What Werewolves Within aims to be is a Knives Out of the horror genre, with a wacky ensemble having a blast while they play enormous characters and follow clues. They do, and their antics are enjoyable for the most part. However, unlike the Daniel Craig mystery film, Werewolves can sometimes be overly spastic and annoying.

Unpretentious and often witty, it's emotional punch is weakened by spotty performances, especially from Karin Viard in the lead role.

There's some lumpy writing and uneasy acting, but it's easy to see why this charming, inventive film won prizes at festivals in Berlin, San Francisco and Newport, R.I.

An entertaining documentary.

Bank's discursive but oddly riveting documentary, Last Dance, offers a glimpse of what was probably the most important, and conceivably the most bitterly contested, collaboration in Pilobolean history.

Pointless and mind-numbing.

The story unfolds as slowly as does life in Cayeux. There's minimal dialogue and even less action.

Often charming and sweet, and always prettily photographed.

A gritty, well-acted, documentary-style drama.

There's very little doubt in my mind that somewhere, culinary legend Julia Child is fuming about being consigned to a double bio-pic with a whiny, self-centered cooking blogger.

Whedon keeps approaching ideas, but every time he does so he leaves a flaming bag of dog poop on the doorstep, rings the bell and runs away tittering.

Adding goofy uncertainty to shoulders as wide as the East River makes for a disarming hero in one of the spiffiest WWII action yarns ever to march out of Hollywood.

The three-part anthology opens with its best shot, Hong Kong fruitcake Fruit Chan's "Dumplings," photographed by the great Christopher Doyle.

For maximum enjoyment, see this on the enormous classic IMAX screen.

The movie's most exciting when the precision and jaw-dropping nerve of the gang holds center stage.

For me, the movie's high point comes when Tony auditions for a role in a Martin Scorsese movie. Tony learns not to try so hard -- a lesson that Garcia also seems to have absorbed from City Island.

Keaton's overamped girlishness, and the adolescent shenanigans she engages in, make a mockery of this overlong romantic comedy's stance as a celebration of mature love.

This isn't a performance film, and it is far from a definitive portrait of the androgynous performer.

Time for another of Steven Soderbergh's "experimental," i.e., half-assed, films.

The film works to rescue Arendt and her phrase “the banality of evil” from years of cliché, and largely succeeds.

Seth Rogen’s raunchy Sausage Party contains occasional flashes of satirical brilliance. But in true stoner form, it also thinks a lot of stuff is funnier than it actually is.

The actress is absolute bliss in her new Italian drama, The Life Ahead.

Romero's we're-all-doomed-and-maybe-we-deserve-it pessimism is so extreme he would fit right in with a real group of brain-eaters: the French.

The film keeps its focus small, but the trouble is, the characters' emotions stay that way, too.

Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge character — a craven, narcissistic, provincial TV and radio host who has been amusing the Brits for more than 20 years — proves too much of a sketch-comedy creation to sustain a film.

Mandoki never passes up a chance to increase the schmaltz level, but that doesn't lessen the impact of this harrowing account of a hellish childhood.

Though thin on story, the film shows poise and vision, using bleak cinema-realité techniques with chilling effect. Campos promises to be heard from again.

Hardly a deep examination of gender relations or character, but in its unsentimental way it's a tender and charming story of friendship and tolerance.