Mike Scott

What Monsters University fails to do, though, is to scare up any real emotion.

What it does have going for it are its lead actors -- Brand and Hill both know exactly how to deliver a punch line -- and a lead character who represents one of the best bits of rock 'n' roll satire since "This Is Spinal Tap."

With Knuckle, Palmer offers a thorough -- and extraordinarily compelling -- portrait of the Travellers.

A better title: "Coco Before She Was Interesting."

It's sadly and tenderly honest -- and so are Hansard and Irglova, as they generously and matter-of-factly open up to the camera.

Built as it is around horrifying moments of intimate violence, the stark British drama Tyrannosaur can be a hard movie to watch. At the same time, though, it's hard to stop watching once it gets going.

While the film is ostensibly about nutria, the real stars are the locals who help tell the story -- and who, by displaying their grit, their smiles, their dialect, their pride -- transform the film as much into a South Louisiana ethnography as an environmental call to arms.

With lesser performances, its rangy story could have easily gotten lost in its own histrionics. As it is, though, they elevate Cooper's script, helping to make Hostiles better than it might otherwise have been.

Unfortunately, Brice appears more interested in ramping up the outrageousness and keeping his audiences guessing than in crafting a meaningful story. And so while his film is nothing if not unpredictable, that comes at the cost of the sort of emotional impact for which his film seems to be aiming.

It represents the rare lead role for Mackie, and he seizes the opportunity, convincingly playing the part of a soft-spoken former Black Panther.

Boasting a rich look and an engrossing storyline, it's the rare "to-be-continued" film that doesn't leave its audience feeling cheated.

Like the rest of the film, it's has its laughs and it has its emotion, just not enough of either.

If nothing else, Garcia's movie is a brave one, with its unflinching look at adoption, which -- as overwhelmingly compassionate an act as it is -- often leaves behind deep emotional scars.

The film's message -- about how the Internet is sabotaging our real-life relationships -- doesn't resonate with absolute clarity, but Disconnect does a much more effective job than anyone could hope to do in 140 characters or less.

Songs such as "We Shall Overcome," "Wade in the Water" and "This Little Light of Mine" are powerful to begin with. Listening to them, music-video-style, over footage shot during the era, however, elevates them.

This is featherweight, family-friendly fare, through and through. But that doesn’t detract from its ability to distract, thanks largely to a fun, fast-moving script, rich production values and director Harry Bradbeer’s willingness to stand back and let star Millie Bobby Brown shine.

It's not a perfect film, mind you. It's too long by a quarter, and actor-turned-director Charles Martin Smith ("The Untouchables") lets any sense of real structure slip away in the film's crowded third act.

There's a good reason why the true-crime film The Imposter is a documentary: If someone tried to pass off this bizarre Texas tale as fiction, nobody would believe it.

More seriously -- and substantively -- "A Late Quartet" was a quiet but thoughtful meditation on the power, and the necessary pain, of human connections. By comparison, Quartet is a flimsy bit of cinematic puffery that takes every obvious path on its way to its even more obvious "seize-the-day" message.

When a film's clichés are so obvious that its cast points them out for you, you've got to wonder how hard it's really trying.

Still, it's all enjoyable enough, playing out like a cross between "Pride and Prejudice" and "Amistad" -- and a welcome change of pace for those trying to avoid the radioactive spiders and time-traveling mutants that have otherwise invaded the summer movie season.

You might love it or you might hate it, but you won't soon forget it -- and you won't be able to say you've seen a movie quite like Swiss Army Man before.

While this nouveau Fright Night does a reasonable job of maintaining the fun spirit of the original film, between the blood splatters and vamp stakings, it never builds on what the original had to offer -- and thus never quite makes a convincing case for its own existence.

What most saw as entirely charming behavior others saw as a nuisance. After all, a playful whale has a way of unwittingly damaging rudders and outriggers and outboard motors and such. Worse, wildlife officials saw Luna's behavior as potentially dangerous, for the people he encountered -- and for the whale himself.

No one should mistake Scott’s Napoleon as an overtly political film. It’s true ambitions are to entertain and inform, in that order.

His (Andrew Dominik) film delivers when it matters, especially with its crystallizing final lines. Not only do they wrap a bow on what ends up being a treatise on the uglier side of capitalism, but they stand among the most memorable closing lines in recent Hollywood history.

While Infinitely Polar Bear makes an admirable argument that mental illness is something to be managed rather than dreaded like a death sentence, it's hard not to feel as if Forbes' film perhaps paints too rosy of a portrait of what can be a devastating condition to families.

This is a jazz movie, both in style and in substance, and so, rather, his goal is to try to capture the fog-like essence of Miles.