This is a film strictly for hardcore sentimentalists, despite its straight-ahead depiction of the harsh urban landscape in contemporary China.

Ultimately, it's 79 minutes of footage of a pair of petty, pretty people freaking out over having to go to the bathroom in their wetsuits, and in the end you find yourself rooting for the sharks.

Singer has great inspirations, and the multilayered approach to edits and sound design within the hypnosis is ingenious and excellently executed. But it doesn't add up to much.

Robin doesn’t make a definitive statement about the science of the hunt, but after the audience gets snake-struck, staring into those strange nictitating eyes, they’ll have no doubts about which species is the real mass-murdering interloper.

So does Rio measure up to the insanely great standard set by Pixar? Visually, yes.

The greatest problem with The Great Buck Howard is that writer/director McGinly shapes the story with young Troy as the protagonist, when the really interesting character is the one for whom the movie is named.

Instead of skipping lightly over rough seas, Triangle of Sadness bobs to shore like a floating sarcophagus.

Gloriously gonzo Appalachian creeper Spell makes one big change – having both the urban family in peril and the horrifying hicks with malicious intent be Black – and that's a refreshing change to a genre that's felt moribund since about "Wrong Turn 2."

The film’s gear change between mournfulness and madness is stuck in idle.

If nothing else, the film provides an enlightening look into the Karen diaspora, and a healthy reminder that God’s work is not contained by a sanctuary’s walls.

In the end this movie belongs to Del Toro. He imbues Jerry with such life, such ambiguity, such unsentimental complexity and depth that you can’t help but feel you’re watching the most intricately mapped depiction of addiction and strained humanity the film world has ever given us.

Intriguing.

World War Z comes across as a smart and ambitious horror movie, a bio-disaster film along the lines of "Contagion" or "28 Days Later." It’s nail-bitingly tense at times, although these well-executed moments mix with others that are too much of a murky jumble to follow with any precision.

As the goofily endearing Doris, Field is perfect. She makes this movie work.

The film has no script; it goes from moment to moment unhurriedly.

By the time Foot Fist limps to its ultimate fighting climax, you'll likely wish you had double-teamed "Game of Death" and "Waiting for Guffman" instead.

Through it all Philps keeps her camera low the better to represent the children’s as-yet-unformed POV, both literally and emotionally

As far as cinema’s long love affair with DID dramas goes, Split ain’t a half-bad contribution.

What starts out promisingly enough continues considerably beyond the end of the world and wears out even the most determined Wenders fan.

Yes, this is the stuff of fiction, where individuals can drift in and out of another's life and make extraordinary, unbelievable things happen.

Falling in love with the wrong person makes for a far more toothsome melodrama, a fact this small, satisfying picture rightly recognizes.

Echotone is scattered, for sure (the sound ordinance battle is poorly handled), but as an anecdotal account of Austin in the first decade of a new century, it's rarely anything less than compelling.

The resulting sequences might as well be lifted directly from Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi trilogy; watching these pockets of pure cinema emerge from a "crowd-pleasing" story of a boy and his dog may just be one of the oddest experiences you have at the movies this summer.

This Life may not be everlasting, but it sure gives us a good run for our money.

The Hole in the Ground is filled with all the tropes of the "sinister child" subgenre, but first time feature director Cronin (best known in horror circles for his 2013 award-winning short "Ghost Train") deftly weds it with the same rural Gothic sensibilities that have made Irish horror such a vibrant and unsettling scene for the last few years.

Like Night of the Living Dead, The Crazies offers no hope, no comfort and sure as hell no happy ending.

While the movie principally focuses on Flynn’s professional aspirations, including his desire to be accepted as a chef in his own right despite his age (the online trolls had a field day after the NYT article), a prickly relationship with his mother, Meg, provides a subtextual narrative that sometimes feels a bit uncomfortable.

The two fantastic performances by Allen and Costner that anchor The Upside of Anger are the reason to see this contemporary drama.

The Dreamers is infused with the same kind of wistful melancholy that made the French New Wave films so winning, and it’s all gorgeous to look at.

Faces of Death is dull and thoughtless, its attempts to smash influencer culture into voyeurism feeling artificial.

Kit Kittredge is a dutiful bore. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if, in the face of all-out market collapse, it might serve a dual purpose as primer for kiddies on economic depression – because food stamps always taste better with a side order of spunk. Or is it pluck?

It’s redemption through sentimentality, salvation through schmaltz.

Occasionally a bit preachy with its critique of advertising or the Eighties commodity mindset, this one's still relevant, and that's because Robinson isn't just trashing tactics -- he's trashing an entire industry.

Despite its pleasant veneer, Laggies is a bit adrift itself. Winning performances keep us engaged – and a one-sequence appearance by Gretchen Mol as Annika’s mother who flew the coop is hauntingly complex.

The catch is, once you get past the stunning special effects and the mind-numbing stuntwork, there's not all that much there.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Linklater's (and Bogosian's) running commentary on disaffected suburban youth is that it doesn't bore you half as much as it should.

Armie Hammer slyly steals the show as Ord, a very chill American arms dealer.

With its unconventional take on pet sounds, Keanu is refreshingly silly, an unabashed mix of humor and violence topped off by a big dollop of cuteness.

Sinister and hilarious, psychedelic yet grounded, absurdist while still gripping, In the Earth will take root in you.

The episodic nature of Beau's misadventures serves as both distraction and bloat, a metaphorical cavalcade that lacks the acerbic agility of many of its predecessor.

It’s all fairly unsubtle, and not infrequently flat-out silly, but I enjoyed its modest charms, especially in contrast to the bombast of Branagh’s previous Poirot pictures.

Megamind gets existential, but only in blips, and while it is never anything less than vibrant and exceedingly clever, it is also a rather slight thing for such mega-sized proportions.

Both apocalyptic and suitably vague, The Signal's only serious weakness comes from some borderline histrionic performances; then again, it's tough to call hysteria anything other than a sane response to a world gone mad. Crazy, man.

Burn After Reading, the new film from the Coen Brothers, won't be mistaken for "Fargo" anytime soon. Or "Barton Fink," or "The Man Who Wasn' There." Those films were black comedy done to perfection.

Bettis is perfectly cast as Mandy, her hazy disaffection to the increasingly bloody mayhem she has to deal with is best described as nonplussed irritation. Other performances are hit and miss.

Invincible is like a thick, sweaty slab of NFL comfort food.

Brimming with cornball humor and overt sentimentality, there’s something compelling within the film’s unyielding commitment to its own idiosyncrasies, not to mention the emotionally cogent backbone.

It's pure Bedlam, but for genre fans, Scorsese makes it feel like coming home.

Remarkable debut feature by New Yorker Ben Younger.

Simultaneously creepy and hilarious, this is the perfect slice of Grand Guignol for a humid summer's night.

Unabashedly warped and horny, Morgan knows exactly when to set off the depth charges lurking in the waters of Bone Lake, making its big, filthy reveal feel like the inevitable result of the characters’ urges.

Likely to be remembered more for its method of manufacture and release than for any inherent qualities of its own. It will also become one of the many fascinating footnotes in the always provocative career of Steven Soderbergh.

Despite a third-act tendency to gather a few spare genre clichés as it rolls along (Guns! Drugs! Angry siblings!), Robinson's film is a cut above the rest.

A loving, gory, ribald slasher flick that is both serious about the genre and gruesomely ridiculous.

It’s an enjoyable enough exercise in teen angst triumphing.

It has a classic Hitchcock scenario in which a man is mistaken for a murderer, but the film lacks humor and suspense. Even the great cast is unable to make much headway with this torpid thriller.

The finished product is two hours of fist-clenching action, suddenly violent and steadily horrifying.

Severance is a British horror-comedy that, from the get-go, has two distracting strikes against it.

Araki's self-described “guerrilla” style of filmmaking has just the right edge here, yet is polished enough not to distract. In this respect, Totally F***ed Up is a much better film than Araki's last effort, The Living End. Although the teenaged ennui in the film sometimes comes off as hip nihilism, there's no question that the pain and turmoil depicted is anything but heartfelt.

A humble comic fable, puttering along with a sunny grin, a goofy sentimentality, and not much else.

One of the most eloquent tales in ages of dysfunctional love – between a man and his ideals, between a country and its government, and, in the end, between Evey and V.

Starts off promisingly by empathetically depicting the fear and anger children feel when their parents separate, but ultimately its human emotions are dominated by goblins, trolls, and other CGI-generated creatures running amok on the screen.

There are worse accusations to hurl at a filmmaker than that she has too much empathy for her characters, but in the case of Oh, Hi!, it stymies the potential in its provocative premise and holds a pretty good movie back from greatness.

The movie offers glimmers of truth about the aging process, but there is always the sense that Moss only wades knee-high into this river.

Adamson's pulled a more morally nuanced rabbit (or badger, actually) out of his directorial hat this time out, and the result is a far more engrossing film than its predecessor.

A model and artist’s muse turned photographer who shot unforgettable images of Europe at war, Miller was then largely forgotten by the establishment, until her son revived her work after her death in 1977. Underappreciated in her time, one wishes better for her than this underwhelming biopic.

Solo is at its best when it keeps to the basics, and does them subtly.

A pleasantly vicarious slice of summertime falderol, innocuous in its presentation and often genuinely fun.

The film provides more of the same and nothing startlingly innovative, but what's here is good.

Weaver essays the new hotmama Ripley with wry, good humor -- you can tell she's having a ball playing this unstoppable die-cast she-wolf.

The window Hollywoodland offers into old-style workings of the company town is fascinating to behold, however the film doesn't always know where to direct our gaze.

Just when you're about to give up on this seemingly sorry excuse for an action movie, the picture does an about-face in a matter of minutes, and pushes the tension level way into overdrive and transforms suddenly into a solidly entertaining thriller.

For a heavy-duty subject, Call Jane is anything but, moving along almost like a lighthearted Lifetime movie.

One of the most intelligent, engaging, and gut-bustingly funny revelations to come along in a while.

The movie is, ultimately, a fascinating victim of its own ambitions.

Boseman as Jackie Robinson and Beharie as Rachel Robinson both deliver terrific performances, and the cast of managers and ballplayers – are excellent. Harrison Ford plays Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey as a larger-than-life eccentric, seeming almost like a demented Orville Redenbacher at times.

Up-and-comer LaBeouf (Holes) is a young actor to watch, but he's had better opportunities than this teen thriller to show what he's capable of.

It’s a mixed bag for sure, but The Good House ultimately displays enough self-assurance to overshadow its contrivances.

It's a straight-ahead caper flick, very cool, and very, very Seventies (although it takes place in 1995), from production and costume design on down to the soundtrack.

Quirky and undisturbed, unaffected and unaffecting.

Piglet, your time has arrived. Sooth us.

Beguiling performances and a story that veers between social observations, period detail, and genuine humor make this movie an end-of-the-summer stand-out.

Stearns’ film is less interested in examining the complexities of our duality than it is with displaying our societal follies with an irony and disaffection that is Stearns’ trademark. When Dual’s clone confrontation lands on its O. Henry finale, it’s both inevitable and satisfying, another darkly comic deposition to add to the archive.

It’s a creature feature for the Subatomic Age.

It's a call to arms, a call to pick sides in the deepening cultural, political, and spiritual schism between the two Americas of the 21st century.

But absurdity alone won’t get the train into the depot, and no amount of quirky characters floating in their chairs or fish changing colors at random can make up for the film’s lack of real humor or meaning. Which is to say, if you’re going to make a comedy about suicide, you’d better make sure the jokes land. There are people out there who could use a laugh.

It's ostensibly a Southern-fried comedy of terrors, but what little humor the film evinces almost immediately lodges in your windpipe like an errant bit of K-Fried-C gristle.

Nature may be healing, but too many static shots of it can drag an already slow movie out even more. Still, it’s not enough to detract from the moving performances of its three leads, who make The Summer Book well worth the watch.

The movie is a strange amalgam of compelling visuals and fascinating vocational details forged with deep moral ambivalence and often hollow didacticism.

Prelude to a Kiss holds its own as a comedy, especially considering the lightweight competition this summer. It's just too bad it never really rises to its promise as a romance.

It's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, just one that grabs your attention and then lets it go, time and time again.

A disturbing, spare story and a return to Polanski's earlier thematic grounds; it's not Knife in the Water, but it does feature fragmenting marriages and a big boat.

Although a Norwegian production, the film has a muted Hollywood sensibility that keeps things real. It’s an absorbing and often lyrical piece of storytelling that doesn’t overembellish the facts or rely on a pumped-up score or whiplash editing to heighten the dramatic action.

As beautiful as Loving Vincent may appear, there is nothing behind the brushstrokes.

Writer/director Lucía Puenzo (XXY) has a nice feel for her characters and, especially, the viewpoint of adolescent Lilith. But by giving away the story’s big reveal at the very beginning, it infuses the film with a potent sense of dread rather than suspense.

Anyone expecting truth from Bannon is on a fool's errand, and the floating criticism that there's no confessional here is missing the entire point.

It's smart; it's silly; it's – kill me now – shear terror.

It's easy to see this coming out in 1998 with Ashley Judd as Rebecca, and Carey Elwes under Victor's tattooed skin. However, this midbudget drama doesn't have quite that star power, and it definitely lacks the visual flair of that era's overdriven and weird procedurals.