Chris Nashawaty

A violent, grungy, Peckinpah-lite action thriller that’s worth checking out just to be reminded how powerful an actor Mel Gibson continues to be even—if the parts aren’t coming like they once were.

If your kids can get through the first five minutes of Pete’s Dragon (which rank right up there with the shooting of Bambi’s mother on the Disney trauma-o-meter), then you won’t find a sweeter family film for the waning days of summer.

Writer-director David Ayer (End of Watch) skillfully sets up the film, introducing each of the crazies with caffeinated comic-book energy. But their mission...is a bit of a bust. The stakes should feel higher.

Beneath all of its hard-R partying, rebellious debauchery, and profanity, it taps into something very real and insidious in the zeitgeist. It’s one of the funniest movies of the year—and one of the most necessary.

Beyond is more fun than deep. It’s lightweight, zero-gravity Trek that is, for the most part, devoid of the sort of Big Ideas and knotty existential questions that creator Gene Roddenberry specialized in.

With a cast as daring and quick as this one, Ghostbusters is too mild and plays it too safe.

While it’s nice to see Cusack and costar Samuel L. Jackson downplay rather than go big, Cell has a been-there-done-that quality that winds up feeling a bit disappointing.

Like a dog that endlessly chases its tail in circles, Pets is amusing for a while, then it just tires itself out.

If, on the other hand, it’s sleazy kicks you’re after, you’ll be in exploitation heaven. Because writer-director James DeMonaco’s third chapter in the thrill-kill vigilante franchise is the best and pulpiest Purge yet.

Disposable and shockingly inept.

A hot, strange mess that never quite comes together the way it should.

Parents looking for a 21st-century E.T. to share with their kids are bound to be a bit disappointed even as their eyes are dazzled.

In Wiener-Dog, Solondz just keeps telling the same dark joke over and over again—and it just keeps getting less and less funny. It’s a dog.

The film is maddeningly uneven. Just as it starts to settle into an inspired groove, it uncorks a couple of gags that fall lethally flat, making for half of a great comedy.

The Shallows could have been a really fun B-movie. And in a lot of ways, it is. There’s no denying that it has some great jump-scares and scratches a certain summer itch we all get this time of year. Too bad it’s a bit too watered down.

Tim Skousen and Jeremy Coon’s new documentary, Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, isn’t the kids’ finished film. It’s a film about the making of their film — and it’s amazing.

David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s documentary Tickled is so crazy that it feels like a hoax. Only it’s not. At least, I don’t think it is.

As De Palma shows us, whether he’s got two more films left in him or two dozen — Holy Mackerel — what a career!

It’s not Toy Story or Inside Out or even Nemo. What it is is a perfectly enjoyable family film that’s comforting, familiar, and a bit slight, like one of those serviceable Lion King spin-offs that Disney used to ship straight to DVD back in the ‘90s.

It’s soulless, incoherent, Renaissance Faire hooey. And since the latest iteration of game series that inspired it, World of Warcraft, already peaked years ago, even the timing is off.

The film doesn’t seem particularly interested in grappling with any of those issues beyond the most superficial level.

There are some solid scares (Wan is too gifted in the dark art of gotcha manipulation to not make you leap a few times), but there’s nothing on par with the first film’s brilliant hide-and-clap scene with Lili Taylor. If there’s going to be a Conjuring 3—and this movie is just decent enough to suggest there will be—our heroes should be a little choosier about which case they dust off next.

The film will feel familiar to anyone who’s sniffled through "Love Story" or "The Fault in Our Stars." It’s better than both.

If this soap opera wasn’t real, you’d never believe it.

Gosling and Crowe have a surprisingly fizzy, ferret-and-bull chemistry, and the hedonistic Me Decade setting is groovy.... But the one-liners and shoot-outs feel a bit threadbare, handed down from older, better Shane Black movies.

There are certain movies that you really want to like based on their ambition, or their weirdness, or their ambitious weirdness, and ultimately you just can’t. Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise is one of those movies.

If you’re willing to surrender to his singular vision, you might just walk out of the theater seeing the world in a new way — which is probably more than you can expect from the new Kevin Hart comedy.

Apocalypse feels like a confused, kitchen-sink mess with a half dozen too many characters, a villain who amounts to a big blue nothing, and a narrative that’s so choppy and poorly cut together that it feels like you’re watching a flipbook instead of a movie.

There are some stretches of the film that are frankly a bit boring and wouldn’t be missed if they were cut.

Based on a real-life rash of teen suicides in Wales, Danish director Jeppe Rønde’s 2015 Tribeca winner feels like the sort of slow BBC America procedural you’d quickly give up on.

It seems to exist merely to spoil your appetite.

Despite its stars-and-stripes title, Marvel’s latest billion-dollar-blockbuster-to-be, Captain America: Civil War, is essentially a third Avengers movie – it’s also the best one yet.

If it sounds like Hologram is basically about a middle-aged white guy getting his groove back in the Middle East, well, yes, it is that. But if you squint hard enough, it’s also a little bit more.

It’s the movie equivalent of a cake that’s all frosting.

Part of being in a punk band involves having to play some pretty hostile venues. But the one in writer-director Jeremy Saulnier’s new white-knuckle thriller, Green Room, makes the typical mosh-pit dive look like a kindergarten run by nuns.

The Jungle Book is a tender and rollicking fable that manages to touch on some grown-up themes about man’s destructive power and the loss of youthful innocence without losing sight that it’s first and foremost a gee-whiz kids adventure.

Kusama ratchets the story’s tension masterfully, building to a final shot that’s as chilling as it is perfect.

While Byrne is solid (as always) and Eisenberg is restrained (a relief after his manic Lex Luthor), it’s newcomer Druid whose scenes pack the most power and force.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s wild-card performance is the only reason to bother with "Dallas Buyers Club" director Jean-Marc Vallée’s manipulative downer.

A hypercaffeinated first-person action flick that teeters somewhere between gonzo insanity and a nausea-inducing endurance test.

There’s Glen Powell as Finn, the endearing loquacious smoothie; there’s Juston Street as Jay, the psycho loose-cannon fireballer; and Wyatt (son of Kurt) Russell as Willoughby, the older, sage-like stoner who quotes Carl Sagan after ripping bong hits.

Farhadi’s intrigue doesn’t feel like the stuff of a Hollywood thriller. It’s more realistic, more pedestrian than that – which gives it a real ring of low-key emotional truth.

It’s a small, modest film, but its impact is anything but.

I get that this mano a supermano story line is a sacred text among comic-book aficionados, but Dawn of Justice doesn’t do the tale any favors. It’s overstuffed, confusing, and seriously crippled by Eisenberg’s over-the-top performance.

A lot of us have really missed Pee-wee, and seeing him go through his fun-house morning regimen at the outset of the film is a giddy treat. It’s like catching up with an old friend. But nostalgia gets you only so far.

As father and son speed toward some doomsday reckoning, Nichols keeps us guessing in a way that evokes "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Midnight Special is a more modest, more enigmatic film than that one was, but it’s no less gripping.

Creative Control is a much more modest film (both visually and thematically) than something like Her or Ex Machina, but it never feels hamstrung by its limitations. If you go with its future-shock flow, it will cast a spell that feels like something between a dream and a nightmare.

For a rookie director, Trachtenberg appears to be a real craftsman, even if what he’s crafting doesn’t add up to as much as you hope it will.

Zootopia delivers the genre’s requisite barrage of quick-hit puns and pop culture riffs.

It’s a shame the rest of the soap-opera story doesn’t measure up to its stunts.

A shoddy special-effects howler that makes a hash out of both Egyptian mythology and human logic.

With his crudely drawn stick-figure body and big, round Wiffle-ball head, Cuca is a bundle of jitterbug energy and boundless imagination. Like Riley’s in "Inside Out," his noggin is a wondrous place to spend an hour or two.

The most impressive thing about Triple 9 is that it somehow manages to be both predictable and incoherent at the same time. Well, that and the fact that it manages to make half a dozen good actors look really lost.

While its strange rhythms may not be for everyone, it does provide something unusual in today’s movies: a truly original experience for the mind and the soul.

What makes this chillingly creepy little black-magic folk tale work so beautifully is its evocative sense of time and place.

It’s utterly demented, slightly terrifying, and most of all hilarious. It’s also one of the giddiest and most stinging political satires since Thomas Nast took on Tammany Hall.

Zoolander No. 2 is embarrassing, lazy, and aggressively unfunny. The only good news is that at the pace the franchise is moving, we won’t get Zoolander 3 until 2030.

It doesn’t have the most adrenalized action sequences or the deepest origin story. What it has is the balls to mess with the formula and have some naughty, hard-R fun. It’s a superhero film for the wiseasses shooting spitballs in the back of the school bus.

Since the film’s last-minute rewrites, casting switcheroos, and musical chairs behind the camera are irrelevant to the actual quality of the movie, I’ll avoid rehashing them here, save to say that the disarray shows on screen.

An intermittently affecting, sanded-edge adventure that feels as if it trundled off the studio production line back when Eisenhower was in office.

Gere, an actor capable of great nuance, hams it up so mightily you’d think the film was sponsored by Boar’s Head.

Del Toro’s low-key resignation gives the film what power it has, but the female characters (played by Mélanie Thierry and Olga Kurylenko) are disappointingly thin.

Visually dazzling and morally devastating.

It’s obvious that Kaufman has always seen the world differently from the rest of us. And even if it takes a little time to settle into Anomalisa’s disorienting, herky-jerky groove, Kaufman ends up bewitching us with his fresh take on the oldest and most hackneyed of cinematic themes: boy meets girl…and anxiety ensues.

Where to Invade Next is so heartfelt and sincere, it’s tempting to say that Moore’s mellowed with age. But beneath its innocent-abroad optimism, the film has a stinging truth that’s hard to ignore.

It’s the rarest kind of moviegoing experience: an absolute masterpiece.

The ending he’s come up with for The Force Awakens feels so perfect it’s hard to imagine it any other way. In an age when we’ve all become binge watchers, we feel as if it’s become our right to immediately roll right into the next episode, the next sequel. And when The Force Awakens ends, it’s bittersweet because you so badly want to head right into the next chapter.

The Hateful Eight doesn’t have enough ideas. Set almost entirely in a snowed-in saloon, the story’s so spare it doesn’t warrant either its three-hour running time (including an overture and intermission) or his use of 70mm projection. It’s narratively and visually claustrophobic.

Howard’s film, for all of its storytelling skill, technical polish, and rousing high-seas sequences, never quite casts the spell it should. It’s too polite to give us a real feeling of life or death. Its sense of danger is watered down.

I suppose you could call The Big Short a comedy. It’s very, very funny. But it’s also a tragedy. Behind every easy drive-by laugh is a sincere holler of outrage.

Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, Iñárritu’s savage endurance test of a film almost works better as a series of stunning images and surreal sequences than as an emotionally satisfying story.

As it is, Youth is hit-and-miss, beautiful and frustrating.

The film’s raw performances get upstaged by Kurzel’s medieval shock-and-awe palette. The text has been streamlined to make room for more brutal mud-and-blood battle sequences, hauntingly shot by Adam Arkapaw.

The best part is getting to hear both men talk about their art in exhaustive, almost fetishistic detail. If you’re a classic movie buff, this is a must-see.

It feels like a movie that’s been lovingly crafted and put under glass in a museum. And I kept waiting for it to move me more than it did.

While the story attempts the moves that a Pixar film typically makes—nonverbal storytelling, death, a bittersweet ending—most of The Good Dinosaur’s punches land soft, made worse by the disconnect that exists between the overly cartoonish style of the characters and the photorealistic landscapes.

Engrossingly intimate documentary.

The heist in Heist is pretty pedestrian, and the film turns into Die Hard-on-a-bus with a couple of so-so twists and serviceable spasms of action. If that’s what you’re looking for, rent Speed instead.

In the best scene, which comes late in the film, James holds his dying mother and shares a vision of their future that they both know she’ll never get to see.

In the end it’s a movie about legacy, and it more than preserves the Rocky franchise’s. It reminds you why it was great in the first place.

Like "Far From Heaven," Carol mines society’s narrow-mindedness and the dangers of living a double life. But what was true more than a half century ago remains true now: The heart wants what it wants, society and propriety be damned.

Its intentions are noble. Its gaze is harshly realistic. But it’s also overly melodramatic. Bettany has the makings of better director than screenwriter.

Ronan, who’s made a habit of giving us sparkling turns since she was a kid in 2007’s Atonement, delivers a dazzlingly mature performance.

In this passionately nostalgic documentary, actor-turned-director Colin Hanks brings that era back to life, tracing the rise and fall of Russ Solomon’s retail music chain, which first opened its doors in Sacramento in 1960.

Directed by Holbrooke’s son, David, the film balances poignant political insight with a heartfelt narrative about a man trying to reckon with his absent father’s legacy.

The film is undercut by long metaphorical stretches that dampen their impact.

Tautly directed by Tom McCarthy (The Visitor), the film hums as a tense shoe-leather procedural and a heartbreaking morality play that handles personal stories respectfully without losing sight of the bigger, more damning picture.

It’s possible that Skyfall created expectations that were too high for Spectre to match. But with all he’s done for the franchise, Craig deserves to go out with a bigger, smarter bang.

Just when you think you know where Burnt is headed, there’s an underhanded twist about halfway in. And it’s almost enough to set the movie right.

The comedy here isn’t very funny and the drama isn’t very sharp.

It’s 85 minutes of grim abyss-gazing with no hope of salvation. If Silverman’s going to bare her soul this nakedly, she deserves a better film to do it in.

It’s a shame that, despite some excellent performances, this urgent, well-intentioned film feels so conventional and stolid.

I doubt there’s a huge audience for a movie like Bone Tomahawk, but those who find it may turn it into a new cult classic.

Knock Knock is a pretty flimsy erotic thriller, but thanks to Reeves’ oaken obliviousness it’s also got a few moments of deliciously trashy fun.

Crimson Peak is a cobwebs-and-candelabras chamber piece that’s so preoccupied with being visually stunning it forgets to be scary.

As horror comedies go, this one sadly winds up somewhere between Scary Movie 4 and 5.

For a movie about the importance of objectivity, Truth feels like a biased and sanctimonious op-ed column.

Room is more than the title of one of the year’s most powerful movies — it’s a state of mind that’s unbearably tense and as claustrophobic as a straitjacket

As sharp and slick as Steve Jobs is, it ends up feeling more interested in entertainment than enlightenment.

Bridge of Spies is like Capra with a dash of le Carré.

Davis Guggenheim’s latest documentary is a forceful and exquisitely made piece of advocacy journalism.

A pretty average siege thriller. I’m positive there’s an audience for an Old West tale about fierce, independent women. I’m equally positive it can be done better.

The Green Inferno is less a riff on spaghetti splatter flicks like Cannibal Holocaust than a desperate-to-shock pastiche of guts and gore served with a wink to audiences with strong stomachs. You know who you are.

Douglas Tirola’s doc about the satirical bible’s rise and fall is fascinating, funny, smart, juvenile, tragic, and likely to offend just about everyone. It’s a must-see for anyone who cares about comedy.

Rourke, whose face has become an inexpressive waxwork in recent years, doesn’t do much with what’s already a pretty undercooked role.

Scott’s sci-fi adventure is the kind of film you leave the theater itching to tell your friends to see. Like Apollo 13 and Gravity, it turns science and problem solving into an edge-of-your-seat experience.

Neither scary enough to be a horror film nor funny enough to be a comedy.

The achievement of Edward Zwick’s new Fischer biopic, Pawn Sacrifice, is that it does just that. It manages to turn thinking into action.

With a taut and timely screenplay by Taylor Sheridan, Sicario is a brilliant action thriller with the smarts of a message movie.

Cooper, the director of Crazy Heart and the underrated Out of the Furnace, has made a tight and tense gangster film with Black Mass. But it’s a pretty straight-ahead entry in the genre, albeit one peppered with spicy performances.

What the movie actually could’ve used less of is Gibney, whose faux-pensive voice-overs are meant to push the story forward, but more often make your eyeballs roll backward.

When the lights come up, you don’t want to feel like you’ve watched a ­better Cliffhanger. You want to understand the tragedy you’ve just watched. Yes, you want to be entertained, but you also want the icy, whipping wind of reality to sting.

Yimou’s lovely import is the kind of lump-in-your-throat drama they don’t make much anymore, at least in Hollywood. Watching Coming Home you’ll wonder why that is — and who we can write a letter to to fix it.

Even though there’s not a lot to Jim Strouse’s new relationship comedy, it has a real warmth and charm thanks to the undeniable appeal of comedian Jemaine Clement.

What starts off as a promising indie about a couple (Jake Johnson and Rosemarie DeWitt) trying to balance their own needs versus their partner’s quickly goes south in director Joe Swanberg’s latest meditation on aging-hipster malaise.

The early-’60s styles are chic, the Euro locales are swank, and the music cues (including a nod to Ennio Morricone’s Once Upon a Time in the West score) are fantastic. Too bad the plot and the lead performances are so lifeless.

Cop Car feels like a great short stretched into a mediocre feature.

The Runner is a well-meaning character study with an admirably cynical ending, but it’s too cold to ever fully draw you in.

Straight Outta Compton is a hugely entertaining film that works best if you don’t look at it too closely and just listen.

It’s never pushed far enough. Instead, Dark Places just becomes an overstuffed, low-simmer potboiler with too many improbable detours and overly convenient twists.

Like "Almost Famous," Ponsoldt’s film gets at something deep and true about the journalist/subject dynamic and the phony intimacy and tiny betrayals implicit in it. It’s a profoundly moving story about a towering talent who seemed to feel too much and judge himself too harshly to stick around for long. What a shame.

This deliciously feisty doc contextualizes their verbal brawls and the odd love-hate (mostly hate) rivalry between two men who seemed able to regard their own sense of heroism only through the other’s villainy.

What’s missing is the pent-up anger that simmered behind Chevy Chase’s doofus grin. His Clark was always on the verge of a nuclear-family meltdown. Helms lacks Chase’s passive-aggressive edginess.

The Vatican Tapes is basically “Exorcism’s Greatest Hits” played by a schlocky cover band.

Allen isn’t completely on autopilot here. There are a couple of sharp, sting-in-the-tail twists near the end, and Phoenix is at least interesting. But Irrational Man would be lesser Woody even if we hadn’t seen most of it before.

Rogue Nation may not be the best, the tightest, or even the most logically coherent M:I flick, but there should be more movies like it: relentlessly thrilling, smart entertainments for folks who can’t tell the difference between Quicksilver and The Flash—and aren’t particularly interested in trying to learn the difference either.

Neither Sandler nor his listless writers (too many punchlines just sit there and collect flies) seem invested. Whether he’s saving the planet or putting the moves on Michelle Monaghan, Sandler can’t be bothered to raise his pulse above comatose. If he doesn’t care, why should anyone else?

Gyllenhaal’s Southpaw performance is great, but for reasons unrelated to his physique. He’s thrilling to watch and the only unpredictable thing in a two-hours-plus movie where you can count on one hand the number of moments that aren’t hand-me-downs from better boxing films like "Rocky," "Raging Bull," and "Fat City."

Beneath all of his bad-boy shtick, Apatow’s always been a pretty conventional moralist. But Schumer gives their raunchy rom-com enough of her signature spikiness to prevent it from ever feeling predictable.

A sobering look at the bureaucratic trials and life-and-death decisions rookie doctors face on their daily rounds.

Reed and Rudd's film is proof that no matter how silly some ideas sound at first, good things often do come in small packages.

The story isn’t just confusing, it’s a betrayal to anyone who’s invested brain cells in the Terminatorverse over the past 31 years.

The sequel still manages to walk the tightrope between clever and crass. For a while, at least.

There’s enough slapstick and silliness to keep kids entertained.... But the film also has a bittersweet streak about the loss of innocence and the fleetingness of childhood.

As the film goes on, their rebellious thirst for freedom and independence slowly builds to a physical and psychological emancipation that Moselle never quite follows through on. Still, she’s discovered a stunning, stranger-than-fiction story and tells it with sensitivity, intimacy, and compassion.

Jurassic World is a blockbuster of its moment. It’s not deep. There aren’t new lessons to be learned. And the film’s flesh-and-blood actors are basically glamorized extras. But when it comes to serving up a smorgasbord of bloody dino mayhem, it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do beautifully.

McCarthy’s mind just seems to race in a faster gear than her costars, allowing her to blast off arias of profane put-downs with such speed and demented originality that her mouth practically shoots sparks. As a physical comedian, she possesses the greatest gift of all: She’s totally unafraid of looking stupid.

Entourage, the show and the movie, is about five insanely lucky knuckleheads who have each other’s backs in a town that’s more likely to stab you there.

San Andreas shows that sometimes the fake stuff can get the job done beautifully. I don’t want to make any claims that San Andreas is a great film. It’s not. But as mindless sensory barrages go, its fakery taps into something real: It shows us just how impotent we all are to control our planet. Unless, of course, you happen to be The Rock.

It happens. Really talented directors sometimes step into the batter’s box, take a gigantic swing, and whiff.

Even by the series’ already low standards, The Human Centipede Part 3 is crap.

Even by Bujalski’s shaggy standards, Results never adds up to much. Instead it just sort of sputters out and settles for a predictable rom-com ending. Conventional doesn’t suit him.

Interviews with Boenish’s wife, Jean, give his life story perspective and heart.

Imagine Terrence Malick directing the climax of "The Wild Bunch," and you’re on the right track.

When you get past Miller’s orgy of loco action sequences—and they’re so good, you may not need to—the story is pretty thin.

Out of costume, Spinney is as impossibly sunny as his alter ego (with none of the crankiness of his other incarnation, Oscar the Grouch). At 80, he has no plans to hang up his feathers—welcome news for kids and parents everywhere.

With a steely resilience burning beneath her delicate, creamy complexion, Carey Mulligan brings remarkable nuance and a rich inner life to the role of Bathsheba Everdene.

There are the makings of a poignant Harold and Maude-style drama here, but the movie is so amateurish and eager to be shocking, it just winds up feeling creepy.

Although the film does hint at Apfel’s creeping sense of mortality as she donates her clothes for posterity, it never gets deep enough under her skin.

The art-heist plot is pretty by-the-numbers, but Travolta nearly saves it with his doomed air of paternal helplessness. He makes you feel the weight of being at the mercy of forces bigger than oneself. At 61, he still possesses something rare, even in rote material like this.

Still, my real beef with these movies — and this one in particular — is how same-y they’ve started to feel. Each time out, everything is at stake and nothing is at stake.

There aren’t enough laughs here to goose it past formulaic. It’s harmless and mild and likable, but it’s also a toothless comedy that should have had some bite.

It proves that Morgen isn’t interested in hagiography. He wants to show us the real Kurt Cobain, warts and all.

It happens more often than it should: A cast of sterling actors is assembled for a movie that doesn’t come close to equaling the sum of its parts.

If Ingmar Bergman had directed a remake of "All About Eve," it might have looked something like Clouds of Sils Maria. Mysterious and narratively playful, Olivier Assayas’ film features a trio of finely calibrated female performances that examine the psychological toll of being an actress — or working for one.

Ex Machina is beautiful and ominous and features another delicately nuanced performance from Isaac, who’s quickly making a habit of them. But in the end, for all of Garland’s ambition, his reach winds up exceeding his grasp. The film is as synthetic as Ava.

While the film has an undeniably sexy glow, it’s too earnest and sappy by half. Fortunately, Frank Langella and Glenn Close drop by as Brian’s disapproving parents.

No one forks over 10 bucks to see one of these flicks for its logic. We go for the bananas demolition-derby mayhem. Furious 7 delivers that with the direct visceral rush of an EpiPen.

With this heartbreaking yet hopeful new documentary about his life’s work, Salgado shares the stories behind these split-second black-and-white moments, giving them even more dimension.

After a while, the director of the more perceptive "Frances Ha" and "The Squid and the Whale" tips his hand, painting the aging Xers as guardians of integrity and the millennials as opportunists. It’s a cheap shot, and it feels like he’s telling the kids to get off his lawn. It’s not Stiller’s character who’s the curmudgeon, it’s Baumbach.

None of it would work without the two leads: As the author on the run, Ayako Fujitani conjures a rare mix of demureness and daring. And as the sleuthing lawman, Pepe Serna uses his cement-mixer voice and boxer’s mug to convey a real bloodhound determination.

Get Hard is not only a bad movie but a profoundly wasted opportunity.

Is Kumiko simply naive, or is she mentally ill? The film’s perfect ending doesn’t try to solve that riddle, but it will make you feel as if you’ve just seen something hypnotically original.

Sean Penn doesn’t make movies very often these days. So when he does, you go in with certain expectations. Sadly, it’s best to leave them at the concession stand if you’re planning on enjoying The Gunman.

A dizzyingly tense and creepy workout.

The fizzy cocktail combination of Blanchett’s cartoonish hauteur and Branagh’s visual razzle-dazzle and confectionary sets (courtesy of the legendary Dante Ferretti) manages to take a tale as wheezy as Cinderella and make it feel almost magical again.

Predictable, corny, and mild.

What keeps the film humming along as smoothly as it does is the chemistry and charisma of its leads.

Tonally, the movie can’t decide whether it’s a comedy, a romance, or a wistful wartime madeleine. What it’s missing is the sense of joy and wonder of its predecessor.

With so little backstory and character depth, it’s nothing more than a pointless exercise in brutal, nasty style.

Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales almost feels too audacious, too crazy, and, in some ways, too slight for the Oscars.

The race for the worst film of 2015 is officially on.

It’s a comedy that’s so witless and unfunny and shoddily made it makes "The Hangover 2" look like "The Godfather 2."

Now, in Johanna Hamilton’s fiery truth-to-power documentary, those gray-haired agitators finally step out of the shadows to explain what they did and why they did it (with the help of some slightly hokey dramatic reenactments). Their message—namely, Who will watch the watchmen? — remains as important today as it was 44 years ago.

Stanley Tucci, Hope Davis, Anne Heche, and Sofia Vergara all pop up in glorified cameos and give the movie more fizz than their roles require. Which begs the question: Why would they sign on for such thankless, bite-size roles?

It taps into every parent's worst nightmare — the horror of being unable to protect an out-of-control child.

Thanks to Gabe Polsky's enthralling new documentary, we finally get to see these athletes for who they really were—it humanizes a group of men who were cast by history in the role of villains.

Everything about Vice feels like recycled goods. It's basically "Westworld" meets "Blade Runner" programmed by glitchy filmmaking replicators.

Son of a Gun becomes a somewhat predictable but excitingly twisty heist film involving a double-dealing Russian heavy, a desperate femme fatale, and a fortune in gold bars. It has just enough muscle and style to make the familiar feel fresh.

Going on 20 years now, Moore is someone who's been so reliably good for so long that we've probably taken her for granted. But her subtle, heartbreaking decline as Alice—from her initial diagnosis to her daily struggle to hold on to her identity and dignity to her eventual disappearance in plain sight—is among her most devastating performances.

Occasionally, Mann shows flashes of the sort of springloaded action set pieces he was once hailed for, like a shoot-out during a religious parade. But mostly they just come off as warmed-over parodies from a onetime master aping his own style.

Like Welles' butchered cut of "The Magnificent Ambersons," it's fascinating but leaves you hungry for more.

With her wide, sad eyes and quiet air of embarrassment tinged with pride, Cotillard's Sandra is asking a question not only of her colleagues but of the audience, too: Are we willing to put aside our own self-interest for the sake of empathy? Are we cowardly or brave? Cotillard's exquisite performance makes you feel every ounce of the weight of that dilemma.

A Most Violent Year isn't an explosive film. It builds slowly, simmering toward an inevitable day of reckoning. It's the kind of uncompromising movie we don't see much of anymore. And it makes you nostalgic for a time when the world was worse and the movies were better.

Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is a film that evokes complicated emotions. A month after seeing it, you might still be wrestling with whether it's powerful, profound, or propaganda.

The one bit of good news is that the first Gambler is currently streaming on Netflix. Do yourself a favor and watch that one instead.

Despite its sharp feminist sting, Big Eyes never loses its light touch. Maybe the lesson here is that Burton should venture out of his dark, creepy comfort zone more often.

The first two-thirds of the film, which are like the Brothers Grimm's Greatest Hits on laughing gas, have a fizzy, fairy-dust energy. But as soon as the baker couple's scavenger hunt is over and a rampaging giant appears, Woods loses its magic and momentum and sags like an airless balloon.

DuVernay has done a great service with Selma. Not only has she made one of the most powerful films of the year, she's given us a necessary reminder of what King did for this country...and how much is left to be done.

It's moving, admirable, and occasionally exhilarating. What it's missing is the one thing that could always be counted on with Jolie as a star: the spark of danger.

Like everything else in Jackson's Tolkienland, the buildup to the climactic melee stretches on too long. But when it comes, it's a doozy.

Anderson's film is something to be experienced, like a psychedelic drug trip where the journey trumps the destination. Unfortunately, his journey just didn't do it for me.

Is it possible to sit through a movie, mentally cataloging its absurdities, and still walk out dazzled? Because that pretty much sums up my experience watching Ridley Scott's eye-candy spectacle Exodus: Gods and Kings, an over-the-top Old Testament epic that's essentially Gladiator with God.

As brilliantly funny as Chris Rock is, he's never been able to replicate the high-voltage danger and electricity of his stand-up act on the big screen. But in his latest film, the sharply satirical Top Five, he not only makes a case for why he should be a bona fide movie star, he also proves he's a writer-director to be reckoned with.

If you're looking for cheap scares and have 90 minutes to kill, you could do worse than The Pyramid. But not a lot worse.

The setup has mysterious promise, but the film cheaps out on a satisfying payoff.

In an age when horror movies have mostly become lazy and toothless, here's one with ambition and bite.

The film is anchored by yet another hypnotically complex Cumberbatch performance. He's turning greatness into a habit.

It's the small, tossed-off moments — Bateman's deadpan mugging, Day's frenzied cluelessness, and Sudeikis' smarmy one-liners — that land the best.

Shot in inky black and white, Ana Lily Amirpour's fractured Farsi fright flick has a spooky, otherworldly quality. It's like an early Jim Jarmusch indie set in Little Tehran at 4 a.m.

The documentary offers a compelling overview of the case, but Bar-Lev spends too much time painting Paterno as a victim and scapegoat. That advocacy doesn't sit well.

With her sad, haunted eyes and ''plain as a tin pail'' looks, Swank is by far the best thing in the movie. More than most actresses, she seems unburdened by vanity.

The biggest problem with the new Hunger Games movie is right there in the title: Part 1. Mockingjay, the final installment in Suzanne Collins' best-selling YA trilogy, wasn't conceived in two parts.

I couldn't help wishing that The Theory of Everything had more theory. Hawking famously excels at explaining complicated thoughts with layman simplicity, but the film never translates the originality and depth of his ideas — or even what they are.

The most haunting thing in Bennett Miller's latest film, Foxcatcher, is Steve Carell. That's right, the same rubber-faced comedian who gave us the dim-witted meteorologist of "Anchorman" and the oblivious corner-office boob of "The Office."

It seems to have been made by people who couldn't decide if their film was a horror flick, a whodunit, or a "Hellboy" knockoff.

Most of all, it's a sobering look at a part of coastal America that will never be the same again.

In its wickedly twisted way, Nightcrawler keeps "Network's" battle cry alive. It's a 21st-century takedown of the media's pandering ''if it bleeds, it leads'' ethos and the ghoulish nightcrawlers who live by it.

It's the rare kind of moviegoing experience that will haunt you long after you leave the theater and lead to some very awkward conversations with your spouse.

John Wick, is not only a return to badass form for the actor, it's also one of the most excitingly visceral action flicks I've seen in ages.

Tough to watch, but essential.

Pitt, for instance, could've used a scene like Tom Hanks' in "Saving Private Ryan," where we learn something — anything — about his life back home and what he's fighting for besides the Stars and Stripes. Instead, Fury (the title comes from the name of the tank) just plods from one brutal, bloody combat scene to the next.

I can't think of anyone under 40 who plays arrogant, self-absorbed jerks more convincingly than Jason Schwartzman. I have no clue what the actor's like in real life, but if he's not a complete prick, he deserves an Oscar.

Birdman is a scalpel-sharp dissection of Hollywood, Broadway, and fame in the 21st century. But more than that, it's a testament to Keaton's enduring charisma and power as an actor. He soars.

If you can appreciate the sight of two totally dialed-in performers simmering until they boil over, that's enough. And P.S., that's pretty much the definition of jazz.

What makes the film more than just a dusty Grisham retread is that the case (as compelling as it is) is merely the backdrop for a more emotionally engaging story about fathers and sons played, like a duet, by two virtuoso actors who give the film not only all they have but probably more than it requires.

Murray, of course, can play a redeemable misanthrope with one hand tied behind his back. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he has to do here because writer-director Theodore Melfi reins in his leading man with a script that doesn't know when to stop troweling on the sap.

It's a deeply touching story about survival, perseverance, and hope.

The problem isn't so much what the film is saying but its shrill, alarmist tone. You don't have to be a sociological genius to look at all of us walking down the street like zombies, obliviously staring at our smartphones, and know that something's wrong.

The film's lack of such signature Hendrix tunes as ''Purple Haze'' may put off some — the filmmakers couldn't get the rights — but I'd argue that this obstacle forced Ridley to zig where most biopics zag. Which, when you think about it, is fitting for the story of a lefty who played his guitar upside down.

Anyone who loved Gone Girl the book will walk out of Gone Girl the movie with a sick grin on their face. You can stop being nervous.

The first two-thirds of The Maze Runner are a clever feat of fantasy world building. It's thrilling, twisty, and as mysterious as the mammoth Skinner Box environment the film takes place in. But the promising set-up raises so many puzzle-piece questions that when it's all finally explained in the final reel, you can't help feeling a bit gypped.

All of which leaves you wondering: Why cast such talented, interesting, and edgy performers if you're only going to ask them play it safe?

The fact is, Dock Ellis was...complicated. Probably a lot more so than No No makes him out to be.

It's a shockingly vulnerable performance (Hader), one of the best I've seen all year.

Ari Folman's meta-commentary on Hollywood in the soulless digital age starts off promisingly, like a Charlie Kaufman mind scrambler. But then it spirals into logy animated nonsense.

Like Eric Bana's menacingly raw breakout in 2000's "Chopper" or Tom Hardy's in 2008's "Bronson," O'Connell bristles with terrifying hair-trigger unpredictability. Watching him, you feel like you're witnessing the arrival of a new movie star.

If I Stay never bothers to go after authenticity when there's a cliché hovering nearby. That may not be enough of a drawback to prevent teenage audiences from lapping up the movie with a spoon, but they certainly deserve better.

Charlie McDowell's romantic brainteaser is disarmingly clever — too clever to spoil. But it's also repetitive and a bit too Spike Jonze lite.

The best thing about it is its star, P.J. Boudousqué, who locates a sense of terror and betrayal that the script lacks.

So let me just say that this latest rah-rah red-meat installment is the biggest and best surprise of the series. It has its flaws, but it's mostly a big, dumb, gruntingly monosyllabic hoot.

In Mad Men mastermind Matthew Weiner's big-screen directorial debut, the aggressively unfunny Are You Here, all of the dark humor and delicate character shadings we're used to seeing on his TV series are conspicuously absent. He's swapped nuance for blunt-edged numskullery.

While this sequel lacks the novelty of the first course, it's just as soulful and silly.

The premise would make for a great Funny or Die video, but stretched out to feature length, it runs out of ideas pretty quickly. Still, Plaza is terrific. She commits so fully to her rabid, Romero-esque alter ego, she chews the movie up.

I never entirely bought the flirty détente between the two or believed in the rapturous power of a perfectly cooked sea urchin to solve the world's problems. But for two hours, at least, I swallowed it with a smile.

The film's a giddily subversive space opera that runs on self-aware smart-assery.

Get On Up too often plays it safe when it needs to be dangerous.

While it's breezy and funny and perfectly pleasant, you probably won't remember this particular gift by the time the next birthday rolls around.

Eric Rohmer’s sun-kissed love quadrangle remains as fresh and romantically profound as it was 18 years ago.

Like Michael Apted in his "Seven Up!" documentary series, Linklater makes you feel as if you're watching a photograph as it develops in the darkroom.

A sequel that easily tops its 2011 predecessor.

In the end, cancer may have cruelly taken Roger Ebert's voice, but it couldn't silence his greatest gift: his ability to speak to his audience directly, honestly, and with empathy. Thumbs up.

Ultimately, Age of Extinction is an endless barrage of nonsense and noise.

Snowpiercer sucks you into its strange, brave new world so completely, it leaves you with the all-too-rare sensation that you've just witnessed something you've never seen before...and need to see again.

The three main narratives cut back and forth between New York, Paris, and Rome, which is the best thing the movie has going for it: picturesque locations. Unfortunately, by the time we're done taking in the sights and Haggis finally coughs up his third-act puzzle-box twist, it comes off as a big metaphysical So What.

The biggest problem is that the film, written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, never makes a convincing case for why Valli the man or the singer matters beyond the music in the way that "Ray" and "Walk the Line" did for Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.

A major disappointment. Bleak, brutal, and ultimately pointless.

To cover up the script's lack of originality, screenwriters Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel, and Rodney Rothman pummel us with a string of self-aware meta-commentary jokes that poke fun at bloated sequels.

West is a talented director and knows how to build suspense. But here’s a case where the truth wasn’t only stranger than his fiction, it was scarier, too.

The film coasts on its time-capsule fetishism and affable supporting turns from Susan Sarandon and Lea Thompson, but it never achieves the emotional punch of like-minded comedies such as "Adventureland" and "The Way, Way Back."

I couldn't help wondering what kind of spiky unpredictability a "Say Anything" - era John Cusack would have brought to the character — with or without the requisite Peter Gabriel song.

Despite its terribly unimaginative title, Edge of Tomorrow is a surprisingly imaginative summer action movie.

I don't know if A Million Ways to Die in the West will turn any of the MacFarlane haters into fans. But for those of us who have remained on the fence until now, his raunchy, rat-a-tat parody is proof that beneath all of the bratty immaturity lays the head and heart of an outrageous quick-draw satirist.

As a coming-of-age story, the film is a bit uneventful. But the girls’ rebellious, fist-in-the-air spirit and the warmth of their friendship are undeniable.

While the first hour is evocative and suspenseful, the second doesn’t quite muster the depths of paranoia and doom you’re led to expect.

Johnson ties some of the film's looser ends together and makes you overlook the ones that stay untied. Between "Eastbound & Down," "Django Unchained", and now Cold in July, Johnson has a nice little streak going of turning seemingly disposable characters into indelible scene-stealing rascals.

Not surprisingly, the best thing about Days of Future Past is that it's heavier on the days past than future.

It's the latest male weepie cast from the same Disney mold as "The Rookie and "Miracle," and it's essentially "Jerry Maguire Goes to Mumbai."

He doesn't seem too interested in his actors — they're more plodding than their reptilian costars and you don't care about a single one of them — but Edwards does know how to fashion some serious monster mayhem.

Speaking in her native Aussie twang, Byrne shows that she's a deadpan comic ace. And thanks to her chemistry with Rogen, Neighbors proves that just because you grow up doesn't mean you have to be a grown-up.

With her brassy, determined aunt, Ida sets off to find answers and discovers life beyond the convent walls in this leisurely but satisfying journey.