Stephanie Merry

The movie may be competent at telling its story, but it’s missing one key ingredient: feeling.

Front Cover is weighed down by heavy-handed dialogue and a melodramatic score.

The movie is a tremendous accomplishment, especially considering that the cast had never seen cameras before — much less movies — yet still agreed to star in the drama. Their performances are as stunning as the setting, and that’s truly saying something.

Subtlety isn’t the strong suit of Queen of Katwe. But beneath the hackneyed aphorisms, there’s a thrilling story worthy of our attention.

Goat doesn’t shy from showing us monstrous behavior, which might be more than some viewers can bear. This isn’t an easy film to watch. But it’s even harder to forget.

There are no huge revelations here — certainly nothing that would shock superfans. The movie offers a taste of the go-go-go pace of touring the world, which led to exhaustion and frustration, but mostly focuses on the happier times.

We get Albert’s side of the story, and that’s clearly problematic. How much faith should we put in the account of someone who tells such massive whoppers? That question constantly hovers over Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary, which is by turns fascinating and unseemly.

A few minutes of excitement can’t compensate for an hour and a half of unimaginative storytelling and dull characters.

Starving the Beast is still a worthwhile documentary.

Even if it’s not quite as thrilling as it first seems, Complete Unknown poses questions that practically beg for animated conversation about the fantasy of leaving it all behind — and what that might look like if someone actually did it, again and again.

Ixcanul is, among other things, a movie about the resilience and savvy of women who are continually disparaged by their cultures.

The drama stars Edgar Ramírez as Roberto and Robert De Niro as his legendary coach. The two are exceptionally well cast, but they can’t save an unfocused jumble of a movie that doubles as a cautionary tale about the importance of film editing.

Nerve is exciting, topical and potentially prescient, but it scores no points for character development, and the plot holes are so big that you could, well, drive a speeding motorcycle through them.

The comedy sails along, thanks to its charismatic leads.

Lazy, scattershot and excruciatingly unfunny, the movie is a hazard to the very young, who might come away with the erroneous impression that movies don’t get any better than this.

The movie turns what was once antic into something closer to manic. With a throwaway plot and a parade of weird characters, the comedy tries to be bigger, bolder and more outrageous than the television series, but it ends up being a lot less funny.

If the movie isn’t always gripping, it’s nevertheless a worthwhile examination of the intricacies of undercover life.

It’s too bad, then, that the comedy spends so much more time mimicking the familiar than trusting in its own fresh perspective.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is uproarious and flamboyantly raunchy, utterly stupid yet also occasionally winning

[The film] isn’t for everyone. But the story is astoundingly original. During the summer months, when theaters are occupied by superheroes and sequels, that’s something worth celebrating.

You wouldn’t exactly call the movie a thrill, but it’s curiously engrossing all the same.

“Strangers” offers an inspiring look at creative people from very different walks of life who nonetheless communicate beautifully with one another. They don’t need to speak a common language: Their dazzling music says it all.

Central Intelligence won’t win any points for originality, but that doesn’t make it any less funny.

It’s all so plodding and grim, echoed by the blandly percussive score by Ramin Djawadi.

The documentary is a compelling indictment of the way commerce drives the art market. But the movie’s methodology is hit-or-miss, jumping from one interview to another, to jarring effect.

It’s a lovely tale, even if it’s not quite the Cinderella story you might expect. The documentary also brings up some interesting points about how the Internet — the land of vitriolic trolls — can draw two very different people together to create great art from odds and ends.

Wondrous visuals only go so far, in a film that turns out to be lethally dull.

Unfortunately, the movie’s second act tends to drag, getting bogged down by uninspired twists, while the first flies by with witty dialogue and a steady stream of novel details.