In the past, I’ve given D’Souza the benefit of the doubt, going out of my way to be extra objective. I actually gave “2016: Obama’s America” a somewhat positive review in 2012 (3 out of 5 stars). But this thing is madness.

You certainly won't be bored. And if you go into Nerve looking for a thrill ride, you won't be disappointed. If you're hoping for more, that's a different story.

The final resolution of the plot is actually rather intriguing, but the journey to it is so slow and predictable that most moviegoers will have long since lost interest.

Once the movie is over and you realize how the filmmaker has turned the tables, you can't help but be amused — and amazed.

The charms of the leading ladies are hard to resist, as are their rare moments of clarity and self-awareness. Saunders is a tumbledown hoot while Lumley can generate a laugh with simply a deadpan stare, yet both seem a tad more human this time around. Just a tad.

The movie isn’t particularly hard to figure out and doesn’t try to be. Its charms lie more in what the actors make of characters that could have been cliches (or, if you’re in a kinder mood, archetypes) and its gorgeous look.

It wouldn’t make the movie good, but at least a meteor strike would preclude the possibility of a sixth “Ice Age” film.

The scares here are in the execution, aided by the acting. Bello is, like always, terrific, adding layers to what seems at first like the stereotypical mentally-ill movie character. She's fighting for something. Palmer, too, adds grit to her would-be iconoclast.

It’s a knowing nod to the past fused with a contemporary cast confident in the present, and where the franchise might take it in the future.

What matters is creating, and “Eat That Question” turns out to be a stirring look at the creative process examined, however reluctantly, by someone who created a lot, and exceptionally well.

It never feels contrived, never panders to our illusions. When the ending comes, it is neither expected nor a twist. It’s just what happens.

Through it all, you can’t stop watching Ben, Mortensen’s character. At some point, though, you realize it’s no longer because you admire him for his ideals but want to strangle him for his undying adherence to them.

The new Ghostbusters is a pretty funny movie, a goofy take on the goofy original that has some good laughs and a dopey story.

Thanks to Cranston’s performance — along with a game supporting cast — and Brad Furman’s tension-building direction, the movie works.

It’s a variation on a theme that Solondz has been working through his whole filmography, and when he’s successful, he convinces you to believe the worst in people and laugh at it. But when he’s not, the film can feel like punishment.

Long story short: Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a terrific movie and you should do whatever you can to see it.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates gives us too much hangover and not enough buzz.

The Secret Life of Pets is a pleasant-enough movie that would have been much better had it lived up to its title.

There are obviously a lot of parts here, and they don’t all fit together successfully; the shift in tone toward the end is particularly unsettling. But it’s not for lack of ambition on the part of the Daniels, nor the performances by Dano and Radcliffe.

Even more than an expose of bad reporting and social hysteria, The Witness is an intimate exercise in grief and healing

There are some good ideas in there, even timely. But eventually, like everything else in the movie, they’re washed away in a sea of blood and a hail of bullets.

While there is some magic here, it’s not the transportive experience it might have been.

As in “The Searchers,” some of the motivations are questionable and murky. Yet the pain of losing someone you love is just as palpable.

Director Susanna White keeps things low-key and absorbing, as the action moves from Marrakesh to London to Paris to Switzerland.

"Unfun" isn't a real word, but boy, it sure describes The Legend of Tarzan.

Laughably bad dialogue and wooden acting.

Genuine, honest, thrilling.

Free State of Jones is a well-intentioned slog through a potentially fascinating bit of Civil War history, brought to life only by Matthew McConaughey’s performance, and then only occasionally.

It’s safe to say that Tickled is nothing like what its filmmakers set out to make. That's an artistic blessing.

The film is visually striking, even if the images don’t always make sense.

Writer-director Noah Buschel (he was behind the Corey Stoll boxing drama “Glass Chin”) has crafted an odd little film that is sometimes compelling, sometimes maddening.

The music and the group are uplifting. The stories are inspiring.

The Shallows is pretty much a woman stranded on a rock, with a big shark between her and the shore. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat?” “We’re gonna need a smaller bikini,” more like.

If you’re a literature junkie, and I cringe at typing the phrase because it sounds so quaint in a world of 140-character expressions of self, then the film has its fascinating moments. The performances aren’t really among them.

The hidden magic in De Palma is Baumbach and Paltrow’s editing. The pacing is just right, and the stories flow, one from another. Sit back, relax, watch, listen and learn. It’s a good time at the movies.

“Raiders!” is as sloppy and imperfect as the kids’ shot-for-shot remake, but it has much the same charm.

You come to this movie hoping that Johnson and Hart make you laugh. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. The hit-to-miss ratio is higher than you might expect, and both actors could accurately be described as pleasant, if not especially creative.

Like the original, Finding Dory makes us understand the fears, joys, struggles and triumphs of family.

The heists are bigger, the illusions are flashier, and the pace is quicker. Even the cast is livelier and more fun. Perhaps best of all, the movie captures the first film’s twisty ability to twirl an audience around, so you’re never entirely sure what’s happened until everything is explained.

The Conjuring 2 won't make anyone forget the first film, but it's good enough that you'll hope they make another.

I love movies like The Wailing. Na Hong-jin’s film is like a genre buffet, with horror as the main course, but a hearty helping of mystery, crime drama, black comedy and family relations on the menu, as well. Don’t forget the side dishes of religion, superstition and ritual. It’s a full meal.

A movie with a title like Puerto Ricans in Paris comes with certain expectations. Low ones. Thanks to the efforts of Luis Guzman — and they are mighty — Ian Edelman's slight film manages to rise above them. Not by much, but above them, still.

It aims to match the mythic gravitas of “The Lord of the Rings” — even throwing in a nod to the Book of Exodus for good measure — and the results fall paint-by-numbers flat.

Writer and director Mark Elijah Rosenberg paces things patiently, which in some cases is a polite way of saying there are boring stretches.

The stunning character work is accented with moments of pure cinematic poetry. Audiard uses the camera like a paintbrush, composing lyrical interludes and disorienting transitions with the power to leave you breathless. It’s all so quietly brilliant — until it isn’t.

Yes, “Popstar” is dumb, dirty fun. So what’s not to like?

Me Before You is enjoyable in places, and Claflin eventually gives his character some depth beyond simply being angry. But the film exists mostly as a tear-production delivery system.

For all its missteps and machinations, the film mostly achieves its goals. In other words, have some Kleenex ready at the theater.

There is something fascinating about the intimacy of the camera here that is magnetic. And harrowing. And frustrating. And maddening. And a little sad.

There should be a sense of, yes, wonder at play at all times here. Too often “Alice Through the Looking Glass” feels like a slog through time.

It feels flat, disjointed, with too many moving parts.

DeCubellis sets up a satisfying, stylish mystery, populated by striking characters and situations.

It's a joy to watch Beckinsale attack the material — Lady Susan is one of those people whose interest in themselves and their own well-being is so great that it becomes contagious.

Osmond may tell the story to wring maximum emotion out of the audience, but so what? Isn’t that why people make these movies? It is. And more importantly, it’s why people watch them.

Lanthimos makes statements about the nature of love and relationships and their place in society, and there are fewer statements more important than those.

Screenwriter Jon Vitti and first-time directors Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis certainly give it a try, but their bag of tricks is mostly recycled and their sense of humor is aimed squarely at 12-year-old boys.

The porn, the drugs, the smog, the bad haircuts - you can play it for laughs or play it straight. With terrific performances from Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, Black does a little of both. The film is at once a nod to hard-boiled film noir and a send-up of it.

There’s a weird attempt at feminism here that doesn’t quite fly – basically it boils down to young women having every bit as much right to do bong hits all day and night as young men do – but at least there is an attempt.

A movie that never quite comes to life, despite its title.

The narrative feels undercooked, its life lessons just a bit too glib.

Jensen has a real gift for comedic editing, knowing just how long to play out a bit and when to move on. And Mikkelsen goes all in with his performance (as does everyone else).

There’s a jarring shift in tone and story in the last act, but the performances — particularly towering ones by a way-over-the-top Ralph Fiennes and an under-the-radar Tilda Swinton — perfectly balancing each other, carry the day.

The film whirs along with such entertaining efficiency that you may not realize that, by the end, it has shifted its blame in a manner that does not exactly betray a lack of courage in its convictions, but a willingness to let some of the bad guys off the hook.

The Man Who Knew Infinity is a good movie about a great subject, but one that should have been bett

Strangely, almost everyone must have been in the middle of some weird creative dry spell. Some stories are pretentious, some are annoyingly whimsical and some are just out-and-out obnoxious.

With The Family Fang, [Bateman] shows confidence with drama and, perhaps more impressively, with weirdness, never letting things get odd just for the sake of it. He wisely doesn’t force the issue. This bunch is plenty weird on its own.

I predict that within a decade, Mother’s and Daughters will be mandatory viewing at film schools across the country. There are precious few such perfect examples of how not to make a film.

Fun, happily, is one of the many ingredients in copious supply here.

The Meddler is one of those movies that surprises you by being something it’s not.

It’s an awkwardly constructed movie that doesn’t really gel.

It’s never a boring film to look at, but it is often a tiring one. Running over two hours, the film is bloated with portent and repetition, each story taking too long to get to its inevitable moral.

Yelchin and Poots are especially good.

If it’s not great — think of a sort of JV “Commitments” and you’ll have the idea — it is surely winning.

If Keanu sometimes comes off as another sketch stretched a little thin, that doesn’t put it in too shabby of company. It may not be as great as “The Blues Brothers,” but it’s up there with “Wayne’s World” — and light-years ahead of “Coneheads.”

It’s cute and entertaining, in a Saturday morning cartoon kind of way, but this one is just for the kiddies.

Perhaps because the bar was set so low, Mother’s Day turns out to be surprisingly watchable.

The film’s focus is too easily distracted by celebrity and turns less documentary and more fawning love letter to an industry already in love with itself.

It’s all too much without ever turning into much at all.

Hanks’ winning performance covers a lot of holes, but not all of them.

Trapero handles the movie's pacing with a masterful ease.

It's a weird movie. In a good way.

Director Enrique Begné, who helmed this year's winsome "Busco Novio Para mi Mujer," directs with an emphasis on action over comedy. Sometimes that feels misplaced; the stretches without laughs grow increasingly longer as the plot moves forward. But he keeps things enjoyably fast-paced, so it's hard to complain too much.

April and the Extraordinary World is a visual delight, an animated French steampunk adventure that is smart, exciting and wonderfully weird.

Cliff Curtis is staggeringly good as Gen.

Unfortunately, what the filmmaker has wound up with is something that feels like it should be playing at the bottom end of a triple bill at a drive-in.

The easiest way to describe My Golden Days is as a coming-of-age romance, but Arnaud Desplechin’s film, with its memories and carefully nursed grudges and moments of heartbreak and betrayal, feels weightier than that.

[Costner's] utter conviction to such a daffy project is strangely endearing. You may never believe one minute of Criminal, but Costner sure does.

Thanks to the nicely layered characters and a near-perfect mix of action and merriment, the movie feels wonderfully vivid and alive.

Barbershop: The Next Cut embraces the societal changes and rifts of the past decade, from Chicago’s increased violence and the Black Lives Matter movement to Barack Obama’s historic presidency, making the film an even more heartfelt love letter to Chicago.

Miles Ahead is by no means a perfect film, but it is an interesting one. In this case, driven by Cheadle’s performance, that’s more than enough.

While its audacity is laudable, the film ultimately has all the thrill of watching someone else play a first-person-shooter video game.

Unfortunately Jean-Marc Vallée’s film doesn’t measure up to Gyllenhaal’s performance.

Everybody Wants Some!! is a terrifically entertaining movie that proves Linklater once again a master of perfectly capturing moments in time without judgment or apology.

There are brief bursts of hilarity, and they are all, without exception, owed to McCarthy’s innate charisma and comedic timing.

Krisha is a unique film, honest and searing.

I appreciated the effort Delpy, directing her sixth feature, puts forth in trying to spice up the genre. But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.

The problem is the movie itself – the script, the editing, the construction, all of which combine to make the whole thing feel flat, lifeless and confusing.

This is a really good movie made by a terrific talent, stunningly shot and confidently directed.