Robert Abele

John Wick’s world is elegant and vicious, full of slaughter and courtesies and, if “Chapter 2” can’t quite replicate the original’s sense of discovery, its ending still made me wish “Chapter 3” could start right away.

In its swirl of ingenuity, purity, and achievement, Paper & Glue can’t help but feel self-serving for its traveling, ever-creative dynamo, even when the tale JR has to tell is unquestionably riveting and inspiring.

The film isn’t the most cohesive look at startling global transformation. It’s strongest, however, as a dizzying, dimensional tour of scale and time, forcing us to wonder how a sense of earth-centric balance can be restored.

As a dark techno-farce with a violent wit and some daring empathy (coming as it does in a time of suspicious excitement about our modeled, molded future), Companion is a sleekly designed, well-powered date-night package.

For a movie designed to honor the unexpected depths of a cultural hallmark, Ramen Heads does achieve, to borrow the ultimate standard of ramen quality, enough satisfying slurpability.

That blend of tones is not always smoothly handled, but there’s enough heart in its express train of ambition, flaws and fallout to allow its leading lady wide berth for a wonderfully committed, soulful, even sexual turn admirably devoid of caricature.

Angkor Awakens won’t wow you with artfulness, but as an analytical narrative of tragedy, testimony and a way ahead, it has an undeniable power.

Jack Bryan’s thorough, chilling rabbit-hole inquiry into our president’s connections to Russia — Active Measures — is as good a place as any to fuel one’s fear/outrage.

Paint may ultimately be just modestly amusing, but at least it understands that a palette of well-blended tones has a better chance of earning our laughs than the one-color-fits-all kind.

In much the way "Crystal Fairy" blossomed when we were snapped out of our chuckling repulsion, Nasty Baby rights itself intriguingly when Silva pushes his characters into unknown territory and lifestyle is imposed upon by life.

It’s valuable when any vérité documentary with such a vantage point is able to show us how many societal ills — from addiction to gun violence to poverty to gentrification to incarceration — can touch one family, keeping them in a near-constantly reeling state.

The performances... are solid, and the conceit is alluringly mind-bending without ever seeming off-puttingly brainy.

Hive is occasionally bumpy, but it’s the rough terrain of a raw narrative — the out-of-place music cue or awkward dream snippet doesn’t disrupt the social realist momentum, which is at its best when focused on the grit of how moving forward is also moving on.

A skillfully rendered narrative that should satisfy fans and pique the interest of the uninitiated.

There's the unfettered access to Harmon's brilliant comic mind, of course, yet also a warts-and-all portraiture of a difficult personality, by turns boyish, self-involved, abusive and exhilaratingly self-analytical.

Though its vibe is often too meandering, A Kid Like Jake shows that even the most accepting of environments aren’t immune to the vulnerabilities and worries coursing through any well-intended parent’s soul.

Heineman’s trust in what his camera reveals — in the forlorn faces of U.S. soldiers, in the slump of Sadat’s demeanor, in the distraught eyes of a mother caught in that Kabul airport scrum of the desperate — tells its own necessary story of war wreckage.

A well-cast, modestly affecting drama of the kind studios regularly programmed in the before-IP times, it boasts a generous heart gently dusted with life’s complications as it beats a familiar rhythm of easygoing redemption.

Even if its trajectory hews to a well-worn format, Keepers of the Game is as strong an argument that can be made for the rich emotional rewards of schoolgirls hitting the field to show everyone and themselves what they can achieve.

The result is a “Spider-Man” that feels a little more punchy, laugh-filled, and exciting than one might expect from a property that’s already been given plenty of chances to succeed.

As metaphors for America go, it might just put a hopeful smile on your face after another stomach-churning political news day.

Although no less fawning and indulgent about its self-centered subject, played by Jean-Marc Barr (who also narrates, run-on style), the muted emptiness of the ill-fated sojourn wills its way toward something like existential meaningfulness.

It’s a globe-trotting look at the worldwide response to COVID-19, with an emphasis on the unprecedented effort to get a safe, effective vaccine quickly into billions of people.

For the most part this is an engaging refresher course in what fighting the power looks like.

The brutally efficient shooting style Reeves employs to film master choreographer Yuen Woo Ping's breathtaking fights...is refreshingly grounded and old-school kinetic.

Both impish and melancholy, with Timlin and Fessenden handily shifting the molecules in the air each time they share a scene, Like Me has an eccentric bravura to it.

The movie is an arty lark of ambiguous entertainment value, pulsing with melancholy. It's rarely less than interesting visually or tonally, thanks in large part to Korine's prurient sense of humor and the rich location textures and Crayola sweep provided by gifted cinematographer Benoit Debie ("Enter the Void").

If it’s been a while since you’ve felt the cold blast and hard crunch of midnight-movie meanness, Zahler’s shaping up to be your guy — the one selling illicit thrills out of the trunk of a well-restored, vinyl-topped LTD — and with “Brawl,” he sets himself further apart from his more schlock-minded contemporaries in cult cinem