Rodrigo Perez

Billy Lynn has its moments, but its critical and unexpected folly is that the cutting-edge technology diminishes the picture emotionally, its ungainly look trivializes the drama and indulges it with an undesirable air of superficiality.

Fleck and Boden certainly have strong filmmaking smarts. They understand restraint, have terrific observational eyes, and know how to coax honest performances out of actors. So it’s perhaps a shame that Mississippi Grind is ultimately too underwhelming to stake with any confidence.

Song One is well intentioned, well-shot and has its musical heart in the right place, but it often feels incredibly familiar, and the more contrived, credulity-straining moments don’t help.

Godzilla asks you to care about its characters, achieves that aspiration, earns your trust, and then not only pivots towards a far less interesting character, but abandons most of its absorbing emotional legwork for a fairly rote and straightforward rock ‘em, sock ‘em monster movie.

A moving movie that tries too hard to please and thus never truly satisfies.

The Deepest Breath isn’t hiding the fact that there are daring hazards involved with athletes risking their lives for world records, but it isn't exactly forthcoming either, and the failure to effectively thread that needle is its biggest problem.

Yes, Naishuller is an inventive action shooter, and if highly-tuned, keyed-up action orchestration is your game, Nobody will light you up, no doubt. However, if you’d love to see the intriguing ideas—that the movie itself proposes upfront—about fatherhood, guardianship, violence, contempt, and neglect, at least semi-threaded throughout the action story, you’ve come to the wrong movie.

There’s probably just enough elevation by Pearce and Jarvis’ performances to overpower the novice inputs of Williams and Miller. Inside is mostly passable as a film about men and prisons that thinks – wait for it – inside the box.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 feels like a darker, the-end-times-are-near blockbuster in the vein of a big “Avengers” Marvel movie, and it’s unclear how being like everyone else serves a franchise that has been perfectly content to be its weird, wacky, lovable little self.

Good Grief arguably doesn’t quite get there in the end, but there is a promising sense of possibility for what the future could hold for Levy as a filmmaker next.

There’s certainly necessarily nothing off with Diane Von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge in terms of its craft, its breezy structure, its slick pace, etc. It’s a handsomely made documentary, but it always borders on fawning puff pieces, letting us into the life of the fashion mogul but still making you feel like it’s a surface portrait meant to resell something vintage, like a classic dress everyone already knows and admires.

Ninjago is mildly entertaining, and kids should find it pleasurable enough, but it’s missing that special spark, the kind of joyful flicker that compels children to ask for the movie on DVD at Christmas

Marvel’s ‘First Steps’ may feel somewhat unique in tone, carefree and blithe in a manner audiences haven’t seen before, and yes, these inaugural strides are the best version of these heroes to be experienced on screen. But unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily mean that ‘First Steps is essential, or even fantastic viewing.

Its patchy tone, plot, characters and sympathies make for a film that’s difficult to wholeheartedly endorse.

While its ambition does show a director still aspiring for great heights, its patchy execution only partly restores the faith.

As undercooked as ‘Jacqueline’ can be, the movie oddly comes to life at the end with its themes of pointlessness and God laughing at your plans finally coming full circle.

Gently involving, but never quite engrossing, there’s a first draft shape to the picture that feels slight and makes for a minor work.

The Nightmare can be deeply distressing and blood-curdling, and it can be a little silly, too.

A curious, half-successful mutation in the “Predator” bloodline, ‘Badlands’ wants to transcend the franchise’s primal instincts. Instead, it proves that sometimes survival means knowing what not to evolve. Or at least, pushing the envelope with greater execution and story conviction.

Admirable, ambitious and impressive, but ultimately aloof, Midsommar has its delights for sure, but it lacks the emotional depth to match the sharp insights it has into the evils of the ambivalent, wishy-washy relationship (run as fast as you can).

Ultimately, Glass is a killer concept that suffers from a wobbly execution. Shyamalan nails the intimate stuff, but that third act is just bound to shatter and confound audience expectation.

Ultimately, Thank You For Your Service is commendable and, well, serviceable. But it’s more of an honorable discharge rather than something you fete with medals of esteem.

While it’s hard to indict the movie for wanting to admire and honor this extraordinary girl, the movie loses its own inherent potency with a haphazard structure that jumps around far too much in time and a monotonous narrative about Malala overcoming oppressors to bravely speak out and inspire the world.

Well shot and well made, Kill Your Darlings is a very competently constructed effort on a whole, but there’s an emptiness and familiarity at its core that it cannot transcend.

Though not a poor effort per se -- David Chase's Not Fade Away does authentically captures the heart and soul of the music of the era and the intoxicating/naive dream of making it big -- the picture isn't exactly a remarkable one either.

Crown Heights works best when the political and the personal merge with the insidious nature of corruption and systemic cultural, societal and economic oppression.

A weird, uneven mixed bag, there’s much about Mojave that’s paradoxically maddening and doesn’t really add up. As the movie plot becomes less interesting and more straight-forward — like a slasher movie with the evil antagonist character slowly closing in on the hero — it becomes funnier and more purely enjoyable.

Yes, it’s the DCEU’s best film, but as we know, that’s not saying a lot. But, hey, that terrific second act that we should cling to even if it’s a distant memory by the time love defeats aggression. “Wonder Woman” might be molded by the mighty Gods, but as shaped by mere mortals her mettle and beliefs and can be only so wonderfully divine.