True to its word, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark delivers an entrancing thriller that explores the power of narratives with a few screams to boot.

All the human strife, all the political squabbling, comes across like an excuse to be “badass” but high-minded about it. The film’s shootouts are “cool” but lack anything resembling a meaningful perspective, so when the characters talk about the political rationales for their violence, it rings hollow. And when the bullets fly, nothing else seems like it ever mattered.

In the end, Saltburn works as a distinct and wildly entertaining probe into familiar waters of privilege, rather than the definite word on it, one that reinforces Fennell as a distinguished auteur of the big and the bold even on shaky grounds.

Shooting the Mafia is, if nothing else, a decent introduction to Battaglia’s work, even if the rest of Loginotto’s primer doesn’t tell us much about who Battaglia is, or how to appreciate what she does.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a startlingly enjoyable and well-made action film leavened by humor and slicked along by style, made by, for, and about people who’ve seen far too many Bond films.

There’s an austerity to the film, but also a sense that this interesting couple in this interesting environment is going over the same territory with only minor changes.

The film’s various elements work in wonderful concert to keep the momentum brisk but still grounded in a stylized version of human empathy, from Jay Cassidy and Evan Schiff’s whiz-bang editing to Daniel Pemberton’s consciously grandiose score. The cast makes each moment count.

Whether he’s expounding upon his fear of wild animals or recounting how he sweated his way through his first experience trying to order something at Starbucks, Hart is a natural raconteur, alternately arrogant and self-deprecating, worldly and juvenile.

It’s good to know that John Woo still thinks the only reason motorcycles were invented was to be shot and exploded in mid-air, but most of this action is merely satisfactory, and even after years of experimentation, CGI bullet hits still look faker than an old-fashioned squib

It’s a grand, old-school saga full of sacrifice and betrayal and loss, and just when the audience is gearing up for a powerfully tragic resolution of the kind that Thomas Hardy might have written, the movie veers off into Nicholas Sparks territory instead.

The movie is front-loaded with exposition, but once the action gets going and the narrative pieces fall into place, “Bad Hair” is a creepy movie with thoughtful political twists and thrilling supernatural turns.

As a portrait of an author on the verge of a breakthrough, this is a run-of-the-mill, occasionally clumsy biopic; as for contextualizing Christmas, it never explains how it functioned before Dickens and only briefly mentions how it changed after him.

Dragged Across Concrete is not a terrible movie, but it’s not so good that Zahler shouldn’t get dragged for it.

After the quick-witted and action-packed first act, the film switches gears into full romance-novel mode. Unfortunately, The Lost City never manages to sustain or recover once Pitt’s rousing cameo is over. It’s still pleasant, though it’s unlikely to satisfy those thirsting for action and adventure.

Spectre is a frustratingly unsatisfying experience.

The Invisibles is a powerful testament to the remarkable courage of those forced into heroism, and to the exceptional strength of those who chose it freely.

As overflowing as it is with subplots and stylistic quirks, perhaps “Brother and Sister” should simply have concentrated on the brother and sister. That would have been more than enough.

An ordinary feature that could have been extraordinary as a series of three shorts. Instead, this is what we’ve got: a vaguely watchable animated Christmas movie that only works in fits and starts.

The getting-to-know-them is the best part of this Ghostbusters: these women are a true democratic caucus of funny. That leaves the aforementioned bloat — CGI bigness and the current vogue for drawn-out showdowns — the only nagging glitch, although it’s all slickly rendered by the visual effects team.

The follow-up to 2016’s “Doctor Strange” hits the ooh-and-aah marks we expect from a well-crafted Marvel adventure, but even with Sam Raimi at the helm, this entry goes heavy on the spectacle but light on the humanity.

It’s still sweet, it’s still funny, it’s still freaky, and it’s still Friday. Thank God.

Though it’s fun to watch Pullman and Huston sparring, it’s nearly as pleasant to watch their characters make up.

See How They Run lies as dead on the screen as the corpse of its murdered movie director.

The intent of the film, and its timeliness, are beyond reproach, but that doesn't make Kill the Messenger as stirring or inspiring of indignation as it clearly wants to be.

Precisely because of how ravishingly constructed some of the set pieces turned out, it’s more of shame to see the storytelling’s structural lack of cohesiveness and subplot saturation clutter the view.

"Scandalous” is a fast-paced documentary, packed with incident and information, as tantalizing as an old issue of the Enquirer itself.

It’s a movie about cool people looking and acting cool, for the enjoyment of the (probably uncool) people in the audience. They call it ‘star power’ because it dazzles.

The tone and the plot take some time to settle, but once they’ve hit their stride (and adults decide to surrender their senses and go along for the ride), the bird and pig unit become almost affable in their daftness.