Matt Zoller Seitz

As its subtly confident title suggests, it carries itself as if nobody had ever made a Transformers movie before. It’s so earnest, bringing notes of freshness and innocence to a prequel that, by all rights, shouldn’t have had any.

While far from being a classic, “The Day the Earth Blew Up” is a charming and often invigorating reimagining of key Looney Tunes characters (Daffy Duck and Porky Pig), with a look and sound that links it to past versions without feeling indebted to them.

François Ozon's "Peter von Kant" is an odd, chilly film, even by this director's standards.

It's all so rich—and so richly executed by Ellis, a total filmmaker—that one wishes it added up to more than a series of smart variations on a certain type of film.

The monsters are brilliantly designed and skillfully animated (except for a few shots where Kong looks a tad cartoony), and the army of visual and sound effects artists convince you that that these CGI titans live and breathe and weigh hundreds of tons.

The goofier and more random the movie is, the better it is, and it certainly gets goofier and more random as it goes.

It's a work of fertile imagination that takes every step confidently, even if it isn't certain where it will lead.

The twenty-something drama Waiting for the Light to Change is an impressive debut from director-cowriter Linh Tran. Set in a Michigan lake house during winter, it's a minimalist youth drama with lakefront atmosphere, a controlled, at times minimalist directorial style, and a cast that approaches the material with disarming naturalism.

Annie is light on its feet, frothy, and always insistently, at times provocatively kind, determined to melt grumpy hearts like marshmallows.

A quasi-romantic variant of “After Hours” that perhaps stretches itself a little too far, but it is always enjoyable and sometimes quite moving.

Once in a while you encounter a piece that seems like a premeditated farewell — a conscious summing-up of the life and work — whether or not it was intended that way. Varda by Agnès, a combination autobiography and career survey overseen by the filmmaker, is that kind of movie.

Life After is a powerful movie that examines the political and social structures that surround and control people with disabilities, and comes to a conclusion that will spark many arguments.

Last Stop in Yuma County is the kind of movie where you root for the worst to happen, because every escalation of misfortune makes things more entertaining.

Stanfield is a true movie star, radiating decency even as the character's shell hardens.

What elevates it and makes it special is the attention it pays to local geography and atmosphere, the mundane aspects of working-class Northeastern U.S. life, and the culturally super-specific types of people you'll find in that environment

Camp X-Ray has cinematic and moral intelligence.

While it offers some gripping and/or darkly beautiful images, it's ultimately more about ideas than spectacle, proving (like every previous film by this team) that you don't need a gigantic amount of money to create an engrossing work of science fiction and/or fantasy.

Had The Founder focused solely on Kroc’s relationship with the McDonald brothers, it might have been one of the great intimate, sour character studies of recent times.

Like its hero, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors goes with the flow and has a chaotic and thrilling time but doesn't know where to go or what to do with itself.

What makes “The Wrecking Crew” worth seeing is what the cast and filmmakers do with the material. Simply put, this movie is better than its synopsis suggests, though not good enough to entirely overcome the familiarity of the component parts and the alternately jokey and sentimental tone (which is harder to pull off than studio executives seem to think).

Altogether, it’s a solid film of kind that used to be more common: an earnest, unpretentious Oscar Movie that wants to be seen by everyone, and consequently doesn’t try to be too complex or arty.

This is subtly acted by both leads, especially when the characters fall silent and you see shades of doubt and sadness flicker across their faces.

For all the psychological realism of Carrie and Margaret's relationship, however, this remake has a comic book feeling.

The film's solid grounding in friendship and comic teamwork carries the day. Unpregnant becomes more affecting as it goes along thanks to the sincere, committed, and mostly unaffected lead performances by Richardson and Ferreira.

The action set-pieces are thrilling and intentionally hilarious, though the digital effects and compositing vary in quality.

Jane Giles and Ali Catterall's documentary "Scala!!!" is about a legendary, notorious, hugely influential and long-gone London theater. But it'll appeal to anyone whose formative moviegoing years were defined by eccentric, usually urban or college-town cinemas that programmed whatever the folks who ran the place found interesting and switched lineups every day or two.

As it turns out, this movie has a lot of the virtues of a Sorkin joint, in particular a gift for snappy patter and keen insight into the dynamics of relationships between smart, accomplished, ambitious people. However, it also has some of the flaws, chiefly an overconfidence in its ability to articulate the big ideas and timeless themes that are believed to be hallmarks of Important Drama.

Bill Nighy is a fun, uninhibited actor, but there's an abashed, melancholy quality to him that hasn't been fully explored until Living, a drama about a senior citizen reckoning with his life.