Thanks to Kore-eda’s characteristic practice of thoughtful scripting and gentle direction, the metaphors, though too numerous, land gently and effectively.

For a sequel to a nearly 30-year-old movie, Twisters miraculously stands out against the modern blockbuster landscape. Just like Twister did back in 1996. It’s the rare legacy sequel done right.

For all the wonderfully weird entities and world-building — with the adorable Splat being the standout — the filmmakers are unable to cohesively merge the fanciful tone with the overbearing precepts they seek to impart.

"Deidra & Laney” shows an easy flair for heartwarming comedy, character eccentricity and issues that sting but resolutions that soothe.

What saves this wallflower of a drama is its focus on the women’s friendship, which Mosaku and Horn sell with aplomb.

While Landon has made fun genre outings before with “Happy Death Day,” “Happy Death Day 2U,” and “Freaky,” Drop is, at its best, never more than just down the middle. At its worst, it’s an oddly clunky experience that strands its performers with little to work with.

The filmmakers’ connection to the material is always palpable and undeniably affecting.

If The Good Nurse is about anything, it’s about dedication and stoic compassion, rather than a headstrong sense of morality, and the film, like its protagonist, is all the better for that.

The film always has Majors on its side, pulling us back in right as we are ready to step away from the intense barrage of rage. Anchored in his greatness, Magazine Dreams can get away with most of its flaws.

Cooley’s movie feels like what the Transformers films always should have been — adventure films the whole family can enjoy regardless of any pre-existing affection for the world of Transformers.

Derrickson and Cargill successfully tailor their focused and mostly compelling narrative to a Steven Spielberg/Amblin Entertainment–esque bit of Stephen King–sploitation.

Kruger is entirely commanding.

The pros don’t come from trustworthy sources and the cons require a lot more elaboration.

Aster has always had a knack for confrontation, while Phoenix works best as an open-nerve. That the duo should prove so adept tapping into a vein of neurotic action is one of the many brutal surprises in a social satire as blunt and broad as America itself.

It’s far more successful with holiday magic than it is with character-based comedy, but that’s not enough of a flaw to keep young audiences (and their parents) from potentially turning this feature into a cherished annual tradition.

In truth, the movie can be pretty ridiculous, too, with its wild ambition sometimes coming across as a little foolhardy. But overreaching might be the whole point of The End, which offers an end-times prescription for living: Hold the fantasy together as long as you can. And when in doubt, sing.

The press notes for Stop-Zemlia call Kateryna Gornostai’s coming-of-age story “radical, authentic, and sensitive.” The latter two descriptors are accurate. The movie’s power, however, comes not from any radicalism but from how authentically ordinary it feels.

Hostiles, Scott Cooper’s mournful meditation on human nature, is more than a revisionist Western; it’s a film that explores the roots of racism and the cost of redemption.

The couple’s talk about dreams deferred is too knee-jerk to warrant sympathy. And though a lot of quiet in between their squabbling is sometimes a relief, it ultimately points to an underdeveloped script that suggests it’s more profound than it is. These two are a little too comfortable with silences.

The structure here is haphazard, to say the least, and there is a serious lack of concentration and follow-through. Too much ground is covered too quickly, and often confusingly.

Fancifully heartfelt, Ride Your Wave doesn’t constitute his top effort, but it’s inviting enough to persuade audiences unfamiliar with him to dip their feet and then fully dive into the profundity of his imagination, where wonder awaits.

The film is a slickly-executed piece, an enjoyable but almost unbearably twisty puzzle box of narrative fun, but once everything slots together the box is unfortunately empty.

The new movie’s twists can only exist if they don’t contradict the previous films, so only a few surprises are even possible and those surprises can only happen in unsurprising ways.

Wild Diamonds is a character study both of Liane and of the culture that has spawned her, and a film that manages to be both empathetic and unforgiving. It won’t make you think she’s making smart choices, but you’ll understand why she’s making bad ones.

The Phantom of the Open tries so hard to be a winking commentary on British heartwarmers about lovable outsiders. And its efforts are, as often as not, entertaining. But after a while, it becomes clear that what it wants more than anything is to be embraced as a crowd-pleasing comedy itself.

Brice’s script boasts a few surprises, but this is essentially a highly competent film about boring people’s boring problems.

In some ways, Safdie’s approach seems casual and grounded rather than pumped up, though it’s also raw both physically and emotionally.

There are really two contending films inside Swallow that, if given the opportunity and the space to do so, could have been fascinating as separate entities.