Michael Rechtshaffen

While the film, with its preponderance of potty jokes, might placate the very young already primed by boisterous singing chipmunks, older viewers will likely find it all harder to, uh, bear.

While the early going might bring to mind the Dogme 95 school of stripped-down filmmaking...the result, with its collective of uniformly unsympathetic characters, ultimately overdoses on all the unscripted bad vibes.

Embracing the worst of Hollywood excess, director Wuershan crams in enough CG effects to fill a dozen Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay features, but the uninspired payoff quickly grows tiresome.

Employing a restless, constantly moving camera and deliberately isolating soundscapes, the meditative and often mesmerizing film confronts the global issue of swelling immigration in the face of steely bureaucratic indifference with a disarming grace and palpable humanity.

No less noisy, obnoxious or just plain groan-inducing than the previous installments.

The film itself often feels stilted and repetitive.

While the corrupt Indiana Jones conceit certainly held promise, the Hesses fail to move it much further beyond that "what if" premise, taking weak, obvious potshots at its fundamentalist target.

Filled with humanitarian good cheer — and enough costume changes to rival a Diana Ross concert — Imba Means Sing delivers a heartwarming song of hope for the future.

The visually stirring format proves unable to lift the story and performances out of a prevailing, airless stupor.

A richly crafted documentary that serves as an enlightening tribute to the filmmaker who masterfully tapped into the medium's wide-reaching socio-political potential.

Drone is a solid, thought-provoking documentary that raises some pertinent questions even if they may not originate from the most objective of places.

Working from a glib, chatty script by Robert Lowell that's not as cleverly hatched as it likes to think it is, Haley whips it into something reasonably entertaining.

Succeeds despite an intrusive soundtrack that underscores each genuinely heartfelt moment.

The Dark Horse is an emotionally potent story of redemption anchored by a heart-piercing lead performance from Cliff Curtis.

The Good Dinosaur emerges as a visually breathtaking work of computer-generated animation that is ultimately unable to compensate for a disappointingly derivative script.

As vapidly generic as its title, British director Scott Mann's Heist is a by-the-numbers crime thriller that squanders a decent cast, including Robert De Niro, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Dave Bautista.

The unifying power of music is rewardingly demonstrated in Song of Lahore.

Frequently laugh-out-loud funny and tangibly tender where it ought to be, the immensely satisfying screwball romp feels freshly contemporary even as it largely conforms to genre conventions.

This first feature is populated by blandly underdeveloped main characters who tend to recite their lines rather than inhabit them.

Director Kishan SS has made Care of Footpath 2 (a.k.a. Kill Them Young) as a bombastic, overlong melodrama that doesn't recognize the occasional need to takes things down a decibel or three.

Boasting a sizable budget, stirring photography and Arcilla's charismatic lead performance, Heneral Luna would never be mistaken for more serious-minded art-house material, but there are certainly less lively ways to be taught a history lesson.

A delightful romp that captures the spirit of the adored 65-year-old comic strip.

Even if the world had been clamoring for yet another "Step Up"-type hip hop dance movie, it wouldn't be Dancin' It's On!, an inept knockoff that proves every bit as clunky as its punctuation-challenged title.

A fascinating, skillfully assembled chronicle of the rise and inevitable fallout surrounding the granddaddy of the environmental activism movement.

Although Fontaine, a former soap opera actor, hits the saga's sins-of-the-fathers theme too often, there's a palpable small-town-in-transition feel to the fictional Braxton.... And there's no denying Fontaine's reflective but rumpled Rolando Ramirez is an interesting protagonist.

Copeland's victories are shortchanged by the film's prevailing sense of detachment from its main subject.

Taking those Hail Mary passes to heart, Woodlawn is a heavily Christian sports drama that almost goes the distance despite adhering closely to the inspirational movie playbook.

They may not do enough to alter the climate change film landscape, but Klein and those impassioned protesters provide something that has been in short supply in the predecessors — namely, a modicum of hope for the future.