Willfully empty but wildly entertaining, The Equalizer stands out from its peers like a wolf among lapdogs, as Fuqua and Washington bring out the best in each other for the benefit of the audience.

Giving life to a horror vision that would not have nearly the same power and potency without her at the forefront of it, Sweeney has never been better than she is here. What a darkly beautiful yet brutal, bloody and bold film this is for her to wield.

Ultimately, “Viral” feels like the sequel or second season in a series where a first (or at the very least, a recap) would have been helpful. As a topic of tremendous ongoing importance with roots that desperately need exploration, anti-Semitism deserves, and needs, a look into its global impact and perpetuation that makes a deeper dive than this documentary provides.

The Intervention is a movie whose small moments are worth savoring even when the big ones don’t come off as intended

Begert’s aim is to shake Hollywood up. Yet his two movies-in-one proves that some old rules persist for a reason. As good as Schwimmer is as Martin, that story sinks under the weight of the one Fike and Ryder tell.

A sex comedy lacking in sex, silliness or subversion, when just one would do.

Unlike many previous films and TV shows that ponder the possibility of life on Mars, “Settlers” is thoughtful and nuanced, with Rockefeller posing extremely difficult (and resonant) questions about entitlement and even the future of human existence.

As good as Hargrave is at staging and shooting action, you eventually reach a point of diminishing returns in a film built around fistfights and automatic weaponry.

It’s in little danger of becoming a classic but it’s gratifying to know that Barry Jenkins made this film his own, telling a fine story with genuine emotion and visual aplomb.

Almost everything that’s enjoyable about Escape From Pretoria is a variation on stuff you’ve probably seen in superior prison movies, though Radcliffe’s haunted performance is exceptionally compelling.

As lackluster as this scattered-brained saga is, the animation team of “The Rise of Gru” does excel at constantly reminding us that we are in the 70s via its production design.

The movie’s secret sauce is humanity through action, what Watts’ Pam in all her heart, knowledge, grit, solitude, caring, irritation, and worry shows us when she’s in her element: what losing and finding looks like in real time.

Collet-Serra’s fourth team-up with Neeson, The Commuter, represents neither man’s finest work, but at its best, it suggests the snap and fun they’ve brought us before.

Franco’s fantastic here. He gives a fieriness to Michael as a gay advocate, then seamlessly slides into borderline madness as he starts accepting that the “voice” he hears is God’s. Michael’s confusion is palpable and intense.

Scarlet' might be [Mamoru Hosoda]'s most narratively ambitious work to date, adapting and warping one of the most famous tales ever told, adding new layers of complexity, and centuries of new, invaluable context.

Wine Country shows that women in their 50s are in one of the best phases of their lives, a time to be celebrated, welcomed, and enjoyed with good friends and good wine.

It’s What’s Inside understands the concept of sympathy, but with people like this, the movie advises against it.

As Alpha’s family becomes increasingly isolated, the film’s ambition widens. Though the rhythms of this can take some getting used to, the resulting emotional payoff is more than worth your patience.

Escobar: Paradise Lost plays more like Greek tragedy than the kind of drug-war tale we’d get in a broader, bigger film, and that is no small part of the many reasons it works.

There’s a choppiness in the overall dramatic pull that — despite the surface appeal of the stars and Kormákur’s and cinematographer Robert Richardson’s visuals — keeps Adrift from making true waves.

It’s a well-intentioned comedy with funny performances and a handful of great humorous set pieces. If it feels as though it’s three or four different movies fighting each other for dominance, then at least those movies are all, in their own separate ways, relatively entertaining and amusing.

The director’s comfort with the more placid rhythms of arthouse animation results in some appealing detours whenever the frenetic narrative stops to feel the breeze.

For the diehards and the curious, it should hold some intrigue, because in its exploration of pop longevity and band dynamics, it’s more a cousin of Metallica: Some Kind of Monster . . . than the typically image-conscious, preserve-the-legacy music doc.

This “based on a true story” underdog tale is infectiously determined to make you fall in love with it, like a mangy dog that plops its head in your lap and gazes adoringly at you until you scratch it behind the ears. Eventually, you give in and scratch. And then you wash your hands.

For all its provocations, After Blue (Dirty Paradise) is rote and tedious. The body horror and gross-outs get repetitive, and none of it ever means much of anything.

In Cretton’s hands, this fact-based tale of an oddball, destitute upbringing rings false. It’s based on a woman’s complicated personal recollections of her traumatic childhood, and yet it feels like a cloying, one-note Hollywood tale, the beastly trauma all tied up with a pretty bow and de-fanged.

This is a movie that shows the Curies’ work changing the world, but then has Marie say, “I can feel our work … changing the world.”

The Jesse Owens to cheer on here is, sure, the fastest man in the world, but also the canny would-be celebrity who knew exactly how to bet on himself in a world that had little use for his dignity and intellect. If that’s not an inspirational story, I don’t know what is.

One of the year’s most thought-provoking and spellbinding releases, Our Time is calibrated for patience and observation with ideas as concrete as such an ambiguous storyteller like Reygadas can offer.

There are some good nuggets here — the leads, the look, the always-scene-stealing Dasha Nekrasova. When Englert goes behind the camera again hopefully she can coalesce her many enthusiasms into one walloping whole.

It may not always come alive in the way Heller, or us, would entirely hope for, but one can still be glad “Nightbitch” exists, especially with Adams there to lead the way. In every facet of her performance, she paints a full portrait of a character herself figuring out who she now is.

Isn’t so much a movie as it is a corporate merger with stabbings and wiener jokes. A shameless piece of self-congratulation, fueled by self-cannibalism.

Like a perfect cocktail mixes the sour with the sweet and the bright with the boozy, Focus combines seamless, superbly-crafted filmmaking with the fizz and fun created by its leads.

As slick and contrived as the plotting may be from time to time, the writers and director Jake Schreier (“Robot & Frank”) throw in enough charming character moments and literal forward motion (this is a road movie, after all) to avoid getting bogged down in whiny teen solipsism. You might not believe that any of these kids exist, but you’ll enjoy hanging out with them.

Tom of Finland is a film about a man who was famous for very dirty drawings, but it is unfortunately restricted by a dehydrated kind of good taste from ever being very dirty or very sexy.

There is only one inventive action sequence here.

While not as anarchic or outrageously hilarious as “Teen Titans GO! to the Movies,” this latest all-ages animated adventure from DC Comics and Warner Bros. nonetheless has — and offers — lots of fun with the four-legged counterparts of a Justice League that’s more “Super Friends” than Snyder Cut.

Storks continually surprises with characters who are more complicated than we might expect in a kid’s animated movie, and a refusal to hit every single pre-programmed plot beat.

As a kind of twisted social commentary, it doesn’t make much sense on paper, but don’t worry: It won’t make much sense on the screen, either, but Mosquito State manages to get under your skin and also to find moments of disquieting beauty.

There’s no doubt that The DUFF is clever, funny and quotable enough to become this decade’s “Mean Girls.” Watch your back, Regina George — there’s a new queen bee in town.

French Exit walks an uneasy line between darkness and light, elegance and eccentricity, delicious humor and disturbing tragedy. These are not normal people, and this is not a normal film. But Pfeiffer makes it an odd, enjoyably twisty ride.

While the film sometimes seems to be stretching to find problems in every corner of the environmental movement (apparently, no company that claims to be green can also plug into the power grid), it does a brutally effective job of suggesting that a dream of endless renewable energy may be unattainable.

This new Man from U.N.C.L.E. would be an instant masterpiece if it were consistently as good as its best parts, but even as a hit-and-miss affair, it’s a bracing bit of late-summer fun for anyone who has given up the notion of a major studio offering anything truly revelatory until at least October.

The writer-director never finds a coherent point of view (or a way out of Strindberg’s three-wall play structure), and Miss Julie ends up merely a whirlwind of moods without a center, as changeable and as random as a TV flipping channels.

While the minions are certainly little, yellow and different, Minions has probably mined them for about as much comedy as they can provide as leading men.

What’s most dispiriting about War Machine is that you can sense the satire it wants to be — and could have been — but never becomes.

Even as Dillon is the one with more to do and dialogue to speak, it’s an outstanding De Bankolé who holds the camera with such intensity that you don’t dare look away for even a second.

Although Tommy’s Honour has clearly been made by a golf obsessive who loves the links, it’s the rare sports biography that keeps its eye on the ball of character and milieu.

You may never have thought you needed or even wanted a sequel to “The Croods,” but you may find it a pleasant surprise in a year where most of the surprises have been anything but.

Louis Leterrier’s installment does an impressive job of making all the old nonsense make a little bit of sense again. It’s got the absurd action sequences we’ve come to expect, but instead of following a small army of unstoppable heroes, Letterier’s film casts them as underdogs against an even more unstoppable villain.

The aggressively unpleasant visuals certainly detract from the overall film, but Maleficent makes for a fascinating entry in an ongoing wave of projects that give “bad” women of literature a chance to present their side of the story.

Bertino and Fanning are deeply committed to going to dark places, and they take us along for their freaky little ride. Whether it makes sense or not. (Probably not.)

Claire in Motion has an appealing stillness and intensity. It works as both a quiet, meditative study of grief and a muted examination of identity, but not as a compelling mystery.

Scott Cooper has directed a film with a gimmicky premise but genuine dramatic weight, anchored by handsome filmmaking and striking performances.

Green operates in a smarter mode of storytelling, giving the audience the benefit of the doubt that they'll notice the details, and he's clearly whispered Pacino into giving a nuanced and human-sized turn.

In the end, the only transgression The Misandrists really commits is self-satisfied solipsism.

The fact that it's released by Paramount plays like a punchline, and it’s unclear who’s getting punched.

Swapped won’t change the world, probably, but it’s a step above a lot of similar films and an effective fantasy story for all ages.

This is a rare misstep for Russell, who in the past has sold us on all kinds of stories, whether they’re as indescribable as “I Heart Huckabee’s” or as traditional as “The Fighter.” Unlike his indefatigable heroine, however, Russell just can’t seem to close the deal on Joy.

Timely but dreary and dramatically inept.

McConaughey dives headfirst into the well here, howling all the way, and his committed performance is one to admire even if it’s not one to like.

It’s intelligently crafted and falls together quite well, despite a narrative that turns complicated quite quickly. You are safe in writer/directors Logan George and Celine Held’s hands. They’ve thought it all through.

Smart, entrancing, and filed firmly under interesting, Spaceman is a conversation-starting meditation on the human condition made as a piece of art for audiences to experience rather than being a film made with an audience in mind.

There’s still something thrilling about watching Chan, even at 63, fight people half his age. There’s a graceful fluidity to his punching and kicking. He’s poetry in motion. No film can take that away from him — not in 2017, not ever.

A Tale of Love and Darkness seeks to blend serious political history and probing psychological analysis. The effort does not succeed, coming across disjointed and grim.

Drunktown’s Finest shouldn’t be viewed simply as an anthropological curiosity, though, but as the promising debut of a gifted filmmaker who wants to show the beating and hurting hearts of the people behind the headlines.

Even with a more gleeful performance by Kate Hudson, Shell is merely a fine film that’s far too tame to completely pay off.

Sedgwick and Bacon are visibly delighted to be together, and we buy Cynthia and Stan’s connection even when it feels underwritten.

A dense and bloody spy thriller with enough twists, turns, double agents, defectors and buried secrets to confuse even viewers who know the geopolitical players without a scorecard. For those of us who are struggling to figure out who’s who and where their sympathies lie on the fly, it can get downright impenetrable.

It’s a larger than life World War II thriller in the Guy Ritchie house style, and he strikes a fine, fun balance between the threat that the Nazis posed and the thrill of watching hunky heroes slaughter them at great length, then chuckle and smoke cigarettes and call each other 'old boy' about 50 million times.

While it spends perhaps too much of its running time either recreating or directly quoting moments from its 1983 predecessor, it still manages to land some new and original gags of its own.

If you love Christmas movies for all the reasons that make them Christmas movies, Almost Christmas is a Christmas movie for you.

Odd as it is to watch both DeLoreans treated as afterthoughts, Driven is a joyride more interested in the journey than in any significant destination.

While Clifford is definitely cute, the script (screenplay and story are credited to five writers) lacks any depth, relying upon Whitehall to carry and deliver the comedy — so much so that Casey feels simultaneously exaggerated and two-dimensional.

It may freak you out a little bit, and that may be enough for some people, but it only briefly grabs hold of something significant. Then it lets go.

Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy is a lukewarm examination of what might have been a hot topic — and that means it risks being overshadowed by the real-life soap opera playing out around it.

Louis CK’s I Love You, Daddy is queasy fare, not just because its rambling, self-indulgent story has strange and unfortunate associations with real-life allegations, but also for its tone-deaf narrative and offensive sexual politics.

Though I have some reservations about a choice made towards the end of the film, everything else — from the cast to the documentary-style filmmaking to the varying perspectives of different characters from diverse backgrounds — is ambitious and intriguing.

The filmmaker’s diminishing capacity for recognizing naturalistic human behavior once again presents a problem when the time comes for audiences to relate to, much less care about, characters put through the paces of another elevator pitch that he never develops into a compelling story.

The mix is for the most part a welcome one, save one unappealing character, a retrograde love story, and an air that’s almost too blasé for its own good.

For a while, you think this is a test to see how long the film can extend the trick. But by the half hour mark, you realize that it’s not a trick, it’s the whole damn movie, which relies on the fact that action heroes like John should mostly shut up and that viewers know the beats of these films well enough to do without non-visual exposition.

A bewilderingly facile and preposterously plotted misfire that offers few pleasures as either a star-driven thriller or a big-screen indictment of the forces that devastated global bank accounts.

Curtis’s twee, nudging, corny comedic voice is very much the main sensibility here, far more so than anything offered by director Danny Boyle or anyone else involved.

Even if you’ve been longing for a more grounded, gritty car-chase movie since the “Fast” franchise left physics behind ages ago, Bay’s addiction to confusion and pointlessness as operating visual/narrative principles keeps even this shoulda-been auto-pocalypse from being in any way pleasurable.

Grillo is exactly the right man for this role, the thoughtful tough guy who can pull bullets out of his own body and who always looks like he needs a shower, but who can’t stop for such indulgences until he knows everyone else is safe. And the ensemble around him forms a tight, empathic unit. We want the Purge to keep going; we also want this crew to smack it down hard.

No matter how frightening the individual moments may be, and no matter how impressive it is that we only ever see enough of the monster to excite our imagination, and no matter how exceptionally the eerie sound design turns out to be, The Boogeyman never quite gets under the skin.

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase is clearly made by people who have thought through the material and tried to make it enjoyable and palatable, but the set-up at the end for further sequels feels a little too hopeful.

Even though 'Whistle' offers nothing new to the supernatural death curse genre, it’s directed by Corin Hardy, and Corin Hardy likes to go hog wild.

Zeitlin has come up with a second film that goes down many of the same paths as his debut, another film filled with kids rampaging as the music swells — but he puts it on a mythic stage and creates a film that is magical and messy, unruly and otherworldly.

An awful story, in a great way.

A little more deviating from the playbook would make Hellion stand out more amidst an ever-growing pack of similar films.

Flawed writing doesn’t mean A Lot of Nothing has no value. McRae certainly shows promise as a director, if not a writer, with Noel, Coleman, Anderson, and Scott demonstrating they can handle complex portrayals well. It’s just unfortunate the story doesn’t live up to all their talents.

Hardy’s virtuosity saves the picture’s artificiality at nearly every turn.

Shyamalan has had some difficulties as a director of late, and it’s understandable to hope that by placing him back in the realm of lower budgets and more manageable expectations he could impress us yet again; that turns out not to be the case this time.

It delivers the kind of sentimental sledgehammering I found myself willing to forgive — the presence of Helen Mirren goes a long way in that regard — but once the story goes off on a pointless tangent, the whole soufflé collapses.

It’s a weird and wonderful superhero adventure that strives — and almost succeeds — to be the most epic superhero movie ever made.