Peter Debruge

Embracing the patient, poetic style of such Japanese masters as Ozu and Mizoguchi, Hosoda sees no need for the manic energy and manufactured conflict of other recent toons.

The “Ava” director is more ambitious than successful this time around.

Air reveals how an exceptional Black athlete leveraged his talent and the power of being pursued by a bunch of white men in suits, to change the game. Not just basketball, but the whole field of celebrity endorsements.

The movie may not be “Bridesmaids”-level brilliant, but it’s got more than a couple hall-of-fame-worthy comedy set-pieces.

Johnson delivers a silly and frequently surprising why-we-need-people parable that leans on laughs in lieu of peril.

For all his funny ideas, it doesn’t feel like Torres has a consistent world view, and the movie is poorly organized and unwieldy as a consequence.

Hopelessly shallow Down Low is still light-years ahead of mainstream movies (including last year’s “Bros”) as debuting feature director Rightor Doyle delivers what an entire contingent of queer audiences have been asking for all their lives: namely, a comedy that’s as raunchy and inappropriate as the jokes they make among themselves.

Tapping into late-1980s nostalgia — including the launch of the handheld Game Boy console — the movie doubles as a nifty history lesson, reminding audiences of just how tense things were between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world.

Inspiration and entertainment can make corny bedfellows, but Longoria pulls it off, to the extent that a moment of faith when Richard and Judy pray doesn’t feel preachy, but a reflection of their priorities.

Chang Can Dunk doesn’t go the way you’d expect, and that’s a good thing.

The performances come with certain limitations (the line readings sound memorized, never spontaneous), but as a whole, the movie makes memorable, three-dimensional characters of its players, and that’s a start.

Rich with detail while also being intensely specific to the large middle-class family it observes, Avilés’ lifelike and lived-in second feature alternates among roughly half a dozen characters, inviting audiences to pick their own points of identification in the ensemble.

Paine and his crew do muster some decent action, set in places you’d hardly expect (like crowded Piccadilly Circus), but scenery only goes so far to disguise the utter preposterousness of Cross’ script.

Come for Shinkai’s skies, stay for the feels.

From the squarish Academy ratio and unconventional framing to composer Robert Ouyang Rusli’s tense, bracing-for-conflict score, Warren’s choices frequently surprise, building to an ending that does exactly the right thing with the showdown we could feel coming all along.

The characters feel thin, the secret society seems implausible and its goals too vague to capture the imagination. “Manodrome” taps into a deep unease at play in the wider world, but it presents only the shell of an idea, focusing on a not-terribly-interesting character with only the haziest of goals.

The film, at least, feels fresh, making geek history more entertaining than it has any right to be.

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.

“Toothless” probably isn’t the first word Magic Mike fans want to associate with Channing Tatum’s aging exotic dancer series, but there’s no denying the female-targeting franchise has dulled its bite over the past decade.

The absurdity would be hilarious if it weren’t so horrifying. Your mileage may vary.

Knock at the Cabin takes a premise audiences think they know and does something unconventional and (alas) frustrating with it. Trouble is, these days, it’s no surprise to be let down by a Shyamalan movie.

The questions may not be pre-approved by GLAAD, but they’re coming from a trans woman actively working against the usual feel-good talking points; the responses she gets are frank, funny and frequently shocking.

Sachs excels at investigating thorny, uncomfortable situations, and he treats all three characters fairly here, which allows audiences to decide which one they identify with.

MacLachlan’s writing style is at once honest and slightly elevated, the kind we’re used to hearing onstage, where the structure of the entire script matters, and subtext is every bit as important as what’s spoken.

Mostly, audiences are stuck watching everybody trying to be funny: testing out one-liners, singing off-key, panhandling for laughs. Running jokes trip over their own shoelaces.

Leaf recognizes that whatever happens to Gia, the problem remains. Her portrait is intended to illuminate, and Nomore makes for a wonderful collaborator in this.

In many respects, Polite Society comes across as a giant pastiche of Manzoor’s favorite movie references, with homage paid to films from all over the globe via individual shots and sound cues throughout. But there’s no denying her creativity or the defiantly original voice she brings to her characters.

For all the films that have been made about love triangles, Song has fashioned hers in the form of a circle, defying so many of the clichés in her quietly devastating way.