Andy Webster

The movie, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who directed Mr. Neeson in the efficient airborne thriller “Non-Stop,” has two saving graces: a tight script and terrific acting.

The variety of physical perspectives lends a vivid you-are-there aspect to this record of the Zuccotti Park protest in New York in 2011.

Complete Unknown is a curious hybrid, teetering between a thriller and a romance only to land in a nebulous spot that is neither.

As a screenwriter, Ms. Morgan is nimble with glib conversation, and she is fearless at playing an often unlikable character. But this movie might only narrowly pass the Bechdel test, and mustering sympathy for Annette’s affluent, insular circle is difficult. The plot resolutions ultimately feel pat, and the conflicts, in retrospect, thin.

Besides a clever, blithely ribald script by Bradley Jackson, the movie benefits from a potent “Saturday Night Live”-empowered cast.

Its willful determination to be outré proves its undoing.

Chris Perkel’s reverent documentary Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives is a valedictory for Mr. Davis.

Despite Mr. Yen’s impressive physical virtuosity, his stoic, often humorless presence tends to neutralize the emotional temperature.

Ms. Burdge — all quicksilver emotion and exposed nerve endings — is an endlessly watchable focal point. Her character’s vulnerability, uncertainty and growing self-acceptance lend the movie a necessary gravity.

Chavez (1927-1993), a founder of what became the United Farm Workers union, faced brutal odds, as this compelling documentary demonstrates.

With strong assists from the cinematographer Zachary Galler and her ex-husband, the composer Sondre Lerche, Ms. Fastvold, previously a director of music videos, has painted a resonant tableau of dysfunction.

Mr. Holsten, was a maker of the winning 2012 documentary “OC87,” a study of obsessive-compulsive disorder. His gift for portraiture shows only further refinement here.

In Antonio Banderas, Mr. Hudson has a winning de Sautuola of personal modesty, scientific integrity and paternal warmth.

Clearly, the architect and the filmmaker are tight, which does not entirely benefit Big Time.

Despite her script’s omissions...Ms. DuVall juggles the emotional dynamics with fluid editing and light comic touches. The skilled cast members must flesh out their characters, and the unselfconscious Ms. Lynskey, who invites the audience’s mockery and ends up with its sympathy, is the revelation.

We are largely left with the images, which take us far, if not far enough.

Mr. Irons handily hits the emotional beats, as does Mr. Patel.

For all its gloss, “Kundo” fails to resonate. You appreciate the execution, but the film is hindered by its lack of novelty and metaphorical weight.

No one is as intriguing as the thoughtful, soft-spoken Mr. Fanning, a onetime idealist thwarted by the piracy label and the dated assumptions of a calcified communications infrastructure.

Since we can’t all attend Burning Man, we can be thankful for “Spark,” which is probably the next best thing.

What distinguishes Fonzy is its attention to Diego’s Galician roots. As his character discovers his offspring and his paternal instinct, Mr. Garcia gives the bedraggled but compassionate Diego an aspect slightly more emphatic than his screen forebears.

Despite an implausible ending devoid of consequence, “Don’t Worry Baby” benefits from tidy editing, cinematography and, most of all, the presence of the seasoned Mr. McDonald and Ms. Balsam. Their nuanced authority — and the vibrant Manhattan backdrop — make the trip worthwhile.

Mr. Nakashima, it must be said, does have a knack for composition. But the torrential, if glossy, violence — he adores juxtaposing innocuous pop ditties with gruesome set pieces — grows tiresome.

Exuberant, busy and sometimes funny, DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls is determined to amuse.

[A] glossy, fawning valentine to conspicuous consumption.

The pieces don’t entirely cohere, but Ms. Smith has a promising sensibility.

The filmmakers, largely forgoing a soundtrack, skillfully manipulate stillness, silence and anomie to unsettling effect.

Given the audacity, gusto and hell-for-leather filmmaking on display, the prospect of subsequent installments does not seem unreasonable.

A savvy exercise in inspirational feel-good cinema lightly seasoned with grit.

This frenetic movie has moments of wit, and Ms. Feiffer, a seasoned screen and Broadway performer, has range, stamina and charisma.

In its allegiance to detail, the film is too long and perhaps overstates its case in claiming that later generations have lost an understanding of common courage, as depicted by these two artists. Their work endures, and so does what they stood for.

This is a movie that drops quotations from Faulkner and Einstein, but it rarely feels pedantic or platitudinous, thanks to the breezy, assured delivery of Mr. Khan.

Having painted Victor as a transgressive offender, Mr. Senese backpedals furiously with a coda asserting the potential rewards of genetic manipulation. It isn’t convincing.

Though the script tilts to the didactic, the performances are absolutely delicious, with Mr. Meaney droll and understated and Mr. Spall fiery and derisive, yet not above a joke.

Ms. Kendrick — whether playing daffy, amorous, insightful or indignant — carries the movie. And her surprising shades of grit don’t hurt, either.

Ms. Shaye gives Insidious more than sufficient reason for a Chapter 4.

Revelations unfold predictably, but the subplots cohere and the assured pacing offers a stark contrast with the often disjointed tempos of Mr. Perry’s mosaics.

The luminaries in “21” pay deserving tribute to Mr. Linklater. Soon, perhaps, so will the Academy

A Lego Brickumentary might be a resounding cheer for a brand, but it’s an eye-opener, too.

The diagrammatic script, by Jarret Kerr, has wit but could sometimes use more nuance. But there are tasty performances.

The find here is Alexa Nisenson as Georgia, Rafe’s know-it-all little sister, who takes cars out for a spin. She is blessed with the best lines, comic and dramatic, and appears delightfully cognizant of the fact. If only the movie had more of her.

A lively closing dance sequence, after an earnest, underwhelming climax, pays affectionate tribute to Bollywood production numbers. But you won’t find Mr. Chan’s customary bloopers over the closing credits.

[A] competent but slight thriller.

Closure may be missing, but at least glimpses of promising Canadian performers are in abundant supply.

Desert Dancer explores fascinating aspects of present-day Iran but suffers mightily from simplistic and sentimental tendencies.

Narrative depth may be in short supply, but the energy, invention and humor are bracing.

The horror anthology has a long tradition, going at least as far back as the British classic “Dead of Night,” in 1945. The best offer surprise endings or a sense of humor. You won’t receive much of either here. Just vertigo and maybe a wicked case of induced attention deficit disorder.

Mr. Piazza offers a persuasive portrait of decline, but it is the crumbling beauty and flailing hopes of Rose that resonate. Ms. Arquette comprehends the character inside and out, and her aim is true.

[A] modest, proficient thriller.

The latest animated Despicable Me outing shows signs of wear even as its energy level escalates.

The conventions are trundled out in Stanley J. Orzel’s cross-cultural romance, Lost for Words, but not the tension or the chemistry.

The ending to this fable misses the opportunity for broader metaphorical resonance, but getting there has its own unnerving rewards.

Almost every image in this movie — from webcams, websites and laptop cameras — appears on a monitor. Scenes pulse with the Internet’s speed and sprawl, aided by clever editing that pops. The effect is insular, off-putting and disconcertingly familiar.

[A] crisp if feather-light documentary.

Though rich in period detail, the movie grows tiresome with solemn, protracted soap-operatic encounters laden with glowering stares and tearful outbursts.

The longtime friends Mr. Guzmán and Mr. Garcia have an unforced chemistry. But the effective jokes land too rarely. You’ll be ready to leave when the trip is over.

Freedom does not remotely approach, say, “12 Years a Slave” in its production values or dramatic impact. But it does offer Mr. Gooding, whose weathered countenance is no longer the exuberantly cherubic face featured in “Jerry Maguire.” In its place is something more interesting: a quiet, rugged and arresting conviction.

This film — the second from the Soskas, and shot in their hometown, Vancouver, British Columbia — combines gore, quiet dread, feminist conviction and a visual classicism, often using a red palette, with impressive, unbelabored dexterity.

The Queen of Spain, a light ensemble romp from the veteran director Fernando Trueba, has fun with movie lore even as it pillories Hollywood’s deal-making with the Francisco Franco regime in the 1950s.

Mr. Diez, a former effects specialist, skillfully blends viscous textures with cheesy digital flourishes. The screenwriter, Adam Aresty, also earns points for the dialogue’s blithe hit-or-miss humor. But it’s Tilman Hahn’s sound design, with its unsettling buzz, that will burrow most unforgettably into your memory.

The Boy, despite remarkable performances and gorgeous imagery, does not sufficiently flesh out its subject.

A richly satisfying poison-pen letter to the music industry.

The film, financed by a Kickstarter campaign, looks polished enough. But its investors’ money might have been better spent elsewhere.

When the Rangers engage in “Transformers”-lite mayhem, an intriguing group portrait collapses into generic pyrotechnics.

An intermittently diverting stew of low-budget effects and potty-mouth humor.

[A] tidy and ingratiating documentary ode to high-end mixologists.

“He can move the mountains.” “I was blind but now I see.” Those lines are but drops in the torrent of clichés saturating Michael John Warren’s narcotizing documentary Hillsong — Let Hope Rise.

If you’re a boy between, say, 8 and 12 and wired to the hilt on Coca-Cola, the shrill, exhausting “Gold” might be for you. But only if.

The movie benefits from Austin Schmidt’s neon-infused cinematography and Annie Simeone’s lush production design. But Mr. LaChiusa’s songs largely fail to resonate here. Dramatic traction suffers, probably as a result of the many, and diffuse, vignettes. And yet this is a commendably audacious effort by Mr. Gustafson (“Were the World Mine”).

While the director, Peter Askin, employs an all-too-customary suspense arsenal (vertiginous stairway perspectives, foreboding thunderstorms, ominous headlights), Mr. King’s script offers a wealth of behavioral details.

An investigation among the attendees grants Mr. Andò the opportunity to pursue pithy, discursive exchanges about power, austerity and capitalism amid high-end accommodations and a tasteful classical soundtrack.

[A] slight exercise, which, for all its modesty, generates a measure of dread.

The actors, including Erin Boyes as another captive, try to infuse their characters with depth, and the cinematographer, Scott Winig, lends the proceedings a professional gloss, especially in nighttime scenes. But their efforts cannot lift the story beyond its thin, lurid premise.

It’s an eco-fable devoid of didactic overkill, delivered with energy, winking mischief, unobtrusive effects and a skilled cast.

The trouble lies in Tyler Hisel’s script, which teems with wheezy conventions.

Mostly, Last Weekend is an elegiac ode to affluence.

Mr. Hough, a “Dancing With the Stars” champion, impresses with his footwork and sufficiently fulfills his romantic-lead duties. BoA is cute and appealingly impudent, but a bit more remote. On the floor, however, their chemistry ignites.

There’s claustrophobia to burn in Steven C. Miller’s Submerged, a modest thriller offering glints of talent amid predictable plot threads.

“Sea of Monsters” is diverting enough...but it doesn’t begin to approach the biting adolescent tension of the Harry Potter movies.

Feels like a religious tract more than a movie.

The script, by Ms. Stephens and Joel Viertel, though lurching at times into overstatement, is enhanced with worthy if fleeting performances from John Cho and Christopher McDonald as Sam’s colleagues. Ray Winstone, as a journalist, effectively melds sleaze and compassion.

Tai Chi Hero merely fills the eye, offering little that stays with you.

The script, by Mr. Dekker, spirals into a muddle of ambiguity, leaving only the imagery and the performances to save the movie. And try as they might, they cannot.

If not for Mr. Jones, “Resurrection,” while competently edited, would be devoid of humor, an area where Mr. Statham has shown promise in the past.

Ms. Turner captures the intimacy of solemn, heartfelt moments, and salutes a man who honors their value.

While this unrelentingly midtempo movie milks Brooklyn for its chic, it manages to denude it of its color.

Although the subject is potent, the film, directed with a seemingly effortless commercial acumen, doesn’t burrow deeply.

Underlying this overlong and overheated enterprise is a surfeit of ambition. Maybe too much.

Sure, the new action workout Kickboxer: Vengeance — a reboot of a foot-fighting franchise from the 1980s and ’90s — follows a tiresome martial-arts movie formula. But amid the hoary conventions are agreeable inklings of an alternate sensibility.

The directors, Dallas Hallam and Patrick Horvath, are fluent in the genre’s staples (creaky interiors, slamming doors, yada yada yada), lighting schemes and startling edits. And they draw decent work from their actors, who commit to the wispy, subtext-free material.

For some, its atmosphere and intriguing performances will prove worthy of the outing.

What Lotus Eaters can take pride in are Gareth Munden’s stunning black-and-white cinematography and Ms. Campbell-Hughes, a riveting visual subject suggesting miles of internal depth. She makes this wallow in callow company watchable.

The film rests on the attractive but opaque Ms. Thorne, who is not ready for such weight. Commendably, she stretches her acting muscles, but Hazel’s internal struggle remains elusive. Viewers need more to connect with.

Mr. Mercer’s character doesn’t attract sympathy comparable to that for Ms. Townsend’s (Ms. Lore’s Harper fares better), but there is no holding back on the worms, dermatologic nightmares, venereal-disease metaphors and hints of future sequels. Start stocking up now on the Pepto-Bismol.

Fortunately, Camera Obscura has decent actors to flesh out its dubious premise.... But their diligent efforts cannot raise the whole enterprise above a mere exercise.

[A] strained, overheated thriller.

This belabored comedy, directed by Benjamin Epps, has a slick visual veneer and some capable performances, especially by Ms. Rulin and Ms. King. But the script, by Matt K. Turner, is loaded with contradictions, its hollow flirtation with subversion amount to airplane pablum.

A smorgasbord of empty calories, the Vin Diesel vehicle The Last Witch Hunter, for all its overstuffed visuals, leaves you hungry. But not for more.