Passion simultaneously parodies its plot while elevating it to a strangely involving exercise in cinematic drama. The filmmaker has either lost control of the material or maintains the same calculation of his protagonists. But the entertainment value associated with that uncertainty is the essence of his career.

Magic in the Moonlight belongs to the pool of lesser Allen comedies, yet Firth and Emma Stone — as the alleged necromancer Sophie Baker, the object of Stanley's scrutiny and eventually his affections — bring all the zany energy they can muster.

Netto and Schindler are less interested in pulpy sadism than they are in pure suspense.

If the emotions in Goodbye June are as transparently manufactured as the fake snow that falls outside of the hospital windows, they’re all bundled up in a warm blanket of truth — the truth of how loss has a gravity that can bring a family closer together if they let it.

A reductive documentary that’s far too focused on the big picture to really unpack the human element.

As Levinson swings wildly for the fences, Assassination Nation yields a modicum of payoff.

Even Allen himself, appearing in front of the camera for his first role since 2005's "Scoop," looks a little lost in the mess.

The result is sometimes overlong and wears out its welcome, but it clarifies Hosking’s distinctive tone — a playful and often charming blend of outré humor and genuine emotion that makes him one of the most distinctive new voices in current cinema.

Iron Lung is audacious and at times astonishingly boring. Still, it feels more enthusiastic and celebratory than many blockbuster adaptations built on safer math.

Most segments have a fair share of cheap scares, but they also delve into the art of the build-up, as if delivering a series of grim jokes with bloody punchlines. Consider it a 21st-century take on "Tales from the Crypt."

Shows none of the edgy storytelling looniness present in Stiller's finest work. Instead, every element seems calculated to service an easygoing commercial product that plays up the sentimentality of the scenario while rendering it inoffensively bland.

Life spends its first act building up some big ideas, but eventually unravels into another monster movie in space.

Lacking in chemistry, clarity, and conviction, Neon’s latest rendezvous with Perkins hits like a crumbling marriage that would serve everyone involved by ending as soon as possible.

Like Whedon's whip-smart "Avengers" screenplay, Thor: The Dark World manages to acknowledge the inherently silly nature of its premise while compellingly asserting that, hey, sometimes it's fun to suspend your disbelief when the results look this good.

You don’t need to be particularly clever to know how this will all end, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be so boring as it chugs toward cookie-cutter conclusions. Idris Elba fights a lion. It’s genius. So why does “Beast” feel more like a whisper than a roar?

Canoodling more than we’ve ever seen Ed and Lorraine canoodle before, Wilson and Farmiga also seem to have a blast wrapping up their portrayals in a movie clearly created with their stardom in mind.

Though Blumberg treats the topic with admirable frankness, the film’s insights would’ve had more impact if he wasn’t so quick to hop to the next storyline whenever matters get especially thorny.

With one film left in the franchise, “P.S. I Still Love You” effectively operates as both its own feature and a bridge to the more adult questions Lara Jean and company will face in the final offering. It’s a love letter to teen movies of the past, but also a smart look at what they might be in the future.

For a movie so preoccupied with the choices that people can make, Spiderhead invariably makes the least interesting ones available to it, which is a serious problem for a movie streaming on a platform whose subscribers are never far removed from the choice to be watching something else instead.

The overall arc of this “Justice League” coheres throughout, providing occasional dashes of intrigue and inspired visual conceits, and sometimes it’s even fun. Re-centering the drama around ostracized actor Ray Fisher as Cyborg, and drawing out some of the ostentatious fight sequences to their breaking point, Zack Snyder’s Justice League displays genuine effort to make this impossible gamble click.

While formulaic on its face, Green’s film resists the sort of obvious cinematic catharsis expected of such a story, resulting in a final product that earns its emotional beats.

A fun but largely unnecessary fourth outing.

There’s something especially primordial, even biblical, about director Lucio Fulci’s grisly spectacle.

Sheep in the Box is less concerned with feelings than it is with our impulse to elide them.

It spreads itself too wide and too shallow, and leaves us wishing that we might have seen more of the journey that has come to define Jones’ adult life: The path to starting a family of her own.

At least it aspires to mine a fresh experience from the all too familiar tedium of watching Hollywood pick a franchise dry, even if it ultimately falls well short of that goal.

When Ricki and the Flash pierces its conventional trajectory with music, it gets more interesting. But the fluff surrounding it holds together well enough.

This is still a pretty familiar journey that's easier to pity than hate -- much like Caplan's character.