Overall, Planes: Fire & Rescue, though featuring lovely graphics and stunning animation, is just too mundane.

Le Chef is practically bursting with good-natured bonhomie.

The story has a welcome sense of continuous momentum, and what’s more, DeMonaco has a better handle on both his skewering of the entitled upper class (not as pointed as Paul Verhoeven’s ultraviolent satire, but a start) and the righteous anger of the targeted lower class (personified by Michael K. Williams’ resistance leader, Carmelo).

Eloquent, it is surprisingly moving and beautifully structured.

Coherence presents a far-fetched premise at the outset, only to slyly smuggle in some remarkably relatable matters of the heart along the way.

The mutilated, slobbering, howling possessed in Deliver Us From Evil crawl on all fours like animals, and furiously dig into surfaces until their fingers bleed, but they’re nothing more than a sideshow, freaks on display for your perverse enjoyment. It’s unsettling, but never terrifying.

The narrative and its attendant lessons about how one rotten ape and/or human can spoil the bunch are engaging, although I found myself drifting during the battle sequences.

Unimaginatively filmed and of a misbegotten construction, Tammy goes all in with its namesake character (played by McCarthy), hanging the entire movie around a person who is immediately and irreversibly established as being thoughtless, unperceptive, destructive, and uneducated.

Despite the shaky-cam aesthetic, Dave Green’s first feature still makes for a brisk, appealing adventure capably anchored by four young actors.

For the most part, though, Nothing Bad manages to hold a tight grip, evocative as it is of Lars von Trier’s similarly unflinching "Dogville" and equally bound to start some conversations among those willing to stomach it.

Elliptical, authentic, and with a strong palate of visual flair, Miss Lovely can be a confusing concoction at times, but it is never boring.

Remarkably frank, Korengal espouses no one clear sentiment towards war.

Director Candler acquits herself nicely in her third feature-length film, never allowing the agonizing narrative to drown in self-pity. She keeps the film’s head above water despite the occasional contrivances in her screenplay.

Snowpiercer holds its own; it’s an unruly but rattling – and ravishing – work of art. On first watch, I wondered if there was anything to scratch beneath the surface – it seemed so straightforward, I worried there wasn’t enough there there – so I rewatched it almost right away and was surprised to find it still left me panting.

Its affection for this prince among putzes is infectious: Within the first five minutes, you’ll find yourself liking this man despite hardly knowing him.

Despite not breaking any new cinematic ground. The Rover plays like a taut spellbinder.

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.

It’s an indie film about abortion that comes snuggled in the broad strokes of a quirky relationship comedy. A grump might wonder when indie films got so soft, but I’m more intrigued by the inverse: Why aren’t more studio films this clever and winning and conversant in the same language as their audience?

Everyone in the ensemble is game for their respective misadventures, but little of it seems all that inspired.

The film is fun. It could have been produced by Ross Hunter but wasn’t, maybe even directed by Vincente Minnelli, although he probably would have screwed with it a lot more.

There’s a definite austerity to the storytelling, which is enhanced by the crisp black-and-white cinematography by Łukasz Żal and Ryszard Lenczewski.

Coyness aside, Borgman is a supremely controlled and darkly nuanced fable that veers away from your expectations every time you think you have it figured out.

For No Good Reason comes alive whenever the camera sits back and records Steadman attacking a blank piece of paper.

Sweet-spirited and sometimes meandering but always working in the service of its young protagonists’ perspective, We Are the Best! might come off as slight if you aren’t paying attention, or you pay too much attention to the too-cute closing credits montage.

The result is a bit like seeing a Nike commercial make a drunken pass at its friend’s manga collection while the X-Files DVDs watch from across the room; it may not make much sense, but at least it’s never boring.

I laughed, I cried, I longed for a pet dragon to call my own.

An unusually fun and funny film.

Imaginatively, it places all the known elements of the story in different contexts, completely recasting this familiar fairy tale into a more poignant and resonant work.