Mbatha-Raw is shockingly good in creating both the "Noni" public persona and the real Noni.

Ant-Man has its own voice, no doubt thanks to all of the talent involved, and it stands as a surprisingly sturdy success for the studio, a delightfully weird little movie that has no business working this well.

This could easily be ground zero for a whole new series of films, but if it remains a stand-alone single movie, Edwards told an entire story, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, it feels like Godzilla actually matters.

Edgerton, who also wrote the screenplay, shows a masterful touch in playing with conventional expectations.

Even when they're silly, Joel and Ethan Coen are as smart as any filmmakers working, and Hail, Caesar! is a clever cartoon filter through which they examine some very sincere spiritual ideas.

Darren Aronofsky's Noah is not just one of the most ambitious films I've seen this year, it's one of the most ambitious films I've ever seen.

As someone who enjoyed the show enormously while it was on the air, I am relieved to report that the film felt to me like it successfully recaptured the spirit of the show's first season.

[Bateman] proves himself just as comfortable behind the camera as he in in front of it, and "Bad Words" is very, very good as a result.

Prisoners pulls no punches, and it wants to leave a mark on you, and it is a testament to all involved that it manages to accomplish those things so well.

It's impressive to see how Johnson manages tone in the film, as things go from sort of giddy and fun at the start to increasingly paranoid and then eventually taking a turn into a sort of brutal sadness.

It's an excellent showcase for Paul King, for the tremendous character animation by Framestore, and for Ben Whishaw's delicate, inquisitive work as the title character, and it is one of those rare family films that actually seems to think of children as smart and full of empathy.

It may be overstuffed the point of bursting, but there's much to like here.

The Dirties feels authentic all the way through, and it carries a bitter punch. It is a slight movie in terms of actual events that happen, but it grapples with some giant ideas and emotions in a very effective way.

The characters are so well drawn (and the relatively young cast steps up to the plate) that combined with the material’s natural tension you’ll find yourself riveted to the proceedings.

It's full of laughs and, towards the end, I even got a bit choked up in places.

It is almost preposterous how little "plot" there is in the film...What it has in spades is attitude, and right up until the moment the film began, I was afraid It was going to be so juvenile and filthy that I would end up annoyed by it. Instead, from the very beginning of the opening credits, it is clear that director Tim Miller and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have crafted something deeply silly that isn't remotely interested in playing by the conventional rules of what we've come to think of as "the superhero genre."

This sort of storyline could go wrong very quickly, but thanks to some fortuitously funny moments, Vallee’s assured direction and Gyllenhaal’s spectacular performance it’s surprisingly compelling. And, let’s be absolutely clear: it’s Gyllenhaal who keeps it all together.

Manglehorn is a lush, hazy drama that requires a certain open-mindedness, but there's no doubting the craft of its director, who continues to prove himself one of the less predictable and most skilled craftsmen around.

To say Blanchett is good here is a grave understatement.

It’s simply a very well done movie that features Maggie Smith’s best work in years (and, yes, she’s better here than any of her years on “Downton Abbey”).

While it’s doubtful any film could match the weird giddy energy that made Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure a classic, this movie honors and expands his legacy, and should prove to be a pleasure for anyone who has ever loved this character.

Snowden has a secret weapon, and it’s one that I wasn’t expecting: a fully-engaged and on-his-game Oliver Stone.

Much of the success of the film is due to the four leads who seamlessly work the one or two outrageous moments into the story without resorting to over-the-top characterizations.

Only the combined talents of both Blanchett and Mara can make the film's powerfully realized finale work.

If you have a fondness for the genre and a particular love of '60s pop, The Man From UNCLE is the summer's big fizzy drink, all bubbles, and while it may be gone the moment you walk out of the theater, the smile it puts on your face will likely linger.

There is a faith that the story and characters will keep the audience engaged, even if there isn’t a bright and shiny thing to distract them in a every single scene.

Suicide Squad is not the darkest mainstream superhero comic book movie ever made, nor is it even the darkest live-action film featuring Batman ever made. However, it is gleefully nihilistic, and it takes a different approach to what has become a fairly familiar story form at this point, right at the moment when it feels like superhero movies either have to evolve or die.

Thanks to Margulies and Ponsoldt and thanks to Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg, End of the Tour mostly does right by David Foster Wallace, a not insignificant feat when you're dealing with a figure who generates such passion.

Tim Johnson gets the character stuff right, and the animators do an amazing amount of subtextual work with color and with texture ripples on the various Boov characters.. It's lovely work overall, and it might be the most cheerfully benign conquering force we've ever faced on film.

A slightly bumpy two hours of storytelling, but it's peppered with wonder and unexpected humor.

While I think If I Stay has to do a fair amount of juggling to get its premise to work, there is a cumulative power to it that I found undeniable and earned.

Even though The Amina Profile works as a cyber-thriller of sorts, I think it's much more wide-reaching than that, a story about online identity, but also about the danger of media-constructed narratives, one that manages to salute both citizen journalists, but also establishment outlets like NPR.

Wheatley is all about control of tone and how he's using this big obvious metaphor. His film is alive with human behavior, heightened at times and stylized as hell, but alive and identifiable and crackling with a wicked energy.

Knock Knock has something genuine to say, and it uses some really dark dramatic beats to get there.

Mogel and Paul have a lot they are trying to accomplish with The D Train and at times it really is too much.... That being said, Marsden's career-best turn and a superb third act really turn things around.

Southside With You is quietly romantic, but more than that, it burns with a deep sense of optimism.

Frequently very funny, undeniably aimed at younger audiences, and true to the source material, The Peanuts Movie is too mild-mannered to win over brand new audiences, but it's going to please people who were already fond of the underlying property, and it should be a big nostalgia-driven hit for the studio.

If you’re wondering whether you’ll believe Streep is a convincing rock musician, please. It’s Meryl Streep here. She sounds like she’s ready to open for Bruce Springsteen.

The Neon Demon’s going to frustrate anyone who goes in looking for a conventional film or a thriller that has any interest in actually scaring you. This is a ride, a carefully crafted experience, and it is precisely because it is so immersive and controlled that I would recommend it.

This is a movie that is almost exhaustingly large-scale, and Ultron's ultimate plan involves a crazy visual idea that Whedon makes sort of beautiful and eerie. It's got so much action that I'm going to bet some audiences go numb after a while. But in scene after scene, there are beats and stunts and poses that suggest that an army of comic book fanatics worked on this movie.

There is a giddy sense of glee that runs through most of this movie, making it feel like Feig can barely contain himself with all of the things he wants to do and show you in the movie.

Perhaps a little more successful when winking at genre expectations than when playing things straight, The Voices is funny, disturbing and whimsical.

It feels like the single most successful attempt to pull the shape of one of the beloved comic stories into the film world. It also feels like Bryan Singer has finally figured out how to shoot an action scene where the X-Men actually look and feel like the X-Men, and where the fantastic is handled the right way.

Fast, frequently teetering on the cusp of the ridiculous, and eye-poppingly pretty, Jupiter Ascending is a wicked slice of entertainment, and a heck of an antidote to the typical February box-office blahs.

By far, the best part of the film is the last twenty minutes or so, and it's so good that it almost makes up for some of the missteps along the way.

[Crudup] responds with a performance that's funny, heartbreaking and confidently musical, anchoring a film with a challenging and sometimes shaky premise that very much requires his steadying presence.

It's a funny and moving film about aging, but it's also a wacky journey across Iceland with two characters who are instantly likable and ultimately quite lovable.

Both of its time and of the moment, Straight Outta Compton is potent and largely successful, and makes a hell of a case for why this was a story worth telling.

The unexpected comedy bits, great music and an insightful point of view all contribute to making "Dope" something special, but it simply wouldn't fly without Moore.

Suffice it to say that it is a cannily-constructed film, and it does have a bigger "movie" feel than the first film. There are places where they swing for some big jokes that don't quite work, but the ambition is dizzying all the way through.

Lanthimos presents a fully formed original vision that hits a perfect tone even when the narrative begins to get away from him a bit.

With the Outback desert a pretty indomitable (not to mention indomitably pretty) presence from the outset, Tracks seems a woman-versus-land story only until it emerges that the land is a reflection of the woman herself.

Jia probably made a mistake directing the 1999 sequence in such an over-the-top and stilted tone (it also feels more like 1989 than the turn of the century), but the rest of the film is incredibly well done.

Gabe Polsky has made a smart and incisive film about an important moment in the history of a now-fallen empire, and he happened to make it wildly entertaining as well. No easy feat.

The movie is as good a Blair Witch film as anyone could have faithfully delivered.

While there is an untruth at the heart of the film, it's in service of illuminating any number of smaller truths, and I find that approach fascinating.

Frank rides a really strange tone, and director Lenny Abrahamson deserves credit for how he manages to make the strange and the sad and the funny all feel like it's part of the same film.

"Them" feels slightly longer than it needs to be and suffers from an unnecessarily busy third act. That being said, Benson's "final" ending is truly a unique choice and a wonderfully moving moment that haunts you as you walk out of the theater.

This is a film that is quietly confident. Everything's well-composed. Everything's put together right. There's a very sure hand on the wheel here, and at this point, I'm sold on Rupert Wyatt as a guy who can tell a story with a certain kind of intelligence, both towards his subject and towards his audience.

By focusing on a few key emotional arcs instead of making it about every shot being the BIGGEST THING OF ALL TIME, Jackson gives the battle a sense of urgency that builds and ebbs, builds and ebbs.

I was pleased to see that "Spies" is not a thriller so much as an ode to both American diplomacy and the tradition of moral movie fathers along the lines of Atticus Finch.

These performances are beyond reproach, which makes it even stranger that the film never quite turns into the crushing experience it feels like it should be.

This may not be his signature work, but it’s Murray at the top of his game in the type of role audiences want to see him in.

When you're watching something Zemeckis made, anything can happen, and reality is up for grabs. In this case, he's used his powers for good, and the end result is stirring and spectacular at times, with a devastating, if subtle, final line of dialogue.

It is an easy sit, a big fat slice of smart entertainment. Constantly funny, startlingly violent, and oddly heartfelt, The Nice Guys is a grown-up delight, a perfect antidote to the nonstop barrage of effects spectacle that normally marks the summer movie season.

The Book Of Life may play by the rules when it comes to story, but it plays its own game when it comes to how it looks, and in the world of animated family films, that's what really counts.

Dunn demonstrates an impressive ability to bring his unique interpretation of the coming out process to life.

One thing Mississippi Grind has in spades is soul, and that's a better bet than narrative mechanics any day.

What Gideon's Army does is make a respectful case on the behalf of a profession that too often gets maligned.

Clement is the reason that Will is tolerable, because if you look at the character's on-the-page actions, he's not an especially well-developed man-child.

The film earns some big laughs, but it never sacrifices character for a punchline.

The film is often quite funny, and just real enough that we may recognize ourselves in some small way in this family.

Beyond the performances, this new “Macbeth” benefits from Kurzel’s inspired eye, the increasingly impressive talents of cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (“True Detective”) and Fiona Crombie’s period-loving production design. The world they have created for this tragedy may overwhelm, but it's certainly impossible to forget.

Web Junkie is a little sad, a little funny and a little scary. I'd say that I wish it had been a little more provocative.

It's a feel-good story that raises cultural questions that the film doesn't seem terribly interested in answering, and it feels like an easy triple in the grand Disney tradition.

300: Rise Of An Empire is a worthy sequel to "300," stylistically consistent and equally loony, featuring what may well be the first truly can't-miss performance in a film this year.

Other than the unsubtle but vivid storytelling, the main joy of 99 Homes is seeing two excellent but very different actors spark off each other for almost the entire runtime, in a brace of performances both brilliant and brilliantly matched.

Things escalate nicely over the course of the film, and there is a creeping sense of dread that is carefully calibrated.

Trevorrow seems to be genuinely enjoying what he's doing, and it's that sense of someone having fun behind the camera that ultimately won me over.

Minions lives and dies on its sight gags and luckily for Coffin and Balda they are almost non-stop.

The film is at its best when the storyline gets dangerously real and Bullock’s character struggles to justify the back room king making of a campaign with the needs of the country’s poor majority.

Considering Redmayne’s achievement it’s almost shocking that you can argue Vikander gives the more memorable performance.

At its best, the film has moments that are creepy and that work on some strange primal level.

The movie suffers from being the same shape as so many modern blockbusters, and the plot in the second half of the film is basically another riff on the “reach the glowing doodad on a roof to prevent the end of the world” structure. But the focus on the Turtles and the film’s overall amiable sense of goofball humor carries the day.

A lushly conceived, exhaustively realized debut feature that'd be pretty formidable stuff coming from a more practised filmmaker -- and derided in some quarters as a self-impressed knock-off.

Shira Piven, working from a script by Elliot Laurence, has directed a beautiful, sad, sweet and funny movie that deals honestly with mental illness while also earning big laughs and offering up some hard truths. And it helps that Kristen Wiig gives the best sustained performance of her entire career in the lead.

Sorkin’s voice dominates the discourse and the film rarely has a chance to catch its collective breath. While you have to give the duo credit for attempting an unconventional structure, it’s a choice that arguably only works thanks to the contributions of a stellar ensemble.

Mr. Turner's passions and neuroses feel more peculiar to Leigh and his own work. It's tempting, even, to view the film as biopic-as-self-portrait, revealing shades of one life through another.

It's hard for any actor or director to pull off love at first sight, but Branagh is lucky enough that James and Madden have just enough genuine on screen chemistry to make you at least want to believe it's possible.

It's a gentle, amiable, sincere little movie, and we could use about a hundred more Lynn Sheltons in this business, making movies that feel this lived in, this true.

There are probably funnier satires out there, but They Came Together is laser accurate in the way it skewers its targets.

Its sweet nature combined with its strong messages about responsibility and empathy make it feel like something family audiences in particular should enjoy.

Where Banks truly excels is in directing the film's musical numbers.

As much as the action stuff works and would indicate that any other property Marvel entrusts to the animation side of things is in good hands, Big Hero 6 gets by more on the charms of its comedy.

Ficarra and Requa are good at creating a sense of momentum in their films that carries you along from scene to scene, and a film like this depends largely on chemistry. Smith and Robbie have bundles of it, so there is an easy pleasure to watching them circle each other.

Kill Me Three Times is a confident smaller film, and if you enjoy this sort of chess game with bullets, you'll probably get a kick out of it, and for Pegg fans, it's pretty much continuous pleasure throughout.

If you enjoy thrillers, Flanagan expertly turns the screws here, and Kate Siegel makes a very appealing and capable hero.

Wes Ball's background is in animation and effects, and he certainly has an eye for composition. Thankfully, he doesn't just lean on visual flash in his debut feature, the adaptation of the first of James Dashner's four books, and his skills allow him to build a convincing world around his appealing cast without losing them in it completely.