Eric Kohn

While not without its touching moments, "Mister and Pete" is inevitably defeated by its own good intentions.

As ghost stories go, this one's done just well enough to provide reminders of how it has been done better.

There are flashes of subtle resentment to Williams’ performance that register as some of her best work in ages, so it’s unfortunate that the movie’s calculated assemblage of sentimental beats dominate the show.

While its bleak assessment of American intelligence operatives imbues the story with some modicum of topicality, the specifics never keep pace. The movie becomes a bland action-drama lacking the sophistication to deal with its weightier themes. As a promising endeavor hacked to pieces, the movie's fate mirrors its anti-hero's own failed ambition.

Call it a Shakespearean catharsis or just call it a lark -- either way, the movie represents Whedon's least essential work, regardless of the material's inherent comedic inspiration.

None of the pretty imagery or impassioned lovemaking can break free of a mopey old formula that sits on every scene with the same schematic quality that makes its weary setting so familiar from the start.

A lazily plotted and largely generic thriller.

At a time when calls for diverse media dominate the industry, Hidden Figures hedges its bets with a family-friendly commercial solution: warm and fuzzy storytelling that’s both progressive and safe.

A loud, visually assaultive assemblage of genre tropes as technically accomplished as it is difficult to watch, "The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears" has plenty to impress while simultaneously offering so little.

No amount of strong performances and good vibes can hide the sense that we’re just watching a paint-by-numbers routine. Nair puts so much effort into galvanizing the movie’s central figures that the slightest hints of conflict register as little more than an inconvenience.

There's nothing slick or entertaining about the crumbling existence of Pomes' unsalvageable antiheroes.

It's one thing to make a minor, accomplished work after focusing on grander statements, but Julieta mainly disappoints because it feels like the kind of straightforward, unadventurous drama that the filmmaker generally excels at reinventing through his own peculiar vision. This time, he plays it too safe.

The director excels at generating a nervous energy around his character’s mounting desperation, and the movie’s intermittently engaging for that reason alone.

Whereas "The Apostle" was a passionate effort for Duvall that he spent years pulling together, Wild Horses feels more like a vanity project that eschews polished storytelling for half-baked conceits.

Hiding behind a shaggy beard and a stoner grin, Paul Rudd plays an amusingly oblivious shlub in Our Idiot Brother, but the movie can't keep up with his comic inspiration.

Bogged down by flashbacks and flash forwards, The Bastards pointlessly mixes up its ingredients, creating a distancing effect from the tangible sadness at its core. The result is the rare case of a movie that confirms its maker's skill while wasting it on useless ambition.

It turns a major tragedy into a minor disaster movie.

By virtue of its style and high stakes scenario, End of Watch is impressively tense, but then so are most episodes of "COPS," which don't suffer from the forced melodrama found here.

Wan seems to critique the third act failings of The Conjuring during the alarmingly superior first half.

Small touches point to a slightly better movie hiding beneath most of the routine, particularly the respectable finale that stops just short of the clichéd resolution expected of it. On the whole, however, The Way, Way Back dances to a tune we've heard too many times before.

By its later scenes, Chef only finds respite from its bland qualities through the scrumptious-looking dishes constantly on display. As self-indulgent vanity projects go, this one's pretty innocuous, if only because it's always easy on the eyes.

Maïwenn's evidently tight control over her performances once again shows its strength within the context of individual scenes, where the characters' attitudes often convincingly shift from blithe to furious in a matter of minutes. But the overall arc of their developing relationship fails to convince.

As much as the suspense remains in play, its main threat has a certain robotic quality, and the humorless tone doesn’t help.

The director's murky, ill-conceived take on the world's oldest disaster story contains some of the most pristine visuals produced on a mass studio scale in some time. But it's also constantly tethered to a dull, melodramatic series of events out of whack with any traditional interpretation of the material.

Abrahamson seems so coy about the haunting of the Ayres’ house that he refuses to allow the movie’s strongest aspect to take center stage, and the perils of The Little Stranger hover aimlessly throughout the movie like a specter in search of some elusive white light.

Marred by excessive sentiment, it has a buoyancy and a hook that makes it stand out -- but they're elements that would help it kill on Broadway (as it already has on the Australian stage) a lot better than it does onscreen.

Rosewater is lacking in sophistication, but its attitude is infectious.

Whereas "The Avengers" felt like a reimagining of the paradigm for superhero movies, Age of Ultron has air of a rerun. Though impressively made and visually remarkable, it suffers from the hollowness that plagues so many blockbusters carrying the sense that we've been through this before.