This is an oddball tale that is well worth telling, but Mr. Carrey simply cannot resist turning it into a Three Stooges routine in drag.

Everything Must Go is the one for the Gipper-the movie in which he steps out of character for his own sake and works hard to lose Will Ferrell. The results are mixed, but I admire the guy for making an effort.

The screenplay, by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, seamlessly captures two different eras with overlapping story lines that never intrude or confuse.

Made in Dagenham is a retro romp with heart, smarts, soul and wit that will restore your faith in the power of the picket line.

In this case two mesmerizing performances by Clive Owen and his astounding co-star, a remarkably adroit child actor named Jaeden Lieberher, who is going places fast.

Peel away the big budget genre film’s veneer of Western Civ citations—embodied by references to artist and inventor Michelangelo, composer Richard Wagner and the romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, among others—and what you have is rather conventional Lego blocks of sci-fi horror.

Anchored by a haunting lead performance by Jessie Buckley, Men is an unsettling drama about the cultural pathology that holds women responsible for the actions of men, focused not so much on how it feels but on what it does. It’s quiet but visually verbose, mixing obvious and obscure metaphors in a way that would get tiresome if not for its modest 100 minute runtime.

It’s not just emotion and creative innovation that feels MIA in this installment. The film acts as though it’s edgy, but lacks real bite.

A grim, toxic, psychological British thriller, brimming with surprises, that always manages to be quite a bit more than it appears on the surface.

A gorgeous color palette and a tactile sensitivity to the emotions and intelligence of rural people help to create an organic work that integrates brilliant casting, yummy production and costume design, and fine cinematography.

It’s too monstrous and mean-spirited to please everyone unconditionally, but I found it challenging and honest — and hair-raising enough to work as a modern morality tale in cowboy boots.

A trash wallow in sex, nudity, violence, cruelty to animals and the skewering of contemporary society, it will predictably appeal to kids and art house patrons who crave the cinematic roller coaster rides of outrage and chaos that lead to downright anarchy. Saner, more rational minds are advised to look elsewhere.

The love affair part of the film is so wholesomely family-oriented that it’s about as sexy as an algebra book. There isn’t even one single kiss. Fortunately, the action sequences are nothing bland or dull, adding up to a whale of entertainment.

The sum of the parts in martial arts on view here do not add up to a fascinating, consistently intelligent whole. You can write the plot on the head of an ice pick.

This film is a prime example of how thrilling it can be when two extraordinarily gifted artists pool their resources to turn a routine thriller into a memorable work of art.

Of course, you can’t really make a movie that combines elements of the metaphysical, zombie and haunted-house genres without a few splatter-movie clichés, but Mr. Geoghegan makes them creepier and more unpredictable than I thought possible.

Fortunately, this is a filmmaker as talented as he is brave and stubborn. Hostiles breathes fresh oxygen into a genre as old as a Confederate cough.

One of the classiest intellectual thrillers in ages.

Who doesn’t want to be lauded for being absolutely rubbish at something we love? The Phantom of the Open is a good reminder that you don’t have to be the best to achieve your dreams.

Contrived, pretentious and not worth seeing even for the perverse pleasure of watching first-rate talents make second-rate fools of themselves.

An hour and 20 minutes into this two-hour-and-11-minute endurance test, a hungry Kaiju attacks the city of Hong Kong and eats the neon signs of every Cantonese restaurant in Victoria Harbor. It’s sort of worth waiting around for.

Incurable romantics seeking a fresh look at love contemporary-style could do a lot worse than Plus One. This charming little independent film, by the first-time writing-directing team of Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer, also introduces two vibrant new stars in Jack Quaid and Maya Erskine as Ben and Alice.

A bleak and pointless exercise in pretentious existentialism.

The physical abuse and emotional anguish sometimes borders on overkill, but the final outcome is overwhelming.

Set in the upper-class echelons of Paris and written, acted and filmed entirely in French, the title Coup de Chance translates as “stroke of luck,” and that’s exactly what it is, restoring the masterful filmmaker to his deserved position as one of the screen’s most profound storytellers.

Not a great film in the same vein as "Badlands" and "Pretty Poison," but a very good one that is well worth seeing.

It’s a shallower product than either of its inspirations, but it also has its own, distinct energy. It doesn’t totally jettison the franchise’s 45 years of baggage, but when it does, what’s left is a damn good monster movie.

Both the songs (once again written by two-time Oscar-winners Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez) and the relationships between the characters — strong points of the original film — register with less energy and originality this time around.

A flawless film of heartrending realism about the eternal chord that binds parents and children and the emptiness when they are separated.

Despite occasional flaws, Disconnect is filled with fine performances, informed by an often sophisticated script and directed with passion.

A singularly unpleasant and ugly topic film about a profoundly unpleasant and ugly topic, Goat possesses all the directness of a fraternity paddle whack across the keister, but with only a fraction of the subtlety. As to which experience is more enjoyable to live through, it’s pretty much a tie.

Though it’s a neat throwback that features a few memorable performances, MaXXXine imitates its period setting a little too well, prioritizing style and adding little substance to the series.

A dismal hack job pretending to be a take on modern relationships.

The truth is, this flawed but still entertaining film’s chief asset is its representation of a young woman who has spent her life following orders but is now finally crafting an identity of her own in a shifting moral landscape.

The movie often seems too good to be true, but by the end I wanted a dolphin just like Winter for my own swimming pool.

The power in this movie is the way Chris Weitz trusts us to discover the facts for ourselves.

The Innkeepers, a desultory indie-prod poorly written and lamely directed by Ti West, and filmed on the cheap at the actual location, is a poor-man's rip-off of Stanley Kubrick's hotel spookfest, "The Shining," promising paranormal horrors to all who dare to enter. Where is Jack Nicholson when we need him?

The result is a movie of enormous intelligence.

One hour and forty minutes of gibberish about three generations of empowered female superheroes wreaking havoc on a postapocalyptic twilight zone, written and directed by a terrible filmmaker named Julia Hart. She’s no Rod Serling.

Unpredictable, with a twisted surprise around each corner, Big Bad Wolves is a clever and arresting shocker from a country where blood and gore on the screen are least expected.

In my own very humble opinion, In Praise of Love lacks even the most fragmented charms I have found in almost all of his previous works. [9 Sep 2002, p.25]

The result seems to tiptoe around the even juicier chance to tell the dirty behind the scenes stories that could have made this story a real bombshell indeed.

Elegant and understated, Belle is a true story about the effects of slavery on 18th-century England, told in the style of a sweeping romantic saga by Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters.

Some of the visual horror will no doubt be of interest to genre fans, but even there the appeal is limited. In an age when we are awash in efficient and involving horror movies — from "Halloween" to "A Quiet Place" to even "The Nun" (which is not that great but is at least short) — Suspiria comes off as bloated and disconnected.

This movie is not without its moments of visual interest, but for a more comprehensive study of Baker’s life and career, read James Gavin’s book Deep in a Dream, or better yet, curl up with the real deal and a glass of wine and listen to what used to be.

Elvis Presley never dies, but an unequivocally gripping, emotionally effective and quintessential movie about him still begs to be made. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is not the one.

The result is a colossal bore that is never passionate, exciting, sexy or entertaining, with an ill-fated titled performance by Joaquin Phoenix that borders on catatonic.

A filthy, pretentious, brutally violent and utterly pointless load of rubbish called Killing Them Softly.

Stephen Frears’ latest based-on-a-true story onscreen endeavor is at the same time compelling and endearing, perhaps because at its core it’s a story about the common man triumphing over naysayers.

Written with wit and nuance and sensitively directed by Maya Forbes, who makes a formidable feature-film debut, this is a movie that informs and entertains, with a centerpiece performance by the great, often underrated and always surprising Mark Ruffalo.

Actor-turned-director Don Cheadle trashes the historic career of Miles Davis in Miles Ahead, named after one of the greatest albums ever made by one of the most influential musicians of all time.

It never scales the cinematic heights or reaches the same groundbreaking level as "Saving Private Ryan," but it’s intensely ferocious and relentlessly rough on the senses. You’ll know you’ve been to war, and not on the Hollywood front.

Special praise goes to Alex Wolff as Jamie and Stefania Owen as his sympathetic, agreeable girlfriend Dee Dee, and veteran actor Chris Cooper makes a complex but astonishingly convincing cameo as the great Jerome David Salinger himself. I went to Coming Through the Rye expecting nothing and left feeling enriched, enlightened and warm all over.

Vulgar, contrived and incomprehensible.

Ant-Man is a brainless bore and a colossal waste of money, time and computer-generated special effects.

To its credit, the latest and seemingly last Guardians installment— which at times can feel like a Spotify playlist in search of a movie— mostly manages to drown out the corporate exhaustion of its parent company with copious and often inspired needle drops, even more hit-or-miss one-liners, and a visual playfulness that recalls actual comic books.

Hey, Boo solves the mystery of Boo, and also, to some degree, the mystery of Harper Lee. It's a fine film, well worth seeing.

Lazy, eccentric, chain-smoking and accident-prone, Mr. Murray gives ’em what they clamor for. His eventual redemption as a saint in disguise is predictable. The direction is negligent and the jokes are mild. It’s an O.K. little picture that doesn’t really go anywhere, but it has a resonance that is easy on the heart.

There is insufficient character development and insight, and the film has no ending, so the viewer just hangs in space, asking a million questions for which there are no answers. Low Tide wafts, and so does audience interest.

It’s equal parts compelling, ridiculous and uproariously pleasurable, often to the point where you can almost hear director Ridley Scott shouting, “Are you not entertained?”

The filmmakers’ attempts to play around with the concept of the unlikely action hero are only moderately successful.

Lanthimos is so sure-handed and masterful in his craftsmanship, his cast so able and willing to crawl into whatever strange corner that he leads them to, that you cannot help but respect the man and his bizarre creation, even while resenting its obtuseness and self-regarding nature.

A fact-based film about the life-altering pain of failure, the thrill of belated success, and the challenges inherent in both, Dreamin’ Wild is a testament to a musical family who epitomize the old saying “No matter how long it takes, if you wait long enough, your dream will come true.”

Despite the lofty and even admirable aspirations of this particular entrant to the ever-growing genre, what it has to offer bears little difference from all the rest: namely, a couple of really bad nights in a very bad house.

Romantic, bittersweet and funny as hell, Café Society turns Hollywood inside out, rooting through the superficial tinsel to find the real tinsel. You go away gobsmacked, beaming and happy to be both.

Although the film centers on Trump, a divisive man and genuine threat to American democracy, Sherman and Abbasi leave space for The Apprentice to embrace larger themes. It’s about the possibility of corruption and how easily money and power can entice us.

The Grey avoids smug clichés, takes you to places you least expect and settles for no comfortable solutions, while it explores the dark shadows of the male psyche and finds more emotional fragility there than you find in the usual phony macho myths from Hollywood.

From its gas-passing piranha (voiced by In the Heights’ Anthony Ramos) to its reliance on phrases like “butt rock” and “grumpy pants” that seem grown in a lab to make the 12-and-under set giggle, the movie plays its target audience like a fiddle.

The story Hood’s film tells is a vital one to revisit, not just because the deceptions it illuminates inform so much of the political and international morass affecting our daily lives, but also shows the power of a single act of moral courage, and it does so while being blisteringly entertaining cinema.

It is not the messiah of genre cinema; it’s a very good, perhaps great, futuristic epic that will leave you with something to talk about afterwards.

I liked the sensory strengths of a movie without anything of beauty to look at, but Don’t Come Back From the Moon eventually fails to involve viewers completely because it’s about the consequences of a wasted life instead of the sorry events that lead up to one. Poignant and close, but no cigar.

Ms. Cardellini plays it like a zombie, and she isn't helped by all the loitering camera angles and repetitive close-ups of her head framed against car windows. It's a worthy subject, ploddingly explored in a film that is too modest for its own good.

The two-handed duet at the center of Love Crime radiates, but the parade of easily parodied men who stomp in and out of their corporate offices just seem like script rejects from "Mad Men."

A far too anemic and restrained take on a story that demands at least some kind of dour sensuousness if not straight-up bodice ripping.

The result of so much consecration and loyalty to the subject matter is a movie of uncommon exhilaration.

Another illuminating performance by Rachel Weisz and a brilliant screenplay by the distinguished British playwright David Hare make Denial one of the most powerful and riveting courtroom dramas ever made.

More bitter, bleak lives of American mill workers without a compass and no place to go if they had one are showcased in the pessimistic drama Out of the Furnace. It’s getting to be a dismal film director’s obsession bordering on cliché.

This is not a movie for everybody, but that assessment is not exactly intended as a thumbs down. Alarming thrills are guaranteed.

It’s not a guilty pleasure; it’s actual pleasure. If there was ever a time to run into Downton Abbey’s welcoming embrace it’s now.

I Want Your Sex may not ultimately have much to say, but its livewire comic scenarios yield the kind of raucous, sexually charged entertainment seldom seen in Hollywood of late.

Powerful, devastating, depressing and deeply unsettling, the documentary Path of Blood by British filmmaker Jonathan Hacker gives new meaning to the word terror.

A tedious exercise in tedium.

For repeated breathless sequences involving hand-to-hand combat, assassination attempts, and a wicked climactic car chase, shout out to Director Leitch.

I found Howl a fascinating and imaginative evocation of mid-20th-century liberation, a mere and merciful 90 minutes long.

The true star of the show, however, is M. Night Shyamalan, whose camera work remains a marvel. Most of Knock at the Cabin takes place in a single room with its protagonists trapped in a stationary position, and yet Shyamalan continually finds new ways to frame the space, the characters, and their relationships to each other.

There’s nothing else to watch or care about in the entire film anyway. Once again, a great actress is on her own.

Shot by Barry Ackroyd, the same cinematographer who filmed "The Hurt Locker," and using the same camera techniques, this movie looks like outtakes from a much better film.

Master Gardener fits as snuggly in writer-director Paul Schrader’s legacy of films about obsessive and isolated men as do pruning shears in the calloused hand of the film’s title character.

Powerful, persuasive and insightful, Falling is a sensitive and beautifully composed film that marks the formidable directing debut of the wonderful actor Viggo Mortensen.

In Villains, an energetic combination of black comedy and lazy thriller that is more of an attention grabber than most of what passes for disorganized, empty-headed, juvenile horror in today’s sociopathic cinema, four very good actors give it all they’ve got for nearly 90 minutes. Considering most of what I’ve suffered through this year, that passes for praise.

Empathy and compassion aren’t vulnerabilities in this narrative. They’re resources, with which you can defy the cold cosmos — though not without cost.

Let Him Go wastes no time pulling you into an emotional grasp so compelling you can’t believe what happens as the narrative moves from one shocking scene to the next in a pandemic of violence.

World War Z towers above every other alleged summer blockbuster. It’s the real deal.

Maria is not a terrible movie, just a big disappointment.

It’s a late-life coming-of-age story, and it’s not great. But she gives it all she’s got, and she’s never been sunnier or funnier.

Unfortunately, Split is a preposterous bore that steals shamelessly from "The Search for Bridey Murphy," "The Three Faces of Eve," "Sybil" and Shirley Jackson’s novel "The Bird’s Nest," made by a man who has been spending entirely too much time watching "Law and Order: SVU."

As the focus of Mayor Pete, a fascinating chronicle of his 2019-2020 campaign, he’s living proof that decency, integrity, and liberty and justice for all still work in American politics. His story is like a good book you just can’t put down for fear that you might miss something.

Scoop is presented as a thriller, which works. Although we know the outcome, Martin successfully immerses us in the narrative in a way where it feels precarious.