Johansson and Tatum in a better movie. In the meantime, watch this one with low expectations, and dream.

This is a film where the trappings of the procedural plot matter infinitely less than the moments that come when you glimpse the visually beautiful yet bleak pit into which Harker is going to fall.