Matt Zoller Seitz

The problem, though, is that American Underdog doesn't ever really connect the modest virtuousness of Kurt and Brenda to Kurt's ascension as a quarterback.

It takes its sweet time getting to the point, and generally speaking, the less interested it is in moving the plot along, the weirder and funnier it becomes.

This one is a mostly likable effort, but it doesn't quite feel like a self-contained movie with a shape and a discernible point; it's more of a collection of material arranged in a way that more or less makes sense.

Loud, trashy, sweet and weird, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers reboot Power Rangers is not merely an ideal film for rambunctious and undemanding 12-year olds, it actually sees the world through their eyes.

The film is good to excellent in every way except morally, and there it's questionable more often than it should be, not because it's an evil film, or because the filmmaker or actors are bad people, but because the interplay of means and ends have been under-thought or misjudged, to the point where the film becomes a catalog of obscenities.

There are two movies in Jackie, Pablo Larraín's film about Jackie Kennedy (Natalie Portman) immediately before, during and after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy. One of these movies is just OK. The other is exceptional. The first one keeps undermining the second.

The film’s clever editing (credited to Klinger and Geraldine Mangenot) jumps back and forth through time in intriguing, sometimes intoxicating ways, and even when the drama flags there’s always a stunning image to stare at.

What's missing is a sense of how Monroe, seemingly a law-abiding young man before his family's financial dark days, suddenly went from being a go-along-to-get-along type to a budding criminal mastermind.

The film's tight construction and prolific action scenes carry it, and Blunt and Johnson do the irresistible force/immovable object dynamic well enough, swapping energies as the story demands.

True to form, Hacksaw Ridge draws equally on Gibson's bottomless thirst for mayhem and his sincerely held religious beliefs — or some of them, anyway. It's a movie at war with itself.

Elton John: Never Too Late is an affecting movie that the musician's fans will likely appreciate, but it's the equivalent of those official oil portraits that the more intelligent and self-aware royals used to commission.

Table 19 also feels the need to be a romantic comedy in which all's well that ends well, and it's here that the movie fails most conspicuously.

The problem, though, is that we never get enough sense of Paz's interior life to judge this movie as anything other than a comeback story about a nice guy who got knocked out by the cosmos and hauled himself up.

An old-fashioned Biblical spectacular with fresh blood in its veins.

The film is worth seeing because, regardless of things that I wish had been done better or differently, it feels like the beginning of a major filmmaking career, and because Pettyfer and Freedson-Jackson are so strong.

Nothing about it makes a lot of sense, but then, nothing about classic old comedies starring people like W.C. Fields or Laurel and Hardy made much sense, because they about oddballs getting into trouble and then trying to get out of it.

Despite Lang and Fisher’s exemplary teamwork, “The Optimist” never overcomes its clunky plot or its inclination to teach rather than dramatize.

The problem is, for all its surface intelligence, "Mockingjay, Part 1" has little depth, and that sometimes makes it much more frustrating than a more knowingly shallow and silly movie might have been.

It's hard to tell if Kevin Pollak's documentary Misery Loves Comedy is too much of a good thing or not enough.

A strange and memorable but not entirely successful film, "Sweet Dreams" turns colonialism into a source of pitch-black slapstick comedy.

An American Pickle is charming and moving whenever it is content to be a two-man play. That's where the dramatic and thematic action happens. And it happens mainly through Rogen's dual performance.

It's better than OK, and a few elements sing; but overall it frustrates. Its delights come from its willingness to depart from formula, but formula still rules it.

The movie has a clearly defined aesthetic and a consistent tone and a good heart, and there are moments where it wanders into the sublime.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey illustrates a principle endorsed by many legendary directors: Casting the right leads will get you ninety percent of the way to success.

Despite its lack of originality, as well as its lackadaisical storytelling and world building, it satisfies in that amiably weird way that only a "Cars" film can.

It mostly feels like a very long pilot for a Netflix show that would go to series, build a modest but loyal following, then get canceled after two seasons so the streamer doesn’t have to give everyone a raise for going to three. But there's loads of talent in it.

No Stone Unturned at times veers close to a rant. It's clear that Gibney is going for something along the lines of Errol Morris' "The Thin Blue Line," which also used stylized re-creations, but the pieces don't fit together as neatly here.

There are too many major characters and too many points of emphasis. As elegantly directed as it sometimes is, it feels disjointed, scattered.