Matt Fagerholm

The plot seems sillier the more one mulls it over, yet it’s a testament to the film that we’re not preoccupied with questions of probability for the duration of its running time.

The best thing that can be said about the script, penned by acclaimed playwright Alice Austen, is that it never sounds written. Most of the dialogue seems as if it were improvised by the film’s remarkable ensemble, particularly when scenes of prolonged verbal altercations reach Cassavetes-level decibels.

What I enjoyed most about the film is how it illustrates the ways in which we view life through the prism of art in order to reach a deeper understanding of it.

I doubt How to Survive a Pandemic will alter anyone’s opinion regarding the necessity of vaccines, yet it does pay admirable tribute to the scientists fighting to save the world, including those stubborn earthlings who have no interest in being saved.

When a comedy is made about a real-life topic that is no laughing matter, it had better be funnier than Sameh Zoabi’s Tel Aviv on Fire. The premise is a richly flavorful one, but the execution is as bland as unseasoned hummus.

So vague is the picture about the meaning of the artworks it presents that they proved to be of little interest to me, until I researched them afterward. Far more compelling is Beuys himself, with his signature hat, haunted gaze and outspoken belief that art can be a vehicle for communication.

Daddy Issues is not the laugh-out-loud rom-com it had likely aspired to be, yet it’s just charming enough to make you wish it were better.

The execution is riddled with problems, not the least of which is the absence of Salinger’s actual work.

There’s no question that Islamophobia is also on the rise around the globe, and this film — however inadvertently and well-intentioned — plays directly into it.

For a film supposedly about the transformative power of faith, Captive has very little to preach in that regard, apart from the importance of purchasing megachurch pastor Rick Warren’s hit book, The Purpose Driven Life.

There are no thrills in this western yarn, just a mounting series of tragedies that are by turns frustrating and numbing.

Many of the film's backdrops are admittedly breathtaking, yet the foregrounded people never seem to be actually populating them. The character animation is so flat and uninspired that it causes Dilili and her fellow humans to resemble stickers grafted onto postcards, with the subtle use of shadows and reflections doing little to add dimension.

What Hammond and Markiewicz are most gifted at is cinematography. I’d gladly watch this film’s entire B-roll again just to bask in the gorgeous Mexican landscapes and vivid snapshots of the cities, outdoor markets and parking lots where various matches occur.

The irony is that as Gallner’s performance gets stronger, the film around him grows weaker.

Landsman’s film is enraging for all the right reasons, and more than a few wrong ones as well. It comes off as more of a puff piece than an exposé.

These behind-the-scenes factoids are the most interesting aspects of the film — and, regrettably, the only interesting aspects, as well.

Fallen fuses its one good idea with countless bad ones generated not from life experience but from recycled formulas.

By the time Margo finally announces that she’s ready to leave, I was eager to gather my things and join her in escaping this would-be comedy.

Endgame tries to be about many important issues, and ends up doing none of them justice.

Had the filmmakers put forth the effort to view the story through Jamal’s eyes, they may have had a worthy cinematic counterpart to their noble off-camera achievements.

Its star, Jeremy Irons, certainly appears to be relishing his role as an unapologetically bad-mannered actor, savoring each profane syllable of his dialogue like a fine wine.

I came to McGuckian’s film knowing nothing about Gray and left feeling frustrated that I hadn’t learned more about her, apart from the boorish chauvinists in her life.

Perhaps die-hard fashionistas would find this reasonably diverting, but to everyone else, it is guaranteed to grow tiresome very quickly.

A better title would’ve likely been “121 Minutes in Purgatory,” since that’s essentially where audiences will find themselves residing during the entirety of this dreary slog down a familiar road paved with painfully good intentions.

I fully endorse the message blatantly expressed by Beemer’s picture, but as a work of cinema, it drove me nuts in how its style was antithetical to the principles its numerous subjects were championing.

It’s not a film so much as a lecture punctuated by a patronizing moral, and more importantly, it’s not much fun.

Though the picture is admirable on a conceptual level, its execution is incoherent, interminable and a colossal strain on the eyes.

It may not be as brazenly offensive as “God’s Not Dead” or as spectacularly inept as “Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas,” but it’s still awful, offering all the forced humor and superficial substance of a half-baked homily.