Linklater is a naturally empathetic filmmaker, and you can feel him trying to find something he can latch onto in the Desperate Housewives cat-fighting that dominates the movie in the early going. He’s helped ultimately by the story, and by the performances of Blanchett and Wiig, who are given room to embellish their characters and relationships.

Jarmusch, in his droll way, both celebrates and subverts the familiar elements of the genre.

The movie mainly rides on the chemistry and charm of its two leads, and writer Kaling has given Thompson a substantial character to play.

The plot particulars are flimsy and laughable by design — this Shaft has been put together by folks with an instinct for comedy.

Developments give Erskine a chance to play hurt and wounded, and she handles this as beautifully as she does the light comedy. She’s the plus in Plus One.

No neuralizers needed for Men In Black: International — you’ll forget you’ve seen it not long after walking out.

Dark Phoenix has a cast of lame-duck actors wearing expressions that say, “Check, please,” and the movie has the kind of knotty, suspenseless plotting that makes the veins in your head throb.

In some ways the movie’s crazy fictions suit today’s modern mash-up sensibilities, and its cast reflects the patterns of modern migration that are creating a whole new world.

The movie clicks, and given the sorry state of movie comedy, its ability to be consistently funny stands out. It is expertly, briskly paced — shout out to the judicious and effective editing of Jamie Gross.

The only creepy things about Brightburn, though, are its labored, derivative narrative, its giddy sadism (it gets off on Brandon’s adolescent power trip, and expects its audience to do the same), and its cynical built-in branding.

A tweak toward conventional drama might have added to the movie’s impact, but it’s scrupulous and straightforward.

The movie is romantic and sexy, and its exploration of the masculine and feminine (fire and water, yin and yang) is inventive and playful.

Often fascinating, and sometimes even moving. There are lessons here about the cycle of life that can only be driven home by the real, random, and sometimes cruel dictates of fate.

Much rides on the actors’ ability to connect as they brush aside the obvious credibility obstacles, and the movie’s pop genericism doesn’t help — half the movie’s running time feels like it’s a pop music montage of the fetching young couple kissing, nuzzling, holding hands, so it often feels less like an ad for Invisaline.

The goal for director Stahelski is escalating violence and bloody chaos, pushed to the point of the preposterous and beyond.

The movie is at its best when the women are focused on the common enemy: getting older.

Not long into Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, it becomes clear that the movie is never going to make what you might call sense.

Yes, Tolkien is a little on-the-nose. But there is also an undeniable appeal to the life-art allusions that drive this earnest movie, which is handsomely mounted, well-cast, and well-acted.

Wilson and Hathaway don’t click. The characters feel as if they were workshopped separately, and efforts to combine their comic energy on screen fall flat.

If HGTV and Lifetime had a TV channel baby, it would produce movies like The Intruder.

This is an intriguingly weird, gender inversion of the Cinderella fantasy at the root of Pretty Woman.

Their personal stories are just as interesting, and taken together, they add insight into our nation’s unusual political moment, equal parts instability and possibility.

I wasn’t sure, after the tedium of Infinity War, that Marvel could wrap this up in a satisfying way. Turns out, it was a snap.

It’s a movie touching on labor issues that some may find a bit labored, but for the patient viewer there are insights — Leigh is giving us a history lesson that makes some pointed nods toward the current Brexit debate.

Fast Color is disciplined and restrained, yet feels a few tweaks away from being the rousing origin story it aspires to be.

Result[s] in pleasant but forgettable results.

High Life has the trippy profundity of 2001, the human treachery of Aliens, and it also includes an Orgasmatron.

Yeoh’s fantastic as usual, making an impressive series of moves while not disturbing a single hair on her period Joey Heatherton hairdo.