Peter Debruge

It’s all thoroughly unpleasant, but then, that’s what audiences for this kind of movie want from the experience, so consider it a success of sorts.

Journey to Bethlehem is first and foremost a family movie, and though its music sounds a little too early-aughts to become a classic, it fills a crèche-shaped niche in the current theatrical landscape, with nearly six weeks to clean up before Christmas.

In keeping with Gitai’s typically austere oeuvre, it’s a long, slow and sober piece — one could even call it a documentary, despite the fact that actors have been hired to perform deposition scenes derived directly from Shamgar transcripts.

Like too many of Sayles’ films, Go for Sisters seems bound to slip through the cracks, not quite memorable enough to make a lasting impression.

The Zucheros’ creation is audacious and original, but also suffers from some of the same ADHD issues that afflicted “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (both are movies made for multitaskers with brains wired for constantly switching between screens).

Politics aside, however, the movie delivers on the inspiration of its premise, featuring just the sort of laughs one hopes for.

Though shot in striking anamorphic widescreen and laced with references to John Carpenter, Sergio Leone and the like, Bacurau doesn’t quite work in traditional genre-movie terms. Rather, it demands the extra labor of unpacking its densely multilayered subtext to appreciate.

The Wave sticks mostly to the big-studio formula (albeit on a much smaller budget), introducing a handful of bland soon-to-be-victims before bombarding them with spectacular digital effects.

Beatty tries hard to re-create the look and feel of late-’50s Hollywood as it existed both on-screen and off, aided by DP Caleb Deschanel and terrific costume and set contributions. And yet, it actually comes off too conservative for its own time, with stiff performances from Collins and Ehrenreich.

Far more than the memoir, the film presents a manicured version of the way Michelle Obama sees herself — and yet, even such a carefully image-managed impression can be telling, since it diverges so significantly from the way the world perceives her.

Having learned a thing or two from Baz Luhrmann, Almereyda substitutes guns for daggers and picks his locations carefully, creating a rich, sultry-looking environment within which to stage the drama.

This more broadly appealing project feels daringly frank on the subject of sex. But as is frequently the case with the most saturnalian comedies, it’s actually quite conservative when it comes to allowing its characters to follow through on their uninhibited talk.

“Fear Street” may look like countless horror movies that have come before, but it’s desperately trying to be original, and that may pay off in the two installments to come.

Kyle Marvin’s directorial debut is a pleasant enough reminder that these gals are still game for a good time.

The Last Blockbuster taps into analog lovers’ fond feelings for the monstrosity that gobbled up the little guys, then gave up, leaving not just movie fans but franchise owners like Sandi Harding to fend for themselves. Is the company’s demise really something to be mourned, or was its rise the real tragedy?

While not terribly original, it would be fair to call the movie inventive, like one of those eccentrics who’s constantly pestering the patent office with what he thinks are fresh ideas, only to discover that someone else got there first.

Rather than presenting a nuanced ending that’s open to interpretation, Barrett simply leaves us scratching our heads as to what just happened.

As first features go, Death of a Unicorn is considerably more ambitious and imaginative than so much of what studios greenlight these days, which goes a fair distance to excuse some of its flaws.

It’s probably best to think of this as either an experiment or an exercise, Soderbergh’s way of challenging himself yet again. What results may not be literature exactly, but it broadens other creators’ of idea of what the medium can do.

Of the three “Jurassic World” movies, “Dominion” is the least silly and most entertaining. But that’s not saying much. This “stop to ask if they should” cycle’s human characters were never especially interesting, and why should we trust Trevorrow to suddenly make them so?

Though Felicioli and Gagnol’s visuals suggest colorful kidlit illustrations come to life, their labor-intensive style isn’t for everyone.

Where the film goes is both unexpected and necessary, since however grounded and relatable these thinly detailed characters might be, the movie doesn’t actually seem to be going anywhere.

As a portrait of late-millennial nihilism, The Living End rejects the sympathetic bent of every afflicted-by-AIDS portrayal before or since.

Gyllenhaal’s impressive, but The Guilty almost certainly would have been more effective if he’d dialed down the intensity a bit.

Wild Indian doesn’t quite add up, but it heralds an important new voice — not just because of his Native American heritage (although that plays a central role in this project’s concerns), but even more on account of the complexity he’s willing to acknowledge in his characters.

While not especially artful, Fatima honors those who stand by their convictions. That its role models are children makes the message all the more remarkable.

[Morosini] holds back the personal stuff you can tell a stranger but not your dad — the kind of material good comedians build their shows around — making the result feel like a sitcom more than a brutally honest movie.

Here’s a project that had the nerve to address these tensions in a megaplex environment, only to squander them on a standoff it pretends could be so glibly resolved.

Thelma may bill itself as an unconventional action movie, but it’s more of a sitcom, really.

Without watering down the action, Nelson soft-pedals the most disturbing ideas in such a way that young audiences won’t be overwhelmed with gloom, instead inviting them to identify with the film’s empowered female heroine as she struggles to overcome her crippling lack of self-confidence and embrace what makes her special.

The movie works, but there has to be a more original way in to the Thai cave rescue story, other than through the main entrance, high-fiving its heroes at every step. For starters, it might have spent a little more time on the “Thirteen Lives” on the line.

Westmoreland approaches the project every bit as respectful toward Japanese customs as Jones was, although only a percentage of her insights carry over to the film. They’re still there, mind you, but more difficult to detect.

Jackson and his team seem compelled to flesh out the world of their earlier trilogy in scenes that would be better left to extended-edition DVDs (or omitted entirely), all but failing to set up a compelling reason for fans to return for the second installment.

In Novocaine, it’s the romance that keeps us going, more than whatever sadistic delight the co-directors take in poking Nathan full of holes, treating him like some kind of Looney Tunes character.

Chazelle has essentially orchestrated a loud, vulgar live-action cartoon of a film, and while it’s exhilarating at times to witness the sheer virtuosity of his staging, the performances are all over the place. Babylon sorely lacks a point of view.

As with the Guardians of the Galaxy films, what works here is the uneasy tension within a team that comes together out of necessity, rather than any natural sense of affinity.

Pudi plays officer Miller like one of the cocky cops from “Reno 911!” laughably tough-acting behind his tinted aviator specs. He’s effectively a human cartoon character in a movie that’s most appealing when it shifts over to hand-drawn comic frames, and silly as much of the mayhem is, Khan deserves credit for translating such slapstick to live action.

Constructing character does not appear to be Earl and Caldwell’s strong suit (what’s satisfying about Cee owes almost entirely to Thatcher, a fresh face who tricks us into assuming she’s just a callow teen, when in fact, she proves to be the film’s toughest character). On the other hand, the duo show a real aptitude for world building.

Racing Extinction tends to be far more effective when presenting its enlightened activists as heroes.

Rats is that rare breed of nature doc, one designed not to foster greater empathy for a misunderstood species, but rather to exploit our preexisting fears of the filthy critters in question.

Holland blossoms in the space where all-American domestic fantasy ends and nightmares begin, but never quite delivers on its premise, if only because the resolution feels so familiar.

In attempting to reclaim this woman’s reputation, Maïwenn’s film feels unexpectedly tame — it risks turning a would-be scandal into a royal bore.

Cranston humanizes his sociopathic character, which is essential, considering that Wakefield is essentially a one-man show whose star grows increasingly creepy as his beard fills in and his fingernails lengthen and turn back.

The best part of “Miseducation” is the diverse group of adolescents sharing Cameron’s experience.

The action is entertaining enough in the moment, but not especially memorable.

What the movie lacks in originality it makes up for in personality, as Kosturos brings the kind of rare alchemy to the role of Ali that makes all present feel as if they’re watching the birth of a movie star.

That nonlinear narrative choice in an otherwise understated art-house Western serves to confuse more than it reveals, complicating things for the meat-and-potatoes crowd that regularly turn out for cowboy stories.

The movie winds up having it both ways once too often, to the extent that Ultraman’s fate and the movie’s message are ultimately unclear.

Like an entire season of peak television crammed into the space of two hours, Mary Queen of Scots spares us not only the butchery but also a great deal of the drama that might explain how the misfortunate monarch came to find her neck on the line.

Benji may be far too simplistic for adults to find much enjoyment in watching, but it rewards active viewing from kids and displays mostly model behavior on the part of its young protagonists (once they stop keeping secrets from their mother, that is).

For nearly two hours of its 151-minute runtime, Wonder Woman 1984 accomplishes what we look to Hollywood tentpoles to do: It whisks us away from our worries, erasing them with pure escapism.

A by-the-numbers crowd-pleaser with a bit more on its mind than your typical canine-centric tearjerker.

It’s a rare privilege to spend so much time with Helen and her charge, and the footage of Mabel (filmed by Mark Payne-Gill in the wild and DP Charlotte Bruus Christensen in dramatic scenes) hunting pheasants and so forth mesmerizes. But there’s arguably too much of it, dominating the film’s slightly excessive run time.

The conflict at the core of the WikiLeaks saga is dramatically lacking.

The shattering of one’s noble ideals is a delicate thing to capture on film, and White plays the moment of rupture with a banality that threatens to undermine our faith in her as storyteller more than in the system itself.

The most significant Bond ingredient missing from Live and Let Die is Q, whose gadgets still play a central role. The film also offers a few key additions, including an illuminating glimpse of Bond’s home.

Impressive as Berry’s commitment to the role can be, there’s a mirthless predictability to the whole ordeal. This pro-forma sports drama, which clearly means so much to its creator, unfolds pretty much exactly as you’d expect, leaning hard on pathos, when what it really needs is personality.

There’s a stylistic and narrative elegance to Petzold’s approach, with its clean lensing and repeated use of a single piece of music (the rolling piano Adagio from Bach’s Concerto in D Minor, BWV 974), that suggests restraint, where a queer filmmaker might have propelled things into camp territory. In a way, it’s a shame that Undine stops short, since the material feels thin, and the statement as murky as the lake to which the camera ultimately returns.

Storyboarded to within an inch of its life, then translated to screen with stunning energy and attention to detail, the film represents Hollywood’s most enthusiastic embrace of blockbuster Asian cinema tropes since “The Matrix” trilogy.

If you choose to focus on the family connections, then it’s clear that Helgeland has something to say.

The film is so understated with regard to Loung’s basic predicament that we don’t recognize her driving desire...until the movie is over.

The idea here isn’t to titillate with tawdry teen hormones, but to offer an outlet for all that mental distress young people take on while trying to find their place in the world.

It’s only Guez’s second film, although he’s written others (including the similarly genre-subverting zombie movie “The Night Eats the World”), and there’s enough promise here — especially on the performance front — to look forward to future projects.

What we’re dealing with here is a fairly conventional political thriller — think “House of Cards,” minus the sleek David Fincher aesthetic or much in the way of suspense — set in a world no one has dared to explore on screen before now.

Likable enough, but a little too tame to make much of an impact.

Jason Statham is good at his job, which explains why he keeps booking the same kinds of movies — well, that and the fact that people keep watching them.

Though the slow-boil chemistry is there, the script feels flat, content to rely on the surface friction between its lead actors, rather than creating scenes in which we can really get to know the pair’s respective personalities before testing their limits in the field.

Although Caviezel’s character is meant to stand in for all Americans unjustly imprisoned by Iran, it would be irresponsible to take the film’s “inspired by true events” claim too seriously. That doesn’t mean it’s not satisfying to watch Liz and several co-conspirators raid the facility in an attempt to liberate Doug and all those unjustly detained political prisoners. In this fantasy telling, at least, God is on his side.

With a certain kind of horror, a laugh’s as good as a scream, and Books of Blood delivers plenty of the former.

Alas, the older actors don’t have all that much to do (editor Chris Dickens keeping cutting back to McKee reading), but the younger trio are strong, albeit restrained, in their roles. Corrin, so great as a wife betrayed in “The Crown” (they played Princess Diana), could do this role in their sleep, while Styles has the tricky task of making Tom’s betrayal feel tragic for all involved.

Amusing as the Cooties script manages to be, one gets the distinct impression that its authors didn’t bother to visit a school at any point in the research or writing process, missing out on any number of jokes they could have made at public education’s expense.

We should be grateful that it exists, if only because it affords a long-overdue leading role to Kelly Macdonald.

Ask yourself: Just how curious are you to understand the source of Shia LaBeouf’s insecurities and rage? If this is a subject of high importance to you, then you’re in luck, because Honey Boy offers a sincere window into the actor’s soul: a vulnerable, honest (or at least honest-seeming) act of therapy through screenwriting

This reunion between Kristen Stewart and the director who gave her one of her best-ever roles in 2014’s “Clouds of Sils Maria” is a broken, but never boring mix of spine-tingling horror story, dreary workplace drama and elliptical identity search, likely to go down as one of the most divisive films of Stewart’s career.

Enjoyment requires denying the increasingly problematic truth about Bond: As heroes go, 007 represents a bygone notion of the privileged white man taking what’s his and leaving destruction in his wake.

Let’s be clear: Lux Æterna is a glorified Saint Laurent commercial. That’s the tweet-length analysis. But there’s more to it than that.

What the film lacks in originality, it makes up for via its star’s naturally glamor-resistant sensibility, giving us an unpolished glimpse into the personal life of a professional runner.

Clearly, Wheatley is bored with the paint-by-numbers approach of his horror contemporaries, but has swung so far in the opposite direction here, the result feels almost amateurishly avant garde at times, guilty of the sort of indulgences one barely tolerates in student films.

While the visual effects are surprisingly weak for a film of this scale, the script (from “Ghostbusters” writer Katie Dippold) proves far better than anyone might expect, establishing an emotional foundation for what might otherwise be a gimmick-driven haunted house movie.

If it all made sense, would it still be art? Ironically, the trouble with Redoubt is that it’s not obtuse enough. It’s the first Barney film audiences won’t have trouble sleeping after — or through.

Very little of Monster Hunter makes sense, but it’s visually interesting at least and not un-fun to stream at home with a friend, asking questions and cracking jokes along the way.

If one intention of Sun Children is to remind that all kids are created equal, deserving of education and encouragement, Majidi’s young ensemble makes the case loud and clear.

Though relatively conservative in its approach, Lars Kraume’s teleplay-style treatment of a still-touchy subject has the nerve to name names.

As directorial debuts go, Amber Tamblyn’s Paint It Black is kind of a mess, but then, so are its characters, which makes the film’s raw, off-kilter style somehow right for the material.

Triple X posed an ideal opportunity for the series to rectify its dismissive treatment of women until this point, putting a lady on equal footing with Bond. To its credit, the film does feature a bit of screwball badinage between the two (a clunky bit about female drivers, unfortunately), but it has yet to introduce a single female character who doesn’t want to sleep with our hero.

A debut effort that occasionally bogs down in its own symbolism.

Beauvois brings everything together in the movie’s final minutes, although it’s hard to shake the feeling that Drift Away has dodged what should have been its central social concern. Renier, a former child actor who began his career a quarter-century ago in the Dardenne brothers’ “La Promesse,” only gets better with age.

Though this sweet, subtle, and sentimental work is a smidge too simplistic in narrative design, it wins over any resistance with its quiet refinement and heartrending insight.

It’s a klutzy way to tell a story, but Crowley is confident that the chemistry between Pugh and Garfield is so compelling, people will want to watch his movie again and again, at which point, Almut and Tobias’ memories will have become our memories, and the sequence hardly matters.

Paradoxically, the Lego approach gives the film a far more imaginative visual range than traditional documentaries, even as it robs us of the thing we most want to see: human faces.

The script never quite succeeds in making us care about Allan as a character (despite dubbing its quavering narration into English for the ease of American auds), but it finds an interesting balance for a personality who leaves a trail of disaster in his wake.

This erotic thriller is still sexy and plenty entertaining, mind you, but it’s just not very useful insofar as what it says about real relationships.

The film is most successful when it finds Brynn in survival mode.

Tomlin’s terrific in this mode. The script is as bland as the “cardboard” they serve in her rest-home cafeteria, but she manages to inject it with vinegar and attitude, while embracing the realities of aging.

While the pieces for a white-knuckle mission seem to be in place, The Weight has an uneven, lurching quality, where slogging through the picturesque-yet-endless expanse of tall trees (arboraceous Bavaria doubling for Oregon) is punctuated by bursts of excitement.

With its retro-video-game score and “Goonies”-style gang of misfit characters, the movie plays like a throwback to Spielberg-produced adventure films of the ’80s. And yet, the premise feels wobbly at best.

While Lautner is to be admired for his physical commitment to the role, the below-the-line team lighting, shooting and choreographing his moves deserves equal credit. The film wouldn’t have worked without such a versatile team, which otherwise operates without a trace.

True to their brand, Illumination has engineered another easy-to-swallow confection designed to maximize audience delight, whether on first or fortieth viewing, although this time, there’s almost zero nutritional value.