Tirdad Derakhshani

A quiet, modest chamber piece more like "Moon" than "Star Wars."

A sly, richly modulated, emotionally engaging, and brutally honest film.

The Green Prince is an extraordinary achievement. It has all the suspense of a great espionage yarn, but it's also a powerful moral document that calls into question the tactics of terrorism.

It's easy to mistake the simplicity of plot and theme here for simple-mindedness - this isn't Pynchon or Proust. Kung Fu Panda 3 has the economy of a Zen koan, not to mention its inner harmony and wisdom.

A remarkable, thoroughly disturbing creepshow that burrows deep under your skin and refuses to let go.

A violent, sexy, crazy actioner about supermarket products that rebel against their human consumers, Sausage Party is one of the funniest and most deeply offensive movies of the year (it's obscenely funny), which lambastes America's most sacred of sacred cows: religion.

Wiener-Dog has a satirical edge as sharp as any Solondz has fashioned, but it is also filled with disarming moments of absurdist humor.

Michael Keaton has this incredible, I’m-at-the-edge-of-the-abyss look that should be taught as "the hangdog" in drama school.

Phantom Boy will appeal to children who have the patience and imagination to immerse themselves in the film's wiggly animation.

Storks feels way too much like a belabored and mediocre SNL sketch. Each character has some neurotic tic or crazy fixation, which they expound upon in monologues that feel like material for a stand-up act or a sitcom.

While it flirts with the ridiculous, the film manages to maintain a certain gravitas as its many stories unfold.

Yates and Rowling skillfully weave their bleak – and very blunt-edged – message into the fabric of the story. It might be wildly out of place in a fantasy aimed at tweens, but it’s a welcome change from the usual vapid blockbuster.

Deadpool is, on the whole, a big bowl of fun filled with great stunts, gory fight scenes, and sexy poses.

A tediously faithful remake of French filmmaker Luc Besson's terrific 2004 international hit "District 13," the Besson-produced Brick Mansions might have been mildly interesting had it been made a decade ago.

While its rather formulaic second half relies on clichés about underdogs' triumphing against the odds, The Idol opens with a terrific look at Assaf's childhood that has the feel of "Stand By Me."

Featuring an awe-inspiring, stellar performance by Parks and Recreation's (and Wilmington's) Aubrey Plaza as Beth, the film opens with the high school girl's short-lived death.

Rogue One is a minor little story with a likable cast and familiar Star Wars themes. But it tries so hard to be an epic masterpiece – with self-important speeches and an insanely outsize orchestral score – that it ends up a laughable parody of itself.

Rosamund Pike is adorable, if a little too ethereal and flighty.

While it's not entirely successful, this stylish shocker is a big step up from the earlier film.

Despite its visual beauty and Rahim's extraordinary, and silent, performance, the film never quite manages to connect on an emotional level.

A complicated, multi-segmented narrative that's much longer, more elaborate, more dramatic, and more packed with chilling moments and hair-raising visuals than one could anticipate, even from Wan.

A clever, fun, and affecting romantic dramedy about love and rock-and-roll.

The chemistry between Smulders and Bean is simply terrific. Their performances almost save the film from its earnest, if bumbling, attempts to make a statement about the social, economic, and racial differences that divide the two characters.

The Confirmation is a powerful directorial debut from 59-year-old writer Bob Nelson, who received an Oscar nomination for his first screenplay, Nebraska.

Air Doll covers some of the same ground as that other postmodern Pinocchio story, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, while avoiding its facile sentimentality.

Amid all the horror and the black ooze, there emerges a deeply touching story about the power of love.

A crafty, suspenseful, violent horror film that touches on the inner lives of sexual predators, the question of guilt and remorse in the human soul, and the practice of torture.

A disquieting and ultimately disappointing political thriller.

It's not a critique but a rather graceful, witty, and stylish film that offers possible solutions to the problems Moore believes plague the United States.

For all its frank sexual language, Kelly & Cal is hardly revolutionary or shocking. It drags in the second act and has an ending so obvious, you can smell it from the opening scene.

One of the most insightful films about the War on Terror since 9/11.

It's grown-up, deadly serious, and free of the ham-handed romantic subplots that mire so many films from the region in ick stew.

While its message is a little simplistic, Knock Knock is shot through with a brilliant, gleefully anarchic dark humor that's equally fun and disturbing.

A remarkably weird and wonderful exercise in psychological terror featuring a virtuoso performance by Scottish actor James McAvoy.

If you're looking for quality prepackaged, predigested Hollywood family fun this summer, you could do a lot worse than Despicable Me 2.

Partridge portrays David with immaculate timing and meticulous attention to detail. We feel for the character's pain, but never quite trust him.

When it comes to sheer comic-book fun, few summer movies deliver a more consistent, satisfying, thoroughly enjoyable shot of cinematic jouissance than the delightfully adventurous actress Scarlett Johansson's latest bit of strange, Lucy.

Hong, who makes his feature debut here, has a masterful command of rhythm, beautifully weaving each strand of the narrative around that momentous opening scene.

On many levels, Kingsman has the makings of a sure-fire hit. Yet, this is one spy story even the most dedicated addicts of the genre would do well to miss.

Part of the problem lies with the venue. When it comes to standup, bigger is not better. One-man shows work better in smaller spaces. In his bid to proclaim his giant stature as an entertainer, Hart loses himself.

It's refreshing to see an actor tell his own story with some real honesty. Overall, however, Tab Hunter Confidential is too much like every other Hollywood True Story out there.

It hobbles its otherwise fascinating premise by descending into hagiography. Webb's story is a tragedy, to be sure, but portraying him as a saint and martyr does little to advance the truth.

Allied comes off like a highlight reel that mimics the look and feel of a whole school of great films, from "Casablanca" to Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and "Notorious."

While it has considerable charms, Hippocrates is just too predictable.

An inspiring, educational, highly enjoyable documentary.

A horror pic with a new gimmick that likely will spawn an entire subgenre of more substandard rubbish.

It's as exhilarating and moving a film opening as you're likely to experience. Sadly, the rest of Follow Me doesn't live up to this overture.

Charming, emotionally resonant, yet nowhere as fresh and dramatic as its predecessor.

Wolf Totem has some of the most exciting, mind-blowing scenes of nature I've ever seen.

Nerve gives moviegoers everything they'd want from a teen romance. It's a little less successful as a critique of life in the age of Instagram.

While it hits some of the usual sci-fi tropes, Creative Control's center of gravity isn't tech itself, but the relationships of those who use it.

A well-shot, gore-free psychological thriller about our elemental fear of darkness, Lights Out has a good deal in common with "The Babadook." While it can't touch Jennifer Kent's masterpiece, it does mark the arrival of a major new talent.

Chilling - and very chatty. Snowden is a seriously talky film. Yet it never feels tedious, thanks to Stone's tremendous sense of story construction, the film's razor-sharp editing - and Gordon-Levitt's masterful performance.

For all its grand promises, Ip Man 3 teeters uneasily among B-movie clichés.

A bleak, despairing testament to the cruelty of war, and how it mangles and defaces everyone it touches.

Our Kind of Traitor strains credulity: The world it attempts to depict - international organized crime - is too large, too unmanageable and too easily caricatured.

Tries - far too hard - to replicate the Alice effect and falls short.

Alvarez triumphs because he made one crucial decision: Avoid digital animation and use only practical in-camera special effects. He uses every trick from classic Hollywood and invents a few of his own.

A fascinating, suspenseful story about obsessive love, money, the Mafia, and murder.

A small, intimate micro-budget effort, Altered Minds boasts terrific production values, pitch-perfect performances, and an eerie soundscape of found noises that evoke the feel of a surreal nightmare.

The intention is clear: Garneau wants to make his points as persuasive and accessible as possible. Yet, the truths That Sugar Film contains were already obvious decades ago. It's sad that we need reminding.

Well-written, gorgeously shot, and expertly edited, the film is also an exasperating exercise in good intentions gone wrong. For all its strengths, Genius often trades in tiresome clichés.

The film delivers what it promises - an education and a thrill.

Eloquent, moving, and deeply troubling, Little Accidents is a true contemporary tragedy.

It falls short of the mark, even as it hits every one of the genre's conventions.

It touches on serious - and ridiculously complex - ideas but always cuts them down to manageable, middle-brow morsels.

The Purge: Election Year tries to show that what counts isn't firepower but compassion, not egoism but community. But frankly, it can't help but shoot itself in the foot: The violence is too tantalizing, too stylized, too fetishistic - the film features killers dressed in fanciful Halloween costumes who dance and sing as they dismember people.

If Mark Wahlberg's new pic, The Gambler, feels like a stale rehash of existential tropes, that's because it is.

The movie is well-edited and lean, a fast-paced, action-filled bit of froth that manages to be diverting and surprisingly fun.

Despite the competent animation, the great tunes, and funny voice work by costars Russell Brand and John Cleese, Trolls is a lackluster entry. The story is clichéd and predictable. Overall, the film has no real magic.

The film is too formulaic and far too prone to melodrama, with outsize emotions as ridiculous as its comic-book villains.

No one should be expected to endure 115 minutes of this nonsense.

This should have been an easy knockout. Yet the pieces just don't fit together. Hands of Stone lurches back and forth between well-crafted dramatic scenes and shabby, cliché-ridden sequences that sap the viewer's energy.

One of the most uncinematic pieces crafted by an otherwise fine stylist, Cymbeline befuddles with its ineffective blocking and lack of art direction.

Despite a great cast and several terrific action sequences, Fuqua's film is largely forgettable.

You'll need a strong stomach for some of the scenes in A Girl Like Her, one of the most moving and intelligent of the recent glut of films and TV specials about teenage bullying.

An uneven, mildly amusing, and highly derivative flick featuring a wonderful, quirky cast as a crew of art thieves who run a complex scam on the art world, and on each other.

Mixing elements from documentaries, biopics, war flicks, and Hallmark romances, Ross' film is a living history tour, but with gory special effects and a smoldering smattering of sex appeal.

Like Clint Eastwood’s masterful 2006 WWII drama "Flags of Our Fathers," Lee’s film is as much about how we spin war stories as it is about war itself. Both involve a group of heroic soldiers sent home by the Pentagon to help drum up popular support. Both are made by filmmakers keenly aware that stories have the power to justify a war or turn the public against it.

An uneven, perpetually redundant comedy-drama.

Williams does a terrific job portraying Nolan's ambivalence, the mix of fear, guilt, and excitement that grips him and the gradual change he undergoes in the ensuing weeks.

Central Intelligence is actually funny.

Tai Chi Zero, the first film in a planned trilogy, will leave hard-core fight enthusiasts wanting. But it's a droll, pleasant diversion all the same.

Crazy funny.

While it descends too often into the melodramatic, it's a solid, smart picture and a welcome addition to the genre.

On the whole, it's a mess of action clichés built on top of a shaky premise that's so out-of-this-world that it'll either enrage you - or make you laugh. I chose the latter. I'm not ashamed to admit that I had a lot of fun at this movie.

Araki's films have never been known for their subtlety. Think Douglas-Sirk-meets-Johnny-Rotten. He tries to rein in his tendency for the baroque in White Bird in a Blizzard, but he pushes the story too far in the direction of the grotesque.

Never again let it be said that an action movie is just like a video game. Hardcore Henry, a frenetic, dizzying, and ultraviolent actioner from Russian rocker-turned-director Ilya Naishuller is one - a first-person shooter writ large for the big screen.

Road Hard, partly funded through crowd-sourcing, is an enjoyable picture. It's sure to appeal to Man Show fans, though it withers when compared to another recent film about a has-been comic directed by its star, Chris Rock's remarkable Top Five.

Song One burns with genuine sentiment, charismatic actors, and good music. One wishes it were held together by something more than a series of moods.

At times, Spare Parts sails perilously close to the saccharine. But the film is a fine example of a message movie that does justice both to its important subject matter and to its characters' inner lives.

A stylish, painterly picture that evokes classic horror films from the 1930s.

Isn't a cheap knock-off but an equally effective, deliciously disturbing movie. It's bound to delight genre fans (and dismay critics, who attacked the first as heavy-handed and sloppy).

Gold never settles on a coherent point of view. Is the film supposed to be a critique of capitalism or is it a Horatio Alger story about a self-made man preyed upon by wall street?

It's intriguing enough to suck you in, but confusing, fragmentary, frustrating.

Just call this movie "The Hangover: AARP Strikes Back."

The characters' high-minded, if unsophisticated, patter clashes with the film's ironic-chic style, and it never manages to move beyond the late-night palaver of earnest, if naive, college freshmen.

With its female heroines and its uncertain, constantly shifting view of reality, The Girl on the Train is a bit like a cubist, feminist episode of "Law & Order." But not much more.