Teo Bugbee

If Show Dogs sometimes betrays its shaggy charms, there is comfort in remembering that many movies are much dumber than this one, and so few of them have either the good taste or the good manners to compensate with puppies.

Lu sometimes feels more like a cynical plot device than a character. The problem is only amplified by the animation itself.

The reward of Mr. Zwart’s attention to the unique details of this historical account is that Jan’s path to safety frequently shocks, offering scenes of defiance that are unfamiliar or unexpected. In a familiar genre, The 12th Man preserves the element of surprise by understanding its terrain.

Supercon offers lip service to fan culture, yet it is difficult to imagine who would enjoy watching this ill-conceived satire. Directed by Zak Knutson, who also contributed to the screenplay, the movie is careless with its setting, callous toward its characters and crass about its audience.

Throughout, the writer and director Cordula Kablitz-Post asserts Andreas-Salomé’s commitment to her own independence. But Ms. Kablitz-Post’s focus on Andreas-Salomé’s suitors has the effect of chaining the early feminist’s legacy to exactly the patriarchal conventions she claims to reject.

At 93 minutes Krystal feels chaotic and thin, like a pilot that was also forced to be a series finale.

Never short on visual or emotional wonder, Big Fish & Begonia contemplates mortality with the imagination of an old soul who has been given new eyes.

Both sartorially and cinematically, the seasoned star at the heart of All I Wish deserves a movie with more to offer than knockoff style.

Under the limp direction of Scott Speer, Midnight Sun suffocates its sentimental script, portraying passion without wonder, sacrifice without ecstasy.

In the scenes that break with banality, there is a zing not only of originality, but of daring.

With tender performances and dubious conclusions, this story is best appreciated as an explanation for why people seek out the false comfort of gendered pseudoscience. But by fitting characters into formulas, The Female Brain fails to observe the flexibility of human experience.

With little more than the superficial psychology of shallow characters to guide the movie’s squeamish images, Like Me irritates, but it proves unable to provoke more than mild gut reactions.

The camera offers no protection; it only provides a witness. Fortunately for audiences, it’s more pleasurable to witness anarchy than it is to experience it.

Mr. King and his excellent team of actors and animators spin good writing and seamless digital effects into Rococo children’s entertainment. The gags don’t accumulate; they tessellate.

With a plot as unfocused as its freshly graduated characters, the shaggy Pitch Perfect 3 gets by on karaoke logic: What makes for a good time isn’t the song you sing, but the company you keep.

The Malloys’ filmmaking never rises to the level of the actors’ nuanced performances. The actors are energized, but the camera enervates.

Sonia is a powerful subject, but Big Sonia brings little perspective to her story.

At first, Rosie’s simplicity is jarring. But as the character learns more about her personal and poetic origins, her minimalist frame absorbs the weight of a rich, complex history. That transformation is the great pleasure of watching this small film.

As a resource for those looking to understand the process of recovery, it’s hard to imagine a more comprehensive or sympathetic look at the challenge of surviving.

For all the linguistic gymnastics, the film is hamstrung by its directors’ lack of visual imagination.

Tragedy Girls might add group texts to its instruments of death alongside marauding table saws and falling barbells, but the movie’s gender stereotypes keep it chained to the past.

The movie’s driving force is its mythic performance scenes, which are choreographed, sung and acted with clear, balletic conviction by the film’s star, Q’orianka Kilcher.

So B. It aims for an inclusive message. But Mama’s artificiality makes it hard to buy the movie’s themes of acceptance.

The performances from the film’s young cast members are uniformly excellent, including Owen Campbell as Zach and Charlie Tahan as Josh. But the direction from Mr. Phillips is what makes Super Dark Times unusual.

Thematically shallow but stylistically rich, Thirst Street is best enjoyed with a hint of its heroine’s willfully superficial vision.

The direction, by Preston A. Whitmore II, seems hampered by either a lack of resources or a lack of interest.

Like other fixtures of the Y.A. genre, Fallen is filmed with a professional sheen that sacrifices emotional sincerity for high production values.

It’s hard to enjoy the action when you witness its emotional cost, but once Sook-hee starts slashing goons from atop motorcycles, it’s equally impossible to root for the violence to stop.