Stephanie Merry

The filmmakers invite the audience to get close enough to feel the pain without having to relive the depths of the real-life horror.

For fans of dance, Ballet 422 will produce plenty of pleasures. But as with great ballet, great movies always benefit from a little drama.

You can make a movie that’s both sweet and crass; just look at Judd Apatow’s comedies. But the mix doesn’t work here, maybe because both the vulgarity and the cheesiness are so amped up.

The movie can be over-the-top and the characters are rarely anything more than vile. And yet, the whole thing is mesmerizing.

It’s more than great dancing and tragic strings that elevate The Last Five Years to a very funny, deeply affecting portrait of love lost and found. Kendrick and Jordan are both Broadway performers with powerful voices.

A new sport doesn’t equate to new ground, but there is pleasure to be had in a formula that works.

Often, it feels conspicuously educational. The movie is far better when it focuses on its intimate story of love between family and friends in a small town.

In the end, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before. But there’s also nothing as agonizingly awkward as James’s prose.

It seems that Andy and Lana Wachowski have never lost that childlike ability to dream. But they also haven’t mastered the grown-up power to rein it in. The story they tell in Jupiter Ascending could probably occupy an entire television season. There’s way too much here for one movie to hold.

The performances are fantastic across the board, with Costner acting in his trademark low-key naturalistic style and Spencer as the picture of no-nonsense maternal love. But their efforts can’t make up for overly simplified characters, not to mention melodramatic exchanges that sound exactly like written dialogue.

Mortdecai succeeds more as a talky farce than an action-packed adventure. But it would be even better if Mortdecai weren’t about Mortdecai at all.

The movie, which marks the feature debut of writer-director Kate Barker-Froyland, has the low-key appeal of “Once,” with its extended scenes of music and drama-free romantic subplot. But the characters in Song One are stubbornly bland, despite their quirks.

The acting across the board is top-notch, especially by Banks, who is probably best known for her comedic roles. She doesn’t get to flex any of those muscles here; Little Accidents is a serious movie, but, to its credit, it’s never entirely bleak.

Comedy today is less about punch lines and pratfalls and more about eliciting that laugh-gasp hybrid. And those jokes come constantly in Appropriate Behavior.

The movie may not have quite the mind-bending wallop of “Inception,” but Predestination is about something deeper than fantasy.

The casting for the movie is outstanding. Streep is marvelous, as always, but in this case she outdoes even herself (and the script) by bringing a degree of poignancy to her conniving character.

It’s John Goodman who steals every scene. As a scary loan shark who might cough up cash to get Jim out of his pickle, Goodman elevates the material, showcasing the dark humor that Wyatt was clearly going for. But, overall, that comedy just doesn’t land.

There are some very funny moments in the movie, even for grown-ups, including a video of Will that goes viral. The absurd machinations of Will’s smarmy political adviser are also good for a laugh. But ultimately, Annie is so fixated on being current that it will never be more than a passing fancy.

This biblical action drama that feels excessive in every way imaginable, from running time (nearly 2 1/2  hours) to melodramatic acting to the conspicuous amount of computer generation.

Remote Area Medical is an in­cred­ibly tragic movie. It’s also an important one, reminding viewers that America is more than its coasts and cities. There are corners of the country we all too easily forget.

Some of the portrayals are over-the-top in their villainy, and the dialogue, acting and music all tend to be melodramatic. But all of the overt heartstring-pulling doesn’t add much. Given the awful calamity, the truth would have been enough to amp up the emotions.

It’s an oddity, and all that strangeness is what makes the movie hard to shake.

A movie that’s visually stunning and often poetic, but also leaves too much unsaid.

National Gallery could have used a few more edits; its long run time may limit its appeal. But the film is remarkably engaging and, with close looks at so many important pieces of art, bursting with beauty.

The Overnighters is commendable for many reasons, not the least of which is the way it allows complex issues to remain complex.

It’s appropriately melancholy, and yet there’s a sense that the movie only scratches the surface.

Brown seamlessly blends the emotional, intimate stories of people with bigger pictures, using the explosion as the starting point for a ripple effect that just keeps growing.

It would be nice to know if the troubling images we see are a sweeping problem or just a small glimpse of a minority.