Peter Debruge

There’s a serious mismatch between the personality of Samantha McIntyre’s script (which seems to be written as a kooky, do-it-yourself comedy, à la “Being John Malkovich” or “Napoleon Dynamite”) and Larson’s directing style, which feels entirely incompatible with whimsy.

The script ... is practically all plot, all the time, which is plenty efficient for those simply looking to be scared but a little anemic when it comes to making audiences care about these people

But here’s the cool thing: The film’s consistently clever script, from empowerment-minded “The Handmaid’s Tale” writers Nina Fiore and John Herrera, isn’t nearly as interested in the mystery as it is in Nancy Drew herself, or in the circle of characters and relationships that surround her. And that’s the smart way to approach such a case, since the movie was clearly intended to be more than a one-off.

An odyssey audiences won’t soon forget.

Not since “Superbad” has a high school comedy so perfectly nailed how exhilarating it feels to act out at that age ... In this year’s class of first-time feature directors, Wilde handily earns the title of Most Likely to Succeed.

This singular black comedy balances off-kilter humor with an unexpectedly thriller-esque undercurrent, to the extent that audiences will find it tough to anticipate either the jokes or the dark, “Fight Club”-like turn things eventually take — all to strikingly original effect.

More creepy than romantic, more chauvinist than empowered — and in all fairness, funnier and more entertaining than any comedy in months — Long Shot serves up the far-fetched wish-fulfillment fantasy of how, for one lucky underdog, pursuing your first love could wind up making you first man.

Simultaneously shaggy and hyper-stylized, The Beach Bum plays like a less-coked-out “Scarface,” the collected works of Charles Bukowski, and a Cheech & Chong movie all rolled up in one — an epic goof in which the cast (not just McConaughey but Snoop Dogg, Martin Lawrence, Jonah Hill, and Jimmy Buffett) play elaborate, semi-improvised caricatures of outlandish tropical fruits.

Terrifying...The less you know going in — and the less energy you spend thinking about it after the fact — the better the movie works, trading on some uncanny combination of Peele’s imagination and our own to suggest a horror infinitely larger and more insidious than the film is capable of representing.

Simultaneously intimate and far-reaching, the film does far more than scratch the surface, forcing audiences to confront a policy that, amid concerns over population growth in other corners of the globe, begs to be better understood before another country seeks to repeat it.

The Sound of Silence is a deeply silly movie that takes itself incredibly seriously, and believe it or not, that’s its great pleasure.

That uncommon and all-too-welcome gift — like some kind of fragile wildflower, emerging tentatively through cracks in the concrete: a film about kindness.

What’s lacking is personality from the human characters, which is a serious failing, considering how the film shifts into character mode as Apte slowly emerges as an equal to Patel, while both remain too guarded for audiences to fully appreciate as people.

Falls squarely in B movie territory but, by virtue of its two lead performers, winds up being far more enjoyable than it has any right to be.

By and large, the film feels aimless and uninspired.

While there’s virtually no risk that “Isn’t It Romantic” will make you to love your favorite rom-coms any less, Strauss-Schulson hasn’t figured out how to have his cake and eat it, too — to look down on the very confection he’s so busy peddling.

Here, Wnendt suppresses his naturally provocative streak to deliver an aggressively cute existential comedy instead.

The film is sleek and shadowy, benefiting from the fact Onah chose to shoot on celluloid and driven by stellar performances across the board.

While Talbot and Fails claim to have walk-and-talked their way all over San Francisco, the script — and especially the dialogue — is the most disappointing element of their first feature.

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

Give Me Liberty catches us off guard with its sense of humor, which amplifies the sheer absurdity of certain situations while respecting the fundamental humanity of its characters — further reflected in the choice of casting actors with disabilities.

What makes The Farewell so effective is that in delving into such a specific case, the film invites audiences to reflect on the passing of relatives close to them.

Miss Bala no longer serves as a critique of a system that might allow innocent people to get caught in the crossfire of the drug war, but as the kick-ass origin story for a new kind of action hero.

Granted, Freundlich has the benefit of Bier’s screenplay contributions to guide him, but in his particular execution, the story feels grounded for a very different strategy from Bier’s: Rather than going out of his way to include recognizable human moments, he strips away anything excessive, allowing subtext to surface in the quiet spaces between dialogue.

In her capacity as a film critic — and the sort of populist who was allergic to snobs like Morf — Pauline Kael famously quipped, “Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.” Gilroy doesn’t even aspire to making great art, but he’s getting better at delivering the latter.

The Lego Movie 2 ought to have raised the bar, and while it’s faster, denser, and jam-packed with all sorts of catchy new songs (including one, “Catchy Song,” that’s insidiously engineered to get stuck inside your head), all that energy only goes so far to cover for the wobblier foundation on which this film is built.

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.

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.

Though inevitably derivative in some ways (it won’t be hard to spot the influence of “Shrek” and various Disney classics), Animal Crackers asserts its own identity, combining some of the most distinctive voices with an ensemble of personality-rich, sequel-ready characters.

Here, the visuals outdo anything we’ve seen before, to such a degree that we might almost overlook the subtler innovations in the character animation: the nuances of expression on both the human and reptilian faces, and the wonderful nonverbal tactics these artists use to convey emotional intricacies neither Hiccup nor Toothless have had to communicate before, all of which pays off in an unforgettable final scene.

Whereas a Hollywood director might use subjective framing or emotional soundtrack cues to nudge audiences’ reactions in a certain way, Esparza strips away nearly all those techniques to a pure, neorealist approach: life and nothing more.

The trouble is, Sherlock Holmes exists so large in audiences’ minds already that the pair’s uninspired take feels neither definitive nor an especially fresh take, but just an off-brand, garden-variety parody.

The result is a revisionist fiasco, too dense with Shakespeare allusions for casual moviegoers, and too fast and loose with the facts for those who know a thing or two about the man. In short, All Is True takes the English language’s most gifted dramatist and reduces his sunset years to a sloppy soap opera.

Had Arakawa widened the portrait just a bit to include other voices — whether artistic collaborators or the young audiences still just discovering his work — the film would easily have demonstrated how his legacy will live forever. Then again, it’s assumed that anyone watching “Never-Ending Man” knows that already.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with presenting bigoted people onscreen, since heaven knows they exist in real life, but the trouble with The Mule is that it invites audiences to laugh along with Earl’s ignorance.

Aquaman gets his own adventure, and it’s kind of a shock that it doesn’t suck, but only if you’re willing to sit through two hours of water-logged world-building before the movie finally takes off.

The film is not without spectacle, but it is strangely without soul. That would’ve made it a disappointment to anyone buying a movie ticket, but perhaps at home, it will make for a more welcome distraction.

Bumblebee shows that there’s room for a bit more nuance within the formula, but if you break it down, this relatively enjoyable film is made entirely from recycled parts.

Anyone who loves musical theater owes it to themselves to see Bathtubs Over Broadway, a delightful deep-dive documentary into one man’s obsession with the obscure world of industrial musicals — corporate-sponsored song-and-dance revues from the golden age of American capitalism.

Because Lieberstein is an inherently likable actor, we identify with his plight, even if it takes a while to realize that he’s essentially brought this situation upon himself.

In the end, while the movie’s wit is its most satisfying selling point, “Spider-Verse” proves too clever for its own good. But in this universe, where audiences are suffering from the very real phenomenon of superhero overload, ambition and originality are to be encouraged, especially it broadens the mythology to include women, people of color, and yes, even that hammiest of scene-stealers, Peter Porker.

This is a dour and deeply unpleasant film that wears its gritty realism as a badge of honor, while failing to recognize the motivations that explain such behavior in reality, which makes him neither an attentive journalist nor a particularly good storyteller (at least not yet).

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.

It’s a poignant buddy movie that’s sincere in all the right places, but knows better than to take itself too seriously.

Heisserer’s script endeavors to give Bullock a rich psychological backstory to play — something to do with her reluctance to accept motherhood and the redemption she experiences in accepting that role — and the wonderfully self-reliant actress plays that arc earnestly enough. But there’s no getting around that this is a monster movie without a monster.

An RBG biopic shouldn’t be about sizzle and showpersonship, but hard work and determination in the face of rampant, seemingly unremitting sexism, and in that respect, Leder’s film gets its priorities right.

So much care has gone into each of the departments, from Guy Hendrix Dyas’ exquisite production design to Jenny Beavan’s micro-detailed costumes to composer James Newton Howard’s loving update of the Tchaikovsky score, and while any one of these elements might be tasteful in and of itself, it’s all too much to take in at once — the kind of overkill for which Liberace was known.

It’s the work of a true auteur (in what feels like his most personal film yet) presented as innocuous family entertainment.

Tantalizingly rich in atmosphere and altogether unhurried in revealing its secrets, the evocatively shot, ultra-widescreen Apostle will eventually veer into dark, mercilessly supernatural territory.

Apart from the uncommon notion that these mysterious visitors may actually mean us well, the film seems a little too comfortable with clichés, right down to the men in black who show up mid-movie to ruin everybody’s fun.

Nina’s confessional set takes the already-raw portrait to a whole other level. All About Nina is very funny, but with that scene, it breaks our hearts, forcing us to reevaluate Nina’s recklessness while reiterating the lesson of the last year: that we never know what someone has been through until that person chooses to share it, and that going public takes courage, as there’s no going back.

A Private War manages to be simultaneously appalled by the humanitarian crises it depicts...and honest about the thrill that visiting such hot spots offered to someone who found it hard to readjust to her life in London between assignments.

At two hours and 21 minutes, this 1969-set period thriller is taxingly slow and almost oppressively self-indulgent, constantly backtracking and replaying already-drawn-out scenes from multiple perspectives.

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.

It’s messy and distressingly unmemorable, which is a shame since there are no shortage of great Looney Tunes-level cartoon gags wasted along the way, including an ingenious rope bridge sequence worthy of golden-age Warner Bros. animation.

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.

What could have been a powerful ode to the impact that movies have in shaping our identities — and by extension, the reason broken people are drawn to the profession, through which they hope to reach others like themselves — becomes an over-the-top celebration of Dolan himself.

Sitting through the harrowing events again nearly a decade later could hardly be described as entertainment, and the film plays to many of the same unseemly impulses that make disaster movies so compelling, exploiting the tragedy of the situation for spectacle’s sake.

Featuring a pair of terrific performances by Viggo Mortensen as a goombah with a heart of gold and Mahershala Ali as multilingual composer-musician Don Shirley, the story may be unique, yet it goes pretty much exactly the way you might expect.

For Sutton — whose previous film, “Dark Night,” inspired by 2012’s Aurora megaplex shooting, made an austere statement about gun violence — Donnybrook marks a major step forward in both ambition and style.

Both deeply personal and remarkably objective, The Biggest Little Farm offers a firsthand account of the ups and downs of married duo John and Molly Chester’s trial-and-error attempt to start a biodiverse agricultural operation on land that had long since been stripped of nutrients.

The entire film is that rarest of gifts for its cast, providing virtually every character with a chance to play not only the present moment, but the complicated history they’ve established with Ben in the past, as well as whatever chance they see in the troubled young man’s future.

There’s no reason a movie about a devil dress should work, and yet Strickland strikes the right tone, inviting laughter by taking it all so seriously.

Although García and Moore were born in the same year (under the same sign!), Lelio is more mature now than he was when he made the original film, and he brings that experience to the project in small but crucial ways.

The movie quotes Baldwin as saying, “Every black person born in America was born on Beale Street,” but this one may as well be located inside a snow globe. In deciding how to translate Baldwin’s prose to the screen, Jenkins may as well have made Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” as a Douglas Sirk movie (or put Alice Waters’ “The Color Purple” through the Steven Spielberg filter).

A dark Brothers Grimm-like fairy tale anchored by a terrific child-actor performance.

By contemporary horror standards, the original “Halloween” was actually quite tame, featuring just five (human) deaths, whereas this one more than triples the body count — and it does so with style, borrowing several of Carpenter’s classic devices...before getting into the more prosthetic-heavy mayhem that follows.

Although Demange directs the heck out of it, White Boy Rick ultimately feels like a glorified TV movie, albeit with a better cast and a much hipper score.

Whatever its value as rabble-rousing historical reenactment, Outlaw King never quite compares to the many films it’s so keen to imitate, and in some cases outright quote.

So much of the movie’s charm owes to Condor’s lead performance, which balances the character’s timidity with her lovability. Any guy would be lucky to date her, but the choice is ultimately hers.

For those who love the thrill of high-adrenaline adventure docs, National Geographic’s Free Solo will be a hard experience to top.

Hugh Jackman proves an inspired candidate to embody Hart, downplaying his brawny movie-star persona, while still conveying the twinkle-eyed sex appeal that was not only Hart’s undoing, but one of the qualities that would have made the photogenic and well-spoken senator from Colorado a logical choice to follow the country’s first movie-star president.

It’s the human side of the character that makes this McCarthy’s best performance to date, revealing haunting insights into friendship, loneliness, and creative insecurity.

Edgerton shows an admirable sense of restraint, even when hitting all the usual beats. He includes moments of quiet introspection for the characters and the audience alike.

Kidman has always been a chameleon, but in this case, she doesn’t merely change her color (or don a fake nose, à la “The Hours”); she disappears into an entirely new skin, rearranging her insides to fit the character’s tough hide.

It says more about the man behind it than any documentary to date, cut together with such a supreme understanding and care for its subject that director Morgan Neville (“20 Feet From Stardom”) seems half-justified in suggesting that his project may as well be the missing film.

People don’t forget a performer like Redford, whose movie-star charisma idles low and sexy like a Harley Davidson motor even when he’s not doing anything, and that means a movie like David Lowery’s The Old Man & the Gun — a dapper, low-key riff on the bank-robber genre — can play things soft, counting on Redford’s charm to fuel the show.

It exists because it’s the movie Liu was born to make, the one he had to get off his chest before he could move on in his filmmaking career.

There are no billionaires here, just a lot of testosterone where the movie’s brains ought to be.

As if by magic, Zagar has managed to foster a sense of familiarity among the boys that sells the illusion that they’re related, further reinforced by the editors’ trick of including moments of spontaneous, unscripted tomfoolery between the young actors.

Madeline’s Madeline mistakes intimacy for honesty, and it mis-assumes that audiences care nearly as much about the creative process as actors and directors do.

Director Jon M. Chu (“Step Up 2: The Streets”) has crafted a broadly appealing charmer in which practically anyone can identify with Wu’s character as she’s whisked into this elite milieu.

Unfortunately, the behaviors on display have virtually nothing to do with real life, serving as empty escapism for the dog lover in all of us.

So, if you like piña coladas, or movies in which severe childhood trauma can be hugged out on an ocean cruise, then you’ll like Like Father. For everyone else, skip the imitation and seek out “Toni Erdmann” instead.

The movie basically ingratiates itself with kids by scolding adults for losing track of what’s important, and yet, both in the 1930s and today, a responsible father doesn’t really have the option of quitting his job.

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.

Few and far between are the movies...that actually implicate modern viewers in the evil, which is precisely what makes The Captain such a remarkable film. Not a great one, mind you — the movie starts out with a bang but swiftly falls into a kind of prolonged and distressingly outlandish tedium, and lodges there for the better part of its rather taxing running time — but a brave and uncompromising indictment of human nature, Teutonic or otherwise.

In short, the movie doesn’t seem nearly skeptical enough of its subject, using his sometimes dodgy memory as a vehicle to remind audiences that their classic Hollywood heroes — so perfect on the silver screen — were human after all, with sex lives and carnal desires like the rest of us. Well, maybe not exactly like the rest of us.

Good intentions aside, Far From the Tree puts all its energy into disproving a thesis that many of us don’t actually believe — that the tree is inherently perfect, and that anything other than a direct copy of one’s parents is a crisis in need of resolving.

An affectionate and supremely entertaining celebration of the all-American nerd, Science Fair may look like a straightforward super-kid contest doc, à la “Spellbound” and “Mad Hot Ballroom,” but there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes of Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster’s thoroughly researched crowd-pleaser.

Judging by the ponderous tone and pace, Fuqua thinks he’s making high art (likely aspiring to something existential like Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï”), but this is a grisly exploitation movie at best.

McQuarrie clearly believes in creating coherent set pieces: His combat scenes are tense, muscular, and clean, shot and edited in such a way that the spatial geography makes sense. He places audiences just over Cruise’s shoulder, or staring into the actor’s face as he grimaces with exertion.

On the scale that ranges from implausibly entertaining to entertainingly implausible, Skyscraper comfortably falls toward the compulsively over-the-top end, generating thrills by straining credibility at every turn, relying on Johnson’s invaluable ability to engage the audience while defying physics, common sense, and the sheer limits of human stamina.

Writer-director Colin McIvor adapts the true-ish story of how a handful of citizens came to the rescue of a baby elephant into an unlikely family film, one that will delight the kids (who see themselves portrayed as heroes) while leaving parents with a lot of explaining to do.

"Soldado” may not be as masterful as Villeneuve’s original, but it sets up a world of possibilities for elaborating on a complex conflict far too rich to be resolved in two hours’ time.

Uncle Drew may be tired, but it shows that one’s fundamental love for the game never gets old.

This embarrassingly earnest film — produced by Charlize Theron — argues for the importance of doctors going the extra mile, when textbook diagnoses won’t do.

Tag leaves audiences energized and, dare I say, inspired, having delivered all that outrageousness...in service of what ultimately amounts to a sincere celebration of lasting human connections.

[Travolta's] performance ain’t lousy, but the movie that surrounds it is, and it’s almost laughable to see this iconic star trying so hard on behalf of a project that is so compromised in its intentions.

It boasts snappy dialogue, memorable characters, and a gorgeously designed central location but doesn’t quite know what to do with any of the above.

The trouble is, presenting all of this mayhem within the framework of a by-the-numbers father-daughter bonding story saps the stunts of their usual appeal.

Gonzalez has mastered the art of creating atmosphere and tone, but not tension, and the movie feels meandering and slow at times, since audiences are not invested in anyone’s survival.

For years, “gay movies” were practically a genre unto themselves, neatly conforming to one of three categories: stories about coming out, stories about unrequited love, and stories about the impact of AIDS. “Sorry Angel” succeeds in ticking all three boxes without falling into any one.

These criminals may be out of their league, but Gavras orchestrates it all with a surfeit of style and an irreverent sense of humor that spares no one, no matter their background.

If anything, it’s what the director’s fans most feared: a lumbering, confused, and cacophonous mess

For Lara, dancing matters more than dating, more than anything, and as such, Dhont’s relatively modest film manages to encompass the themes of both “Billy Elliot” and “Tomboy,” and deserves the recognition of both.

Filho obviously wants to convey the naive outlook an impressionable young girl would have on her own situation, but there’s far too much manipulation involved to take her selection of scenes seriously.

The degree to which Burning succeeds will depend largely on one’s capacity to identify with the unspoken but strongly conveyed sense of jealousy and frustration its lower-class protagonist feels, coupled with a need to impose some sense of order on events beyond our control.

Lee’s latest is as much a compelling black empowerment story as it is an electrifying commentary on the problems of African-American representation across more than a century of cinema.

Few films have captured quite so powerfully the tension between the old and new worlds — a feat Birds of Passage accomplishes while simultaneously allowing audiences to channel the Wayuu’s surrealistic view of their surroundings, where spirits walk the earth, and wise women interpret their dreams.

Gibson knows how to play to the camera, and Grunberg is savvy enough to maximize what the star gives, spinning a slick package around the crazy scenario.

In terms of craftsmanship, the film has a scrappy, sometimes cheap look to it (characters look flat, like thin-lined Etch-a-Sketch drawings, superimposed over more colorful hand-painted backgrounds), for which it more than compensates via other strengths — namely, a trio of relatable, well-written human protagonists and Lu, who can change form and bend water at will.

Inspired at least in part by stunts Frizzell pulled when she was her characters’ age, this raucous parade of humiliation and embarrassment packs all the appeal of an outrageous anecdote hilariously retold by someone who can scarcely believe they ever did something so stupid.

Though the film is slow to reach a place where its revelations can have an impact, once that starts to happen, it becomes compulsively absorbing.

Inspired by prize-winning French author Ernest Pérochon’s 1924 novel, director Xavier Beauvois’ emotionally devastating adaptation — which some may find as arduous as the wartime chapter it depicts — dispenses with a fair amount of the suffering to be found in the book, forgoing the contemporary tendency toward gritty, handheld realism in favor of a more timeless, almost painterly aesthetic.

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.

Like such trendsetting classics as “Paris Is Burning” and “Rize,” this kaleidoscopically vibrant, essential-viewing survey plunges audiences into a dazzling underground scene, celebrating the endangered art form it finds there.

In a sense, each new take on Chekhov sheds insight on the timelessness of the material, and yet, this one does more to reveal missed opportunities for the next team to explore.

While some gags are funny the first time around, practically everything in The Week Of overstays its welcome.

To rob Mapplethorpe of his controversy is to strip the movie of its dramatic conflict. By doing so, the script (co-written with Mikko Alanne) reduces to a rather banal biopic, reenacting how a scrappy outsider achieved unconventional success.

The movie is much funnier than the vast majority of indie comedies, serving as a great audition piece for a career of sitcom directing.

This film barely scrapes the surface when it comes to conveying everything someone in Vivienne’s shoes might be feeling.

Woman Walks Ahead offers dimension to its leading lady, but holds its Native characters to the same old surface stereotypes. Such a movie is a step in the right direction, but farther behind than it seems to realize.

An incredibly precise actor who understands exactly how to play to the camera, conveying volumes via even the slightest microexpressions, Kingsley navigates the tricky mix of humor, horror, and deep-seated regret that make this man, if not exactly ordinary, then relatable, at least.

A gripping, stranger-than-fiction account of a real-world medical conspiracy, the film begins as a human-interest story and builds to an impressive work of investigative journalism into how and why they were placed with the families who raised them.

What sets I Feel Pretty apart is the inspired premise that Renee’s transformation takes place entirely in her head, while those around her are left befuddled by her sudden change of attitude — a concept that begs the question of why our society encourages women to second-guess their self-image in the first place.

If only the music and lyrics were more memorable, then “Jeannette” might have delivered on its potential. But Dumont has a stiff, fixed-camera style that deprives the story of its transcendence.

Marston, working from Marcus Hinchey’s sensitive and remarkably nuanced script, invites measured introspection from both his characters and the audience.

Though Macy is an odd fit to direct (coming at the talky script like it was a madcap piece of theater), the wonky tone is all screenwriter Will Aldis’ invention.

Peyton delivers a unified-looking whole, in which the visual effects integrate well with stage and location work.

Though not a documentary, this gorgeous French family saga benefits enormously from Klapisch’s natural curiosity, informed by research (he participated in a harvest in order to observe its nuances) and elevated by his insistence that they film over the course of a full year, so as to capture the impact of the seasons on both viticulture and its human stewards.

Big Fish & Begonia commands awe on the strength of its imagery alone...while weaving an epic tale that’s uniquely informed by local myths and motifs. If only it made the slightest bit of sense.

Moorhead and Benson may not be movie-star charismatic in the lead roles, but the bond between them is palpable, delivering just the dynamic the movie needs.

The trouble isn’t just that Midnight Sun cherry-picks the most poetic elements of a real-world disease to serve its transparently manipulative ends, but that it offers audiences such an unrealistic portrait of romance in the process.

Countering the CG bombast and apocalyptic doom and gloom of the modern blockbuster with a soft-spoken message of faith and love, Paul, Apostle of Christ struggles to find a compelling entry point to a critical period in the early Christian church.

As icky a comedy as you’re likely to see this year, Flower comes from an angry place — one that is clearly more concerned about sounding provocative and clever than having anything meaningful to say.

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).

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.

Thoroughbreds doesn’t look or sound anything like other teen-centric movies, but this is hardly a surface-only character study.

There’s an old-school, B-movie snap to much of the proceedings, which Nash Edgerton modernizes without imposing too flashy a style upon the material. It’s pulp, plain and simple, delivering on the chance to watch depraved characters navigate unseemly situations.

A Wrinkle in Time is wildly uneven, weirdly suspenseless, and tonally all over the place, relying on wall-to-wall music to supply the missing emotional connection and trowel over huge plot holes.

The movie doesn’t have the budget or imagination to permit subplots.

Love, Simon proves groundbreaking on so many levels, not least of which is just how otherwise familiar it all seems, from laugh-out-loud conversations in the school hallways to co-ed house parties where no one drives drunk, and no one gets past first base.

What is Jones trying to say with Mute? One would hardly guess this over-congested generic exercise came from the same mind as the elegant, almost minimalistic “Moon,” which made far better use of all that went unsaid.

Kings is a tangle of conflicting moods and emotions.

For those willing to put in the effort, Annihilation achieves that rare feat of great genre cinema, where we are not merely thrilled (the film is both intensely scary and unexpectedly beautiful in parts) but also feel as if our minds have been expanded along the way.

As the cases against Cosby, Trump, O’Reilly, Weinstein, etc. reveal, the courts don’t appear to be equipped to correct a gender-biased system, whereas Allred has pioneered a new way of fighting injustice.

Historical significance aside, what superhero fans want to know is how “Black Panther” compares with other Marvel movies. Simply put, it not only holds its own, but improves on the formula in several key respects, from a politically engaged villain to an emotionally grounded final showdown.

Yes, it’s impressive from a visual effects standpoint.... However, had Potter lived to see what Hollywood has cooked up for her mischievous hero (who was sent to bed without supper in her own didactic tale), she almost certainly would have preferred for Peter (charmingly voiced by James Corden) and his three more cautious sisters...to have wound up in one of Mrs. McGregor’s infamous rabbit pies.

A toothless ode to a still-living celebrity, it’s a film that may appeal to very young children and very old ladies, but seems sure to bore everyone in between.

Though it can sometimes feel invasive when a documentarian includes his or her own voice in the finished cut, Greenfield’s presence is essential here as we observe the rapport she’s established with people whom it’s difficult for us not to judge, and whom she views with all the complexity her portraits suggest.

Some will find it entirely too sentimental, others a tad repetitive (Callahan tends to repeat the same stories), but it’s hard to argue with a movie that celebrates the kind of recovery he went through.

The result is a welcome return to a form of stop-motion that takes pride in the technique’s inevitable imperfections (such as thumbprints in the modeling clay), while putting extra care into the underlying script, with its daffy humor and slightly-off characters.

The movie’s not only appropriate for teen audiences, but also constructive in the way it invites viewers to consider and discuss issues of intolerance and hypocrisy, even as it encourages those who don’t fit the straight, marriage-oriented paradigm to embrace their own identities.

This ambitious, yet astonishingly well-executed Netflix tentpole directly benefits from the way Ayer’s gritty, streetwise sensibility grounds Landis’ gift for creating an elaborate comic-book mythology.

We may never know how Spacey would have been, but Plummer is easily the best thing about a film that is technically accomplished, yet a bit too mechanical in the way it sets up and executes the high-stakes kidnapping at its center.

Apart from casting (which is just OK here, as Wilson resorts a bit too much to shtick, while Arquette reaches for sincerity), regionally- and period-specific details are the ingredient that make otherwise-interchangeable stories like this appealing.

With such an enticing cast, it’s tougher than one might think trying to divine which of these eccentrics might be responsible for the crime, and “Crooked House” keeps you guessing, right up to its shocking conclusion.

Although The Last Jedi meets a relatively high standard for franchise filmmaking, Johnson’s effort is ultimately a disappointment. If anything, it demonstrates just how effective supervising producer Kathleen Kennedy and the forces that oversee this now Disney-owned property are at molding their individual directors’ visions into supporting a unified corporate aesthetic.

In what’s been an underwhelming year for big-studio animation, it’s the best of the bunch: sincere, likable, surprisingly funny, and overall true to its source material.

Though the story was written almost two decades ago, it’s a microcosm for the kind of wall-building mentality that has taken hold of the mainstream today, and the Malloy brothers achieve a kind of tragic poetry that sticks with those who make it a point to seek this one out.

As kid-friendly Christmas movies go, this one actually goes out of its way to remind what the holiday represents, which should please parents looking for something a little more sophisticated (but just barely) than the VeggieTales cartoons.

Though he succeeds in creating the most memorable incarnation of Poirot ever seen on-screen (upstaging even Johnny Depp’s competing cameo), the movie is a failure overall, juggling too many characters to keep straight, and botching the last act so badly that those who go in blind may well walk out not having understood its infamous twist ending.

In addition to being a rather fine addition to the Christmas-movie canon, the film marks a useful teaching tool — a better option for classroom screenings than any of the previous “Carol” adaptations, once students have finished reading the novella.

In any case, it works: Coco’s creators clearly had the perfect ending in mind before they’d nailed down all the other details, and though the movie drags in places, and features a few too many childish gags...the story’s sincere emotional resolution earns the sobs it’s sure to inspire.

The only thing more reliable than bad weather is bad movies, and in that respect, Geostorm is right on forecast.

While it’s not saying much, Thor: Ragnarok is easily the best of the three Thor movies — or maybe I just think so because its screenwriters and I finally seem to agree on one thing: The Thor movies are preposterous.

It’s a gripping and powerfully emotional portrait of yee-haw heroism, pitting a squad of cocky, calendar-purty white dudes against an adversary with no creed or color, just an unquenchable appetite for destruction.

The Foreigner amounts to an above-average but largely by-the-numbers action movie in which Chan does battle with generic thugs and shadowy political forces.

By approaching Marshall as an idealistic young trial lawyer, the film stands on its own as a compelling courtroom drama, complete with surprising revelations — and while we hope things will go his way, this case could just as easily prove the one that motivated his future crusade.

Villeneuve earns every second of that running time, delivering a visually breathtaking, long-fuse action movie whose unconventional thrills could be described as many things — from tantalizing to tedious — but never “artificially intelligent.”

All of this is reasonably interesting, but not as dramatic as it ought to be.

It is all aggressively stylized, abusively fast-paced and ear-bleedingly loud, relying so heavily on CGI that nothing — not one thing — seems to correspond to the real world.

Script shortcomings aside, Winslet and Elba make a reasonably good couple.

Molly’s Game delivers one of the screen’s great female parts — a dense, dynamic, compulsively entertaining affair, whose central role makes stunning use of Chastain’s stratospheric talent.

This Is Your Death deeply misunderstands depression, treating suicide as a convenient device for its pea-brained premise.

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.

It’s a film with the courage to be unlikable and the confidence to be complex, trusting audiences to navigate Brad’s whirling, restless mental state as it swings from jealousy to pride to what Ananya (correctly) identifies as “white privilege, male privilege, first-class problems” — otherwise known as entitlement.

The real surprise is just how honest and personal this film proves to be — again, par for the course with Gerwig, and yet, fairly rare among first-time directors, who haven’t had nearly so much practice simply being real.

Wright is both a virtuoso filmmaker and a natural showman, interpreting the screenplay as no other director could have possibly imagined it.

The outcome is widely known, but the backstory proves boisterously entertaining — and incredibly well-suited to the current climate, as King was both fighting for her gender and exploring her sexuality in 1973, when the widely publicized face-off happened.

Not only is there nothing presently in the zeitgeist to which to peg such a story (except perhaps the Dane DeHaan-Cara Delevingne reunion nobody asked for, shot before “Valerian” and shelved for nearly a year), but the entire package has a curiously old-fashioned feel — and not just because it takes place 380 years ago.

The movie never quite reckons with just how twisted a concept it’s peddling, and that’s easily the scariest thing about it.

It’s a genre movie, to be sure, but there’s an impressive sense of authenticity — in the language, the locations and the overall texture —that goes a long way to sell the scenario.

Loving Vincent may exist as a showcase for its technique, but it’s the sensitivity the film shows toward its subject that ultimately distinguishes this particular oeuvre from the countless bad copies that already litter the world’s flea markets.

A delightfully ridiculous screwball action comedy.

In a remarkable performance that at times suggests a desperate animal with nothing to lose, Kahn conveys the fact that Boris’ attachment to Marie hasn’t yet run its course.

Cretton captures the incidents of Walls’ childhood (too many of them, to be honest, as the film really ought to be half an hour shorter), but struggles to connect them to the grown woman Larson plays in the present.

Contreras’ film uniquely honors the memories and experience embodied in our elders — which it is our responsibility to preserve, and their prerogative to take to their graves, if they so desire.

The implication is that Berry’s character, Karla Dyson, isn’t like other parents, and yet, what makes Kidnap so compelling is that she behaves exactly the way you think you might under the same circumstances.

It’s a dark and all-around unpleasant journey to take.

Frankly, if forced to bet between John McClane and Anakin Skywalker, I’d take the “Die Hard” tough guy every time, but that’s just the underdog factor Miller is going for, staging a reasonably entertaining series of off-road chases and backwoods shootouts en route to that final confrontation.

This is what audiences want from a Nolan movie, of course, as a master of the fantastic leaves his mark on historical events for the first time.

The movie’s equal-opportunity irreverence makes for a welcome addition to the bachelor-party genre, so often aimed at the frat-boy crowds.

“Valerian” manages to be both cutting-edge and delightfully old-school — the kind of wild, endlessly creative thrill ride that only the director of “Lucy” and “The Fifth Element” could deliver, constructed as an episodic series of missions, scrapes and near-misses featuring a mind-blowing array of environments and stunning computer-generated alien characters.

Though the fate of his journey isn’t terribly well communicated, it’s a privilege to have observed Menashe’s world from the inside.

It’s fitting that the visual effects have advanced so dramatically since 2011, as it allows the series to suggest that its ape protagonists have evolved to an equivalent degree, and yet, “War’s” story is beneath their intelligence.

Here, Sandberg once again plays with both lighting, composition and suspense, framing shots in such a way that we’re constantly searching the shadows for hints of movement, while drawing out scenes for maximum tension.

Yes, Despicable Me 3 is unwieldy, but it mostly works, as co-directors Pierre Coffin (who also voices the Minions) and Kyle Balda never lose sight of the film’s emotional center, packing the rest with as much humor as they can manage.

It’s pure pleasure to watch Weisz as Rachel, who is also an actress of sorts, adapting to suit the needs and desires of whoever she’s seducing. Her manipulations feel more intuitive than conniving and need not be explicitly sexual per se.

Frankly, it’s anybody guess why characters do what they do in April’s Daughter, which may be both realistic and admirably nonjudgmental on Franco’s part, but it makes for a confusing and at times clinical moviegoing experience, as the director applies his detached Michael Haneke-like style to material that begs a certain amount of clarification.

Serraille studied literature before switching to cinema, and her sharp attention to the detail distinguishes Jeune femme from so many first-time indie features.

Although the screenplay contains all the beats needed to generate tension, Assayas’ gift for conveying information between the lines is almost entirely lost on Polanski, who doesn’t give his actresses the opportunity to flesh out the subtext of their most awkward interactions.

In its own weird way, Ismael’s Ghosts has something profound to say about the lingering pain of past relationships and the threat they still pose to the present, but it does so in such a needlessly complicated fashion, we can’t help but be overwhelmed. [Cannes Version]

It’s as if the director has tied up loose ends from his earlier films, while forcing us to re-examine issues that have only grown more dire since he first brought them to our attention.

Sure, it’s kinky, but Ozon is having fun with it, to the extent that the entire film rewards that fetish all moviegoers have in common — voyeurism — offering up a kind of equal-opportunity objectification.

Farrell and Kidman are astonishingly gifted at playing the subtext of every scene.

With no shtick to fall back on, Sandler is forced to act, and it’s a glorious thing to watch.

Everyone has a different idea of what’s funny, but it’s hard to imagine anyone being amused by War Machine, a colossally miscalculated satire.

Downright charming at times and irrepressibly gonzo at others, Okja hews to an all-too-familiar trajectory.

Who wouldn’t want a picturesque trip to the French capital that delivers more laughs than a nitrous oxide leak near the hyena compound? In fact, I’d go as far as to promise that Lost in Paris offers the three most delightful sight gags you’ll see on screen all year.

Even Lazenby detractors can’t help but be charmed by the man himself, who may not have been much of an actor, but turns out to be a bloody good storyteller, and an awfully salty one at that — revealing sexual conquests that would make even Bond blush.

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.

The movie’s one recurring joke stems from watching Shaina catch strangers off-guard, and it starts to wear thin by around the one-hour mark, when things start to turn dark.

Ultimately, “King Arthur” is just a loud, obnoxious parade of flashy set pieces, as one visually busy, belligerent action scene after another marches by, each making less sense than the last, but all intended to overwhelm.

It’s devastating to think how far Jones has fallen in the four decades since “Holy Grail,” in which he got more laughs banging a few coconuts together than he musters from his entire movie.

As acts of creation go, Scott has made an “Alien” movie for that segment of the audience that has always rooted for the monster.

It’s this strange alchemy — the way that a terse script can leave so much unsaid, combined with such a talented ensemble’s ability to suggest all the details left either in silence or in darkness — that makes “Sweet Virginia” such a haunting character study.

The movie’s much too flashy, allowing its cheeky attitude to overpower the otherwise humanist message (somehow, absurd situations feel less so when the narrator is constantly pointing out how outrageous everything seems to be), while the acting is all over the place.

The movie is not entirely without charm — although it’s safe to say, it’s mostly without charm. In fact, the movie has so little charm to offer that it borders on insipid.

It’s a pleasure to see such a fine actress navigate the nuances of her role.

Director Kitty Green’s high-concept documentary Casting JonBenét breaks fresh ground, probing the public, rather than family members or suspects (often the same thing).

Perhaps Dillard is too young or green to escape the recycled clichés that constitute the bulk of his script (co-written with Alex Theurer), and yet, charitably speaking, Sleight shows potential.

The Wall succeeds because of Worrell’s words.

Slee’s film boasts such a high level of writing, acting, and overall production polish that youngsters may be fooled into thinking they’re watching a mindless blockbuster, when in fact, they’ve actually been fooled into thinking.

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.

It’s tawdry “Sleeping With the Enemy”-style fun while it lasts, boasting a better cast and splashier production values than the next closest Lifetime movie, while being so ridiculous at times that audiences can’t help but talk back to the screen.

While the humor mostly misfires, there’s a certain pleasure to be had simply from spotting the celebrity cameos in Sandy Wexler.

Axelrod plays along with her eccentric subject’s insouciant attitude vis à vis his own identity to mostly delightful effect.

Taken as a whole, All These Sleepless Nights presents a restless, some-might-say-dynamic portrait of characters who seem to be going absolutely nowhere.

Aftermath is one of those mopey coping-with-grief movies in which the characters grapple with intense emotions, while audiences feel nothing.

When the participants convulse and cry, the film’s empathetic connection is so direct and so strong, audiences may be driven to weep as well.

The cinematic equivalent of calendar art.

There’s no nice way to put it in this case, but The Zookeeper’s Wife has the unfortunate failing of rendering its human drama less interesting than what happens to the animals — and for a subject as damaging to our species as the Holocaust, that no small shortcoming.

The movie’s payoff is every bit as delicious as its build-up.

Life’s a thrill when it’s smart, but it’s even more exciting when the characters are dumb — which is ultimately a paradox the film wears proudly, to the possible extinction of the human race.

Though he clearly admires the woman, O’Haver doesn’t want to let her off easy, which makes for a more nuanced portrayal than the stock canonization another director might have chosen (it would have been just as easy to paint her as a devil).

For a director who emerged from indie film’s so-called “mumblecore” movement, Gemini feels like a grown-up achievement, and the sign of a director with so much more to give in the future.

Somehow, in accentuating Wiseau’s weirdness, Franco overlooks his soul.

In another director’s hands, the residents might be labeled “eccentric” and condescendingly depicted for laughs, but Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands approach this touch-and-go community with curiosity and humanism, capturing what feels like a deciding moment in a series of struggles so far off the grid, they would otherwise escape our notice entirely.

Like all Edgar Wright movies, Baby Driver is a blast, featuring wall-to-wall music and a surfeit of inspired ideas. But it’s also something of a mess, blaring pop tunes of every sort as it lurches between rip-roaring car chases, colorful pre-caper banter, and a twee young-love subplot.

Song to Song finds the maestro in broken-record mode, rehashing more or less the same themes against the backdrop of the Austin music scene — merely the latest borderline-awful Malick movie that risks to undermine the genius and mystery of his best work.

It’s not every documentary that can so exhilaratingly make us feel a part of something so special.

The movie feels a little too sparse and literal in places.

While Bitter Harvest will undoubtedly serve to raise awareness, there can be no doubt that the events deserve a more compelling and responsible treatment than this.

The film — while not an especially compelling or well-told biopic unto itself — shines much-needed attention on the plight of the Roma people at the hands of German (and French) officials.

A risible excuse for comedy that treats compulsory education as a joke and violence as a reasonable way to solve problems.

The movie deprives us of either a tragic villain or a sympathetic lead, hoping that its grab bag of squirm-inducing details — dental drills, stillborn livestock, flesh-eating eels — will suffice, when in fact, they reveal how a shorter, tighter treatment ought to have done the trick.

There’s a quality to the violence here that elevates it above the literal (and reprehensible) nihilism of movies like last year’s “Hardcore Henry,” and instead achieves something more akin to dance.

If romance-seeking audiences know what’s best for them, they’ll put some space between themselves and this movie.

The connection they share isn’t the kind that would pass for conventionally romantic, and yet, theirs is a compelling love story all the same — one the filmmakers follow with open minds, focusing on the lead-up to and days immediately following their wedding.

While his American competition practices the right to remain silent, McDonagh writes his clever, coal-black heart out, delivering another firecracker script.

It’s not an easy sit, nor a terribly entertaining one, but in the hands of writer-director Marti Noxon, it delivers painful insights in a relatively fresh way.

In the end, it’s the ensemble’s collective attitude, plus the palpable chemistry between Patti and her friends, that defines the experience, not the stock desire to be discovered. Though if Patti Cake$ really did exist, this movie would certainly make her star.

Audiences needn’t be intimidated: Manifesto may not adhere to any conventional narrative structure, but it’s compulsively watchable all the same

Haley and Basch have mistaken what the AARP calls “movies for grownups” for a kind of mushy feel-good pablum, throwing together a handful of familiar clichés in the hope that Elliott’s charm will carry the day.

What City of Ghosts does best is to humanize those who’ve suffered most from the conflict in Syria, educating us through both outrage and compassion.

Though the sheer scope of the material overwhelms “Pariah” director Dee Rees at times, she finds shoots of optimism among the mire that couldn’t be more welcome at a moment when the country seems more divided than ever.

Blending race-savvy satire with horror to especially potent effect, this bombshell social critique from first-time director Jordan Peele proves positively fearless — which is not at all the same thing as scareless.

While the story easily could have fallen into a broken-record rut, “Nobody Walks” director Russo-Young finds ways of making the day in question feel fresh each time Sam lives it, while giving the overall presentation a look, feel, and voice that’s distinct from the vast swatch of YA movies.

A medieval convent comedy for the megaplex crowd.

Even as he beguiles us with mystery, Guadagnino recreates Elio’s life-changing summer with such intensity that we might as well be experiencing it first-hand. It’s a rare gift that earns him a place in the pantheon alongside such masters of sensuality as Pedro Amodóvar and François Ozon, while putting “Call Me by Your Name” on par with the best of their work.

A semi-ironic, yet still-empathetic “Single White Female” for the Facebook generation, Spicer’s squirm-inducing directorial debut understands both the pleasures and frustrations of judging one’s worth via virtual connections.

While Lowery’s actual method of delivery may not be scary, it’s sure to haunt those who open themselves up to the experience.

Given all the attention on Russia in recent news coverage, Fogel’s Putin-centric approach will likely prove more effective than a deeper investigation into just how widespread such behavior is around the globe. But the greater takeaway is that the game itself is rigged, and the Russians only lost because they got caught.

It’s the perfect role for Lynskey, who’s wise enough to underplay her character, which allows audiences to pour their own fears and frustrations into everything Ruth represents. And what emerges is a stalwart actress’s best work yet, delivered by an exciting new director to watch.

The trouble with Paris Can Wait — apart from the sheer agony of being trapped with two insufferable characters as they sample gorgeously photographed food and wine that we can’t taste — is the way the movie seems so willing to let its leading lady be defined by her husband’s job.

While the entire project seems to be commenting on all the ways that social pressures try to trap or confine us, the cinematic medium has seldom felt as free as it does in Rowlson-Hall’s hands.

In places, The Sense of an Ending seems almost frustratingly uninterested in establishing, much less solving, the riddles at its core, when in fact, it’s merely uninterested in pandering to those who lack the patience to appreciate its nuances.

Directed with an odd mix of human compassion and giddy abandon by Stephen Gaghan (“Syriana”), Gold is a lively portrayal of what’s often misidentified as the American Dream, but might be more accurately described as the American Fantasy — where men dream of wealth and success without having to put in the work.

You know things are getting bad when an instantly forgettable, nearly impossible-to-follow, Chinese-language action movie manages to score a U.S. release simply because of Chan’s involvement.

Like it sounds, Monster Trucks is a lame kids’ movie reverse-engineered from a worse pun.

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.