Jason Bailey

The film is undeniably entertaining, it’s fun to see these characters and creators again, and hey, who am I to begrudge them a victory lap? But ultimately, the contrast between the epilogue film and the source material is undeniable.

Some promising ideas and characters are introduced, but the narrative is so superfluous, the connecting segments so fleeting, that little is fleshed out.

A confidently crafted, well-acted three-hander ... But some viewers will find the hamster-wheel nature of “Jungleland” monotonous, and it’s hard to blame them.

There are moments in “My Zoe” that are hard to watch, unthinkable in their emotional brutality. That Delpy finds her way to the ending she does—and earns it is—no small accomplishment.

A wildly misbegotten mess, a goulash of incongruent tones and unclear motives.

The kind of brainy, absorbing, all-out thrilling cinema that’s in dangerously short supply these days.

It’s a mighty snoozy affair, in which we discover that Doremus’s cinematic style —intimate, personal, and improvisation — has not so much solidified as cauterized.

Perhaps the pieces could have held together with the right leading man as glue. Elgort is, assuredly, not that.

In playing a man who was so clearly among his comic ancestors and influences, we see, for the first time in a long time, Murphy’s sheer joy of performance, the thing that made his early work in films like “48 HRS.” and “Beverly Hills Cop” so electrifying.

It’s just uninspired, a by-the-books courtroom drama, full of big speeches about justice and equality and Doing What’s Right, moved along by montages and fake-outs.

The picture’s biggest flaw is that it’s so mellow it occasionally veers into inertia.

Each comic set piece decomposes on the screen, lifeless and hopeless.

The problem is Estes’ script. There are some real clunkers twisting around in the dialogue, and this viewer was way ahead of its big twists (and I never figure out big twists).

If White’s wild formal experimentation and narrative cul-de-sacs result in a strange identity crisis for the film — a sense that he wasn’t entirely sure which movie he wanted to make — Gardner’s stellar work unifies it.

This is a filmmaker aware of the conventions, who wields them with wit and precision and knows his audience is on the gag as well. In many ways, The Perfection amounts to little more than a bag of tricks. But no one is pretending otherwise. And they’re good tricks.

Some early, halfhearted attempts at social relevance aside, Thriller is an act of quotation and little else. It’s less a movie than a mix tape.

An uncommonly knotty and fiercely intelligent story of assault and blame in the social media age.

Ultimately, it’s hard to figure out exactly what movie Anvari was trying to make.

Paddleton is so busy not doing much, it blindsides you with its honestly-earned emotions.

[Nyong’o is] so good, in fact, that the pleasure of her performance makes “Little Monsters” worth seeing. But just barely.

Hala is keenly observed and quietly powerful, and we’ll be hearing much more from the talented women on either side of its lens.

The director resists the urge to make the family too heroic – in fact, his own character takes an unsympathetic turn near the end, which must’ve been a tough call. But it matters, because it renders his deeply-felt joy and pride at the picture’s conclusion all the more potent.

Tyrel boasts some fine performances and some compelling ideas, but ultimately, it plays like a version of Jordan Peele‘s “Get Out” where nothing happens.

The problem with Fahrenheit 11/9 is that it’s Trump’s Fahrenheit 9/11 rather than Trump’s Roger & Me.

At its best, it’s a moody, scary, post-Peckinpah meditation on masculinity — and an all too rare opportunity to see Mr. Wright fronting a feature.

Maya is full of the kind of tiny, keenly observed moments that make Løve such a special filmmaker.

Every time Dolan generates a head of steam, he’s betrayed by his script, by the self-conscious formality of the dialogue, or the clunkiness of the structure.

Hill’s basically remaking Larry Clark’s seminal 1995 film “Kids,” a picture inherently more authentic because it was a snapshot taken in that moment. And if you prefer the rose-colored lens of nostalgia, that’s been done too, in Jonathan Levine’s 2008 effort “The Wackness.”