Jake Cole

Steven S. DeKnight's film lacks for Guillermo del Toro's visual acumen, but it makes up for that with an energetic sense of chaos throughout its front-and-center skirmishes, and in the end hedges closer to the nightmarish intensity of such inspirational texts as Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion.

This isn’t an adaptation of a video game so much as an adaptation of a video game’s tutorial level.

The film may involve the instant movement among unfathomable distances and the shattered limits of space and time, but it’s only Storm Reid's character who feels multidimensional.

Armando Iannucci satirizes the manner in which political power is accorded to those who can mask cutthroat ambition behind an outward projection of bland inoffensiveness.

At a time when Americans are constantly bombarded with reports of unpunished police brutality, the film suggests that the true problem with justice in our country is that law enforcement isn't violent enough.

When the film's tone slides so firmly back into the murk, it's hard not to see DC's notion of heroism as borderline nihilistic.

The Snowman is missing so much basic connective tissue as to be rendered almost completely inexplicable.

The film reinforces only the most simplistic and patriotic vision of Churchill, its closed-off view of the man reminiscent of the many tracking shots that wind through the underground tunnels of the U.K.‘s war command, constantly peeking into rooms with classified meetings as doors are abruptly closed to keep them secret

Thelma's transition into a paranormal thriller doesn’t complicate its initially potent character study.

The hollow grandeur of the film's action only gives the proceedings a glib undertone that also undermines the rare occasions of earnestness that the heroes exhibit toward fallen comrades.

James Franco's The Disaster Artist perfectly conveys the surreal hell of what the production of Tommy Wiseau's The Room must have been like.

The film is the finest balance yet of Martin McDonagh's bleak sense of humor and offbeat moral sincerity.

There's a blank space at the core of Molly's Game that the protagonist cannot fill, unable as she is to represent anything beyond her esoteric narrative of unorthodox self-actualization.

The only thing that offsets the film's self-negating revisionism are the scenes involving Gillian Anderson vicereine.

As in Destin Daniel Cretton’s previous feature, Short Term 12, the oscillations between sociological horror and misty-eyed sentimentality call attention to how meticulously the film arranges its emotional punches.

The decade-long effort to bring the Dark Tower books to the screen looks like a cheap, unauthorized cash-in.

The tediously forestalled twists suck away time from what should be the film's focus—its action—and leaves only two scenes worthy of celebration.

In devoting so much time to the dull, counterproductive mechanics of the action assembly, Dunkirk dispenses with nearly all other elements of drama.

Baby Driver literalizes Edgar Wright’s fascination with people’s emotional overreliance on pop culture as a cover for arrested development.

The sensory overload of Michael Bay's hyperkinetic cinema is such that it eradicates any actual sense of place.

Too much is at stake throughout, leading to formulaic plot filler and exposition that snuff out the spark of the early scenes.

Johnny Depp’s perfunctory gestures and flailing pratfalls befit a film that brings the franchise’s theme-park roots full circle.

The only saving grace of the film's mostly recycled horrors is how they deepen Michael Fassbender's android David.

For all the attempts to update King Arthur to be cool and sexy, neither the character nor the film around him musters any spark.

The film at one point offers the finest sustained act of emotional storytelling to grace a Marvel Studios production.

The film finally tips the franchise over from modestly thoughtful stupidity into tedious, loud inanity.

Petra Epperlein's personal ties to the subject matter provides the documentary with a necessary anchor point.

Every creature here that's intended to burrow themselves into the audience’s nightmares are less wonders of imagination than of size.