Should be applauded for finding a new angle on a tireless story, but you might want to think twice before booking passage.

Von Trotta's film is informative, instructive, intriguing, and polished, yet it finds no ecstasy – religious or otherwise.

The Marvel films have been accused of being repetitive in their structure; Infinity War bursts any conventions wide apart. This is a vast, truly epic endeavor, one that both brings the current MCU to a near-climax (wait for the so-far-untitled follow-up, due May 2019, for the ultimate resolution), and sets the future in motion.

Screenwriter Bruce Wagner (who's been skillfully dissecting Hollywood misfits high and low since his 1991 novel, "Force Majeure") has crafted a darkly humorous moral fable that Cronenberg embraces with unabashed glee.

Pure entertainment, and a true chop-socky classic.

The real engine that keeps the movie moving isn’t the cliched script or the spectacular race footage. It’s Pitt.

At the center of it all stands Reeves, a convincing embodiment of both the calm before the storm and its subsequent capacity for ruin.

An Inconvenient Sequel does indeed speak truth to power, but the elephant in the room remains: The very powerful rarely pay attention to the utter truth.

That’s the central problem with The Way, Way Back – it’s more manipulative than truthful.

Chef is filled to the brim with the kind of heart and vivacity that makes up for the film’s familiar storyline.

Most of all, Missing Link is a perfect addition to Laika’s thoughtful blend of action, adventure, and heartfelt tales of growing up.

Canny and somewhat overwhelming documentary.

Inspiring true story? Perhaps not, but certainly a story that’s genuine enough to earn a few smiles.

The images are vivid, their meanings much less so.

It's a keeper, a tumultuous love story set against the backdrop of 24 hours of really, really inclement weather in the Oklahoma heartland.

Hell, even Heston's performance elicited cheers back in the day. Franco, in a totally, tonally different role, but still the prime human here, is a pale shadow of the ruined future to come.

Breathtakingly gorgeous but ultimately thematically unsatisfying.

Winning and emotionally punchy film.

Funny and fierce and deeply moving.

Timecrimes is a tremendously entertaining bit of Kafka that whirlpools down into "The Twilight Zone."

The only weak link here is Aniston's character – her Olivia, stuck in a holding pattern, feels like a holdover from Holofcener's previous, single-girl pictures, and Aniston underplays the role to the point of expressionlessness.

My Friend Dahmer becomes one of the year’s most chilling true-life dramas.

Come True aims to explore the layers of the dreamworld, and the terrifying monsters that lurk in the depths of our minds. Yet the unconscious world writer/director Anthony Scott Burns dissects appears to evade him as well, with layers that lead to empty answers and a leading woman who is paper thin.

There's a lot of wasted effort here trying to distract us from what we know good and well is going to happen. Nevertheless, it's time pleasantly spent.

An altogether more viscerally engaging film, from its relentless pacing and slam-bang effects work to the fine, appropriately heroic score by John Ottman. That the movie has an obvious gay subtext neither adds nor detracts from the film’s smashing popcorn appeal.

Don't believe the hype: Paranormal Activity may be a lot of things, but the words "scary" and "movie" are not among them. It is instead nothing more or less than an excruciatingly tedious YouTube gag cleverly marketed to go viral in the broadest and most box office-friendly way.

It's this overstuffed storytelling, mixed with lackluster pacing, that renders No Time to Die a torturous misfire, and an utterly disappointing exit for Craig's Bond. I hate to say it, but this is Bond's Rise of Skywalker.

A pure cinematic distillation of Maclean's words, it is by turns austere and vibrant, disconsolate and joyful.

Cumming presents a natural world red in tooth and claw, yet the inevitable lessons learned in this moss-covered and frost-blasted wilderness still have modern resonances – about fear, bigotry, superstition, survival.

After spending time with Moretti during the course of this movie, one discovers that he makes an interesting and entertaining companion.

Honeydripper’s story isn’t anything you haven’t seen a dozen times before, but where Sayles succeeds (where Sayles always succeeds) is in his ability to dramatize the psychological and linguistic details that give identity to a subculture struggling for survival.

Luckily, Ne Zha II still retains the charm of the best parts of the original, with the young rapscallion Nezha still a hyperactive bundle of mischief, hand stuffed down his pants like Dennis the Menace, waddling through jade palaces as he defies his destiny. May he stay as chaotically endearing for the inevitable part III.

It’s an enchanting work, heartbreaking yet wryly amusing.

While the tone of Rafiki is simple and direct, director Kahiu demonstrates a delicate touch when she enhances Kena and Ziki’s early euphoric attraction to one another through a subtle shift in the otherwise vibrant cinematography by Christopher Wessels.

The questionably good news put forth in this documentary is that vanity apparently survives everything.

Depends on the two actors who all but carry it.

Though mildly interesting for their individual merits, there is little sense of their connection to each other as a film and to us as an audience. It's as though this cab ride of a movie keeps moving forward with no clear destination or purpose.

This solid if predictable courtroom drama is elevated by a terrific cast and impassioned subject matter.

The film is so velvety textured and dreamy, I would’ve stuck around for more. That is Cianfrance’s special talent.

Funny, bright, sly, and unabashedly romantic, Notting Hill combines fluffy, fairy-tale fantasy with big laughs, snappy dialogue, and small moments of pain and unease to create a surprisingly satisfying two hours.

(It should also be noted that Page One wears its pro-Times bias on its sleeve, right up to the rankling but now-common inclusion of a "get involved" Web address at film's end.)

It's the kind of movie you wish you had more time to absorb and could see more than once before reviewing.

If The Five Devils more bravely embraced a single perspective, that might have better bound together its depiction of a family splitting apart.

Unvarnished and often silent, she (Hayek) holds the camera’s gaze like a dare. She cuts such a striking figure, you’ll want to follow her anywhere … and where the film ultimately follows is utterly gutting.

Who would have ever thought to pair up Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King? But weird as it sounds, this creepy thriller works.

A vast improvement over the previous two outings, but still and all, it's no "Star Wars."

To a one, they're terrific. But in this overpacked ensemble cast, it's Binoche you want to see more of.

Gunn’s script grasps two major aspects of the Superman mythology. One, that journalism done right will save the day as much as punching bad guys will, and two, that immigrants will often subscribe to the principles that Americans claim are so self-evident more than most Americans will. Corenswet embodies both in a way that no one since Christopher Reeve has, willing to be the gosh-darning nerd if that means doing the right thing.

No one in the movie is entirely right in the head, least of all James, whose rapidly disintegrating sanity provides Pitt with his juiciest role since "Snatch," one he chomps into with all the relish of a guy who’s been playing suave leading men for too long.

In the dark of the theatre Fracture keeps it together – mainly through the sheer will of Hopkins and Gosling.

Gentle and comedically nuanced exercise in mourning.

The Tavern footage is terrific stuff – unstaged and unmediated and the closest the camera gets to penetrating the enigmatic yet magnetic chef.

Inequality for All creates a framework in which all this heavy material is easily digestible, and refashions Reich, the policy wonk, into an inspirational figure who argues that “history is on the side of positive social change.”

Unfortunately offers up the same old recipe, with a soupçon of variation to make those jump-scares not feel like day-old bread.

Hitchcock and Almodóvar this film isn't, but it's a worthwhile and fairly amusing effort.

The film provides invaluable context in its detailing of institutional racism in the Sixties and Seventies and in its emphasis on Ellis as an advocate for equality and as a righteous shit-stirrer.

Shot with the creative energy of a mediocre sitcom, the scenes play out predictable plot devices with minimal creativity and even less risk.

Gently funny and admirably, even unfashionably humane, People Places Things is at its best beat-to-beat.

The tone of the film is in keeping with its most resounding image: Hilynur lying in the snow with a cigarette dangling from his mouth as the suicide note on his chest blows away in the wind as he wakes up.

A zippy, energetic, automotive free-for-all, a caper extravaganza minus the bleak overtones that have come to figure in so many 9mm movies these days.

If the sensitive coming-of-age love story is a well-worn tradition in gay cinema, Come Undone is at the very least a superior example of it.

The more you become acquainted with these men, the more this movie grows on you. This is the sneaky power of authentic cinema verité. The purer the form, the purer the truths that may be revealed.

Never Look Away seems as self-satisfied with itself as its fictional artists are with the works they produce. Pardon my disgruntlement, but after three hours, my tendency is to desire a more resounding ending and something less solipsistic.

I continually found myself longing for the sheer intensity of the director's past glories, like Jaws, or even Duel. Spielberg seems to be trying so very hard for that elusive “Gosh, Wow, Sense of Wonder!” that it all looks strained in spots.

Amusing enough, but weirdly joyless.

"It's difficult for people to believe our story," says one kid, succinctly, eloquently, "but if we don't tell you, you won't know."

Director Winterbottom and screenwriter Hossein Amini could have given the story a bit more resonance, particularly in character development, if they had allowed some of the scenes to go a little longer.

Aronofsky’s story of Noah and his ark is far-removed from our collective recollections of Sunday school pageants and Cecil B. DeMille extravaganzas. Instead, this film opts for the sort of human-scaled realism that almost allows us to smell the dank stench of a menagerie cooped up for 40 days and nights on a water-swept barge.

Crimes may lack the incisive wittiness of eXistenZ or the suppurating nightmares of The Fly, but even lesser Cronenbergian body horror is something to behold.

Small Town Crime is so engrossing in its optimistic darkness that it screams for the further pulpy adventures of Mike Kendall. Hawkes imbues him with the beat-down appeal of a Sam Spade or a Jim Rockford.

This is Cage trying to find himself in all those messy decisions he’s made, trying to make amends while accepting and celebrating who he is.

It may all be a flashback, but Black Widow is truly a bridge with a true direction as the MCU moves into its post-Avengers era.

Barrymore’s casting choices are intrinsic to the success of the film. Lewis, under her rink name, Iron Maven, hasn’t had this meaty a role in maybe 15 years, while Wilson as the team’s shaggy male coach is a hoot to watch. Harden and Stern, as Bliss’ parents, create fleshed-out characters instead of lazy depictions of the paper tigers that grown-ups usually are in teens’ stories.

Torres mixes in everything that makes his specific brand of comedy unique into Problemista: Alejandro's toy pitches are obscurely sassy, his imaginative use of CGI and costuming is fantastical, and his dry delivery is the perfect juxtaposition to the film's outlandish absurdity.

American Woman lives in the quiet spaces of Deb's life. Always suitably understated, it remembers that loss doesn't always swallow a life, but it always leaves a void.

True love is never having to say goodbye … because when you look in the mirror, there s/he is.

It's hard to always know what Primer is saying or where it's heading, but it looks fantastic while it unfolds and you won't be able to forget what you've witnessed.

This is provocative stuff, to be sure, in which the stakes are so high that a pratfall concludes with exploding limbs and the anguished effect of its final minutes is a quiet shock to the system. A comedy of errors and terrors? Who woulda thunk it?

40 Years in the Making is a cliquey undertaking that leaves you mostly on the outside looking in, but after witnessing the joy of its participants at the end, there’s little to begrudge.

Rustin is filled with powerful performances and compelling speechifying, but it never quite manages to balance the onscreen potential of both man and mission.

One of Jordan's best films, and almost certainly in Nolte's top two percentile.

It’s a visceral fear that’s filmed in a way that forces the viewer to undergo the emotion along with the character.

It's a loud, obnoxious, and pleasant-enough entertainment, but hardly the soaring tale of one man's struggle that it was so clearly envisioned to be.

Moon doesn't belabor anything, really, so confidently measured and philosophically nuanced it all plays out (aided by a striking, under-the-skin original score by Clint Mansell).

Last Days in the Desert is a Jesus story that plays well for the nonfaithful who nevertheless appreciate the example of Jesus and his teachings.

Does the man make the uniform, or does the uniform make the man? Schwentke's conclusion is as dark as you may fear.

Segel, scripting himself, injects regular bursts of comic genius into the proceedings.

Bottle Rocket's minimalist pop has a refreshing flavor but insufficient bubbles for a long, cool drink. Maybe someone ought to think about culling this thing down into a sustainable short film.

For all the effort that Van Sant and his team put into making Dead Man’s Wire look like 1970s Indianapolis, its ability to really summon the spirit of the era only goes skin deep.

This Stanley Kramer-produced film is the original biker movie.

Cameron makes you care for this place, for its residents, for its wildlife, and most especially for its whale analogs - a major element of the story, one that curtly reminds us that our own cetaceans may well be our intellectual equals.

Few filmmakers these days are as capable and assured with the fumbling ambivalence of human conversation as Green is; his ear for the half-truths, misapprehensions, and long-simmering defensiveness of everyday dialogue is a wonder to behold.

An intelligent, viscerally kinetic throw-down, a jolt of pure adrenalized Spike that holds more than a few touches of genius in its overripe storyline.

The Blackening feels like a cash grab, a film so blatantly made because “horror is so hot right now.” There’s no love for the genre, and if you don’t admire something to some degree, it’s hard to properly satirize it.

Ultimately, Naked Lunch is more about the act of writing, while the original is concerned with the phenomenon of addiction. Each does what it does well… but differently.

Hush has a solid first half before the cat-and-mouse shenanigans begin to seem repetitive and prolonged. Still, at 82 minutes Hush is a concise and well-executed horror nightmare.

Other People is gentle, heartfelt, and of a delicate build. Kelly’s best observations are small but true: the touching banality of a bad pop song, and that “other people” is in fact most people, if you’re paying attention.

A suspenseful breath of fresh air following on the heels of one of the dumbest Hollywood summers in recent memory.