American Animals takes an appropriately wild approach to its subject, biting off a little more than it can chew, but nevertheless coming up with a truly novel entry in the overcrowded heist genre.

It's an uneasy tonal mix that wants to have it both ways - this is a difficult way to pay the rent, but look at how charming the Fokkens are.

The trouble is that the film also wants to make Kev at least partly sympathetic, despite his monstrous treatment of his son, and nothing we learn about him ever does, or could, accomplish that.

A movie that sets out to make boy bands look silly. The conceptual error is obvious. There’s low-hanging fruit and then there’s fruit that’s already on the ground, rotting underfoot.

Canadian actor Kirby's bedroom-eyes shtick is infused with just the right amount of creepiness, as Polley's film plays with the blurry line between soulful romantic obsession and just plain stalking.

This is one of those nature documentaries that’s pretty much solely interested in being entertaining, and so is cleverly edited to look like the linear story of a mother (dubbed Sky) and her newborns (Scout and Amber).

A beautifully acted if fairly poky coming-of-age story.

A refreshingly naturalistic depiction of the dynamic of traveling companionship — at any age.

Where Zhao excels is in the range of emotions she gets from a mostly nonprofessional cast.

A thoughtful drama which sags when it tries to shoehorn its characters into by-the-numbers plot points.

The praise for this static, overlong, stagebound work is a mystery to me.

The real treat here is the science, not the fiction. The film’s sleek aesthetic was developed in consultation with NASA about what such a mission would actually require, and look like as viewed on surveillance cameras.

Mark Becker's Romantico is beautifully realized on old-fashioned film. And that's only part of its charms.

Highly entertaining.

Yes, The Secret Life of Words owes much to Lars von Trier's 1999 "Breaking the Waves." But Coixet's riff stands on its own thanks to thoughtful performances by Polley and Robbins.

The documentary is much too conventional -- lots of boring talking heads, etc. -- to do the subject matter justice.

All the past decade’s Marvel movies have been heading toward this showdown. Turns out the payoff was worth the wait.

The film manages to be both hopeful and devastating — and recommended viewing for anyone who subscribes to the facile notion that abused women should “just leave.”

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.

Is “F1” too long? Absolutely. But not once did I say, “Are we there yet?”

Aside from the very occasional stab with a dagger, John prefers to shoot people at point-blank range. It gets old fast.

The Way, Way Back is balanced, satisfying, wholesome. Dig in.

He’s great as a celebrity chef who’s forced to re-examine his priorities in this extremely funny and big-hearted comedy that Favreau also wrote.

Let us return to reality (all this happened less than three years ago; do documentarians think we don't read the papers?).

This rehash of familiar pacifist arguments offers neither heat nor light. It's "Fahrenheit: Room Temperature."

The collection is a mixed bag, although there are no clunkers.

Although Hill failed to derail Thomas’ career, she seems to consider her testimony a success: She remains a highly sought public speaker about workplace sexual harassment, which in large part thanks to her is much less tolerated than it once was.

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.