Where The Covenant most shines is in the riveting intensity of both its performances and its action.

Featuring stars Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown doing predictably divine work (do these two performers know any other way?), “Honk for Jesus” is equal parts hilarious and painful, an incisive upbraiding of the sorts of people who should have long ago realized no one — especially nattily attired pastors — is above God.

"A New Era” doesn’t feel like a cash-grab, but a true continuation. Lush settings, well-appointed sets, and an eye-popping wardrobe only add to the magic, and good luck not happily sinking into two hours of confectionary entertainment. (The endless jokes about the film industry somehow only add to the zip of it all.)

The film shows a refreshing interest in his current existence, rather than becoming a by-the-book retread of his pre-pope life.

Messy, personal, timely, brimming with ideas, overflowing with pain, and without answers: that’s the debate, and that’s the doc.

Piercing too often gets lost in the fog of its deranged characters, but just as frequently transforms their lunacy into a heightened form of escapist entertainment. In a movie where everyone’s crazy, “Piercing” makes their malady infectious.

A Gregg Araki movie will never be boring, and this one is a good time even when it’s tripping over itself to complicate its story and disguise the fact that it’s trying to serve as a teachable moment.

Oscillating between the relentless energy of “John Wick” and the dense plotting of a John Le Carré novel, Atomic Blonde never quite finds a happy medium between the two. But when Theron goes back to kicking ass, nothing else matters.

I’m Your Woman owes much to Brosnahan’s evolving performance as she goes from terrified housewife to trenchant survivalist over the course movie, and the movie consolidates the strengths of Hart’s previous work.

Micheli’s film is less than artful, scattered with limited talking heads (mostly Lopez’s business partners and her mother, briefly), random flashbacks, occasional archival footage, and a series of short sequences that could frame their own films (particularly quick-cut segments about Lopez’s early years, her treatment by the press, the obsession with her body, the constant tabloid attention), but none of that is the draw: it’s Lopez.

Wright's extraordinary long takes draw you into the universe of Anna Karenina with a seamless approach that a straightforward literary adaptation could never accomplish.

Perfect Strangers takes too much time to get to its big game — nearly its full first act is consumed by introductions and set dressing, most of it unnecessary, considering how believable the group’s chemistry is — but once it kicks into gear, the effect is dizzying.

It’s fun enough at first, thanks to McAvoy’s energetic direction and strong turns from its young stars.

Dickinson's hauntingly naturalistic look at disgruntled young adults trapped in the country following an urban disaster plays like "Martha Marcy May Marlene" transported to a post-apocalyptic survival narrative -- with lots of yoga and sex.

McMurray fixates too much on the brutality of his subject, foregoing any meaningful character development. The result is a film about punishment that is quite punishing to watch.

Vaughn pours himself into the role, but he also seems to understand that going big and broad for this one is a misstep. Easy isn’t a caricature, even if the people and events around him increasingly feel that way.

Like any romance, Banana Split is constrained to some familiar beats, but Kasulke, Marks, and Power have such a handle on what makes the film tick — and Marks and Liberato are so charming and fun — that even expected turns feel clever and fresh.

For all of its elusiveness, In Between Dying is a film that wants to be found.

Hooper's approach comes across as the equivalent of sitting in the front row of a stage play while the entire cast leans forward and blares each song into your eardrums.

This Diane Von Furstenberg is plenty engaging, but as a tribute to the woman who reinvented the modern dress, it doesn’t reinvent anything itself.

Lindy’s passion for and connection to the material is obvious (how could it not be?), as is her desire to twist a sad story into something fresh and often funny. Sweet, even! But an unhinged final act, plus a jaw-dropper of a finale, seems at odds with everything else she’s revealed, and this genre-spanner goes from, well, spanning to something else: not being able to hold onto any of its many spinning plates.

What makes the film compelling is the fact that even though Norman Krasna’s script contains no friction between the needs of the genre and the impulses of the characters, Hitchcock creates it anyway.

With a dense, often impermeable style and a mentally unstable protagonist, Simon Killer is like watching the disturbed anti-hero of "Afterschool" all grown up.

As sturdily crafted as Knock at the Cabin may be, Shyamalan’s funny games never achieve the profundity they’re reaching for, ending up as a preachy end-times message movie wrapped up in a slick horror package.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is a flashy ode to the fairies and the radicals, the maricóns who’ve repurposed their oppression and media literacy into an outsize, fuck-if-I-care-what-you-think political identity. Yet there’s nothing revolutionary about the movie that contains them.

While both pieces of the entire package generally work independently of each other, they have just enough ingredients to necessitate a viewing of the whole thing.

A minor work by Loach's standards, the movie nevertheless marks his most enjoyable effort in years.

A wholly original and thoroughly surprising fusion of sensory overload and liberal philosophy bound to confuse and provoke in equal measures.