The attraction between the resolutely empirical scientist and his “spiritual,” hippy-dippy girlfriend gives the film an unpredictable quality.

I’ve read ingredients labels that were scarier than The Purge: Anarchy, a plodding horror flick that mistakenly thinks it has big ideas.

This Disney sequel to 2013’s “Planes” is a lot like flying coach: serviceable, but not trying that hard.

The Lord works in mysterious ways but Persecuted works in blundering, obvious ways, straining a Christianity-under-attack theme through a dopey thriller.

As apocalypse scenarios go, this one feels both retro and commendably topical: Nuclear bombs, remember those? (Also: Edward Furlong, remember him?)

Full of appealing actors mugging like crazy, it’s got amusing moments, but the overstuffed visuals suffocate real emotion.

There are enough sharp one-liners and funny situations to keep things entertaining even as Braff delves (lightly) into genuine dilemmas confronting many a married couple.

For two hours of breathless drama, you forget you’re watching actors grunting like chimps and hope two rival civilizations can work together.

“Gatsby” meets “Gossip Girl” in this outsider-among-the-wealthy story set, like Fitzgerald’s novel, on Long Island.

The film fragments into an emotionally devastating parable about what enforced silence does to an artist.

Among group-suicide movies, A Long Way Down may prove uniquely inspirational: It’s bound to make audience members want to kill themselves. It might be the only summer movie during which the snack bars will be selling cyanide Kool-Aid.

There’s nothing wrong with being a brainless B-movie, but this one is funless and lackluster, a grinding mess of pulp clichés with dull characters, perfunctory violence and dim plotting.

Linklater ambitiously shot his new effort over a period of 12 years with the same cast, showcasing what turns out to be an astonishing performance by newcomer Ellar Coltrane, who grows up from 6 to 18 before our eyes over the course of 164 minutes.

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

Expertly serves shivers, buckets of gore — and pretty much every cliché of the genre.

This pastiche of sitcomy episodes never gels into a plot.

Roger Ebert makes an unusual candidate for a documentary: He was a writer, which isn’t cinematic, and not the swashbuckling kind. He didn’t go to war zones, just movies.

The film doesn’t wallow in grief; it’s a thoughtful and nuanced portrait of a stage of life we often choose not to see.

Its sentiment is appealing, though, and its sincerity doesn’t cloy.

More a tribute to youth and its discontents than a fresh exploration.

Even at a cramped and frenetic 82 minutes, the movie feels long. That’s what happens when the audience can guess everything that’s going to happen in advance.

Saint Laurent was known for an almost monk-like focus on his work. And so this film springs to life — the actors, the camera, the editing — when we see his creations the way they were meant to be seen: in motion, and worn by beautiful women.

You get the feeling the guy who wrote Transformers: Age of Extinction used the entire script as a passive-aggressive running joke on his boss, director Michael Bay.

Despite the dramatic dystopia, performances here are uniformly low-affect, which isn’t helpful given the exposition-heavy dialogue and unremarkable set (though Nick’s extraterrestrial visions have a pleasantly kitschy look). Also puzzling is the fact that the pivotal song is not actually performed by Morissette.

Don’t miss it — this is enormously fun visionary filmmaking, with a witty script and a great international cast.

If “Once” was a bracing blast of cool spring water, Begin Again is a can of Fanta. If “Once” was a piano, Begin Again is a keytar. If “Once” was Otis Redding, Begin Again is Bruno Mars.

This one-sided documentary, told entirely by supporters, paints Swartz as a hero pursued by malign forces.

So why isn’t They Came Together more uniformly hilarious? Perhaps it’s that elusive problem of trying to explain why a thing is funny in the first place: Spelling it out deflates the joke.