Glenn Kenny

Although the milieu of “Coup!” speaks allegorically to the pandemic of our own century, it does so softly; the movie is ultimately more a tale of class warfare than public health.

The movie plods around awkwardly, trying to leech whatever charm it can from the remaining elements of the original.

Sharks, while undeniably lethal, are also, studies have shown, kind of dumb. And “The Last Breath” is a cheesy new thriller that is even dumber than a real shark.

Porter’s inquisitive camera gives the viewer enticing detail on how everything comes together — for instance, unbeknown to the audience, the pool is constantly monitored by rescue divers in scuba gear who also serve as prop people — while holding in suitable awe the actual magic all this work eventually yields.

Akin is here working in a tradition established in Italian Neo-realism — and by the end of the film, he shows he can turn on the viewer’s tear ducts as deftly as De Sica did in his prime — but his narrative approach brings a vivid freshness to the proceedings.

It would be reductive to call it a “girlboss” story, but it wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate to, either.

Too often this muddled movie, which never really settles on a tone, plays its espionage plot points with a dour seriousness that’s at odds with a teen comedy.

The film works most of the time, largely because its subject is such interesting — and warm — company.

As the movie progresses, its story grows convoluted and belabored.

Burstyn’s character, which the actor plays with her customary expertise, is so utterly disagreeable that viewing the picture is a mostly anxious experience with not much of a reward at the end, which shifts to magic realist mode for lack of anywhere better to go.

It is a daring and assured subversion of conventional film language that will likely infuriate certain viewers and reward others.

King is not exactly outclassed by Nicole Kidman, Kathy Bates and Zac Efron. But the movie’s script, by Carrie Solomon, puts her at a disadvantage.

This is a confounding movie. Its pace is leaden, its structure lopsided, and while Dunham and Fry are both first-rate performers, their respective personae — both public and on-screen — are difficult for them to fully transcend.

Stahl’s acting has always had a quiet power, communicating roiling emotional distress under an often vaguely menacing stillness. This gives a fresh perspective to Ryan’s eventual impotence as he negotiates his new identity.

Duchovny’s smarts are commendable, theoretically, but the movie falls short of compelling. And for all the novelistic details that he packs in, Reverse the Curse moves at the pace of a self-defeating snail.

The directorial debut of French-Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy, this is one of those pictures to which the phrase “every frame a painting” might apply.

Whatever “Flipside” ultimately “means,” it’s ninety minutes well, and often amusingly and movingly, spent.

This is one of those movies that proves, when they’ve got a mind to, they can still make them like they used to.

All of this is laid out in competent commonplace fashion, with the principal actors Terry Chen, Greg Kinnear and the always welcome Fionnula Flanagan displaying the expected professionalism.

Hong’s new film, “In Our Day,” is not atypical—it’s a plain-looking, often wry, and lightly nourishing character study with a diptych structure that adds enigmatic intrigue to the proceedings.

Since Maïwenn created Jeanne for herself, it may seem paradoxical to state that she’s all wrong for it. Nevertheless, her broad performance is a consistently unfortunate case study in “whatever she thinks she’s doing, this isn’t it.”

Evil Does Not Exist is something different, starting out as a character study cum eco parable and morphing into an enigmatic nightmare.

The mostly low-key mode of Nowhere Special is the right one. Norton is spectacular, but little Lamont delivers one of those uncanny performances that doesn’t seem like acting, and makes you feel for the kid almost as much as his onscreen parent does.

While the action and suspense set pieces are executed with typical Ritchie bravura, the movie falls flat a lot of the time in between.

This is an engaging and watchable activist documentary that does make way for optimism in its last minutes, but doesn’t, um, sugarcoat its envoi about changing our eating ways: “Not only can we do it, we have to.”

Kim’s Video, co-directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin and narrated by Redmon, is less a retail history than a shaggy dog story. One that actually appears to be true. Go in knowing that and you might get a kick out of it.

Bonello’s not here to tell us that the only thing to fear is fear itself. He’s here to tell us to be afraid—be very afraid. What he delivers is not just a densely packed art movie but the most potent horror picture of the decade so far.

Perhaps paradoxically, it’s when the film is at its most quiet that it’s also most persuasive.