Shazam! just breathes, and it’s bliss.

The Beach Bum is barely a movie; it’s more of a joyous squiggle adorned with a paper cocktail umbrella, a “What did I just see?” dollar-store trinket. But in these dark times, it’s just the ticket.

The new Dumbo is ostentatious and overworked, less a work of imagination than a declaration of how imaginative Burton thinks he is.

With the ambitious home-invasion horror chiller Us, Peele goes even deeper into the conflicted territory of class and race and privilege; he also ponders the traits that make us most human. But this time, he’s got so many ideas he can barely corral them, let alone connect them. He overthinks himself into a corner, and we’re stuck there with him.

You can probably guess every beat of The Mustang ahead of time, but what does that matter? The picture, shot by Ruben Impens, is gorgeous to look at.

With Gloria Bell, Lelio revisits a story he’s told before: It’s a close remake of his 2013 Spanish-language film "Gloria," starring the superb Chilean actress Paulina García. Both films are terrific, but with Gloria Bell, Lelio may have buffed out a few rough edges; the new picture feels subtler, more shimmering.

By the time I got to the end of Captain Marvel...I heard the voice of my own inner superhero, Peggy Lee, whispering in my ear: Is that all there is? The most heinous supervillain of all is Boredom.

You’ll learn a lot from Varda’s narration, about filmmaking, about life, about her. If you want to know how to turn scraps into gold, this is the masterclass for you.

The Golden Glove is, in the most basic sense, well constructed. It’s also the kind of movie you may end up wishing you’d never seen. Even hardcore Akin devotees should proceed with caution, and be ready for disillusionment. The craftsmanship is there. But Akin’s judgment has gone AWOL, and with it, his heart.

It’s ridiculous, and it’s wonderful. Falling in love is stupid like that.

The big problem is that Neeson drops out of the story for long stretches, and the movie needs him: None of the drug-biz guys, not even the classy, serene White Bull, can match his craggy charisma. When he’s absent, the landscape is very cold indeed.

Director Chris Smith (Jim & Andy, American Movie) tends to let his subjects reveal themselves without distracting stylistic flourishes—an approach that’s ideally suited to the Fyre story.

The mythology he tries to build in Glass is rushed and sloppy; the surprise twist at the end is really just more of a damp wrinkle. Shyamalan believes so strongly in the dramatic impact of this trilogy that he almost makes you believe in it too — that’s his secret superpower. But the illusion is fragile. You don’t need a sixth sense to know you’re in for a letdown. The five you’ve got should be plenty.

Neither great nor terrible. It quavers in that middle ground of pictures you think you might watch on a plane someday, and you could make a worse choice.

In its best moments, Aquaman is transportive. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Some of the numbers are dazzling, some are exhausting, and many are a mix of both—and still, somehow they work.

McKay’s style here is the equivalent of a knowing cackle; the whole enterprise, elaborate as it is, comes off as lacking in passion. The Big Short had an exhilarating kick, but it also left you feeling queasy over the destructive misdeeds you’d just witnessed. Vice just leaves you feeling sapped, advertising its cleverness without actually being clever.

This well-intentioned movie is a somewhat flawed one: its pace is a little slack, and sometimes it feels too predictably prepackaged. But Jones and Hammer keep the picture moving even through its shakier phases.

Both Mary Queen of Scots and "The Favourite," as entertaining as they are, end in a place closer to despair than to triumph – not necessarily because the Queens in question rendered poor judgment, but because, in their treacherous worlds, it became impossible to know whom to trust. And, to put it bluntly, men didn’t help.

The movie is so assertively about the social issue at its heart – the way opioid addiction tears families apart – that it barely leaves room for its characters to breathe. At times it feels more as if they’re spokespeople with jobs to do. That takes its toll on both lead actors, especially Roberts: one minute she’s Denial Mom, the next she’s Tough Love Mom.

Everybody Knows — which is billed as a psychological thriller, though it’s really more of a family melodrama — feels meandering and indistinct.

There’s some comfort to be found in the predictability of its beats. But only at the end does it muster any real vitality. Any ribs it breaks along the way have healed seamlessly before you’ve even left the theater.

A thriller for modern women who identify more with the messiness of human lives than with flattened slogans about how great women, as a monolithic group, are.

Schnabel’s dream portrait of van Gogh is made whole by its star, Willem Dafoe, whose radiant intensity fills every corner of the film.

Astute and painfully relevant political comedy.

In strict filmmaking terms, Bohemian Rhapsody is a bit of a mess. Some of its scenes connect awkwardly, and it hits every beat of disaster and triumph squarely, like a gong. Yet if it has many of the problems we associate with “bad” movies, it has more ragged energy than so many good ones, largely because of Rami Malek’s performance as Mercury, all glitter and muscle and nerve endings.

Even though Boy Erased is well acted and thoughtful, there’s something vaguely disappointing about it.

Neither the most super-awesome Marvel movie nor the worst. It exists in that micro-millimeter’s breadth of in-between. Venom has energy, style and Tom Hardy — all good things. But it doesn’t really make sense, a bad thing.