Overview: In pursuit of a serial killer, an FBI agent uncovers a series of occult clues that she must solve to end his terrifying killing spree.

Verdict: Those expecting to walk out of writer-director Oz Perkins’ “Longlegs” feeling all warm and fuzzy on a nice, breezy summer day should probably look for an alternative activity. Because “Longlegs,” which is already in the conversation as one of the best movies of the year, is equal parts inspired by “Se7en” and “The Silence of the Lambs,” which means you’re more apt to leave the theater feeling, uh, not great.

But if that sounds like your vibe and your game for a maniacal, off-the-wall Nicolas Cage performance, not to mention a hip nineties aesthetic usually reserved for a David Fincher movie, “Longlegs” is a masterful exploration of building dread and anxiety from some truly disturbing circumstances.

Perkins (son to Another Perkins of “Psycho” which is notable here) has delivered what will no doubt be the eeriest movie of the summer. A tense, serial killer procedural that builds on the atmospheric qualities of the filmmakers best movies, including “Gretel & Hansel” and the underrated gem “The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” “Longlegs,” contrary to what media reports will tell you, isn’t the “scariest movie of all time,” but is slow and methodical in its approach to the material. It’s a fully realized piece of artistry with two commanding lead performances that guide us down an icky, unnerving rabbit hole.

Led by Makia Monroe, who feels like the de-facto leading lady of the indie horror scene following turns in “It Follows” and “Watcher,” plays Lee Harker, a strange and often distant FBI agent who is tasked with tracking down a killer who goes by the name Longlegs. But he doesn’t fit the average profile and, in fact, doesn’t even conduct the killings.

He manages to build lifelike dolls that are delivered to children on their birthdays (always on the 14th) and soon thereafter the fathers slaughter everyone in their family. Longlegs is never even at the crime scene. Harker feels a connection with him and the borderline satanic killings, but can’t quite figure out why.

As Longlegs, Cage is wonderfully demented and a strange character who moves in the shadows, takes the back roads of rural Oregon and screams at the top of his lungs. Sporting a high-pitched, crackling voice, a pale white face, and puffy prosthetics, Cage is borderline unrecognizable, but the actor keeps things unpredictable and helps usher in one of the best cinematic serial killers alongside greats like Hannibal Lector.

Perkins isn’t rewriting the genre playbook (and plays with familiar themes of the occult and trauma), but Cage gives it an edge and he’s wisely not overused in the movie. We don’t even see his face until about 50-minutes into the movie. He just looms in the background, like a bad sickness you can’t shake.

He’s matched by Monroe and a solid supporting turn from Blair Underwood (who I was thrilled to see on the big screen again) playing Harker’s boss, Carter who might not always trust his colleagues intuition, but is game to follow leads and hunches that, as the movie progresses, reveals some unnerving discoveries.

Overview: Daisy Edgar-Jones stars as Kate Cooper, a former storm chaser haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado during her college years who now studies storm patterns on screens safely in New York City. She is lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi (Golden Globe nominee Anthony Ramos, In the Heights) to test a groundbreaking new tracking system.

There, she crosses paths with Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), the charming and reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures with his raucous crew, the more dangerous the better. As storm season intensifies, terrifying phenomena never seen before are unleashed, and Kate, Tyler and their competing teams find themselves squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.

Verdict: After the subtle, graceful, and sensitively directed humanist drama “Minari,” filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung pulls a massive 180 shift with the blockbuster-sized “Twisters,” a summer event/epic disaster movie that proves he has the chops to create extravagant action set pieces and popcorn-friendly spectacle, but at the expense of his intimate personal touches and affinity for anything resembling complexity.

“Twisters” attempts to do it all: cineplex thrills, deadly serious viscerally dramatic treatments to harrowing sequences, lighthearted laughs, a burgeoning romance, and deep trauma from the past. But all these tones don’t gel together quite convincingly and are either cliché or don’t work at all, especially in the laughs department, where most of the movie falls flat. Moreover, as written by Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”), “Twisters” features creaky, sometimes cringe-y dialogue, holds almost no surprises, and escalates conventionally and formulaically after you’re introduced to all the players in the story. You know where this storm is headed and what precipitous weather you’ll get. And maybe that will appease “Twister” die-hards but may leave everyone else wanting.

“Twisters” starts with a prologue and muscular action set piece that’s supposed to be the lingering emotional weight of the movie and the psychic baggage and trauma the leads can’t shake. Storm chaser and near-PhD level researcher Kate Cooper (a mostly wasted Daisy Edgar-Jones, who is much better than this material), and her colleagues Javi (Anthony Ramos), Addy (Kiernan Shipka), Praveen (Nik Dodani), and boyfriend (Daryl McCormack), are trying to “tame tornadoes.” Yet, Cooper is nearly obsessed with pushing things into the danger zone so she can get a grant to pursue her dreams of calming tornadoes with a mix of science and technology. But bullish on it all, she goes too far, and most of her team is killed, including her paramour.

Chung’s movie then cuts to five years later. Haunted by the devasting incident, Kate has abandoned storm chasing to become a meteorologist in New York, the polar opposite of her Oklahoma stomping grounds. But like clockwork, Javi suddenly visits and lures her back into the field with the promise of big tech and big dollars behind him, plus a groundbreaking new tracking system that can do much good and potentially save lives. Initially reluctant, she’s soon persuaded to go back home, as Javi convinces her, no one has the natural instincts and savvy to read weather in real time like she can (a bit eye-roll-ish to be honest).

Once back in Oklahoma, Kate joins Javi’s corporately sponsored StormPar team and his stiff and humorless business partner Scott (David Corenswet) to start chasing storms and collect important weather data that could be a game-changer for early repones cyclone warnings. But there’s also a cowboy crew in town, led by a cocky and arrogant Tyler Owens (Glenn Powell), a famous “tornado wrangler” or, as one character puts it, “a hillbilly with a YouTube channel.”

Tyler’s crew is predictably wildcard and pretty much the cliched version of a ragtag motley crew squad. Uncouth and untrained, this troop relies on a mix of bravado and reckless fearlessness; yeah, man! There’s Boone (Brandon Perea), the videographer and social media lead; drone operator Lilly (Sasha Lane), a rugged mechanic; Dani (Katy O’Brian); and one sole, mildly eccentric scientist, Dexter (Tunde Adebimpe). Adding one more odd-man-out to the mix is Ben (Harry Hadden-Paton), a British journalist profiling Tyler for his smug and heedless antics. But none of these actors have more than one note to play.

Unsurprisingly, the two crews clash, the rock n’ rollers vs. the squares, with each team behaving in the familiar pattern of their one-dimensional shape. Tyler’s company is rash and volatile, lighting off fireworks in the middle of a tornado for adrenalin kicks and YouTube views, and Javi’s team are straight-laced metric nerds that are all business and no fun. And, of course, it’s windstorm season, so conveniently, there’s a tornado to be found every five minutes.

But everything is not what it seems on the surface, though often telegraphed in groan-worthy scenes; Tyler’s crew actually cares for the communities affected by the destructive storms, despite all outward looks to the contrary. Javi’s StormPar company is being bankrolled by a real estate tycoon and opportunist trying to profit off the locals’ misfortunes, which strains his relationship with Katie. Goodness, ethics, and bonds are tested, but it often feels like a black-and-white kindergarten version of morality lessons.

Eventually, as you can easily surmise, everyone joins forces, in the end, to fight the mother of all twisters and save lives. But the bulk of the film is an increasing series of escalating tornado dangers with a few side detours for melancholy reflection (haunted past alert!) and a slowly budding romance between Tyler and Kate, who clearly hated each other at first, much like any routine romantic comedy.

A spiritual sequel to Jan de Bont’s 1996 “Twister,” something of an escapist popcorn classic, and not directly tied to it, this new iteration more or less feels like a modern remake with many of the same kind of dynamics and colorful supporting characters. And maybe your nostalgia mileage may vary, but “Twisters” just isn’t as fun, entertaining, and light on its feet. Sure, it aims for those moments here and there, especially in the beginning, with Tyler acting like the most obnoxious form of vainglorious showboating and his team being the wild bunch, but “Twisters” often takes itself far too seriously.

Rather than delivering entertaining excitement, it goes grim and darker with distressingly dangerous, deadly, somber sequences (with some sequences just a little too exhaustingly drawn out). A little more countrified than the original, a soundtrack featuring Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Lainey Wilson, etc., this is really only the minor distinction from the original other than being a little too dour in spots.

So much of “Twisters” feels too familiar. Powell plays basically another version of the cocksure character he played in “Top Gun: Maverick,” and most of the characters have an insufferable “we have a need for speed!” mien. And with a “story-by” credit from filmmaker Joseph Kosinski, you can see the parallels to ‘Maverick,’ but it’s a poor man’s “Top Gun” sequel, missing the magic and expertly balanced mix of four-quadrant thrills and delights.

Overview: This Summer, the world’s favorite Bad Boys are back with their iconic mix of edge-of-your seat action and outrageous comedy but this time with a twist: Miami’s finest are now on the run.

Verdict: Surprise, surprise. In what may be a shocker, a nearly 30-year-old franchise may just jump start this summer’s dull movie box office. Where “The Fall Guy” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” disappointed, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” may ultimately succeed in delivering the success that’s eluded movie studios early in the season.

It’s not that “Ride or Die,” the fourth installment in the Will Smith-Martin Lawrence series, is particularly compelling. It’s more because it is very entertaining. It is pure action, escapist fare meant for audiences to check out for a couple of hours and forget everything outside of the theater. Mission accomplished.

It doesn’t hurt that Smith and Lawrence slip into their on-screen personas of Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett as easily as if they were a pair of well-worn Nikes. The chemistry has always been evident between the two as they play off one another with a comfort level not seen with most co-stars. Ultimately, that represents the strongest aspect of the series as a whole, but after so much time it would be easy to assume that chemistry has dissipated.

Not true in this case, as “Ride or Die” may be the strongest entry since the original back in 1995. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah put their stamp on the franchise with the third film after taking the mantle from Michael Bay (who makes a cameo), but with this one, their comfort level with their subject matter and stars shows in this tight, breezy effort.

With a script from Chris Bremner (“Bad Boys For Life”) and Will Beall (“Aquaman”), the film plays to that chemistry – the word play and the macho-fused affection between the two characters. It does so against the backdrop of jaw-dropping spectacle that explodes off the screen, but wisely acknowledges that these two dudes are now into their 50s and still playing superhero cops.

Is it believable? Not bloody likely. But it’s fun, and this time around, the original crew mostly returns – with a couple minor exceptions.

That includes Capt. Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who died in the last film. He returns via video to reveal that his death wasn’t exactly what it seemed back then, revealing that higher ups in the Miami Police Department are responsible and trusting Mike and Marcus to uncover it.

That leads them back into their past, including having to seek the help of Mike’s imprisoned son (Jacob Scipio) to lead them through a world not entirely familiar. Yes, it’s not going to be easy and there is significant explosive mayhem on the path to redemption. For those willing to come along for the ride, it’s a trip worth taking.

Overview: When New York City comes under attack from an alien invasion, a woman and other survivors try to find a way to safety. They soon learn that they must remain absolutely silent as the mysterious creatures are drawn to the slightest sound.

Verdict: When you live in a big city or metro area like Chicago or New York, you learn to tune out the noise. But it’s almost impossible to imagine the eeriness of a silent Michigan Avenue or Times Square. A Quiet Place: Day One asks us if familiarity really does breed contempt when humans are forced to rely on each other in a world where our primary form of communication could get us killed.

The John Krasinski–directed postapocalyptic A Quiet Place franchise explores to great effect what human connection looks like in the aftermath of blind extraterrestrial creatures attacking the earth. Now, in the third installment—a prequel directed by Michael Sarnoski—we learn how everything unfolded on day one (kind of).

Lupita Nyong’o stars as Sam, a terminally ill cancer patient who, understandably, is pretty pessimistic about life. However, as vicious creatures wreak havoc on NYC without care, rhyme, or reason, a few fellow survivors (with heartwarming performances from Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, and Djimon Hounsou) help her realize that maybe other people aren’t so bad after all. In fact, maybe the only thing that will save us is each other.

The performances are naturally limited by the film’s design (no talking means little dialogue), yet Nyong’o brings the same magnetism and fluidity that should’ve earned her a second Oscar nomination in Jordan Peele’s Us. She evokes more emotion in her eyes alone than half of Hollywood can with an entire monologue. Where Day One falters is in the same manner as its predecessor: the world-building is haphazard at best, and the monsters, while scary, get less so as each jump scare wears thin.

Overview: In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.

Verdict: Give Ti West this: He’s completed the quickest trilogy in contemporary horror movie history. Barely two years after X introduced us to its gore-soaked version of the MCU—that’d be the Maxine Cinematic Universe, named for the ornery and resourceful would-be-porn-star-cum-Final-Girl embodied by Mia Goth—West has jerry-rigged a triptych whose conceptual sturdiness and artistic merit are, if far from certain, at least worthy of debate. With the release of MaXXXine, the question is whether West has truly succeeded in carving out a niche of his own or whether his series is just a (figuratively) bloodless exercise in received themes and aesthetics.

To return to the initial film: There was plenty to like about X, which took a lurid, high-concept premise i.e., what if Boogie Nights were drenched in more crimson bodily fluids? and used it to limn the practical and spiritual overlap between two kindred and disreputable forms of cinema (that’d be horror and porn).

Nostalgia and sleaze are a potent combination, and the spectacle of nubile, solipsistic exhibitionists being systematically eviscerated by the wizened, married homesteaders whose farm they’d commandeered for a skin-flick shoot nodded to vintage traditions. (For extra ’70s resonance, there was even a cover of “Landslide”).

The ace up West’s sleeve, meanwhile, was hidden in plain view: By casting Goth in a dual role as both a hard-edged starlet and a catatonic, knife-wielding crone — the latter of whom seems to envy her younger doppelgänger’s ripe flesh even as she’s stabbing at it — West tapped into a rich vein of grotesquerie that was also dripping with melancholy.

The same ratio of sadism and anguish carried over to Pearl, which flashed back to the 1910s to document the eponymous villain’s formative years—as well as the roots of the adult film industry in an era of one-reel stag films. Pearl, it seems, was born ready for her close-up.

Like its predecessor, West’s prequel was designed primarily as a showcase for Goth, whose elongated physicality and unsettling expressivity have made her a kind of It Girl for directors on (or near) the cutting edge of cinematic provocation. In addition to West, she’s collaborated with Lars von Trier, Claire Denis, Luca Guadagnino, and Brandon Cronenberg.

None of these variously gifted filmmakers have given the actor as much to work with as West, who clearly loves putting his leading lady in outrageous situations — including molesting her own mirror image, cosplaying Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and making out with a scarecrow — and watching her squirm, snarl, or slash her way out of them.

To this end, Pearl also gifts its star with a late, barn-burning monologue that unfolds in a single take, a bravura piece of writing that could be used in the future by aspiring genre ingenues, even if it’s unlikely they could equal Goth’s rubber-faced aplomb.

With this in mind, MaXXXine begins with an audition piece—one that recalls Pearl’s centerpiece scene and that sutures its themes into an increasingly intricate franchise timeline. The setting is Los Angeles circa 1985, a half decade after the events of X, which, as we’re shown, have become mythological tabloid fodder. After fleeing the scene of the crime — and eluding both the authorities and her Bible-thumping father, glimpsed in X via a series of fire-and-brimstone PSAs — Maxine has dyed her hair blond, boned up on her VHS collection, and become the toast of the local porno circuit.

What she really wants to do, though, is act with her clothes on: After scoring a reading for an upcoming religious horror movie, our heroine channels her trauma into the dialogue, Mulholland Drive style, impressing the self-consciously ball-breaking, would-be-artiste director (a deadpan Elizabeth Debicki) enough that she’s willing to take a chance on an unknown. No sooner has Maxine processed her triumph, however, than a mysterious figure with knowledge of her true identity emerges, wielding threats of blackmail (or worse).

The mid-’80s backdrop gives West and his production designers a whole new set of textures to play with, and their re-creation of Los Angeles teems with vivid, eye-catching details. The neon-drenched streets deliberately evoke Brian De Palma’s seminal Body Double from 1984. The setting also coincides with the grisly crimes of “the Night Stalker” — the Bay Area and SoCal serial killer whose media-appointed nickname made him the perfect bogeyman for an era known colloquially as “Morning in America.”

In a scene-setting montage comprising archival footage, West juxtaposes Richard Ramirez and Ronald Reagan, hinting not so subtly that, on some level, the president and the predator represented two sides of the same ideological coin, converging their energies in the so-called satanic panic that saw the Gipper’s evangelical base lashing out in reactionary furor against what they perceived as the demonic influence of popular culture.

West has already made a movie set during this period: 2009’s skillful and scary The House of the Devil, which similarly luxuriated in period decor without sacrificing shock and intensity (including one of the greatest kills of all time, featuring a pre-superstardom Greta Gerwig). By contrast, the biggest problem with MaXXXine is that it’s completely punch-drunk on pastiche; by putting everything in scare quotes, West ensures that nothing is actually scary — a miscalculation that neuters the movie’s impact.

The fake red-carpet protests organized for the movie’s premiere underline this problem; when a movie has to import its own scandalized, pearl-clutching detractors—as opposed to actually giving pious or censorious types something to scream about — it doesn’t bode well for any sort of real cult status.

Speaking of which: It’s clear that one of West’s structural and tonal models is Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, which isn’t a horror movie but still bristles with a sense of dread — think of the slow-burning Spahn Ranch sequence, which scrambles genre archetypes (it’s a menagerie of hippies, cowboys, and serial killers), but never telegraphs where it’s going.

MaXXXine’s stalk-and-slash set pieces hit all the right marks — deep-red giallo lighting; close-ups of black-gloved hands; murky camcorder textures à la Lost Highway—but rarely transcend them. One exception: a close encounter with a knife-wielding Buster Keaton impersonator who ends up getting his balls stomped on; I don’t know what West has against Keaton, but I didn’t see that coming.

If there’s a scene that emblematizes MaXXXine’s spoiled promise, it comes about halfway through: After injuring the private investigator (Kevin Bacon) hired by the unseen big bad to harass her, Maxine is shocked to see him on set, nose bandaged like Jake Gittes in Chinatown. He chases her through a series of faux period backdrops all the way to the front door of the Bates Motel, at which point … nothing happens.

All that rich Hollywood iconography never coalesces into anything: It’s a hall of mirrors that reflects nothing except its maker’s frame of reference. Although it is nice to see West’s mentor Larry Fessenden on hand as a benign security guard—probably the first time that the indie stalwart has ever been on a big studio lot).

Some horror movies thrive in incoherence, but if anything, MaXXXine is too lucid for its own good: It’s an almost entirely plot-based movie, and it doesn’t help that the central mystery — specifically the identity of the silent, faceless figure pursuing Maxine at every turn — is so thin. If the best horror movies make their climactic revelations feel simultaneously shocking and inevitable, MaXXXine’s resolution is merely predictable—and disappointing given the larger intimations of some grand narrative design.

In light of these flaws, it almost doesn’t matter that Goth holds the screen as fully as she does — almost. MaXXXine is framed by a quote by Bette Davis that explains in show business, women have to be perceived as monsters before they can be held up as stars, and Goth — who’s closer to having Bette Davis eyes than most members of her generational cohort—conveys the right mix of righteous self-possession and sinister ambition to give the film’s coda a little bit of friction.

Overview: Director Wes Ball breathes new life into the global, epic franchise set several generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, in which apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows.

As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.

Verdict: Noa (Owen Teague) is a young, male ape who lives in a gentle clan with his parents and two best friends. We first see them preparing for a coming-of-age ritual. Each of them must find an eagle’s egg (but always leaving one in the nest), and bring it back safely. The clan is centered around their trained eagles, and Noa’s stern father is their leader.

Noa struggles to get his father’s approval. We see that they have some signs of what we think of as human civilization, in addition to the rituals. They have built some simple structures as homes, they ride horses, they obey the rules of the clan, and they have adornments and some tools and simple weapons, like slingshots. Also, as mentioned above, that most human of attributes, daddy issues.

A marauding group of apes arrive, with more powerful weapons, including spears with taser-like points. They destroy the compound, kill Noa’s father, and capture everyone else, except for Noa, who manages to escape, vowing to find his clan and get revenge. He meets up with Raca (the deep, kind voice of Peter Macon), a follower of the lessons of Cesar. And they meet up with a human woman they call Nova (Freya Allan) — cue the jokes about how humans are slow-witted and smell bad.

They try to drop Nova off with a group of humans (note: none wearing pants and a shirt), but the same marauding apes arrive to capture the humans like cowboys capture mustangs or, in “The Time Machine,” the Morlocks capture the Eloi. It turns out Nova has some secrets.

She and Noa are themselves captured by the apes, they find themselves in the kingdom of Proximus (Kevin Durand), a tyrant who, like the male humans of our time, is obsessed with Ancient Rome. They live on what was once a human stronghold, and Proximus is determined to break into the vault, to get access to whatever it was the humans were so intent on protecting.

I suspect we may hear some people claim that this film is intended as a metaphor to illuminate some of the most divisive topics of our era — colonialism, immigration, xenophobia, the way we tell our history. That gives this film too much credit, but the way both Raca and Proximus claim to be the true heirs of Cesar’s authority, with very different interpretations of his message, should resonate with viewers.

We are mostly there for the special effects and action scenes, though, and those are vivid and effective. The settings are stunning and the motion capture and CGI are next-level, giving the ape characters real weight and their expressions, well, expressive.

As one of the most enduring series in history moves, potentially, toward the time of the very first film, the questions remain: whether humans and apes can find a way to co-exist, whether technology can advance without causing great harm and existential threats, and whether humans or apes can ever find a way to overcome fear and greed to work together for the common good.

Overview: He’s a stuntman, and like everyone in the stunt community, he gets blown up, shot, crashed, thrown through windows and dropped from the highest of heights, all for our entertainment. And now, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, this working-class hero has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right?

Verdict: We are on the set of a brand new, $200 million feature film called Metalstorm, which appears to be some sort of gold lamé-clad mash-up of Independence Day, Cowboys and Aliens and a whole bunch of out-takes from David Lynch’s Wild At Heart. None of which is a bad thing.

At the monitor, making her directing debut, is a young woman named Jody, who only a year before was a humble camera operator on a movie set in L.A on which a stuntman was badly hurt, when a harness was incorrectly rigged.

Jody was in love with Colt the stuntguy. But since Colt decided to vanish after his fall, change his number and take a job as a car valet at a classy Mexican joint just off Santa Monica, Jody has had to move on with her life. And directing this unwieldy behemoth of a picture, with action sequences that are threatening to wipe Sydney’s State Opera House off the map, is going to be enough to keep her occupied.

But, wouldn’t you just know it. From out of the smoke and dust of a staged car crash, a familiar pair of stubbled cheekbones appears. It is Colt, summoned back to set by Jody’s producer and apparently the only person who can save Jody’s film from collapse, since her actual action-hero has vanished.

Look, none of us are here for the plot. Which is probably just as well, since the trailer pretty much tells you the whole story anyway. But The Fall Guy, once you step back and get the smoke and glitter out of your eyes, makes absolutely no sense at all, even by the standards of the ropey 1980s TV show it is named for.

And worse, The Fall Guy also teases us with the idea that Hollywood would entrust a massive sci-fi blockbuster to a woman, when there are so many male directors who have failed in this genre, and apparently still deserve one-more-chance. But the script then turns that kick-ass woman into a distracted rom-com lightweight the moment her ex-squeeze shows up. Yes, that bugged me. And it should bug you too.

But, with Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling churning out the star-wattage in the leads, and actual ex-stunt performer David Leitch (Bullet Train) in the director’s chair, there is still a lot here to like, and I’ll always have something kind to say about a film that actually lives up to the promises its own marketing and trailer are making.

The Fall Guy, viewed through a generous lens, is a love letter and a salute to the film industry and everyone who loves it. There’s movie references by the yard, in-jokes and meta-humour in every scene and damn near every line, and an absolute bunch of genuine, old-school, deathlessly impressive stunt work of the highest order. One set-up needed a car to cannon-roll – to be flipped by a concealed hydraulic ram, while traveling at high-speed. Stunt driver Logan Holladay set a new world record with eight-and-a-half rolls completed. Kids, don’t try this in the streets around your home!

With Hannah Waddingham, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Winston Duke (Black Panther) all chewing up the scenery in support and a load of Australia’s most scenic city-streets and deserted beaches getting smashed to bits in the background, The Fall Guy is a film that knows how to put on a show and leave any audience who actually want to pay to see it, feeling like they’ve had their money’s worth. If it had a story that made just a tiny bit more sense, and was smart enough to generate any tension or intrigue at all, I might even have liked the damn thing a bit more myself.

As it is, The Fall Guy is a numbingly stupid film that is clearly made by a lot of very clever and talented people.

Overview: From filmmaker Alex Garland comes a journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.

Verdict: Back in 2002, Alex Garland and his filmmaking mates Danny Boyle and Andrew MacDonald shut down the streets of London to shoot scenes for their zombie apocalypse movie 28 Days Later. It must have been logistically tricky but the scenes of a dazed Cillian Murphy crossing a deserted Westminster Bridge, his character awoken from a coma to find his city, and the world, had gone to hell are gobsmacking.

But it turns out that all of that was just a dress rehearsal for Alex Garland for the day when he, 22 years later, would be staging scenes of an America experiencing its own apocalypse in Civil War, his raw and astounding new film.

Kirsten Dunst plays a jaded and famed photojournalist Lee Smith who is teamed up on assignment with her Reuters colleague Joel (Wagner Moura). They’re planning to leave the war-torn streets of New York and head south to Washington, DC. hoping to score an interview with the now three-term president (Nick Offerman).

We never really learn how the president has managed to lead the United States of America into a divided and broken nation, with Texas and California having seceded and taken their financial resources with them and the remainder of the country in a civil strife the government is losing.

But reporter Joel wants to score that interview, and joining him on the ride from the assorted press pool holding up in a New York hotel are veteran journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley) and a very green wannabe photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny).

The plan is to call past the war’s current front line in the Carolinas, file some stories and leave Sammy and Jessie somewhere safe before Lee and Joel head into the dangerous remnants of the American capital.

But it is a long and dangerous ride through an America where it is impossible to tell which side is good and who might be on that side, and where a wrong turn in the road might introduce them to the end of somebody’s gun.

Garland’s achievement with Civil War is impressive in execution, taking the seed planted in the mind of every viewer of that January 6th Capitol riot footage to its most frightening future scenario.

One hopes its American consumers take this film as the cautionary tale Garland clearly intends.

He constructs the film, probably for affordability, on the mostly small scale, as a road movie where four journalists move from safe stops to capturing stories breaking around them.

This gives Garland the canvas to paint a number of smaller pictures amongst the grander war-torn tableau. It is a film about journalism, with these four professionals in there among raw, bloody fighting. It is also a film about photography and the responsibility the photojournalist has to immortalize these naked and honest moments. It is this idea that really grabs you.

Dunst is so exhausted and broken as the older photojournalist drained long ago of her empathy, and yet taking the time to mentor Spaeny’s barely post-teen Jessie.

Through their eyes, we’re right there at ground level, along with Garland’s camera, for Pol Pot-like killing fields in green Carolina farm fields, or among hand-to-hand combat on city streets. The camerawork can be nauseating at times - that’s intentional - the sound design deafening and engineered to make you jump a few times, the production design epic.

Overview: In Chris Pine’s feature directorial debut, Poolman tells the story of Darren Barrenman (Pine), a native Angeleno who spends his days looking after the pool of the Tahitian Tiki apartment block and fighting to make his hometown a better place to live.

When he is tasked by a femme fatale to uncover the truth behind a shady business deal, Darren enlists the help of friends to take on a corrupt politician and a greedy land developer. His investigation reveals a hidden truth about his beloved city and himself.

The film also stars Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Jennifer Jason Leigh, DeWanda Wise, Stephen Tobolowsky, John Ortiz and Ray Wise.

Verdict: Chris Pine might love Los Angeles more than anyone else does. He also loves movies about Los Angeles, talking about movies about Los Angeles, going to the movies in Los Angeles and making movies about making movies in Los Angeles, which is all laid out in his affable directorial debut, “Poolman,” a love letter and homage to (and satire of) stoner L.A. noirs. Pine co-wrote the script with Ian Gotler and stars in the title role as goofy Darren Barrenman, a.k.a. DB, a slacker pool cleaner with eyes the same cerulean shade as the chlorinated body of water he tends to with an almost religious ecstasy.

This Ken’s job is “pool,” and in “Poolman,” a riff on “Chinatown” that keeps announcing itself as such, DB has to follow the water. Our unlikely hero is the Dude from “The Big Lebowski” as a manic pixie dream boy, an effervescently charming and inexplicably quirky chap. With his willingness to be vulnerable, childlike enthusiasm and unique wardrobe, DB also calls to mind another memorable L.A. character: Pee-wee Herman.

DB lives in an RV in the courtyard of a downtrodden apartment complex, rattling off typewritten letters to Erin Brockovich and hanging with his motley crew of pals, including his therapist Diane (Annette Bening), documentary film collaborator Jack (Danny DeVito), girlfriend Susan (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and his buddy and associate Wayne (John Ortiz). Together they ruminate about the good old days of L.A. when they’re not storming city council meetings with dramatic filibusters about bus schedules.

But this isn’t just another shaggy-dog hangout movie, showcasing Pine’s appreciation for classic movies, beloved actors, old-school L.A. restaurants, short shorts and silly hats. Enter the femme fatale at the edge of the pool. In a sculptural 1940s-inspired frock and hat, she is June Del Ray (DeWanda Wise), the assistant to the city council member (Stephen Tobolowsky) with whom DB is locked in a brutal yet banal battle. She tells DB she has dirt on her boss, who she says is collaborating in a shady real estate deal with a developer named Teddy Hollandaise (Clancy Brown). With a bat of her eyelashes, the poolman becomes a P.I. “Poolman” is Pine’s guileless take on the movies that he name-checks throughout, like the frequently referenced “Chinatown” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” But it unfolds like more recent films such as “Inherent Vice” and “Under the Silver Lake” — self-conscious takes on L.A. noir that come with extra layers of existentialism and winking commentary. Pine seems less motivated to comment on the genre, just happy to be playing in the sandbox, flinging around the iconography, archetypes and extremely niche references.

The Achilles’ heel of “Poolman” is its tendency toward hyperspecific geographical jokes; it’s a bit too “inside baseball” to appeal to anyone outside of L.A. and sometimes feels like a feature-length version of the “Saturday Night Live” sketch “The Californians” (Pine’s long blond locks add to that sensation). The central mystery is flabby and uncompelling and it feels obligatory at best, a real-estate scandal offering a loose background in front of which these actors play.

Thankfully, the best part of the movie is the cast. If Pine has great taste in anything, it’s actors. He’s assembled an ensemble that includes a superstar (Bening, having a ball), a comedic heavy-hitter (DeVito, spouting an almost nonstop monologue about parking and pie) and a group of character actors who always make you feel like you’re in safe, capable hands. Add to that a compelling ingenue (Wise) and at least one delightful weirdo (Ray Wise) and the film would be entertaining even if they just read the phone book.