Nick Schager

A sturdy continuation of this cataclysmic big-screen series, whose large-scale set pieces are rooted in the fear, anguish, and compassion of its appealing main characters.

Eden-Smith makes the film her own, right up to the surprising, challenging and altogether sharp final note.

Though the film’s feel-good construction undercuts its ability to surprise, Petra Volpe’s cine-history lesson remains a mainstream crowd-pleaser adept at inspiring and amusing in equal measure.

With sterling command of its malevolently dreamy tone, it casts a disquieting spell.

Rosenfield and Law are such a likable duo — he clownish and earnest in equally uninhibited fashion, she brazen and fierce with an underlying sweetness — that the film remains amusing and spry even as it coasts along a path that will feel familiar to most rom-com fans.

In an age of bland, unimaginative cookie-cutter blockbusters, there’s something refreshing about a movie that puts a premium on looking and sounding badass.

Contextualizing the prime minister's rise to power within a larger portrait of a nation under constant internal and external siege, Bhutto conveys a forceful sense of tectonic social and geopolitical shifts, as well as the courageous, heartbreaking personal sacrifices its subject made in service to both her homeland and ideals.

An old-school Jerry Bruckheimer-produced spectacular, albeit one that never deviates from a familiar summer blockbuster course and, consequently, fails to truly kick into adrenalized overdrive.

Palmer's grainy, handheld camerawork won't win any aesthetic prizes, but it's in tune with his subject.

More than the film’s activist message, however, it’s writer-director Tommy Avallone’s portrait of whatever-it-takes parental risk and sacrifice that will help it resonate with audiences no matter their views on marijuana.

A macho fantasy about a dad acting out his daughter-saving fantasy by rescuing a surrogate child, with Statham talking tough and acting tougher in typically forthright fashion.

While secret handshakes are amusingly depicted as the key to building trust and friendship, it's Stephen McHattie's greedy agent...that truly hammers home the film's depiction of the art world as fueled by rapacious, kill-or-be-killed bloodlust.

[Finn's] second feature may not be as consistent a rollercoaster ride as his maiden effort, but it gets the job done frequently enough to be a chart-topper.

It’s mostly interested in the off-kilter but natural chemistry of its leads, who despite their differences come across as comrades who genuinely care about each other, and whose bond is solidified by their shared hangups.

Its plotting is often a tad too plodding, but with the charismatic Mortensen exuding understated internal crisis (in a French- and Arabic-speaking role), Oelhoffen's film proves a compelling portrait of individuals striving to cope with, and at least somewhat overcome, cultural dislocation.

Inventing Tomorrow won’t win points for originality, but this snapshot of adolescent ingenuity and innovation, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, nonetheless proves equally entertaining and inspiring.

In the stories of both men, Grieco’s film highlights the double-edged nature of eye-opening visuals, which are just as apt to enrage others and endanger the messenger as they are to achieve noble ends.

While thrills are mitigated by convoluted plotting and suspect character behavior, the film’s uniquely bleak twist on classic noir conventions is enlivening.

It’s jovial, zany, and sweet, and it recreates its adorable title alien via CGI (and a Sanders voice performance) with pitch-perfect accuracy.

Director Rola Nashef's visuals can be clunky, and her script's conversational dialogue is occasionally stilted. Nonetheless, she draws her characters in sharp lines, so that the gaggle of customers who frequent Sami's workplace...feel not like types but, rather, like diverse individuals.

Despite being an aesthetic bore, The Green Prince sets itself apart from the nonfiction pack via a recent story of two unlikely comrades’ heroic sacrifice, moral courage, and cross-cultural dedication to peace that’s not only gripping, but all too timely.

Unsurprising from start to finish and yet proficiently executed thanks to its impressive cast, it’s the definition of serviceable.

Follows festival tradition by featuring a stellar breakthrough performance from a well-known actor—in this case, Will Poulter’s sterling turn as a junkie caught in a prison of his own making.

Despite its familiarity, Chapter & Verse manages to make its material both fresh and authentic.

That visual beauty helps compensate for a script that wastes no opportunity for heartstring tugging, often in the form of adorable tykes playing with each other and cuddling with their elders in close-up.

Never quite as funny as it wants to be, but making up for that in the violence department, it’s a healthy serving of slam-bang cinematic comfort food.

A Man Called Ove — preaching tolerant togetherness as the key to happiness — earns its sentimentality by striking a delicate balance between barking-mad comedy and syrupy melodrama.

An inspired-by-real-events drama that finds honor, decency, and sacrifice in the legal profession, The Attorney is a rousing old-Hollywood tale of one man risking everything for a just cause.