Steve Persall

Personal Shopper is wildly imperfect, wandering like Maureen through surroundings matching her dark, curious mood. Dead ends abound with scenes running long then abruptly dropping their subjects. Thrills aren't part of the bargain unless Stewart's intense vulnerability counts. Now more than ever, it should.

Like its predecessor T2 Trainspotting aggressively shocks and charms, a singular example of cinematic bravura now improbably duplicated.

The Boss Baby is a bun needing more time in the oven, some rethinking of what sort of animated comedy it wishes to be.

MacLaine keeps things interesting, snapping off one-liners with precision that comes only through experience.

Harrelson and Dern's efforts aside, Wilson is indie ennui at its emptiest, a vessel of misshapen wit with a hole in the bottom. Its nihilism is exhausting. Oddness gets oppressive when a movie goes through more mood swings than its unbalanced heroes.

Espinosa overcomes any shortcomings in originality and logic with one of the most satisfying finales in recent memory. First impressions are important but a clever last impression makes Life worthwhile.

Sure, the plot is paper thin like most reboots, but CHiPs is less about the story and more about the special effects and stunt riding, which are jaw-dropping.

Broadbent carries the movie with signature ease, making Tony easy to dislike while wishing him an overdue peace. Despite its time-flip fixation, The Sense of an Ending finds emotional focus in Broadbent's wilting gaze and discoveries in character with the simplest line deliveries.

With each musical reprise and imitated frame, Condon continues a fight of comparisons he can't win. Either imitate a classic faithfully or leave out the songs and make your own version. Or just leave perfection alone.

Kong: Skull Island strips the beauty from a legendary beast, reducing a classic movie star to soulless monster mechanics. Kong smashes, but not much else. Whoever dies doesn't matter. Whoever lives has a sequel promised by the end credits.

The movie is pleasant enough thanks to Kendrick and co-stars, especially Merchant's daft mannerisms and Squibb's matronly spunk. It's solely their attention to the project holding ours.

James Mangold's Logan is an uncommonly mature comic book movie, practically from another universe unto itself. It's a movie demanding and deserving to be taken seriously, an elegy for a mutant.

Get Out loses its nerve winding down but it's a rare horror flick not wasting all its brains on splatter.

The Great Wall is a so-so movie with eye-popping images.

A Cure for Wellness is a repellent curiosity, rich in atmosphere yet starved for dramatic morsels a sound plot might nourish.

This movie's balletic brutality, its relentless pacing and practical stunt work are breathtaking.

Fifty Shades Darker is what you'd expect from encoring a regrettable one-night stand. Not a keeper, but nothing to gnaw off your arm about.

The pleasures of The LEGO Batman Movie are plentiful, especially its cockeyed reverence for the Dark Knight's past.

The Space Between Us is romantic science fiction with zero gravity and less to recommend.

Working for the first time with French cinematographer Jean-Claude Larrieu, the director retains his signature framing and crimson flourishes.

The Comedian is a phony movie about funny people, starring a great actor understanding next to nothing about stand-up comedy.

Gold isn't a bad movie, just lifeless except for McConaughey.

Split is a tidy example of lurid understatement, its themes ripe for nastier treatment than Shyamalan offers, grindhouse stuff served with vegan restraint.

Even in repetitive or undernourished moments Keaton, Offerman and Lynch always entertain. Their performances have fallen through the cracks of awards season.

Only Scorsese could craft a film of such moral gravity for multiplexes and fascinate for nearly three hours.

Live by Night is ambitious to a fault, with so much material and technical pizzazz that a cable miniseries format might have been a better way to go.

Like Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon before, Patriots Day is a brawny procedural, more than the exploitation flick it could be. Berg and Wahlberg's commitment to details beyond death and destruction feels like a calling.

J.A. Bayona's exquisite A Monster Calls blends pathos and sophistication, fairy tales and harsh realities into a small masterpiece.

It's a lesson that African-American culture offers more inspiring stories than Hollywood has chosen to tell.

Chastain plows through this tangled scenario with an icy ferocity that's entertaining. You get the feeling that Miss Sloane would work better as a streaming or cable series, allowing more time to explore characters and issues, giving actors more room for dense dialogue. Maybe come up with a better way out of that corner.

If Fences occasionally feels cinematically inert, it's emotionally resonant thanks to Davis and Washington the actor, not the director as much.

Lion can't avoid seeming lesser in the second half after Davis' mesmeric first but it's solid storytelling nonetheless. Bring the Kleenex.

Yes, it's Meet the Parents time again but flipped and filthier, in a good way. Why Him? had me laughing louder, more often than most smutcoms do, a NSFW blusher delivered by a keenly comical cast.

Anchored by Natalie Portman's uncanny impersonation — wispy voice, aristocratic posture — Jackie fascinates and frustrates, sometimes at once. We can't be certain any of her actions here are true. Some don't seem likely.

This is science fiction needing more work on the fiction part, an intriguing premise running its course halfway through. Passengers is too smart for starters to devolve into green screen spectacle relegating its attractive stars to unconvincing gapes.

La La Land is a trove of references to musical milestones, not derivative but truly inspired. A more joyful movie for grown-ups can't be found this season.

Rogue One will engage such diehards but making new friends for the brand is unlikely.

Office Christmas Party contains enough lunacy from McKinnon, Bell and Vanessa Bayer to nearly recommend, then enough lame plot threads, Rob Corddry and Olivia Munn to reconsider.

Moonlight is a modest masterpiece, and quite possibly the best film of 2016.

Manchester by the Sea is a gracefully coarse ode to lives knocked down and if not bouncing back at least not splatting at rock bottom. There are also glimmers of humor shining all the brighter because of the darkness they cut through.

This is a soulless endeavor that would alarm if Ford devised it on his own. Instead, he shares blame with Austen Wright's novel Tony and Susan, adapted into parallel narratives; one empty, the other leaking blood.

We can now agree that Johnson is not only the Sexiest Man Alive but also our strongest, lifting Moana on his character's beefy shoulders, carrying it like other hits before. No movie left behind.

Rules Don't Apply is affably mediocre, even tolerable between brief pleasures. The movie's lone constant amusement is Beatty's madcap portrayal of Hughes, keeping aloft his Spruce Goose of nonromantic not quite comedy.

Any resemblance between Allied and a much better movie on the subject isn't coincidental but unfortunate.

It's just another example of technology intruding upon storytelling, that's been happening since kinetoscopes cranked one frame at a time.

Not even J.K. Rowling can say abracadabra and make a worthwhile movie franchise appear. The lightning that struck Harry Potter once merely grazes Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, turning the sorcerer's mentor into a fantasy apprentice.

Christine is a movie as bleak and withdrawn as its protagonist, with Hall making the most of her best role in years, a slow death spiral that's hard to look away from.

It's one of a handful of movies that have legitimately fooled me; not with an abrupt twist but a dawning awareness of where it's going thematically, how deeply and how distanced from sci-fi as usual.

A nice balance of solemn myth making and genre irreverence lifts Doctor Strange to Marvel's first tier of movie franchises.

It feels disingenuous to celebrate Doss' moral code by vividly pretending to demolish it. Nobody disputes the notion that war is hell. But maybe this particular war movie didn't need that.

Inferno is another docent tour dressed as an action movie, a baby boomer's fantasy of travel and intrigue.

Keeping Up With the Joneses is the sort of strenuous comedy giving zany a bad name.

David Hare's screenplay based on Lipstadt's book is intrinsically stacked toward her eventual triumph, with each familiar step worth watching.

Sure, Arnold's movie is aimless, at times frustrating, like its characters. It's also a harshly poetic reflection on what being young must mean today.

Ben Affleck is Agent Double-OCD in The Accountant, an effortlessly dumb thriller barely more entertaining than an audit.

When we-know-who finally gets what's coming, The Girl on the Train briefly reaches its campy feminist potential, after two hours of taking a transparent mystery too seriously.

Parker makes an assured feature filmmaking debut, with poetic imagery and powerful narrative.

The Hollars plays like a Zach Braff cast-off, with its strenuous quirks and strummy musical interludes.

Lewis' performance is a spectacle of ego and last-chance craft that could only be possible for a legend near the end.

Burton's manner is changed, not drastically or consistently but more controlled, making strangeness the story's accessory rather than its purpose. He seems inspired by this material for the first time in years, in a creative vein where he finds the most satisfaction.

Deepwater Horizon is a brawny hybrid of technical expertise and real-life tragedy, with neither quality getting shortchanged.

It's occasional fun, but that's about all, folks.

The Magnificent Seven had me smiling throughout, tapping into Saturday matinee memories without seeming entirely old-fashioned.

A wheel-spinning homage gone terribly awry.

Even with its flaws, Snowden is Stone's return to relevance, in subject and execution.

Hanks keeps things interesting with an array of concerned expressions and distant gazes. But there's no tension in faked suffering. The actor and Eastwood's movie are limited by the goodness of their subject, the flawlessness of his actions.

What lifts Equity above ordinary corporate melodrama is its staunchly feminine perspective, and not only in its lead character.

War Dogs is cocked with an irreverent pedigree and loaded with the genius teaming of Jonah Hill and Miles Teller as high rolling gun runners making up everything as they go. It's a splendid mismatch, physically and tempermentally, folded into a screenplay that's only occasionally as razored as it might be.

Let's cut to the chariot chase. The latest screen version of Ben-Hur would be little more than a condensed miniseries without it, framed for small television screens, with performances to fit.

Even if their names were John and Mary, the two people soon to be a couple at the center of Southside With You could make viewers swoon. Richard Tanne's walk-and-talk slice of budding romantic life is that good at expressing those small moments when love begins taking hold.

Kubo and the Two Strings is lovely to behold, if viewers manage to keep their eyes open. It's an animated doozy and drowser at once, an uncomfortable mix of Miyazaki-style imagination and generic dullness.

Hell or High Water is a terrific piece of entertainment.... It isn't a highbrow indie but a gritty work of art. Mackenzie's movie thrills for all the right reasons and will be fondly remembered at year's end.

The man's goodness and his support team's devotion are quickly obvious; Gleason is nearly two hours long. Tweel could get to every uplifting turn his movie makes a bit sooner.

It's good to know Solondz hasn't lost his ability to shock, or his indifference to anyone thinking he goes too far. Wiener-Dog is gentler material than usual for him, sweet, even goofy at times, yet no comfier than a sandpaper hug.

James Schamus makes an impressive directing debut with Indignation, an oasis of summer movie intelligence.

Is it funny? Absolutely. Sausage Party also gets a bit exhausting, even running under 90 minutes. We're hearing essentially the same dirty jokes over and over, in a movie saved by its brilliantly filthy finale.

Florence Foster Jenkins is too much old-fashioned fun to saddle with ideas. Just sit back and let Meryl screech.

It's the garish swarm of colorfully twisted action that Batman v Superman needed, the anarchic approach such timeworn superheroes deserve. Suicide Squad characters aren't nearly as familiar, so writer-director David Ayer's movie is also messy, not entirely by design.

Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is superb, casting gauzy glows and sensual silhouettes against impressively designed sets. Allen drops a few philo-cynical lines worthy of his reputation but not nearly enough.

What could be a cash grab turns out to be the series' finest chapter, with the same piano-wire tension plus a narrative clarity lacking before.

Anchored by Viggo Mortensen's prismatic portrayal of Ben, this is one of the summer's nicest movie surprises, and among its wisest.

Lin siphons elements of his previous gig into this one. More precisely, he accentuates the existing "family" dynamic of Star Trek, leading to genuinely earned lumps in Trekker throats.

Ghostbusters is back, it's not bad, get used to it.

The Infiltrator is an evocative crime drama, anchored by Cranston's gift for playing internal conflict with wordless expression and that deep, clinched voice.

The Secret Life of Pets is funnier than Zootopia and fresher than Finding Dory. Bonus points for a genuinely touching finale that had me crying behind my 3-D glasses.

Filmmakers simply can't make Tarzan like they used to. If someone tries, like director David Yates did with The Legend of Tarzan, he's just another superhero, swinging on vines rather than spider webs. Natives can't be restless. Lions won't be wrestled...Tarzan fans leave feeling Cheetah'd.

Spielberg doesn't pull heart strings as much as push the right buttons, dutiful to an undercooked story. The BFG begins like a classic fairy tale and ends with helicopters and fart jokes, a tonal dissonance that is Dahl's fault, not the film's.

An efficiently preposterous thriller.

What truly makes The Neon Demon frustrating is Refn's undeniable talent for arresting images. His color schemes and framing make each second fascinating to observe, even when the dialogue is stultifying.

Finding Dory is a good sequel to a great film, and perhaps that's all fans could hope for.

What makes Central Intelligence appealing in appalling times is volcanic chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart.

The Conjuring 2 is serviceable horror, heavy on the audio stings yet smarter than the average gorefest.

For their next act, the illusionist con artists from Now You See Me will make every ounce of goodwill that movie earned disappear.

Graphically thinking outside the box, the Lonely Island comedy team makes a decent splash with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, an SNL spinoff that generally works.

The Lobster remains strangely romantic throughout, an absurdist take on the notion that great love stories — Casablanca, The Way We Were, Gone With the Wind — don't always end tidily.

It's difficult to not be cynical and redundant to declare this sequel needless for anyone except accountants, considering the studio involved. But this ranks among Disney's most shameless shirkings of its responsibility to creatively entertain, in order to pursue profits.

The Angry Birds Movie is simply a pointless swirl of color and motion to babysit small children on home video in a few months. Sadly, such movies aren't an endangered species.

For a good portion of Black's film, all this mayhem is great fun, since Russell Crowe is obviously funnier than he has ever allowed himself to appear, and Ryan Gosling is funnier than he has already proven. Together they form a deliciously dumb action duo; one brawn, the other sort of has a brain.