Beatrice Loayza

This aestheticization of Chinese society doesn’t exactly sit well with this viewer: one wonders if this counts as a kind of tourism.

Ultimately, the film feels a bit misshapen.

The brutal possibilities of the white supremacist mind-set are nothing to shy away from. Still, the film’s admittedly jarring cruelty does little beyond press down on old bruises, turning the realities of racialized violence into an immersive spectacle with the kind of real-world sadistic allure one might find in a serial-killer movie.

“Speer” is an intriguing document, highlighting the ease with which the most reprehensible figures are able to whitewash their legacies. But once you settle into its wavelength, the documentary begins to feel simplistic, like a one-track excuse to roll out rare film clips and testimony.

The re-enactments map out the family’s tension and lay bare their wounds, but the lost daughters remain cyphers — the appeal of radicalization frustratingly murky through the end.

The details may be novel — even eye-opening for some — but this story of white guilt and brutality feels mighty old.

Wahlberg and company manage to hold your attention, and not just because there’s a cute dog in the frame.

To sell its brand of wish fulfillment, the film relies almost entirely on the charisma of its leads.

The forced profundity of the “Butterfly” script undermines the film’s enthralling sense of atmosphere, which drips with melancholy, menace and wonder.

The movie never manages to hit above a dim emotional pitch, and a final-act awakening lands with a shrug.

The film, as a result, feels wildly uneven, though it cruises on the strength of its underdog narrative and its weird, sordid touches.

Rotem’s organic approach steers clear of icky idealism, but its conclusions nevertheless feel worn out. Talking helps, sure, but getting people in the same room is too often the stuff of fiction.

It’s clever in concept and kind of silly in execution, which wouldn’t be a bad thing if it knew how to commit to its goofiness.

Somewhere in “The Man in the Basement” there is a smart psychodrama sharpened by political urgency, but what we get is a middling think piece that too quickly loses momentum — and peters out by the end.

The unity rhetoric feels awfully trite, but it also teaches forgiveness: a worthy lesson for the kids.

The film’s epic finale feels stagy — while these real-life frustrations are anything but.

Gagarine is more interesting conceptually than it is in execution, but at least the filmmakers know to exalt the setting’s spectral qualities, adding dreamy, hypnotic touches to their phantom portrait of a place that is no longer of this world.

The film frequently dips into unintentional absurdity, yes, but it also captivates, thanks to the powers of the Gallic film-world heavyweights Benoît Magimel (playing Benjamin) and Catherine Deneuve.

Unicorn Wars is forcefully provocative, trying too hard to push buttons at the cost of more nuanced explorations of masculinity and power. For Vázquez, a pile of cartoon corpses makes enough of a point.

Utgoff is irresistibly compelling, instilling in his character a silent yet singular presence worthy of the “superhero” status that he ultimately acquires.

Grineviciute and Cicenas, however, give depth to a story that becomes stuck on the sorrows of the couple’s discrepancies.

Trapped in a hopelessly alienating world, Cristovam would rather buck than surrender; a fatal end would seem inevitable, but wisely, Miranda Maria pulls back the reins with a glimpse of empathy that teases a potential way forward.

Ameen prioritizes symbolism teeming with sensory spirit over plot-based narrative, which ultimately renders her attempt at making a political statement too opaque and disjointed to have much of an impact.

The lumbersome conspiracy-building in the front half, paired with flashy visuals and some performances fitting for a crude stoner comedy, make this a bleary experience overall.

Yet in striving to carve out a distinctly feminine experience within the male-dominated profession, the filmmaker loses sight of the person inside the space suit, falling back on the family/career dilemma in a way that feels archaic and, for the most part, less than insightful.

Death and desire swirl around the film’s charged atmosphere, though Le Bon has trouble meaningfully bringing out these elements in the narrative itself, hastily throwing in ambiguities in the last act to create a weightier sense of drama. The effect falls flat.

If all women behaving badly can be summed up as witchy, then Sankey’s documentary too often works like a game of associations.

The guarded Julia certainly intrigues, but too often the film sinks into the clichés of a rugged character study — no wonder she prefers to accelerate.