Eric Kohn

Too in love with itself to ever totally go off the rails, Pacific Rim doesn't qualify as the first full-on dud of del Toro's career, but it's hard not to get the sense that something's missing.

This could be a recipe for excessive self-indulgence, but the meta quality of Red Flag is entirely irrelevant to its low key charm and persistent irreverence -- anchored, as always, by Karpovsky's loopy screen presence.

The closing minutes are a completely original sort of survival drama, one that defies precise explanation even as it delivers significant payoff.

Bier has done far more compelling work before, but the globe-spanning, life-affirming, morally upright trajectory of her latest accomplishment weakens its quality while sustaining its popularity. In a Better World is heavy, but it's also heavy-handed.

Representing lower-class violence taken to an extreme, the cannibalism cannot be contained by police work. The movie's gradual build to a thrilling, appropriately bloody climax intensifies this disconnect.

One development gets short-shifted: the onslaught of studios drowning out what made the Con so attractive in the first place.

Estevez treats the drama with a straight-faced, utterly earnest approach with dual respect for the material and the audience's awareness of how it can go wrong. By playing it straight, The Way never goes off the deep end.

Like its tattered setting, The Rover is scattered with intriguing ideas never successfully fleshed out.

Director Sarah Gavron's celebratory chronicle would inspire strong reactions even if it wasn't much of a movie, but the filmmaker compliments her powerful tale with the immediacy of her filmmaking and performances on the same level. It's an unabashed message-driven story that imbues the past with modern power.

The pervasive elegance makes up for a largely derivate plot. We’ve seen variations on this story before, and Mean Dreams doesn’t do much to shake up expectations — until, that is, a violent finale that punctuates the characters’ psychological development.

Baker once again manages to match underrepresented faces in American cinema with material that lets their personalities shine.

Goat scrutinizes an aspect of American culture often relegated to punchlines and magnifies the darker reality beneath.

Weisz flirts with greatness but unfortunately misses the opportunity to make the material soar. And yet he comes close.

West, who demonstrated a penchant for extensive build-ups in "The House of the Devil" and "Trigger Man," continually makes it unclear if the inn actually harbors a ghost or if his heroine (Sara Paxton) has simply imagines it. Both she and her hilariously frazzled co-worker (Pat Healy of "Great World of Sound") want to believe in supernatural affairs for the thrill factor alone.

Adam may not be above reproach, but its good intentions are infectious.

Prometheus is an unquestionable good time, one of the best big-screen science fiction accomplishments since 'Avatar.'

Despite some obvious budgetary constraints and irksome plot holes, the movie strives to provide an alternative vision of the superhero narrative tied to the genuine experiences of people learning to come out of their shells and confront a new future for blackness, motherhood, and women taking charge.

Bombshell is a lurid, cartoonish romp, marred by rough and sometimes overbearing flourishes, but not without a tragicomic soul. That alone makes it a genuine movie of the moment.

This is pop art by way of lowbrow slapstick, with a premise that suggests "Cast Away" meets "Weekend at Bernie's," but really feels like a lunatic's idea of a big, broad studio comedy — or maybe a mad scientist's.

Imagine "Harold and Maude" directed by Eric Rohmer with shades of film noir and doused in philosophical chatter enhanced by ample white wine. But Domain isn't pure formula, because the subversion of expectations is its centerpiece.

With each new twist, Sorrentino is always one step ahead of his audience, building a narrative that skips along at an enthralling pace.

The movie isn't political so much as philosophical, trashing the notion of the American dream as anything more than fodder for an endless rat race.

The visual collage retains a consistent melancholy, resulting in an experience that's both deeply affecting and-since José never actually appears on-camera-utterly detached.

Erratic, unpredictable and constantly intriguing, Miles Ahead plays more like one of Davis' compositions than a traditional biopic, stumbling around with flashes of insight and a brilliant central performance.

Writer-director David Ayer’s brash, assaultive Brad Pitt drama manages some evocative imagery and achieves visceral impact by enacting a hellacious atmosphere that never lets up — but Ayer takes the mission too literally, and winds up literally lost in the fog of war.

No matter its oddball turns, Kiwi director Ant Timpson’s wild, unpredictable debut manages to deliver a gory hilarious father-son reunion saga with a surprising degree of confidence in the silly-strange nature of the material.

The Happy Prince largely amounts to a bland rumination on Wilde’s lesser-known decline.

Dennis Farina's washed-up hustler in The Last Rites of Joe May is designed in the in the mold of a classic movie star tough guy, but the veteran character actor's performance also serves to disassemble it.

Five years after his rambling "Capitalism: A Love Story," the filmmaker bounces back from one of his worst films with one of his best — a surprisingly endearing set of suggestions for a better tomorrow.

As coming-of-age stories about wayward teens go, writer-director Jason Orley’s debut is a sturdy, endearing portrait of youth in revolt that takes few surprising turns. But the two actors sell their dynamic well enough to inject the story with palpable authenticity despite the familiar premise.

Set in a barren juvenile detention center, the movie works as a grueling coming-of-age story, linking it to the likes of "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," even if it lacks the same lasting appeal.

Despite a bumpy screenplay and some odd tonal choices, Garcia excels as a monosyllabic Bigfoot who casts a big shadow and uses it hide from the world.

It's fascinating to watch Murray act circles around his existing appeal and play into it at the same time. Melfi's likable but utterly formulaic movie never rises to a similar level of ambition, which in this case actually works in its favor. It gives Murray room to play.

It lacks the same constant surprises of last year's "Gravity" or the visual poetry of "Mad Max: Fury Road," but Kormákur's movie nonetheless marks the rare fusion of effective craftsmanship with focused storytelling.

At its core, A Screaming Man emphasizes the strength of family bonds. It's a sad, moving portrait that has nothing to do with its chaotic setting.

While Entertainment lacks the focused critique of "The Comedy," it nevertheless offers a fascinating look at the tension between personal aspirations and the harsh realities holding them back.

In Tamhane’s dreamy, transcendent character study, the undulating raga melodies serve as a transformative portal to self-discovery that places the audiences in the confines of its entrancing power.

But Nobody uses its boundaries as an asset. This giddy approach to action in place of story has held appeal ever since Wiley E. Coyote chased the Road Runner off a cliff, and Nobody lingers in a ludicrous plane that works in bite-sized pieces.

By giving the spotlight to an archetype usually relegated to the background, writer-director Jared Moshé puts a revisionist spin on the familiar oater, but everything else about The Ballad of Lefty Brown is by the book.

As with all of Alverson’s movies, the hypnotic storytelling takes time to settle in and encourages viewers to ponder its enigmatic pathways, not all of which lead to satisfying places. Nevertheless, this somber and lyrical achievement is the warmest and most inviting work from a director who traffics in an acquired taste.

It runs too long and drags a bunch in its final third, but make no mistake: This is Spielberg’s biggest crowdpleaser in years, a CGI ride that wields the technology with an eye for payoff.

The Lodge seems more content to hover in the disquieting mood than make anything substantial out of it. ... As it continues along an aimless trajectory, The Lodge proves that even horrible events can be a deadly bore.

Cafe Society works about as a well as a decent-but-not-great Allen movie can.

Film Socialism is a weighty, intentionally cryptic product that's easy on the eyes and heavy on the mind.

The first-time director's refreshingly credible portrait of a boho character with Middle Eastern origins rectifies the aforementioned canonical gap in a witty, naturalistic generational snapshot.

Just strange enough to get inside your head, it's ultimately less committed to the meaning behind its events than the lucid means by which they take place.

As Hold the Dark sputters to an unsatisfying finale, Wright’s character promises to explain everything that came before. The movie’s great punchline is that he’ll never be able to sort it all out — and we’re right there with him, reeling from a disquieting saga that has no patience for anyone in need easy answers, but keen on leaving us gasping for breath.

The problem with Outside Satan is that the filmmaker has remained faithful to expectations without enlivening them. It's a curious exercise unworthy of his expertise, but then he may realize as much.

At times a rich, intimate observation of emerging sexuality, the movie also maintains a quiet, observational rhythm that peaks around wintertime when things grow dark for the character and then more or less watches her grow up.

Savagely assaulting the desperate state of a blue collar family man, the comedic thriller Cheap Thrills establishes a ridiculous premise early on and takes it to various extremes, again and again, until you just have to accept the crazy venture on its own terms or simply give up.

Piercing too often gets lost in the fog of its deranged characters, but just as frequently transforms their lunacy into a heightened form of escapist entertainment. In a movie where everyone’s crazy, “Piercing” makes their malady infectious.

Oscillating between the relentless energy of “John Wick” and the dense plotting of a John Le Carré novel, Atomic Blonde never quite finds a happy medium between the two. But when Theron goes back to kicking ass, nothing else matters.

I’m Your Woman owes much to Brosnahan’s evolving performance as she goes from terrified housewife to trenchant survivalist over the course movie, and the movie consolidates the strengths of Hart’s previous work.

Wright's extraordinary long takes draw you into the universe of Anna Karenina with a seamless approach that a straightforward literary adaptation could never accomplish.

Dickinson's hauntingly naturalistic look at disgruntled young adults trapped in the country following an urban disaster plays like "Martha Marcy May Marlene" transported to a post-apocalyptic survival narrative -- with lots of yoga and sex.

Hooper's approach comes across as the equivalent of sitting in the front row of a stage play while the entire cast leans forward and blares each song into your eardrums.

With a dense, often impermeable style and a mentally unstable protagonist, Simon Killer is like watching the disturbed anti-hero of "Afterschool" all grown up.

The movie's uneven tone and ridiculous twists never quite gel, but Knock, Knock is so eager to please that it's hard not roll with the absurd depravity on display — which has been the essence of Roth's appeal from the outset.

While both pieces of the entire package generally work independently of each other, they have just enough ingredients to necessitate a viewing of the whole thing.

A minor work by Loach's standards, the movie nevertheless marks his most enjoyable effort in years.

A wholly original and thoroughly surprising fusion of sensory overload and liberal philosophy bound to confuse and provoke in equal measures.

The downside to the Zellners’ uncompromising approach is that they sometimes hold an inspired moment for too long. Certain scenes drag, and some banter has an airless quality that causes a few gags to fall flat. But it’s often rescued by nuggets of hilarious dialogue...and the steady realization that the movie always has been one step ahead of audience assumptions.

Atmospherically, Spring Breakers is an elegant evocation of noir storytelling, littered with misdeeds with girls and guns at every turn.

World War Z may wear its intellect proudly, but also consciously translates the zombie premise into a safer context for wider audiences. It's not the smartest zombie movie ever made, but might be the most commercial one.

More than anything else, Hello, My Name is Doris effectively conveys the cruel ambivalence of an ageist society, and despite its formulaic ingredients, the movie responds to that setback with Field's exuberant, virtuoso turn providing the ultimate critical response.

A slow burn thriller taken to the extreme, Cristi Puiu's Aurora continues the Romanian writer-director's obsession with time as his main narrative device.

Wheatley’s commitment to crowdpleasing antics makes it difficult to stop and consider the lack of depth. In a universe of shootout clichés, Free Fire manages to carve out its own niche, where the proverbial last man standing matters less than the journey to get him there.

Wildly entertaining in parts, Keanu overstays its welcome and just keeps going, showing the growing pains of sketch comedy drawn out to epic proportions.

Directors Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews' directorial debut (from Matthews' screenplay) centers on a highly unlikable character who has alienated himself from social responsibility -- and forces you to sympathize with him against all odds.

Well cast and undeniably attuned to the nuances of human behavior, Amigo nevertheless suffers from simple dramatic shorthand.

Keyhole never comes together, but that's part of Maddin's creed. He makes movies about movies to express his love for movies, which is to say he makes movies about himself.

The extensive two-hour running time only slightly hinders a simultaneously amusing and powerful encapsulation of Brand's journey from outrageous provocateur to enlightened zealot preaching for social change.

Using a remarkable personal lens, the film examines the reverberations of propaganda on broken families across multiple generations. The cumulative effect creates the sense that its destructive effects continue to be felt well beyond China’s borders.

Even as California Solo plays like a track we've heard before, it's still worth a listen.

Edwards manages to sustain a grim, cerebral atmosphere all the way through, as if fighting the inevitable demands of the material. The movie contains enough basic money shots to please hardcore Godzilla fans without indulging in them at every opportunity. By contemporary blockbusters standards, it's practically a minimalist enterprise.

While it eventually devolves into exploring the terrifying prospects of something hairy lurking about in the shadows, Goldthwait uses that thrill factor to validate the commitment of Bigfoot believers. Willow Creek never feels like an attempt to proselytize, but it's a smart recognition of the dangers involved in doubt.

With an eye for gritty, shameless fun, Friedkin unleashes the play's guilty pleasure center. Friedkin holds nothing back, but it's Letts' rambunctious plotting that enables the director to chart a path to the wild climax.

American Dharma delivers a suspenseful and upsetting showdown between one man confident of his cause and another mortified by it.

As a whole, Begin Again is a fairly mannered treatment of an expressive medium.

Chalamet, a heartthrob unafraid to tackle unglamorous material, so embodies the tragic struggles of a drug-addled young man it’s a wonder he made it through the production, while Carell’s melancholic eyes absorb every detail. It’s a haunting two-hander that allows their talent to tower over everything else.

A well-intentioned and resolutely minor period drama, "Big Eyes" isn't exactly a catastrophe, but its bland depiction of a fascinating story perhaps better served by the documentary treatment shows no evidence of the visionary creator behind the camera.

For American audiences, each gag has added appeal because it contains an uneasy humor that's often explored but never fully exploited in these parts.

Kong: Skull Island may include some clever period details and idiosyncratic asides, but it’s largely a blockbuster B-movie less interested in depth than scale.

Dreams of a Life unintentionally amounts to a mean-spirited snooze.

Despite routinely overstating the scenario with rampant scenes of tantrums and sobs, the majority of Beautiful Boy is made bearable by its two solid performances.

While The Salt of Tears threatens to devolve into a sympathetic male gaze with each new turn, Garrel actually manages to burrow within those boundaries and deconstruct their flaws from the inside out.

The best thing about writer-director A.B. Shawky’s feature-length debu...is the way it burrows inside Beshay’s life without devolving into a pity party.

Guided by Angel Manuel Soto’s slick direction and a breakthrough performance from Jahi Di’Allo Winston, the movie works overtime to energize real-world struggles with the thrill of street life.

Black Box won’t galvanize audiences like “Get Out” into rethinking the way society interacts with itself. But it’s just shrewd enough to question how we interact with ourselves.

Drawing on interviews with 10 experts and internet theorists with an endearing mashup of film clips and trippy 3-D animation, A Glitch in the Matrix adapts to the internal logic of its echo chamber until starts to sound pretty convincing on its own terms. If you’re not already one of the diehards convinced we’re living in a simulation, this movie might actually get you there.

The movie takes its time to provide a satisfying rationale, occasionally suffering from a sluggish pace and sleepy atmosphere that lessens the underlying mystery surrounding Erin’s mission, but Kidman imbues the material with continuous bite.

A minor effort in a filmography largely composed of them, All the Light in the Sky is nonetheless satisfying on the terms it establishes early on.

The Bad Batch further solidifies the strength of Amirpour’s idiosyncratic vision, which takes familiar details and bends them into spiky bursts of unpredictability.

The capacity for "Milo" to foreground its human character over his unspeakably nasty situation makes the whole package go down a lot better than one might expect.

Less moment-to-moment funny than committed to a sustained pitch of devilish glee, Never Goin’ Back couches its silliness in a credible milieu of American malaise. The women may never understand how they might find a better place, but the movie makes the case that their unending commitment to getting there might be good enough.

Lucy doesn't hold together, but with its flashy innovation, Besson's trying to freshen the formula. It's the kind of freewheeling mess of a movie you wish studios would try out more often.

By the time Apostle arrives at its big reveal, the movie has veered off on so many tangled pathways that the ending can’t resolve them all. Instead, it provides a single, ethereal image that hints at the more imaginative possibilities lurking somewhere inside this bloody mess.

Even when it stumbles, however, 2 Days in New York retains an airy vibe, reflecting its dogged intention to charm its viewers. But seeing as "2 Days in Paris" never felt especially irksome, this affable sequel deserves the same insouciant shrug.

The Troll Hunter offers high-caliber entertainment despite a low-budget production.

Brody's engagement with the material prevents Wrecked from falling apart.

No stranger to crafting excessive anticipation, Reichardt has funneled that skill into thriller clothing. However, like all of her output, nothing is as simple as it looks.

Artistically, however, the movie delivers on a surprisingly effective scale, no matter how Lonergan sees it. Alternately perceptive, subversive, tragic and profound.

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

Director Martin Krejcí’s first feature has the fairy-tale surrealism and penchant for oddball outsiders that distinguished Burton’s work, as well as a similar lighthearted quirkiness that balances the undercurrents of gothic dread.

With Elliott front and center of every scene, The Hero pulls off the kind of acting showcase that its fictional star can never achieve.

Though salvaged in parts by Lindon’s impassioned performance and a few perceptive asides that hint at a better version of the events, At War is mostly a redundant portrait of working-class struggles that does more to belittle the efforts of its subjects than position them in galvanizing terms.

Triple Frontier lands a handful of thrilling sequences in a sea of familiar riffs on greed, masculinity, and the lingering traumas of war.

There's no question about the efficacy of Scorsese's filmmaking prowess, only that he never knows -- or doesn't care -- to slow down and deepen the material.

It’s an efficient, effects-driven ride with snippets of real ideas, but never quite willing to take them out of this world.

In Oculus, the horror is at once deceptively simple and rooted in a deep, primal uneasiness. Its scariest aspects are universally familiar.

In the process of merging formulas, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things recycles the same material it seems inclined to rejuvenate, one step at a time. There may be endless ways to make “Groundhog Day” feel fresh, but this one’s little more than another harmless retread.

In "Adventureland" and this summer's "The Way Way Back," disillusioned teens have worked through their issues in the weeks leading up to college by taking on quirky summer jobs. However, Carey's wacky sensibilities retain a notably fresh quality by using the same framing device as an excuse to bat around one funny idea after another. The story transcends the derivative scenario through a noticeable lack of verbal censorship.

Magic Mike XXL keeps its aspirations low enough to satisfy only the simplest of expectations; at the end of the day, it's just another party, but sometimes a party is just good enough.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote sits alongside much of Gilliam’s late period work as a messy but singular achievement that strains to make its disparate parts fit together, but there’s a noble spirit of invention to its wackiness anyway.

The Wretched doesn’t reinvent the rules, but it has a timeliness to it that’s hard to shake. There’s not quite enough substance here to launch a franchise, but with a story so attuned to perils of a neglected world, it doesn’t need a sequel when we’re living in it every day.

Despite its shortcomings, “John and the Hole” shows enough restraint and thematic sophistication to indicate strong potential for Sisto behind the camera.

Buoyed by a brilliant transformation by Christian Bale, it offers a smart and detailed overview of Cheney’s elaborate ruse to exploit the country’s highest authority, but undercuts its authority with crass and often clunky humor that overstates the nature of Cheney’s villainy. Lame jokes just get in the way when the bad guys are hiding in plain sight.

Guided by an over-the-top Nazi hunter played by Judd Hirsch (clearly enjoying himself), Cheyenne begins a road trip through Middle American that goes nowhere, and Penn's mopey has-been routine starts to feel like a bad joke that just keeps getting worse.

Onward doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but spins it so well that it conjures a spell of its own as a new decade dawns with the Pixar touch intact.

It’s not the most polished endeavor ... However, Bloom gives Wye such a dynamic screen presence that she often transcends the boundaries of the material.

Nobody else could fit the role of a crestfallen rocker that Paul Dano embodies in director So Yong Kim's remarkable For Ellen.

With "Gravity" around the corner, Metallica Through the Never isn't the year's most groundbreaking achievement, but it's surely the most earth-shattering, and that's enough to make it one helluva comeback story.

Polanski struggles to make the material more cinematic, toying with clever mise-en-scene to showcase the mounting tensions. However, Carnage repeatedly suffers from an internal tension between the possibilities of two media at odds with each other.

Boyle's filmmaking style has a marvelous rhythm that weaves pop sensibilities into fluid and persistently exciting narrative experiences; he shakes these ingredients like colored sand in a jar, leading a fascinating degree of discombobulation.

Too late, At Any Price displays the presence of a skilled filmmaker capable of using ambiguous pauses and representational imagery to convey the issues of greed and other covert desires. Until then, it's a slovenly affair only distinguished by its name cast.

If Elysium is the brainiest Hollywood movie of the summer, it's also the most conflicted one.

Unlike Baron Cohen’s work, André seems to invite his targets to crack up with him, and they’re more than happy to oblige. Bad Trip is an extension of that all-inclusive approach: It’s a blunt instrument of absurdity, but that’s also what makes it so much fun.

Bad Hair has plenty to say — about the plight of black women in particular and blackness in popular culture in general — but his movie can’t settle on laughing off the conflict or regarding it with dread. Instead, it settles on lingering in the knotted chaos, hoping that the message still burns.

Mockler transforms the material into a solid thriller with an edgy vision of millennial lunacy, sketching out a psychopath unique to the viral video age.

While the new Ghostbusters successfully empowers female movie stars, that’s not the movie’s selling point. However, it’s the only justification for its existence.

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.

Even as it celebrates the spirit of committed journalism that rises above the powerful forces designed to contain it, Kill the Messenger displays the same anesthetized quality that Webb's dedication to his job was meant to counteract. Renner is a different story.

To be fair, Breathe In may hit a lot of familiar beats, but none of them are entirely unwelcome.

Of course, it might take time for Jim Loach to catch up with his father's track record; Oranges & Sunshine is a good place to start.

Fitfully uneven, Dredd is nevertheless an intriguing consolidation of action-movie excess -- and even makes a solid case for its aesthetic appreciation.

The curious thing about C.O.G is that it doesn't play like a straightforward adaptation. Much of the mood comes from ingredients that have nothing to do with story or dialogue.

While the pace is spotty and not every joke lands, “Good Boys” manages to be adorable and twisted at the same time.

Family is funny in bits and pieces, but so obvious in terms of its eventual direction that it might have been better served by less plot and more clowning around.

Despite some pacing troubles and myriad undeveloped characters, Motherless Brooklyn functions well enough as a throwback to the intelligent, atmospheric studio private investigator dramas to which it tips a velvety fedora, and shows evidence that this dormant genre still has legs.

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

At times a bit too enamored of these loose conceits, The Nowhere Inn sometimes registers as a cheap fuck-with-the-audience provocation that might have been better suited for a viral short (or several), but at its finest moments the movie conjures a singular vision steeped in zaniness, but not devoid of purpose.

Even though it doesn’t aim for outright comedy, Dumont doesn’t deny the material some levity.

As Love Is All You Need goes through the motions of drawing its central couple together, Bier delivers nothing more than a well-made, strictly middlebrow entertainment with a bittersweet polish that's easy to enjoy and forget in equal measures.

At every turn, the movie casts a haunting spell.

Beatty’s long-gestating project is a modestly enjoyable, well-acted nostalgia piece with just a touch of edge.

While the contradiction of punk rock parenthood may not have a solution, The Other F Word successfully has fun with the mystery.

It’s a fascinating role in an uneven but frequently insightful movie riddled with amusing asides and enigmatic developments, partly because Huppert doesn’t undergo a radical transformation. Instead, she subtly finds herself at war with her inner confidence, and it’s often hard to tell which side has the upper hand.

With tightly controlled performances and uniquely eccentric events, The Beaver is mainly undone by the lack of a satisfying outcome.

There’s enough potential with the balloon’s feats to justify an entire feature-length experience set within its basket, but The Aeronauts constantly interrupts the journey to shoehorn random tangents on the ground, and busies up the drama with underdeveloped side characters.

It’s fascinating to watch Mitchell grasp for a bigger picture with the wild ambition of his scruffy protagonist.

It’s certainly proof that even dumb movies can endeavor to enlighten the masses, and gels nicely with the broader message: If Hobbs and Shaw can learn to get along, there may be hope for all of us.

Lone Survivor is a grotesque action movie at times impressively directed by Peter Berg that combines the brute masculinity with the ugliness of the battlefield and viscerally unsettling shock value. But it's less a depiction of courage than a brutish magnification of anger and pain, both of which it conveys a lot better than the high ground that it reaches for.

It's a showcase of proficient storytelling that's eager to entertain.

The whole thing is a step above studio romantic comedies, but that's not saying much.

Bercot's solidly engaging if fairly routine social-realist drama mainly stands out as an actor's showcase.

In Yann Demange’s bland retelling, the kid’s downward spiral has been reduced to a series of crude, unremarkable encounters and the very thing this true story shouldn’t be: poverty porn. Nevertheless, Demange manages to stitch together a number of involving scenes that track Ricky’s harsh upbringing and the events that precipitated his downfall.

Jolie keeps the narrative afloat thanks to first-rate craftsmanship, a few well-honed moments of bonafide suspense, and a terrifically restrained Jack O'Connell in the lead role. While it only hints at the sweeping epic that never fully materializes, Unbroken offers further proof that Jolie's directorial instincts pass muster alongside her other talents.

Enhanced by a number of notable comedic actors entering uncharted terrain, it’s the kind of movie that makes you laugh and flinch in equal measures, and despite some messier twists, never ceases to move in surprising directions.

Sarah's need to save her brother provides the initial raison d'être, but with the mystery is resolved early on Sarah's Key turns into a flimsy meditation on grief.

Progressing with a coldly observational pace, Rapt often strains its drawn-out structure, creating a lethargic experience despite essentially taking the form of a Bressonian suspense-thriller.

More blatantly an exercise in style than anything on par with the director's crowning achievements, and suffers to some degree from the predictability of its premise.

Go For Sisters, like the filmmaker's previous features "Amigo" and "Honeydripper," sustains a feeble premise with richly defined characters and strong performances, yielding an underwhelming but nonetheless sustainable viewing experience.

Doctor Sleep shows considerable effort to ingratiate itself to discerning cinephiles, from the moody Newton Brothers score to cinematographer Michael Fimognari’s dark blue nighttime palette; as a whole, the movie conjures an eerie and wondrous atmosphere that blends abject terror with a somber, mournful quality unique to Flanagan’s oeuvre. But his pandering to dueling source material results in a jagged puzzle beneath both of their standards.

It pitches a tone between comedy and tragedy that holds unique appeal.

On the Basis of Sex plays like a sunny fantasy from a more optimistic age.

A straightforward tale of overcoming personal and professional challenges with no fancy dressing, Grigris goes down easy but offers nothing remotely fresh.

Considering that it’s a second sequel in a less-than-revered franchise, it’s a minor miracle that Cars 3 hits the finish line with a fresh sense of purpose.

Stone's uneven direction veers from near-amateurish genre antics to an enjoyable awareness of those same standards.

As a minor work, it provides an enjoyable snippet of rambunctious formalism that puts Noé in a category of his own.

Having laid out the scenario, Brandt drags it through the motions of a tired procedural.

Dupieux's utterly zany slice of narrative subversion transcends that singularly goofy premise to create one of the more bizarre experiments with genre in quite some time.

Paranormal Activity 3 hardly adds anything new to the situation; instead, it pretends to fill a gap while basically just heaping on one calculated "boo!" after the other.

It tries to have some bite to its will-they-or-won't-they scenario but ultimately winds up toothless.

Welcome to the world of white people problems, ground zero for the strain of American comedies that Apatow does best. But does he really?

Admittedly lovely and heartfelt, Norwegian Wood is also hollow.

To the Wonder renders the familiar terrain of romantic dysfunction on a grand scale. Malick haters may not change their tune, but at least they can admit that To the Wonder maintains a consistent thematic focus.

Political only by implication, Zero Bridge works in a larger sense as a story of universal longing.

It's a pretty experiment with no apparent results, but plenty of marketability.

A distinctly uneven but imminently watchable theatrical showcase in which cinematic and stagy devices go head to head with no clear winner.

Since 2005's "A History of Violence," Cronenberg has ventured beyond the grotesque allegorical interests of his earlier movies, a shift that has led some longtime fans to assume he has softened up. As an enjoyably peculiar anti-capitalist indictment, Cosmopolis proves otherwise.

Jason Bourne adheres to an existing format so robotically that it never manages to surprise or engage for longer than the occasional passing moment.

Poyser doesn't do anything we haven't seen before, but the familiar ingredients are done just right.

Even as The Keeping Room plays with formulaic ingredients, it manages to combine them into an eloquent portrait of gender, race and the constant march of time without overstating any of its potent themes.

There was more to Bonnie and Clyde than 'Bonnie and Clyde,' but The Highwaymen falls short of making the case that the good guys had the better tale.

Pitched somewhere between outrageous satire and sincerity, the movie has a tough time finding its priorities, but it’s endearing to watch it try.

Hyams delivers a remarkably satisfying action-thriller hybrid that constantly pushes ahead. It's one of the best action movies of the year simply because it keeps hitting the right beats.

The movie amounts to a tame, forgettable doodle, as if designed to imitate the scruffy Duplass movies that Naima worships; for Shawcat, however, it’s a promising step in a new direction that suggests a far more confident artist than the one she plays onscreen.

Despite tackling our crazy times, The Oath somehow winds up not quite crazy enough to assess them.

Transitioning back into a scripted dynamic after his quasi-documentary performance excursions with "Bruno" and "Borat," Baron Cohen loses none of his edge, combining slapstick inspiration and social commentary into a hilariously provocative blend.

Rather than developing Roman’s conundrum, Roman J. Israel, Esq. settles for a prosaic character study laid out in painfully obvious terms, with a tacked-on twist in the third act just so that the story can find some way to end.

While it struggles through some awkward plot twists and clunky tangents, The Midnight Sky never loses grasp of the chilly atmosphere that inspires every moment; if only it there was something fresh about that.

Visually scrumptious and slickly told, Creative Control illustrates the power of groundbreaking technology while also indicting its extremes.

Yes, Waititi’s sugary fantasy unearths an endearing quality in the most unlikely places. But in the process, it buries the awful truth.

Even as "Gabi" steadily slides downhill and ends with a shrug, it remains intermittently fun and never entirely unbearable-much like Gabi herself.

There are plenty of guts, but The Woman doesn't have enough to make its feminist rhetoric stick.

In its wonderfully irreverent way, Wrong makes it clear that this reality is never to be trusted as anything more than a succession of strange moments that coalesce into an abstract representation of the subjectivity that traps us all. This is the essence of new film noir, which challenges our perceptions through a series of compellingly ambiguous moments.

Unfortunately, Lawless lacks the same darkly energizing spirit that made "The Proposition" such a revelation: It has plenty of gunplay, scowling showdowns and dust-caked setpieces, but little in the way of dynamic filmmaking to imbue those elements with life.

A Hologram For the King never congeals into a single, involving story.

Byington excels at turning the edict that time waits for no one into a sensory experience. No matter how sly it gets, Somebody Up There Likes Me still retains that fundamental truth.

If you're willing to just go with it, An Unexpected Journey is a competent ride, but as a whole it lacks purpose, giving the impression of a television program in its later seasons still chugging along while full aware that it has peaked. Needless to say, "Hobbit" fans will find plenty to soak in; others may get the feeling of being bludgeoned by deja vu.

Intentionally or not, however, Fading Gigolo actually functions as something of a statement on Allen's persona—onscreen and off—as it has been understood in the public eye. And the resulting conclusion, like the movie, is a decidedly mixed bag.

A labyrinthine descent into the grotesque extremes of a Disneyfied society, Escape From Tomorrow is surreal for many reasons and wholly original because of them. It's also a daring attempt to literally assail Disney World from the inside out.

7500 takes a familiar scenario and doubles down on its claustrophobic potential to make it fresh.

Zombie's witches aren't as scary as the credible psychopaths he has portrayed before, but The Lords of Salem contains enough frenzied imagery in its climactic moments to make the spell linger.

Writer-director Todd Berger, improving his technique with his second feature-length credit following "The Scenesters," combines enough energetic performances with charged wit to make this one doomsday comedy that earns the right to its familiar backdrop.

Director Chris Perkel, who also edited, hasn’t made a movie so much as a prolonged tribute reel with ample material to fuel a dozen lifetime achievement award ceremonies.

The Laundromat may be blunt, and the humor hit-or-miss — but it swings wildly at a worthy target, and eventually hits its mark.

A surprisingly enjoyable tongue-in-cheek New York comedy from "Clueless" director Amy Heckerling, Vamps teeters on the brink of not quite working and yet still routinely lands its laughs.

It’s a blockbuster that funnels the appeal of big-budget action and horror with an almost sacred reverence for the material. That’s absurd, but Snyder’s a true believer in go-for-broke escapism and at its best, the mayhem in Army of the Dead is an infectious zombie bite of its own.

Macdonald's movie is a kind of fairy tale. While in the Marvel franchises, the good guys always win, The House I Live In explores the far more tangible process of simply remaining alive at all costs -- and finding, against impossible odds, justification for living through another day.

Any bona fide sushi fan stands to benefit from the general wake up call that "The Global Catch" provides in ample doses.

It's less of a showcase for Bateman's ability to direct comedic storytelling than simply to make people laugh, which makes Bad Words a sufficiently vulgar playground.

It's no less of an accomplished performance than Hilary Swank's similar turn in "Boys Don't Cry" or newcomer Zoé Herán's delicate achievement as the lead in "Tomboy." Unfortunately, Albert Nobbs traps Close's sizable talent in a simplistic drama--not unlike Nobbs herself who winds up trapped in a restrictive period.

Gyllenhaal's alarmingly effective presence is enough to act circles around the soapy narrative of a fallen athlete's comeback so tightly that it crumbles in the very first act.

An ode to the strength of onscreen horror even in its less inspired state, the new Evil Dead primarily succeeds at illustrating how the originals have managed to stand the test of time.

Before its messy climax, Skyman works well as a tragicomic look at the nature of extraterrestrial obsessives. After a random expert opens the movie by explaining that such true believers are “looking for something science can’t prove,” Myrick digs into the psychological factors driving that desire with enthralling results.

This minuscule but affecting hourlong story is an extension of the “Small Axe” mission to fill a historical gap deserving of greater scrutiny, and achieves that goal by serving as a kind of education itself.

Chapiron stubbornly avoids an uplifting message, portraying his dangerous setting as a demonstration of virility that leads to madness.

In Towheads, every comic bit is weighted with an awkward blend of sadness and irreverent humor.

Moverman’s discordant structure constantly veers from clumsy moments to fascinating exchanges. As an experiment, it never finds a complete shape, and ends on a frustratingly abrupt note.

Increasingly silly even as it maintains a grave tone, Proxy doesn't always work, but its commitment to unpredictable twists and pushing beyond morbid extremes bears the stamp of showmanship sorely lacking from many other examples of the genre.

Its atmospheric sophistication holds strong throughout, channeling a wonder for the natural world reminiscent of Terrence Malick with an air of existential dread straight out of Andrei Tarkovsky.

While still invested in grandiose swipes at big ideas and the epistemological babbling of a late night college dorm room conversation, Cahill generates an authentic sense of mystery by keeping a tighter lid on the secrets of the universe.

Rubberneck has more in common with the growing Karpovsky oeuvre than it may appear -- and even inadvertently critiques it.

Anchored by a remarkably convincing performance by James Franco in the lead role, I Am Michael manages to explore Glatze's story without condemning him, even as it foregrounds the troubling nature of his path.

United States vs. Reality Winner is less expose than repudiation of a system that lacks the humanity to address the subtleties of her case.

A viscerally charged movie that foregrounds surface tensions and gripping performances, Ginger and Rosa is the filmmaker's most accessible and technically surefooted work to date.

Di Stefano's memorable debut feature makes up for its lack of sophistication with constant forward motion.

The most impressive thing about In the Land of Blood and Honey is that Jolie makes you feel it.

Gavras never forces the material into allegorical turf; it's a relatively straightforward look at the ramifications of getting blinded by dollar signs, with perhaps one of the most clearly defined visions of economic depravity since "Wall Street."

Directed by Blume's son Lawrence, this gentle drama based on Blume's 1981 novel works surprisingly well considering the numerous trappings of the material, while demonstrating exactly why it's so difficult to bring Blume's work to the screen.

Even when the the music swells and people talk through their problems to reach unremarkable conclusions, there’s an undercurrent of emotional authenticity.

As directed by Marjane Satrapi, this discursive biopic struggles whenever it cuts away from her drama to explore the bigger picture — with peculiar flash-forwards to a nuclear future — but Pike helps fuse it together.

There are powerful ingredients here, certainly enough to create a deeply felt work, but The End of Love lacks the additional layers of storytelling necessary for Webber to make the audience feel as close to the material as he does to his son.

At times Midnight's Children balances off its earnestness with a sweeping view of history and tangible human drama, but the allegorical qualities of Rushdie's novel fail to translate as anything but a shrill, on-the-nose instance of thematic overreaching.

This is a heckuva stimulating cinematic achievement for a relative newcomer. The Human Surge offers a shrewd commentary on the dissonance of technological connectivity and personal communication.

Overlong and unfocused in parts, Salles' adaptation nonetheless holds together about as well a movie can when the odds are so heavily stacked against it.

It's a familiar mold: the perils of suburban discontent have been so thoroughly explored that The Details plays like a hodgepodge of familiar circumstances on an assembly line to disaster.

It never loses the dazzling surface polish, but without trying to dig deeper, the movie strings us along in the hopes of something more, not unlike one of the cons at its center.

Fortunately, the black-and-white debut of writer-director Logan Sandler is just sharp enough to complicate its clichés with strong performances and a mesmerizing tone that pushes the mopey proceedings into psychological thriller territory.

The filmmaker sticks close to the theatrical roots of the material, sometimes stumbling on wordy, overzealous monologues that might land better on the stage. But the cast goes to great lengths to sell the premise.

Neither wacky enough to work as pure punchline, nor smart enough to bend its looniness into something more substantial, Storks views the world with the same confused outlook of its wide-eyed infants.

Largely a cut-and-paste affair, although useful for that very reason; it provides a glaring reminder that scary movies have evolved, both in terms of style and expectations, but the evolution isn't worth the effort.

The movie veers from the broad doomsday satire of the “Dr. Strangelove” variety to a more subtle portrait of institutional failure, and doesn’t always succeed at modulating its tones, but it’s nevertheless a searing critique.

The result is a subpar comic adventure that's nonetheless admirable for its restrained vision of Thompson in his early gestation period.

It’s a dazzling showcase of fantasy-based filmmaking in the 21st century that also manages a feeble attempt at injecting feminist politics into an antiquated narrative. Yet its eventual climax strains from the obviousness of these efforts.

Butt Boy dares you to give it a shot, and operates on the assumption that most people will write it off from the start. It’s hard to believe this movie even exists, but equally worth recognizing that it’s not entirely full of shit.

A sunny ode to capitalism, the movie is a coy advertisement of its own. In that context, it's a whole lot better than one might expect, and loaded with talent unabashedly hawking their wares.

The result is a messy but mesmerizing summation of his unusual career ambition, a dreamlike chronicle of human suffering for which Jodorowsky offers a wild solution on par with his craziest filmmaking conceits.

For all its vibrant, flamboyant aspects, “Dom Hemingway” is a resoundingly empty star vehicle. It gives Law a character too thinly crafted to justify his eccentricities. He acts his heart out for a role that has no heart.

A gleefully over-the-top celebration of silliness too in love with its outrageous characters and premise to make them gel. Scene after scene features a self-satisfied kookiness akin to spending time with a terrible comic unwilling to give up the mic.

Portman's screenplay shortchanges the dramatic potential of the material in favor of a by-the-numbers period piece.

Extraterrestrial can be forgiven the tangents into melodrama due to Vigalondo's seamless ability to navigate those soapy waters.

While certainly the most dazzling Superman movie to hit the big screen, the 143-minute Man of Steel is also the longest, and it only justifies that heft because it leaves room to keep the effects coming.

Tom Hanks' appearances come across like scene changes between unfunny sketches on 'Saturday Night Live.'

Hitchcock largely succeeds at pulling back the veil on his off-camera personality. To a larger degree, it reveals the level of influence of his devoted wife and screenwriter Alma (Helen Mirren) on both his personal life and career.

While Kelly’s faithful dramatization doesn’t offer a lot of fresh insights, and fizzles by the end, it remains an involving snapshot of two women grappling with their private and public personas until they collide.

As a whole, I Love You, Daddy belongs to C.K.’s own peculiar aesthetic, in that it’s brilliantly calibrated to captivate viewers and make them recoil at the same time.

The actor's pathos and deadpan skills are buried in the material, which also suffers from a continuous lack of inspiration. It's high-minded entertainment with low ambition.

Foster's suspenseful treatment of the material is fun to watch but not the dramatic statement its blaring tone would suggest.

Dancing around melodrama rather than confronting it head-on, Uncertain Terms hides its revelations in the textures of each scene. It places drama in the context of everyday life.

In theory, Election Year offers a form of catharsis from contemporary anxieties by turning them into entertainment. Instead, this latest entry in a ridiculous franchise has become a victim of its own sick joke.

In a better world, Aquaman would excel at delivering an ecological message to the masses. But all the fish in the sea can’t salvage a movie that refuses to go more than surface deep.

Beloved never really earns its sprawling timeline, eventually getting bogged down with too many developments and overstaying its welcome. For a movie where people intermittently burst into song, the plot is oddly one-note.

Promised Land can't help but preach its cause in obvious ways that continually hold back an otherwise well-acted, swiftly paced drama.

Here and there, Minamata tells a bracing story of corporate malfeasance and bracing advocacy for the underclass, but even the occasional poignant observation can’t salvage a movie trying this hard to tug every heartstring at its disposal.

Loaded to the gills with thrill-inducing mayhem, Hobo with a Shotgun feels almost tribal in its commitment to violence.

Even as the high-concept premise wears thin, Palka manages to generate an unexpected degree of sympathy for the floundering couple, and the wordless finale allows for a complete transformation that extends beyond Jill’s bizarre condition.

While Redford frames the drama with a tense atmosphere, it doesn't shake the sense that we're watching a tame made-for-TV affair.

Despite its ludicrous turns, the movie benefits from the far-fetched events for its sheer willingness to go there, not unlike Smith's goofy, self-deprecating public persona.

Light and inoffensive, it trades the intellectual rigor of Godard’s work for fluffy sentiments, but never gets crass. Above all else, it succeeds at transforming cinephile trivia into a genuine crowdpleaser.

There’s plenty of intrigue to the dissonance of a hard-rock lifestyle and Malick’s gentle touch, but much of the movie’s potential is overshadowed by the impulses of a director unwilling to get there.

Santana was cast prior to making her gender transition and had never acted before. Her personal experience brings such legitimacy that she would probably succeed in the role even if she sucked at line reading. Fortunately, she doesn't.

Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby has the hallmarks of a contemporary Hollywood spectacle. It's missing the explosions, but make no mistake: Gatsby is one glitzy misfire.

While Zagar doesn’t force the material into many surprising places, it’s a fully realized tapestry, owing much to the complex, layered score by Nick Zammuto that hums through nearly every scene, and frequent cutaways to hand-drawn animation based on the scrapbook that Jonah stores under his bed at night.

Passion simultaneously parodies its plot while elevating it to a strangely involving exercise in cinematic drama. The filmmaker has either lost control of the material or maintains the same calculation of his protagonists. But the entertainment value associated with that uncertainty is the essence of his career.

Magic in the Moonlight belongs to the pool of lesser Allen comedies, yet Firth and Emma Stone — as the alleged necromancer Sophie Baker, the object of Stanley's scrutiny and eventually his affections — bring all the zany energy they can muster.

As Levinson swings wildly for the fences, Assassination Nation yields a modicum of payoff.

Even Allen himself, appearing in front of the camera for his first role since 2005's "Scoop," looks a little lost in the mess.

The result is sometimes overlong and wears out its welcome, but it clarifies Hosking’s distinctive tone — a playful and often charming blend of outré humor and genuine emotion that makes him one of the most distinctive new voices in current cinema.

Most segments have a fair share of cheap scares, but they also delve into the art of the build-up, as if delivering a series of grim jokes with bloody punchlines. Consider it a 21st-century take on "Tales from the Crypt."

Shows none of the edgy storytelling looniness present in Stiller's finest work. Instead, every element seems calculated to service an easygoing commercial product that plays up the sentimentality of the scenario while rendering it inoffensively bland.

Life spends its first act building up some big ideas, but eventually unravels into another monster movie in space.

Like Whedon's whip-smart "Avengers" screenplay, Thor: The Dark World manages to acknowledge the inherently silly nature of its premise while compellingly asserting that, hey, sometimes it's fun to suspend your disbelief when the results look this good.

The overall arc of this “Justice League” coheres throughout, providing occasional dashes of intrigue and inspired visual conceits, and sometimes it’s even fun. Re-centering the drama around ostracized actor Ray Fisher as Cyborg, and drawing out some of the ostentatious fight sequences to their breaking point, Zack Snyder’s Justice League displays genuine effort to make this impossible gamble click.

When Ricki and the Flash pierces its conventional trajectory with music, it gets more interesting. But the fluff surrounding it holds together well enough.

This is still a pretty familiar journey that's easier to pity than hate -- much like Caplan's character.

Schroeder tracks the end of innocence in much the same way that the strip captured it each time out. Unlike "Salinger," he hardly makes a spectacle out of Watterson's secluded tendencies. The pileup of interview subjects speak eloquently on his behalf.

If nothing else, the movie makes a strong case for Cox’s astounding resilience, an ability to take even the most routine gig and deepen its potential. It helps that The Etruscan Smile sputters along more than it belly-flops, and stabilizes by the poignant finale.

The First Purge is another absurd B-movie, uneven and ludicrous across the board, but altogether transfixing for the way it funnels Trump-era terror into an empowering crowdpleaser.

While the movie gets a little too lost in Demers’ headspace, his story brings to light the limitations of the “Blackfish” effect, and shows why the war against marine park cruelty has a long way to go.

Strickland generates a discomfiting quality that keeps the mystery of his world in play. Above all else, he taps into the intangible elements of sexual attraction by bathing them in ambiguities.

In between the meandering exchanges lies an unquestionably thoughtful interrogation of a broken system.