Derek Smith

There’s enough sardonic humor to keep the proceedings edgy enough, but it’s hard not to wish that the filmmakers would’ve taken a cue from their eponymous villain and really pushed things past the boundaries of good taste.

As nimble as Aneesh Chaganty is in presenting his main character's multi-faceted interaction with technology in the first hour, the film suddenly morphs into a generic and manipulative missing-person thriller.

The film meticulously yet concisely probes how, why, and when our understanding of the greenhouse effect went from a scientific certainty to it being up for debate.

Because of Chinonye Chukwu’s willingness to let small-scale, ancillary scenes play out unhurried and at length, Till taps into to a deeper well of emotions than most biopics.

Ed Helms and Patti Harrison’s wonderful rapport helps to keep the film grounded in the recognizably real.

The film speaks unflinchingly to the unique anxieties and frustrations of early teenhood.

The film is ultimately too tidy to embrace anything truly startling or unexpected, either stylistically or narratively.

The film paints a vivid portrait of what life was like for Black South Africans under apartheid.

The film is at its best when its focus remains on Ivins’s fierce commitment to her ideals and willingness to speak her mind.

The film begins as a cheeky retro chamber drama before morphing into an often expectation-busting blend of noir and pitch-black comedy.

The film is less hagiographic than most documentaries of its kind, which isn't to say that Tom Volf's adoration of his subject is ever in doubt.

The film has a raw immediacy that can only be achieved when most cinematic excesses have been eliminated.

To Ritchie’s credit, he keeps his film moving along at a consistently brisk clip, but that breeziness is also the cause of its weightlessness, rendering its vision of historical events as outright cartoonish, down to the often clownish portrayals of Nazis and the flawless execution of nearly every element of March-Phillips’s plans.

The film is elevated by funny, cleverly staged sequences, but it too often hammers the notion that fame destroys authenticity.

It’s far too scattershot, bouncing from one topic to the next with the carelessness of someone flipping through a book and reading from a random page.

Ultimately, The Boogeyman is like so many other modern horror films that prioritize mood above all else.

Song Sung Blue is content to pendulum-swing from triumph to tragedy and back again with all the self-control of a drunk driver.

The film feels like sitting through extended acting exercises where everyone is giving it 110% every take.

The Lost City is proof that star power and chemistry can only take a film with a mediocre script so far.

Aside from further vilifying the Nazis, the film's ideological endgame remains a bit too slippery.

Will Gluck’s rom-com doesn’t bother to create a compelling world around its charming leads.

The film is an easily digestible replica of the truth, bathed in honeyed cinematography and sentimentalized adulation.

The film's biggest problem is its inability to lend its clichés and tropes any dramatic thrust or satirical bite.

The film is content to peddle the naïve notion that love is the panacea for all that ails you.

Its most amusing moments are in the interplay between the central characters as they adjust to an abruptly shifting reality.

Initially offbeat, Bitch awkwardly pivots toward a more inspirational story of regret and reconciliation.

A Simple Favor haphazardly vacillates between suburban satire, goofy comedy, and dark, twisted psychological thriller. Which is to say that the film doesn't evince the seamlessness of presentation of its clearest antecedent: David Fincher's "Gone Girl."

The film is all surface, and its depiction of trauma becomes increasingly exploitative and hollow as it moves along.