John Anderson

Directed by James Adolphus (“Soul of a Nation”), the HBO documentary is almost too balanced.

I love a good film-clip movie as much as the next cinemaniac, and “Breakdown” provides plenty of great moments snatched out of what has been called the New American Cinema of the ’70s—the Scorsese-Coppola-Polanski-Malick heyday. But Mr. Neville is going for something deeper. Deeper even than what is usually attributed to the zeitgeist. Or its cousin, coincidence.

We can all see where this is going. In fact, if it didn’t go there we’d feel cheated, even though the route—as navigated by writer-director Aline Brosh McKenna, who wrote “The Devil Wears Prada” and co-created “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”—is as roundabout as the performances and casting are straightforward.

For all the overkill, The Gray Man is big, loud fun. Mr. Gosling is hip to what’s going on; Mr. Evans (of the Russos’ “Captain America: Civil War,” among others) gets to gobble up the scenery. And even if the elements are hackneyed—Alfre Woodard as the retired agency vet whom Six drags back into the fray; Jessica Henwick as the lone voice of CIA reason trying to rein Carmichael in—they’re not clumsy.

There are reasons to watch, principally Dianne Wiest’s outrageous Ruth Gordon impersonation and the presence of the gifted Julia Garner.

Mr. Hunnam is a charismatic center of attention, Ms. Baccarin perhaps more so for some of us, and Mr. Gibson, though doled out sparingly, is deftly funny.

It's weird, wacky territory you enter in The Price of Milk, and we don't just mean New Zealand.

Despite a certain emotional chill, what holds this Mechanic together is - no surprise - the core Carlino story.

An undercooked serving of political skulduggery that nevertheless provides a showcase for the magnetic Jodie Turner-Smith. Like most of the cast, she’s better than the material.

Mr. Hallström, who has made some emotionally satisfying and even delicate movies (“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “My Life as a Dog,” “The Cider House Rules”), doesn’t really have the material here that he had in his other films. His cast is pretty; the Sagrada Familia is more eloquent.

The film never quite succeeds, simply because the book’s core virtues do not lend themselves to cinema.

A mixed bag of a thriller that exploits two primal fears—of artificial intelligence, and precocious children.

It shouldn’t seem shocking, but the most interesting thing about this second Cruise-fired action film based on author Lee Child’s nomadic, ex-military hero is its action.

Mr. Dauberman, abetted by cinematographer Michael Burgess (“Malignant”), finds ways to make the Lot both anxious and dour, though the moods don’t always match up with the wobbly storytelling, or help set it on a purposeful path.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard would have been much funnier because, on paper, Tom O’Connor’s script was probably a scream. What adds to the unevenness of the whole affair is a propensity for extreme violence that just seems incompatible with what is ostensibly a comedy.

The voyeuristic indulgences of a middle-aged filmmaker playing out his most deep-seated and unresolved sexual fantasies and anxieties.

What's so unfunny about peace, love and understanding? Plenty, it turns out. But for much of the movie, viewers will be asking themselves where the conflict is. And, by extension, the drama.

The film is much too long—the first couple of acts feel like an overture to the reunion of Sam, Scarlet and the lethal librarians. It is also, occasionally, hilarious.

Go see it. But you'll feel cheap in the morning.

Though clearly besotted with Crane’s poetry, the writer-director-star never achieves full immersion in the man’s life or work; the sense is of people playing a very cerebral game of dress-up.

It only serves to remind one of better movies, at a time when one needs no reminders.

Ms. Brown, who first came to our attention in “Stranger Things,” and for good reason, is surrounded by a cast that may have lost a bet.

It should be said right off that this provocative off-black comedy, starring the Gen-Xer’s dream cast of Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, is not for everyone. And the people it is for will have to be in the mood.

They can give the film’s characters physics-defying acrobatic skills. But they can’t provide anyone much motivation.

Less magical is the blind adherence to formula evident in most of Taken 2. As they might say in the advertising department, it's an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride. But it could have been much more.

Martin is marvelous; through sheer charisma, he takes over certain scenes as if no one else is there.

It’s a deranged story, one that offers all kinds of opportunities for examining changes in the state of artificial insemination, medical ethics, the ways in which the human body has been opened up like an evidence locker, and the catchup that legislation has to play with technology.

The real-life Arizona case was likely a lot less funny than Queenpins, which was adapted by the film’s directors and uses the comedic gifts of its lead actresses (reunited from both “Veronica Mars” and “The Good Place”) to remain both outrageous and entertaining without ever abandoning an undercurrent of sadness.