This is an unapologetically warmhearted comedic drama, a fine example of commercial filmmaking grounded in a persuasive knowledge of human behavior.

It’s without a shred of guilt that I say there is honest pleasure to be found in Before I Fall, which takes an unapologetically silly conceit and wrings from it a surprisingly nimble and affecting survey of contemporary teenage attitudes and anxieties.

While this carnage is defensible in theory, and while the filmmakers have taken pains not to linger on the horrific brutality Logan and his terrible claws inflict, the gruesome situations presented, including more than one beheading, work at cross purposes with the film's more serious intent and reminds us that a scot-free escape from the strictures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not in the cards.

The action sequences are strong, with spectacular crashes and explosions, dynamic camera moves and tight cuts that at times give the film an appealing breathlessness. But the cast takes a too-lax approach to this material.

It doesn't gel and lacks the kind of visual kinetic energy we’ve come to expect from films of this ilk.

Erasing Eden is an exploration of self-sabotage and destruction that makes vague gestures toward the self-empowerment found in personal choice, but those morals are lost in the downright disturbing and degrading gauntlet Eden has to walk through to find herself.

Kiki often casts a rueful gaze, but it’s also exuberant and alive, and never despairing. It leaves you with the bracing sense that however tough and resilient its subjects might be forced to become, their hope of a better, more tolerant future will never go out of style.

The oddly sympathetic, low-key and funny Phillips gets deft support from his limber costars, including Sarah Silverman, Jim Jeffries, Mike Judge and Mark Cohen. Amusing songs too.

Sometimes it’s impressively funky and stylish, and sometimes tediously derivative.

Given the scope of the early-1930s atrocity, the most shocking thing about director George Mendeluk’s new dramatization is how utterly devoid of emotional impact it is.

It’s got some future-world smarts that sporadically elevate it above the junk that dominates this genre, and they help carry it through the routine spatter-and-gore moments and sci-fi clichés.

In the end, it is the wit, warmth and coherence of Lynskey’s performance that lends this violent comic scherzo both its cruelly demented narrative logic and its curiously cheery aftertaste.

This is surely the nerviest, most confrontational treatment of race in America to emerge from a major studio in years, and it brilliantly fulfills the duty of both its chosen genres — the horror-thriller and the social satire — to meaningfully reflect a culture’s latent fears and anxieties.

An involving examination of and tribute to the art and agony of stand-up comedy, "Dying Laughing" will leave you convinced that a) comedians spend a lot of time thinking about their work and b) it's too difficult and even painful a vocation to take on unless you absolutely feel it as a calling.

As unexpectedly enchanting as its title is initially perplexing, My Life as a Zucchini is short but oh so satisfyingly bittersweet, an example of the kind of movie magic that's always hard to find.

Ghost of New Orleans, by Serbian director Peter (Predrag) Atonijevic, is a laughably pretentious crime caper-supernatural thriller hybrid that comes up woefully lacking on both fronts.

Strong lead performances and a startling twist juice up the found-footage exercise VooDoo, which squeezes unexpected novelty from an exhausted subgenre.

Though it’s often too quirky for its own good and its bumpy narrative structure can be jarring, the film sneaks in quite a bit of depth and emotional punch.

Writer-director Park Kwang-hyun certainly keeps the visual energy aloft with its frantic genre-splicing, but the over-the-top approach ultimately plays out like several years’ worth of Super Bowl commercials strung out end to end.

Gael García Bernal is the most charming of actors, and one of the pleasures of his satisfying You're Killing Me Susana is watching him display that quality in a decidedly subversive way.

It’s fascinating to observe how the feminine perspectives of XX create four powerfully compelling and original horror tales that operate within the genre while testing the boundaries of traditional storytelling and style.

The surfeit of familiar faces is a poor substitute for Steinbeck’s psychological astuteness, his rich understanding of the way human beings respond, individually and collectively, when they are backed into a corner.

Newton draws us persuasively into the sheer normalcy of his characters’ world — and forces us to imagine the feeling of having that normalcy suddenly ripped away.

Whatever license the word “fable” grants Hamilton, it doesn’t redeem the narrative muddle. But there’s an undeniable gutsiness to her filmmaking. The American dreamscape she creates is memorably unsettling.

The terrors we see in A Cure for Wellness are never as scary as they are beautiful, but they are never so beautiful as they are arbitrary.

While you don’t have to be crazy about cats to enjoy this documentary, it would certainly help.

For much of its fast-paced running time, the film, which involves an after-school fight between two polar-opposite teachers, is just amusing enough to make up for its sheer preposterousness.

If ever a film was made with more money than sense, this is it.

Just when you think the film has gratefully escaped its most inevitable turn, it goes there, adding one final kernel of corn to this ho-hum horse tale.

Growing Up Smith is a well-intentioned fizzle that misses what should have been an easily reachable mark.

Tighter pacing, more dimensional and compelling characters, and twistier consequences could have helped better propel this dark, semi-intriguing tale.

It’s an overwhelming, and sometimes disorganized firehose of information.... Ultimately, however, I Am Jane Doe is a powerful call to action to protect children over profit.

Plenty of first-time feature filmmakers have combined grubby genre kicks with more personal concerns; but there’s a confidence and energy to “Stray Bullets” that compensates for the rather rudimentary, over-familiar story.

This is a surprisingly dull and tedious affair where nothing is even remotely plausible, the romance and the sex least of all.

The film can’t quite figure out how to wrap up, overstaying its welcome with multiple resolutions, but its heart is in the right place, using fantasy to reveal poignant truths about empathy and redemption.

Filmmaker and Columbia professor Joseph, and playwright Beaty, in his feature writing and acting debut, infuse the movie with an intense New York City realism and an evocative street poetry that conjure up early John Cassavetes and Spike Lee.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t fully explore its big ideas or give its talented cast dialogue to match.

The Adventure Club is a remarkably dull Canadian tween caper about a sought-after magical ancient box with wish-making powers.

This movie is still, ultimately, a generic shocker. But the amount of care lavished on the character-building and scene-setting is impressive, even if it doesn’t add up to much.

It’s a taut, if somewhat hysterical, cycle of bait and switch, twists and turns, retribution, vengeance and mental torture payback for immature mind games with deadly results.

A reveal about the nature of the building and its violence works initially, but is never fully explored. There are some truly disgusting kills, making sure that horror fans who thirst for blood will get their fill.

The movie may look like disposable goods — it’s a sequel, a shoot-’em-up, starring an actor too often treated as a punchline — but it is also a connoisseur’s delight, a down-and-dirty B-picture with a lustrous A-picture soul.

If you are familiar with his mesmerizing work, nothing more need be said; if you’re not, this feast of dance illustrates why others are.

A United Kingdom is traditional, well-made cinema, with a taste for the obvious at certain points, but it has some powerful advantages. These include its remarkable story (Susan Williams’' book "Colour Bar" was a primary source), plus a director who knows how to convey its essence and a superior cast whose presence elevates the material.

In its best moments, this gag-a-minute Bat-roast serves as a reminder that, in the right hands, a sharp comic scalpel can be an instrument of revelation as well as ridicule.

Sutton’s vision is unsettling and immersive, his technical precision immaculate. The sound design alone — long, ambient silences disrupted by a flashbulb-popping hallucination or a sudden scream — is reason enough to see the movie in a theater, whatever unpleasant associations the ending may conjure.

The film's maximalist storytelling, both expansive and precise, snatching specific emotions from its torrid swirl, is best exemplified by the fact that the title card doesn't appear until an hour in.

At no point does the movie manage even a single sequence of sustained tension, or a frisson of genuine terror.

The pacing of the individual scenes and the direction of the actors feel so clunky and amateurish, you may wonder after a while if “The Space Between Us” is meant to indicate the yawning emotional chasm between the actors, struggling to connect across a galaxy’s worth of wretched dialogue.

Intriguing in concept but problematic in execution.

It’s crisply shot but suffers from poor, amateurish editing, an overwrought dramatic score and the storytelling fails to compel. The acting, writing and directing of American Violence indicate this flick is strictly a B-movie, but its tone is far too self-serious to have any fun with at all.

A shrill but often funny anti-romantic comedy from L.A. filmmakers Alex Kavutskiy and Ariel Gardner.

Made with taste, skill and discretion, The Daughter demonstrates both the staying power of classic material and the risks inherent in bringing it up to date.

The Trouble With Terkel feels painfully outdated and stale, with rudimentary computer-generated visuals and characters that are potty-mouthed only for the sake of provocation.

With This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, acclaimed filmmaker Barbara Kopple retains her signature intimacy and freedom from judgment of her subject.

With Eloise, Legato and company take a prime location, rich in history, and make it look like a soundstage.

A chilling documentary that firmly positions McVeigh not as some delusional loner but rather as a product of a far-right subculture that looked on the U.S. federal government as one of the most dangerous forces on the face of the Earth.

It earns points for not being overly pious, but there’s little depth in its exploration of one man’s spiritual evolution.

Moore is primarily known as an actor but this is the third feature he’s directed, and he proves surprisingly unable to get layered performances out of some great actors.

The best reason to see Don’t Knock Twice is the volatile chemistry between genre favorites Katee Sackhoff and Lucy Boynton.

It’s pleasurable enough to see Skarsgård and especially Peña, so often cast as a genial second banana, taking pride of place in their own vehicle, even if this one fails to make the most of their considerable chemistry.

The talking-head commentary, however firsthand, personal and eloquent, can be repetitious, while the filmmaker leaves unnecessary basic information gaps in the story he’s telling. But Midsummer in Newtown is nonetheless an affecting chronicle.

It’s a terrific film that deserves far more attention than its low-profile release is likely to receive.

South Korean filmmaker Kim Sung-hoon has clearly done his homework while injecting the action sequences with a terrific kinetic energy.

Boasting a higher body count than its IQ, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is violent, idiotic fun.

Kelly, who is credited with Stacey Miller for the screenplay, is shrewd enough to keep the movie from being a dramatized op-ed piece about betrayal, instead making roiling uncertainty, loneliness and melancholy the marquee emotions.

Murphy’s quietly precise performance ultimately can’t overcome the film’s chilly gravity and unsatisfying finale.

There’s little doubt prison reform needs to address the severe effects of locking up kids for life, but They Call Us Monsters feels like a well-meaning skim rather than an impassioned, expertly reasoned plea for mercy.

Filmmaking duo Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau have crafted a film that articulates the ability for sex to produce just a little bit more love in the world, for a moment or an eternity.

A seemingly tourist-bureau-sanctioned travelogue posing as a romantic drama.

The flashy battle sequences will delight “Yu-Gi-Oh” fans. Viewers not familiar with the game will themselves be hopelessly lost.

A staged kidnapping isn’t the only thing that goes from botched to worse where the tone-deaf black comedy-thriller Get the Girl is concerned.

By the time it all culminates in a Chan-led classic Bollywood production number, the cuteness factor may have been pushed to its limit, but good luck trying to stop that goofy smile from spreading across your face.

This documentary meanders a bit as it goes between time periods, but it’s never less than entertaining and illuminating.

It’s a loving, honest portrait of these men who were world-famous for a bright moment, and most importantly, what happens after the limelight goes away.

There’s a clumsy, soapy tepidness to the procession of plot points, but within individual scenes, the actors pierce the genteel surface.

Without its lead, whose full-throttle portrait is at least a burning flame, Gold wouldn’t work on any level.

The world of The Salesman isn’t quite as intricately imagined as some of its predecessors, and the story’s sleuthing element, while absorbing, often feels more narratively expedient than germane. But if the setup is creaky, the payoff, when it arrives, is a thing to behold.

The film has all the emotional resonance of a dog-themed novelty coffee-table book. Adorable, but ultimately forgettable.

Alone in Berlin is ultimately hobbled by its own cinematic inertia, its inability to reimagine the past with the kind of intensity that would also speak to the present.

It’s an often tender, affecting film that slowly creeps up on you — then completely takes hold.

My Father Die is all provocation and no substance, and therefore completely meaningless.

The road to hell, the saying goes, is paved with the best of intentions, and that is very much the case with the complex art world conundrum explored in the lively, involving documentary Saving Banksy.

The Axe Murders of Villisca never really comes to much, perhaps because its focus is too diffuse. The scares are low, and the plot under-baked.

Earlier English translations soft-pedaled the nature of Fiore’s affection for Mamoru. The lively new version is closer to the original, and suggests Fiore’s feeling are more passionate than fraternal.

What’s painfully clear is that all the artfully composed shots, hinky situations and extra conceptual surprises can’t make this Detour all that compelling beyond its crisp artifice.

Its title a sly reference to what distinguishes men from beasts, Staying Vertical hinges on the tension between primal instincts and socially proscribed behavior. Guiraudie isn’t just trying to decimate sexual taboos; he is also taking gently comic aim at the overly rigid roles into which people tend to lock themselves.

Director Gustavo Ron and co-writer Francisco Zegers fill the movie to bursting with plot, turning what might have been a delightfully airy cream puff of a film into a soggy disaster.

While the fake news angle is admittedly a timely one, the film’s ultimate dubious achievement is its remarkable ability to make “Dude, Where’s My Car?” feel like vintage Kubrick.

Smith may have some ways to go as a feature filmmaker, but he has given us a world of such grottily realized depravity that it feels like a story unto itself.

The visuals and concepts presented here may be compelling and vital, but director Luc Jacquet (“March of the Penguins”) weaves them together with too little urgency, propulsion and, ultimately, unique sense of purpose.

Split doesn’t just revive Shyamalan’s career; it resurrects his brand.

The film captures the dazzling beauty of its ocean locales, both above and beneath the surface, while soberly reminding us of the crucial ecological issues — and solutions — at hand.

On first glance, Monster Trucks looks so-bad-it’s-hilarious, and it’s a bit heartening to report that it’s not quite that. The monsters are cute and charming, the production value is high, and the trio of Lennon, Levy and Lowe bring just enough quirk to brighten up the humorous beats.

A stylish surface goes only so far to disguise the fact that we’re being sold some pretty cut-rate goods.

There’s more focus on the dull mystery and predictable story twists, and not nearly enough choreographic ecstasy on-screen.

Writer-director C.A. Cooper’s The Snare is admirably artful and oblique in putting its own twist on the haunted-house story, but it’s derivative of much better psychological suspense films and is obnoxiously unpleasant to boot.

Like a fog that corrupts your ability to be entertained, Top Coat Cash is genre amateurishness that neither thrills nor makes sense.