The yuppie dream of an unencumbered life where style always exceeds substance is at the crux of The Object of Beauty. Partly likable and partly odious, your reaction may depend on whether, like the proverbial glass of water, you see their lives as half empty or half full.

Zwick may be the definition of a modern blockbuster filmmaker, but he's also spent his entire career struggling to find the balance between opposing impulses – the sentimentalist's desire for emotional-historical heft and the artist's fascination with conflicted humanity – a struggle that's all over Defiance.

Ultimately, Under Siege isn't much because, basically, with Seagal as the star there's no real human center. But Davis, playing to Seagal's strengths, has woven a carefully crafted confection around the star, who has enough moves to hold it all together.

Up until now, Roberts and Franco have been second-tier actors in the industry food chain, but their first-rate performances in this better-than-average genre flick exude something called charisma. After this film, the two of them may graduate from watchers to players.

A ruthlessly satisfying thriller, The Keeping Room will linger with the viewer long after the credits roll.

The twist – and it’s a smart, effective one to be sure – is that this time it’s not a bunch of beergasming dudebros making life hell for the Radners, but an off-campus sorority led by Moretz’s feminist-slash-party powerhouse blonde, Shelby.

The results are striking: an emotional and aesthetic whirlpool of horror, fascination, beauty (it's hard not to feel a bit guilty – even morbid - enjoying such beauty), and resignation that would probably drown lesser movies but that gives The Bridge an eerie power.

With all its emphasis on beat, Brown Sugar can't maintain a steady one, yet when it finds it, the film surely soars.

As with all the films in the Universal Soldier series, this is mostly a catalog of increasingly brutal fights, which are the main attraction in and of themselves.

The Rocketeer is a gung-ho all-American summer flick with the guts not to try and be anything else.

It’s so amiably predictable that you end up wanting to throw some Motörhead at it, just to see what happens.

Eastwood plays it cool, thankfully. It’s the best film about drug trafficking that you can take your grandparents to.

Yet even though Forever After is not as fresh-seeming as its predecessors, it provides passable entertainment, especially for the kids who won’t be familiar with the George Bailey storyline retread – or midlife crises, for that matter.

For a first-time director like Barinholtz, The Oath is more than impressive. Tonally, it goes all over the place, but that only serves to keep the audience as off-balance as the characters onscreen. No matter what your political affiliation may be, this Orwellian farce is a candidate for President Trump’s least favorite film of the year.

By the time Turbo reaches the finish line, this new iteration of the fable about pursuing one’s dreams no matter how unlikely they seem joins the winner’s circle without quite nabbing the trophy.

The performances of all the central and secondary characters match the passionate intensity of the film's behind-the-scenes collaborators.

The longer you are immersed in this exchange of stories, of hope dying against darkness but proving its value just by its glimmers, the more it enthralls.

Sisters has a patchily funny first act but unleashes pure comedic chaos once the party gets started.

Unleashed suffers from a surfeit of sentimentality at times (blame Besson for that), but it's Li's first major Western role of any depth and he acquits himself admirably as both mad dog and melancholy master.

As much as Bardem is an expressive instrument for parlaying Iñárritu's somber worldview, so too is cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, whose stunning compositions find the poetry amid the sorrow.

A climactic speech on the lessons Western democracy might learn from Middle Eastern despotism offers a few moments of pure brilliance. I'd say that speech is worth the price of admission if it didn't also illustrate exactly what the film is missing: barbs that aim for the comedic bull's-eye.

It's a grim, dark, and relentlessly violent film throughout; James Bond as Terminator rather than Templar – but it delivers the goods in bloody high style: explosively, sexily, and with 007 shaken (not stirred) to his icy core.

A courtroom drama with a twist, this second feature from "Nightcrawler" writer/director Dan Gilroy features one of the best performances of Washington’s career.

A bright, amiable chronicle of the vivid lives of the women of Juchitán.

An excellently cast biopic about yet another self-destructive genius who burnt out but will never fade away – at least not in France, or wherever cigarettes, alcohol, and sex are still allowed.

In the end, I Declare War is both enthralling and a little frustrating in its refusal to fit neatly in any box. Its unpredictable tone clicks back and forth between the comical and the serious like the safety catch on a firearm.

The movie is kind of a mess – all over the place tonally, hastily paced, and overly reliant on the ostensible truisms of romantic comedy.

Pacino delivers his best work in a long time, but it’s contained within an utterly predictable redemption movie that only comes alive when Pacino plays one-on-one scenes with the other members of the cast.