Though Valderrama gives a standout performance as the avenging Angel, brother of the late Jesus (Kareem Savion), two smaller roles are also worthy of note: Paz de la Huerta as a spacy bartender at Pianos, and J. Bernard Calloway as Dre, a bouncer who’s seen it all, and who can be reliably found eating a healthy salad as he sits outside his nightspot.

Could easily have become a schmaltzy variation on “Whiplash.” But it’s not, thanks to astringent direction by François Girard (“The Red Violin’’), an excellent cast and heavenly young voices.

Even the great Helen Mirren can do only so much to elevate this relentlessly mediocre, fact-inspired drama.

Despite James Wan’s capable direction and very game cast, the whole thing goes increasingly wobbly like a bad axle, until it’s just a tangle of metal and bullets and yelling.

If the jokes in Get Hard were a set of Jeopardy categories, they’d read as follows: Things Will Ferrell Puts Up His Butt, Butt Rape, Shots of Will Ferrell’s Bare Butt and Satirical Comparisons of Violent and Nonviolent Crime Not Excluding Mentions of Balzac.

Grunting and boarlike, Gérard Depardieu supplies a one-note rendition of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in Abel Ferrara’s peculiarly unilluminating Welcome to New York.

The film is hard on the eyes, having been shot in a low-budget style with the ubiquitous digital palette of gray-beige-taupe. Fortunately, it’s also hilarious, full of humor that is understated, wry and dependent on familiarity with interests as wide as Houellebecq’s own.

The choppily edited and thoroughly wooden Serena utterly fails to catch fire, even when everything literally goes up in flames. So despite its big stars, it’s getting only a token theatrical release.

Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young amounts to the most hilarious Woody Allen movie in forever.

Many of the images — and Salgado’s accounts of taking them — are as soul-shattering as they are breathtaking.

White God has been compared to “The Birds,” but there are also echoes of “Lassie Come Home” and even “Dirty Harry.” Director Kornél Mundruczó goes big with allegory, violence, drama and sentiment, and the results are riveting.

It’s refreshing to see a nonwhite lead, and the husky-voiced pop singer is likable as a brave-hearted kid searching for her mother. But man, is there a lot of Rihanna in this movie: She also provides what seems like the entirety of the film’s soundtrack, making it feel like a vanity project (is “vanimation” a thing?).

Despising the British upper class is so utterly common, as we see in The Riot Club, a farcically heavy-handed attempted satiric takedown of an elite group of Oxford students.

You know you’re in for a long haul when Kate Winslet’s clipboard-wielding Jeanine, leader of the Erudite faction, comes off less like a Hillary Clinton than a weary Applebee’s supervisor at the end of a 14-hour shift in this plodding sequel to “Divergent.”

Watching Penn pump iron and denounce capitalism for two hours would be roughly as illuminating as this monotonous Euro-thriller.

Certainly watchable, but don’t go expecting much in the way of surprises.

Struggling for the same vibe as male-bonding comedies like “Diner,” Growing Up & Other Lies instead feels like a really long beer commercial, except beer commercials usually contain at least one witty idea.

With ravishing landscapes, violent political allegory and a glacial narrative that takes an abrupt left turn in the third act: Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja resolutely checks every 2015 art-film box.

The very German lack of emotion is so acute it can be hard to tell when Hausner’s playing for laughs, but Friedel is hilariously — if morbidly — tedious as the tortured writer whose pickup line is, “Would you care to die with me?”

Like Cam, Tracers is fun to look at, if not too bright, and even includes a line I can only assume is a winking reference to Lautner’s claim to fame: “There can only be one alpha in every pack.”

This Cinderella is all dressed up with nowhere very interesting to go.

Run All Night is routine in its contours, occasionally sloppy in its editing and filled with the usual implausibilities.

Yet the film is marred by Hawke’s blundering intrusions as he keeps changing the subject to Hawke: He tells us he often wonders “why it is I do what I do,” as if anyone but he is interested in the answer.

Unlike many working in this genre, Mitchell doesn’t punish young women for having sex: This is a gender-blind demonic delivery vehicle.

Dreadful, misogynist slog of a film.

The documentary was filmed in the 1990s by Denny Tedesco, whose father Tommy is credited as the most recorded guitarist in history, including the instantly identifiable themes to “Bonanza” and “Mission: Impossible.”

In the last half-hour, themes start to gel. The final scenes are so good, even moving, that they make the earlier stuff look better. But a film concerned with the nature of emotion needs human engagement throughout.

A painfully earnest and totally unfunny magic-realist fable set on the Lower East Side that works in no way whatsoever.

“Short Circuit” meets “RoboCop” — with asides to “WALL-E,” “E.T.,” “The Road Warrior” and many other better movies — in Chappie, an interminable, violent, incoherent and wearying R-rated sci-fi action comedy.

Mostly Unfinished Business is a tale of unfinished jokes.

A dull, trite thriller.

Only in his early 20s, Zephyr Benson makes a remarkably assured debut as writer, director and star of Straight Outta Tompkins, his tongue-in-cheek title for his past as a middle-class drug dealer in lower Manhattan.

This sequel sorely misses the presence of Tom Wilkinson, whose out-of-the-closet character grounded the first film (but died at the end).

As they’re akin to spectators at a magic show, viewers ought to keep an eye out for what the Merchants of Doubt don’t want us to see.

There’s a superficial resemblance to the Dardenne brothers’ “Two Days, One Night,” and like that film it has a strong lead; Gosheva’s Nade is prickly, and no suffering saint.

There should be a word for the friendly rudeness of deli waiters: In the documentary Deli Man, they’re described as being as brusque and familiar with you as if you’re there three times a day — even if they’ve never seen you before.

Preposterous, slipshod, unfunny and emotionally null.

There’s no doubt at all that the schlocky The Lazarus Effect should have been euthanized and shipped directly to video rather than haunting movie theaters, however briefly.

This is nothing but nasty, misogynist torture porn.

A horror movie with an anti-globalist bent that’s more interesting than its halfhearted scares.

A few university officials talk on camera, but not many do, and it will be fascinating to watch the fallout from this scathing indictment of a system that, the movie claims, has all but encouraged sexual predators to do their worst.

It’s a rare film that locates viciousness and kindness on both sides of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

While Campillo does graceful work — the way he draws focus in a scene is a pleasure — the script drags and the pseudo-romance is hard to believe, especially when one plot point concerns Daniel asking for a bulk-purchase sex rate. Eastern Boys never quite fulfills the promise of those first few minutes.

Hard-core Hollywood haters will best appreciate Maps to the Stars, a campy poison-pen letter to Tinseltown that makes “Sunset Boulevard’’ look like a tourism infomercial by comparison.

Within five minutes you’ll guess why John Cusack, not overly encumbered with big film roles these days, didn’t return for the sequel: The script is monotonous, meandering and witless.

The film is nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar, and it doesn’t deserve to snatch the prize from the towering likes of “Ida,” “Timbuktu” or “Leviathan.” Yet in its gaudy, predictable way, Wild Tales is enormous fun, and the consistent wit of the quiet stretches shows there’s more to Szifrón than shock tactics.

Director Niki Caro, whose 2005 film “North Country” gave creative life to another true story, doesn’t allow this one enough narrative twists; it starts off at point A and heads straight for point B, much like one of its many racing scenes.

Mostly, the gorgeously shot Queen and Country depicts Bill and his more rebellious mate Percy pursuing beautiful women with varying degrees of success — and pulling pranks on their exasperated superiors, hilariously portrayed by David Thewlis and Richard E. Grant.

Slightly radical in portraying high schoolers as human beings of normal niceness and intelligence. That means this winsome comedy is a little low in the stakes department, not to mention predictable, but it gets an “A” for charm.

Let us now praise Anna Kendrick, who is positively great in the small-scale The Last Five Years — so utterly wonderful that this adaptation of an off-Broadway musical deserves better than a token theatrical release to support its distribution via video-on-demand.

Scored by Bruce Hornsby, Lee’s film veers all over the place tonally, juxtaposing scenes of spurting gore with soothing jazz. Hess’ WASP-y mansion, with its huge photo portraits of African warriors, is an interesting study in mashing up race and class stereotypes, though the film’s rambling plot may leave your brain feeling a little mashed, too.

As Viviane, Elkabetz is fascinating, wielding an incredible variety of contemptuous looks.

Lawrence’s script for The Rewrite could have used one, and his direction is uneven, but it’s still rewarding watching Grant dispensing his dithery charm surrounded by old pros.

Most of the best gags are in the early going and the film seems ever more stretched and thin as it goes on. It would have made a brilliant eight-minute sketch, though.

Kingsman: The Secret Service borrows the tone, story, characters and humor of “Kick-Ass,” only this time in a 007 world instead of Batman’s. Nearly everything it does, it does poorly: This one is “Weak-Ass.”

The film never pretends to be other than what it really is: soft-core porn for the ladies, diluted with an “R” rating.

An instant candidate for the so-bad-it’s-sort-of-great hall of fame, Jupiter Ascending is totally bonkers, a sort of black-velvet-Elvis mash-up of “Star Wars’’ and every other sci-fi/fantasy movie of the past half-century right up to “The Hunger Games.”

A delightfully immersive look at how a ballet is created, Jody Lee Lipes’ documentary is a stark contrast to the psycho theatrics of something like “Black Swan.”

Seventh Son is not a good movie, but it’s also not a pretentious one, and I call that a fair trade.

A searing, penetrating look inside schizophrenia is exactly what Enter the Dangerous Mind isn’t.

Ryan Reynolds is chillingly perfect as a nice-guy factory worker struggling with schizophrenia and murderous impulses in this tonally wild indie, which is nearly too horrifying to be funny — but not quite.

It’s mainly instructive in that it shows how liberals believe the end always justifies the means.

Ultimately, for the show’s fans, it may not matter if “Sponge Out of Water” shows a hint of mildew. After all, my co-critic’s most enthusiastic note — “Hilarious!” — was written before the lights even dimmed.

I know this is a teen-boy fantasy — it was produced by Michael Bay, after all — but the female characters in Project Almanac are lamely retro, little more than props in short shorts.

Girlhood veers between being a celebration of sisterhood (albeit an occasionally violent sort) and a chronicle of the cycle of poverty.

A sci-fi actioner with the production values of your average porno, Alien Outpost spews clichés like a machine gun set on maximum triteness.

Though somewhat marred by cheesy docudrama re-enactments, the film (produced by Steven Spielberg’s sister Nancy) is nutty, dramatic, surprising and above all inspiring.

Each scene is breathtaking, such as a long shot of a river at a key moment, and an unforgettable soccer game played with no ball. Timbuktu deserves every accolade it gets.

Despite excellent performances by Kevin Costner, Octavia Spencer and other cast members, Mike Binder’s racially tinged custody battle drama Black or White never achieves much in the way of dramatic credibility.

A better cast this time around — Michael Angarano, Milo Ventimiglia, Sofía Vergara and Max Casella, with cameos by Jason Alexander, Stanley Tucci and Hope Davis — tries to breathe life into Goldman’s cliché-ridden plot.

Unintended laughs far, far outnumber intended thrills.

A jaw-droppingly terrible animated musical that mismatches George Lucas’ inane story about a pair of fairy princesses to an oddball selection of the “Star Wars’’ creator’s favorite pop tunes.

Mortdecai is mortdifying, a mortdal sin of a movie that’s headed for the cinematic mortduary.

Dolan embraces passion and melodrama to a refreshing degree, and Dorval and Clément are terrific. But Mommy can be exhausting; the structure and plot rhythms are all over everywhere. A montage to “Wonderwall” (every last note of it) seems to sum up the movie; too much, but exhilarating all the same.

Son of a Gun, from first-time feature director Julius Avery, begins with an enticingly dark first act in jail, but descends steadily downward into a mass of clichés.

It’s not quite “Once,” but Song One, featuring original music by Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice, captures a similar, unselfconscious beauty in the way music can make sense of big, ungainly emotions — as James puts it, “for three to five whole minutes.”

Not that a film as taut and exciting as this one needs punchy dialogue, but Black Sea has that, too.

Gunning for the near-annual Ugly Makeup Oscar, Aniston proves, as always, a modestly gifted actress, only this time with scars and weedy hair.

Pacino demonstrates considerable comic chops in The Humbling — which has some interesting similarities to “Birdman.’’ It loses some momentum in its third act, but provides plenty of juicy material for a terrific cast.

An intriguing sci-fi thriller, but in the end it doesn’t do enough with its ideas.

Director Uberto Pasolini (“Machan”) has a gem in Marsan, a virtuoso actor who plays the role delicately where another might have laid on the pathos too thick.

Patrick Stewart knocks it out of the park as a Juilliard School dance teacher forced to spill his biggest secrets in Match, which playwright Stephen Belber effectively directed and adapted from his own Broadway play.

How English is this movie? As English as a cold, rainy day at the beach. As English as the politeness that masks hostility, as English as a pie that contains meat, as English as secretly wishing you lived in some other country.

This Michael Mann-directed film is full of Michael Mann-isms, many of them familiar from, and done better in, “Heat.”

Melding a morality play with a glossy soap, Italy’s Human Capital is a fairly successful balance of entertainment and ideas.

The Wedding Ringer is not so much a rom-com as an anatomy lesson. And the lesson is this: Men have balls. They must have them, or grow them, otherwise they are not men. They are little girls.

Though the film, based on a Ron Rash novel, doesn’t quite deliver on all its grim portents, debut director David Burris creates a neo-Faulknerian atmosphere of indelible sin in a story that rises above cliché. As Wyle’s character puts it, “The South was never one thing.”

Weirder and more contemplative than many of its time-traveling brethren, Predestination is a stylish head trip. It also marks Australian actor Snook as one to watch, as she demonstrates some serious gender-bending range.

It’s an absorbing documentary that eloquently explores questions about forgiveness.

Teen house-arrest thriller Dark Summer gets out ahead of any ripping-off-“Disturbia” talk with an early Shia LaBeouf joke. But its sleepy, hallucinogenic aesthetic is an entirely different — and rather less engaging — style, anyway.

This film loves its characters, but loves their ideals even more.

You may well emerge from The Search for General Tso with a hankering for the titular spicy dish.

Director Tom Harper (“War Book”) defaults too often to gotcha scares, which is disappointing.

A Most Violent Year is a small picture, but each brushstroke is laden with detail and craftsmanship.

Stephen Sondheim’s stage classic Into the Woods, a dark and subversive musical take on fairy tales, not only survives but triumphs in the composer’s most unlikely collaboration with Disney.

The cast is excellent, particularly Timur Magomedgadzhiev as a conscience-stricken co-worker, but it’s Cotillard who’s in nearly every scene. Desperate, downtrodden, but grasping at each shred of hope, Cotillard — who won an Oscar playing Edith Piaf in 2007’s “La Vie en Rose” — carries the whole film.

Brilliantly acted and directed, Ava DuVernay’s towering Selma is Hollywood’s definitive depiction of the 1960s American civil rights movement — as well as perhaps the most timely movie you’ll see this year.

Director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s film combines allegory, brutal melodrama, black humor and strikingly beautiful compositions, each frame dense with meaning. Leviathan stays absolutely gripping, right up to the O. Henry twist that slams the film shut.