Inkoo Kang

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.