A.O. Scott

You will come for the kind of humor promised in the title and the well-earned R rating, but stay for the nuanced meditations on theology and faith.

On the most fundamental level, Neither Heaven Nor Earth is an impressive stunt, a horror movie masquerading as a film about the horrors of war. But its gravity and intelligence...make it something more.

It’s a subtle movie, alert to the almost imperceptible currents of feeling that pass between its title characters.

Suicide Squad is a so-so, off-peak superhero movie. It chases after the nihilistic swagger of “Deadpool” and the anarchic whimsy of “Guardians of the Galaxy” but trips over its own feet.

A certain amount of work is required to stitch together a sense of the plot, but as is often the case in Zulawski’s films, the story is less the point than an excuse, a loose temporal conceit holding together flights of visual invention, verbal extravagance and male and female nudity.

Equity pulls off a difficult balancing act with an elegance that should not be underestimated. It turns its unflappable gaze on a maddeningly complex reality and transforms it into a swift, clear and exciting story.

The tedium, I would argue, is not incidental but essential, because this is not really a spy thriller or even a foot-chase and fist-fight-driven action movie, but rather a somber meditation on the crisis of the Gen-X professional in the throes of middle age.

This is a film about the struggle for sexual freedom and women’s rights, and also about the power of region, class and custom in the lives of its characters.

The nerd in me wants a bit more rigor, a bit more plausibility underneath the exuberant fakery. Maybe in the next episode.

It is, overall, an amusing little picture, with some inspired moments and some sour notes, a handful of interesting performances and the hint, now and then, of an idea.

You leave with a vivid sense of the man’s living presence and a reasonably thorough account of his life, work and associations. Given the sheer volume and variety of the work in question, this is an impressive achievement.

Seeming to wander through small incidents and mundane busyness, it acquires momentum and dramatic weight through a brilliant kind of narrative stealth. You are shaken, by the end, at how much you care about these women and how sorry you are to leave their company.

The Secret Life of Pets is adequate animated entertainment, amusing while it lasts but not especially memorable except as a catalog of compromises and missed opportunities.

The Purge: Election Year takes itself just seriously enough to provide the expected measure of fun — a blend of aggression, release and relief. A lot of people die, but no one really gets hurt.

There are delights on display, but not many surprises...The BFG is a different kind of movie, and Mr. Rylance’s face and body have been enhanced and distorted by digital sorcery, but his unique blend of gravity and mischief imbues his fanciful character with a dimension of soul that the rest of the movie lacks.

Mr. Ross consulted some of the leading experts in the era...and has done a good job of balancing the factual record with the demands of dramatic storytelling. The result is a riveting visual history lesson, whose occasional didacticism is integral to its power.

Mr. Solondz’s eye for the petty hypocrisies and delusions of American life has lost some of its sharpness, and he flails at flabby targets — avant-garde art, campus “political correctness” — in ways that sometimes carry an ugly whiff of racial and sexual bigotry.

Contemplating both tales in succession can induce a far from unpleasant sense of vertigo, a feeling of standing at the edge of an abyss of wide-open philosophical questions and deep psychological mysteries.

It is possible to appreciate Mr. Zulawski’s perverse ingenuity, and to miss his eye and voice, without quite succumbing to the strenuous charms and overcooked provocations of Cosmos.

What “Dory” lacks in dazzling originality it more than makes up for in warmth, charm and good humor.

There is no denying the film’s uncanny power or its visual discipline. It’s a luminous puzzle with a few pieces missing.

It’s dispiriting to see a movie about interesting real-life characters reduce them to clichés, making them less vivid, less fascinating, less charismatic than they must have been.

Like any good work of criticism, De Palma will be catnip for passionate fans while also serving as a primer and a goad for the skeptical and the curious. Mr. De Palma is remarkable company — witty, insightful and neither unduly modest nor overbearingly vain.

This floppy British romance, directed by Thea Sharrock and adapted by Jojo Moyes from her best-selling novel, sits at the point where tedium, ridiculousness and heartfelt sentiment converge, separated by an all-but-imperceptible distance.

“Popstar” takes aim at everything that is artificial and plastic in contemporary pop in a spirit of love rather than spite. It’s a celebration of the curious authenticity — the innocence, the sweetness, the guiltless pleasure — of music whose badness is sometimes hard to separate from its genius.

[Ms. Tsangari's] inquiry stops short of the hearts of these men, and she seems content to dramatize some of the sad, ridiculous and tender ways that boys will be boys.

Part courtroom drama, part rumination on what separates human beings from other animals, the film is above all a sympathetic portrait of an advocate.

Ms. Miller’s choices are hard to argue with. She steers gracefully through a zigzagging plot, slowing down for quiet, contemplative stretches and pausing for jokes that are irrelevant but irresistible. She finds a tricky balance of farce, satire and emotional sincerity, a way of treating people as ridiculous without denying them empathy.