Rodrigo Perez

The Founder certainly does not reinvent the meal, but as a bite sized, consumable snack (that feels like 90 minutes though is actually much longer), its lively and entertaining spirit does often hit the spot. And surprisingly, though traditionally told, the narrative does unwrap a deceptive bite along the way.

Labelling Live By Night a disaster is a little uncharitable; the baggy drama is perhaps more painfully mediocre than full-blown folly, but it’s close.

Rogue One is a very good “Star Wars” film, frustratingly though, it falls short of being a truly great one.

A paean to the unsung, Hidden Figures is also a romanticized tribute to everyday problem solvers who, in the movie’s eyes, are their own kind of superheroes.

Sleight is imaginative and refreshing as it shape-shifts effortlessly through familiar narrative tropes and invents something unexpected and unique.

There’s nothing lost in the translation of Fences, but its high fidelity means there’s little, if any, inspiration to be found within.

Moore’s goal — save the country from the worst Presidential election of all time— is sound, but his ungainly presentation and shaky arguments make for an uneven polemic that never takes fire, even when doused in gasoline.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back isn’t a throwaway, and mainstream action/thriller fans should come out more than satisfied at the visceral nature of the film. But anyone hoping for more than a superficial on-the-run chase movie will probably wish Reacher had stayed home, instead of going back.

The Lost City Of Z won’t be for all viewers, but its delicate devotion to itself is something sure to inspire admiration and obsessives.

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.

The overwhelming force of The 13th is such that as the movie moves into its third act it becomes more and more heartbreaking in all its countless examples of injustice and abuse.

To her credit, Zlotowski’s film does capture the lulling feeling of a séance, but there’s a gossamer-thin thread between the mysterious and the mystifying and perhaps her delicately ephemeral film just doesn’t know how to recognize the difference.

Tipping’s bold and meditative drama with its reflective moods and streetwise grime has delivered one of the best feature-length debuts of 2016 and one of the best films of the year, period.

A lovely, but uneven moral tale of love, forgiveness and heartrending misdeeds, Derek Cianfrance’s The Light Between Oceans is conceptually sound, and at times, beautifully gut-wrenching. But the plaintive picture often becomes engrossed in conveying at all times just how precious life and love is.

Suicide Squad isn’t a terrible movie per se and judged against its forbearer, ‘Batman v Superman,’ it resembles a shining beacon of coherence. But Suicide Squad isn’t a very good movie either, a mediocre effort with commonplace ideas of rebelliousness and salvation.

For all its problems, Bourne is still thrilling and an undoubtedly engrossing action film thanks to its taut construction.

Sometimes silly, outlandish, and sentimental in its fan service-y callbacks, Star Trek Beyond and its sense of entertaining urgency often trumps its insubstantial qualities, as illogical as that may be.

Not even the funniest actors on the planet could save what is an occasionally humorous, but largely unremarkable rehash.

Arguably the most persuasive and compelling of Ferguson’s films to date, Time To Choose is an imperative, essential essay on our climate change crisis, and if it ever feels didactic, it’s counterpointed by its very real and very human nature.

A sinister dread pulses through Bridgend, one that is engrossing and terrifying.

Dark Horse is crowd-pleasing and rousing, but its biggest problem is that no successive part of the documentary can sustain the power of its opening prologue.

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

Get A Job is such a baffling endeavor the callow movie could conceivably come with its own milk carton campaign asking: “Where is Dylan Kidd and what have you done with him?”

Zoolander 2 is no disaster, but it’s almost worse; a tedious jag that barely works as a disposable and mild, if-its-on-cable-TV, diversion.

Deeply over-reliant on flashbacks, and ones that don’t particularly transition well, Jane Got A Gun is nearly a holding pattern movie.

As uneven as the psychodrama can be at times, one thing is clear, Ross is a major talent worth watching. He’s got an eye, a strong p.o.v., and the movie has many perceptive observations about the self-destructive perils of possessiveness, ownership, and holding on too tight.

Immersive and committed to its austere form, the solemn, often-dialogue free Dark Night never spoon feeds and always allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

It’s arguably Tarantino’s ugliest and most political film, but not his best by some distance.