Inkoo Kang

The script relies too often on Sasha’s bestie or Marcus’ father pushing the destined couple toward each other, but its smaller moments of naturalistic riffing make up for the rigid plotting.

The depiction isn’t remotely believable, but with Ronan endowing her character with both a steel spine and a fresh-faced naïveté (in a performance that makes her the film’s sole great asset), it’s fun, even inspiring.

Because The Institute is largely framed as if the viewer were a co-player in Jejune's game, the film is an experience that's fun and frustrating in equal measure.

Dolemite Is My Name delivers on titties, funnies, and kung fu, all mixed up in a syrupy nostalgia that makes the picture’s feel-good populism go down easy. It’s only when the credits roll that you might notice there was little there but froth.

As a whole, the film's characters touchingly illustrate the tolls of living with unresolved trauma and chronic uncertainty, as well as the solidarity and relative freedom this community of outcasts enjoys.

Pilgrimage travels quite far on the momentum provided by a series of reveals. Each shifts the film’s stakes significantly enough that we look forward to the next divulgence as much as the succeeding battle scene. It ultimately stumbles when it reaches for depth, arriving at a hollow conclusion that mistakes cynicism for profundity.

The film is meant to be a negotiation of what that long-ago relationship was, and it is that. But considered in our reality of pervasive sexual iniquity, Una also feels, whatever its creators’ intentions, an awful lot like a litany of self-serving excuses for pedophilic behavior, which may or may not be sincere.

Mo’s story feels rare, relevant and real. But we’re stuck on the outside looking in.

Although Kaveh and Raul never transcend their archetypes as heartbroken single guy and too-comfortable married man, and Hamedani and Isao aren't naturals in front of the camera, their rapport ultimately makes Junk a worthwhile lark.

Late Night suggests that Kaling is as fascinated as ever not by the girl next door but by powerful, unruly women — and the unconventional love stories befitting their willful, idiosyncratic selves. But the film may be most notable for its summation of the thinking and rethinking that Kaling has done about her 15 years in Hollywood — and how to fight to change it.

Chappaquiddick may or may not be what actually happened, but it gets at enough piercing truths.

If you like postmodern gimmickry and modern dance, and are OK with sitting through nearly 10 minutes of staged talking-head interviews, glum stoner talk about abortion, nausea-inducing filmmaking, characters whose motivations don’t make sense, horror, exploitative child death, and a quasi-coercive lesbian make-out—but just don’t care to be reminded “Drugs! Are! Bad!”: Leave 89 minutes in. Or don’t come at all, because Climax really isn’t about anything more than that.

Director Lone Scherfig’s stagings of these suspenseful set pieces are masterful, but the rest of the thriller is a fairly predictable manifesto against Britain’s de facto oligarchy.

For most of its run, the film is a tribute to unimaginative competence, confidently venturing where so many movies have ventured before. But in the last few scenes, the script offers a solid twist and a cynical social critique, the latter coming out of nowhere but still somehow managing to work.

If there isn't enough to feel, at least there's a lot to look at. Thanks to the superb 3-D direction by DeBlois, we swoop through the air, whoosh down dragons’ tails, and juuust baaaarely squeeze into small crevices, but still, those experiences are only like being on a really great rollercoaster — they don't mean anything.

As with so much of Brazilian cinema, the framing of the plot as a social allegory instead of a psychological portrait doesn't yield the most emotionally satisfying experience. But Wolf serves as an important feminist correction -- and a compelling reminder that predators can come from anywhere.

Part incomplete rom com, part squishy lampoon, La Boda de Valentina ultimately falls short in both modes, but accomplishes just enough to warrant a RSVP.

Portman’s voiceover performance is full of conviction, but I wish that Eating Animals gave us different models of vegetarianism than she and Foer, a diminutive actress and a bookish Brooklynite, respectively.

The happenstance plotting and over-reliance on violence as a plot motor dissipate the film's energy by the end.

At 75 minutes, the resulting feature is the definition of slight, but just winsome and optimistic enough to justify itself.

[A] perfectly serviceable thriller.

It’s not that One Child Nation needs to cater to both sides of the argument, but it would have helped contextualize how often the acts of violence the film chronicles actually happened.

Walker's life is so eventful — and her contributions so important — that the hagiography is worth forgiving.

Borrowing a few biographical details from Stanton’s life, the virtually plotless drama exudes admiration for its nonagenarian muse, but it’s built so sparely that it doesn’t have much to offer anyone who doesn’t already share its reverence for the “Paris, Texas” actor.

The mustiness of many of the script's ideas hardly detracts from what feels like a radical premise, at least in film — that a woman can get off with a stranger and leave it at that. Erica Jong would be proud.

S#x Acts works as a crash course in sexual ethics, but it also fails to transcend its genre trappings as a morality tale about the dangers of low self-esteem.

Regrettably, Men at Lunch obsesses over disappearing ghosts instead of the records we already have and the history we should know.

The romance of patriotism and pain, depicted here in lush greens and velvety blues, makes “The Imitation Game” enjoyable enough to render it a vindication of the formula. It disappoints as biography, but makes for a great yarn, even if you've heard it before.

A minimalist film like Columbus depends almost entirely on the shading of the characters and the depths of the performances. By that metric, it’s a too-delicate creature, tickling and piquing instead of fully thrusting us into the realm of feelings.

Until its resolution, Bad Times is a fun-enough romp through retro genre pleasures. But when it drags in the real world in its final scenes, it reveals itself to be just as fatuous as most such nostalgic pastiches tend to be.

The sum amounts to far less than its parts, but oh, what parts!

The needless cruelty of the criminal justice system feels like a world begging for more sense-making, but Just Mercy only sees its characters as heroes, victims, or obstacles, not as rational beings who might have their own reasons to knowingly commit terrible acts. Cretton’s desire to focus tightly on McMillian’s case makes sense, but he accidentally makes the white malefactors in the town more fascinating for their villainy.

Truth is hammier than Easter brunch, but its depictions of rejection transfiguring into violence are always affecting and distressing.

The lions are majestic yet adorable; too bad the humans are such a sorry sight.

Director Junya Sakino's debut would have been stronger if the comic barbs in Jeff Mizushima's script hadn't been dulled by Mizushima's editing, which bungles the timing of the jokes.

Director Clint Eastwood‘s focus on Kyle is so tight that no other character, including wife Taya (Sienna Miller), comes through as a person, and the scope so narrow that the film engages only superficially with the many moral issues surrounding the Iraq War.

Largely fueled by Richardson and Ferreira’s charisma and chemistry, Unpregnant is an amiable if uneven ride.

The lack of a precipitating factor, the invisible impulses behind addiction, and the episodic nature of recovery don’t exactly lend themselves to a compelling narrative structure.

The screenplay by Ryan Engle (“Rampage,” “The Commuter”) squanders its potential for emotional depth, making Breaking In a serviceable, but indistinct product.

Appropriate to its teenage milieu, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon‘s breakthrough film isn’t unlike spending a couple of hours with an exceptionally witty high-schooler: It’s entertaining as hell, but you can’t help rolling your eyes a little at its self-satisfied pseudo-profundities.

Natalie might protest the whitewashing of New York by rom-coms, but Isn’t It Romantic trots out multiple supporting characters of color whose sole roles are to make the white protagonist look good.

The virgin-whore dichotomy between the two female characters flattens the film into something much less interesting than it could have been, and the tonal discrepancies occasionally threaten to take it into experimental territory.

Director Laura Gabbert pairs her wide-ranging, blithely fawning approach to Gold with a vision of Los Angeles as blinkered as it is tempting.

Unfortunately, Broken lives up to its mawkish title, and the slice-of-life tragedies of the film's first half devolve into manipulative melodrama in the latter part. When society breaks, the spell does, too.

The genre elements of the romantic comedy Wedding Palace attempt a transpacific transit, but get lost in translation.

There are too few real humans in Life After Beth, resulting in a lack of both brains and heart.

The film offers disappointingly little insight into the music itself.

Despite all the splendor, there’s little sense of vision.

Garriga aims for depth in the third act, contextualizing religious conservatism as a reaction against the social revolutions of the 1960s. But the reduction of Christianity into just another political group feels like a dilution, a conversion of wine into water.

No amount of self-referential jokes can make up for a lack of heart and spirit. Thankfully, Annie lacks neither.

The emotional moments never land.

It’s the kind of movie that needs a feather-light touch or plenty of humor to avoid feeling overly parental. Moxie has neither.

It’s too bad that Chastain’s heady, exquisitely subtle performance is dragged down by the laughably vehement male characters that seek to speak for her. You can’t keep a good woman down. But you can constantly talk over her, I guess.

There’s something unseemly about singling out this story, about the seemingly narrow scope of racism and how easily it can be undone. Green Book decries those cultural pockets designed to make white people feel good, often at people of color’s expense. But that’s about all it does, too.

In adapting Dean Koontz's series, Sommers nails the hero but bungles the world-building.

The film largely squanders Woodley's considerable talents by having her talking about (but never showing us) the numb but open wound that is Kat's relationship with her mother. More disappointingly, the film never figures out how to translate Kat's lack of emotion into something that makes us feel anything other than distant pity.

Never feels as triumphant or as affecting as it should, but the script boasts some amusing meanness of spirit.

Flat jokes, uneven performances, and a predictable romance help make Bounty Killer a lot less fun than it should be — a killer shame, given its boldly gonzo premise.

Brice’s script boasts a few surprises, but this is essentially a highly competent film about boring people’s boring problems.

Director Peggy Holmes' glittery romp offers plenty of pretty spectacles, but true flights of fancy... are far too rare.

In superlative previous films like “The Host” and “Mother,” Bong elevated, then transcended, the humble genres of the monster movie and the murder mystery by refashioning them into exquisitely heart-wrenching human drama. Disappointingly, then, his alchemical touch is absent here. Snowpiercer warms the heart, but doesn't penetrate it.

"Art Addict” may be encyclopedic, but it’s all-too-rarely insightful.

Chen's excessive propriety veers treacherously close to barely disguised repulsion.

Despite the production’s team of scientist consultants, the physics in The Wandering Earth is probably a lot of hooey. But the film’s world building, which takes up much of its first third, is undeniably novel and fascinating. Rarely does a film brag such a technocratic heart.

By exposing on the top-down class-warfare origins of the annual event, the prequel elaborates on the series’ earnest political commentary — and exposes its limits as well.

With Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams starring as its furtive, inflamed lovers, Disobedience has pedigree to spare. But the result feels wonky and lopsided, as if several crucial scenes were left behind on the cutting-room floor.

Grahame’s contributions to cinema are more than worthy of a reevaluation. Her complications, too, deserve more than this tepid, uncurious portrait.

Ready Player One has no obligation to be a rigorous intellectual exercise, even if it amounts to a wasted opportunity to explore who else might steer tech, and society, toward greater equity. But it doesn’t have to be so facile, either. Maybe next time the screenwriters shouldn’t set the difficulty mode to “easy.”

Blended director Frank Coraci, a Happy Madison vet, is too much of a company man to elevate this passion-phobic rom-com beyond something more than an above-average Sandler production.

The visuals remain homely and brutally efficient, the plot convoluted but the pacing brisk, and the humor often inventive and resourceful — and just as often tired or offensive (to women, people of color, gays and lesbians, old people, take your pick).

The Judge is tailor-made for Downey's gift for delivering a quippy, arrogant put-down like he's doing his target a favor. Hank's anti-heroism is a refreshing splash of lemon juice with an occasional spritz of sour vinegar. But much of director David Dobkin‘s cynically cloying legal and family drama goes down like a lump of aspartame.

In trying to say everything, Plus One reveals it doesn't have much to say at all.

Regrettably, the subtitles fail to capture Sul and Moon's witty wordplay — but their snappy, prickly chemistry is obvious to all.

If Bound by Flesh sorely lacks the perspective of the physically atypical community, it's at least a fascinating look at the transformations in the entertainment industry in the last century.

The news is only important insofar as it helps us understand the world. Best of Enemies, though, is only interested in zooming in to gaze lingeringly at the media’s navel.

Maybe this dream team would be better showcased by a "Tea With the Dames" situation, in which they were allowed to toss out the script and booze it up as their own funny selves. Anyone else up for Chardonnay With the Comedians?

The documentary is just as notable for the cultural and social analysis that it lacks as it is for its contents.

The death- and religion-obsessed Wish I Was Here is such a manifestly personal project that it's a shame it isn't even more idiosyncratic.

Writer-director Terry Miles' revisionist homage is a thoughtful thesis on the melodrama but a letdown in its attempt to serve as an affecting example of that genre.

Superior feels like Diet David Lynch: an unsatisfying substitute.

Incomplete-feeling film, which inadvertently illustrates how empathy without balance can obscure truth.

The new paint job is nice, but the insides may be too creaky to salvage.

They're thematically richer and more tonally cohesive than their hybrid. But because the two films are so similar to one another, they fail to deliver on the promise of their unique structure, rendering the “he said, she said” complementary design of the two films a dull, self-indulgent gimmick.

The thing that catastrophically sinks “Him” – or “Her,” if that's the film you see second – is that the two films are enough alike that sitting through the second immediately after the first is a slog.

Ray Ray's belated journey into manhood never feels sentimental or precious. But it also never strikes an emotional tone that's more than blandly agreeable.

Wallace smartly leaves room for skeptics of Burpo's account to maintain their doubt; what matters most is that audiences understand the film character's reasons for choosing to believe his son's vision/dream/delirium.

Ultimately, “Anarchy” is too cartoonish in its politics to gain the allegorical resonance it clearly strives for — and worse yet, it's just no fun.

The Giver is an anti-totalitarian allegory so farcically hyperbolic it feels like only a teenager could have come up with it.

Regrettably, Storm Over Brooklyn is only a rudimentary primer on the case, rather than a particularly comprehensive or insightful one. Many of its shortfalls have to do with director Muta'Ali's (Life's Essentials With Ruby Dee) narrow focus on the Hawkins family, especially since the film is most compelling when it evokes the pressure cooker of racial hostilities that New York City had become by the late '80s.

A conspicuously dumb joke nearly ruins a scene, a couple of storylines don’t go anywhere, and the ending simply feels like the film running out of steam. But Sorry to Bother You is so smart and so potent for so long—and so inventive yet thoughtfully measured in its use of the absurd—that the flaws simply give way. You don’t remember the endings of dreams, after all—just the parts that left you in a pool of your own sweat.

Though it boasts great performances and urgent, intimate camera work, "Holy Ghost People" diminishes as it progresses, enervated by its prioritization of scares over cohesion and a voice-over that tells everything it should show.

Hereditary only begins as a Greek tragedy. After a few too many twists and turns, it gets warped into a horror soap — an unnerving but ultimately numbing pile of calamities.

Those who believe weddings to be exorbitant, empty spectacles have a fair-weather friend in writer-director Victor Quinaz, whose inventive debut, Breakup at a Wedding, attempts an aloof, smirking pose but surrenders to sentimentality in the end.

Ultimately, it all feels less like a romance than a curiosity.

Love is Strange boasts an abundance of patience and kindness — but not much of a pulse.

Rather than the currency itself, the film's most compelling subject ends up being the separatist psychology of its self-regarding fanatics.

Love feels deeply, but not complexly. Both Murphy and Noé’s sustained sex scenes understand want and need, but there’s little to invest in emotionally.

The Last Witch Hunter aims for pulpy, comic-book fun, but it’s never as fleet, funny, or detailed as it needs to be. And if you’re looking for something above middling in terms of plot, characters, world-building, even action sequences, you’ll need to seek it elsewhere.