Keith Watson

In essence, Truth or Dare is less of a concert film than an elaborately constructed exegesis on pop mythmaking and the construction of identity.

Nelson Carlo de Los Santos's first fiction feature is a dazzling collage of styles and approaches in which every scene feels different from the one that came before.

Keith Thomas’s film hums with uncanny dread, milking the close juxtaposition of living and dead for all its worth.

Viswanathan, Newton, and Adlon generate a bit of chemistry throughout, but it's undermined by the fundamentally mechanistic nature of Brian and Jim Kehoe's screenplay, which ultimately forces these girls' experiences into neat little scenarios that are constructed every bit as didactically as a workplace training video.

It’s this carefully managed equilibrium between the inherent preposterousness of its mystical milieu and the convincing emotional reality of Laura’s journey that ultimately makes The Changeover, for all its muddled mythos, a lively and engaging excursion into an unusually naturalistic world of magic.

The film undermines Cunningham’s egalitarianism by linking him directly with the kind of elite snobbery and wealth fixation he abhorred.

The film is packed with mirthful pranksterism, a vigorous anti-authoritarian streak, and literal potty humor.

By focusing so narrowly on the Lewis brothers’ relationship with their mother, the film inadvertently minimizes the scope of their abuse.

Peter Rida Michail and Aaron Horvath's Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is a spastic, Mad magazine-style parody of comic-book movies for the age of superhero overload.

Though eerie and quietly deadpan, the film circles its grab bag of themes for so long that it also becomes tedious.

According tot he film, truly courageous artists aren't necessarily the ones who tackle the state head-on, but rather the ones who stay true to themselves even when no one likes what they have to say.

Too often, the film teases big, wild comedic set pieces that end up deflating almost instantly.

The clash between prehistoric pastoralism and technological progress at the center of the film is laden with potential for biting comedy, but Nick Park flattens the conflict into a series of slobs-versus-snobs clichés.

As he showed in "The Imposter," writer-director Bart Layton knows how to spin a compelling yarn.

Hustle doesn’t really seem to know who its characters are, much less how they fit into the complicated web of sports, media, and finance that defines the NBA.

As in Laika’s other efforts, the humor in the film is more wry than gut-busting, but Chris Butler has developed some truly inventive comic characters.

Daniela Thomas seems stymied by her own images, unable to extract the turmoil and violence suggested by her story for fear of upsetting the austere surface harmony of her visuals.

The film is at its sharpest when Chris Kelly hands scenes over to his main character's family and friends.

Adios may deepen our understanding of these musicians and their world, but it never quite stands on its own.

The film has an almost pathological need to ensure that everything turns out well for every single character, while at the same time eliding any truly difficult issues.

Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary characters feel as if they've been air-dropped into a universe where they don't belong.

Opening with the pulsing synth lines of Kim Wilde's “Kids in America,” Johannes Roberts's film announces itself as a looser, bouncier, more self-consciously frivolous effort than its now decade-old predecessor.

The film establishes coherent characters and drops them into a twisty mystery plot that’s tightly crafted enough to generate some real narrative momentum while never getting too bogged down in its own plot that it forgets to be funny.

The documentary is uniquely attuned to the fickle whims of history, politics, and biographical circumstance.

Mariama Diallo’s film never seems to fully buy into its horror trappings and ends up treating its characters as avatars for multiple grievances.

Onur Tukel attempts to connect Ashley and Veronica’s barbarity to the broader callousness of American life, but the satire is too blunt to really stick.

The film makes the path to basketball glory and the road to personal redemption seem oddly effortless.