The setting plumbs the depths but the movie stays on the surface.

Even if this documentary directed by Lisa Hurwitz had nothing else to recommend it, it would be worthwhile as an excellent source of Mel Brooks.

While “Superior” has a rich style and a couple of intriguing ideas, it ultimately doesn’t add up to much, leaving you with the feeling that you’re watching an inferior homage.

The final sequences are the only "stock" moments in this very specific family drama, and something about the last scene left me cold. But the rest is so effective and emotional, a dedicated portrait of trauma passed down through generations, it doesn't matter.

Ahed's Knee is a fascinating movie that evades most complaints of not having anything to say by showcasing its characters struggling to explain free-floating anxieties that have to do with a lot of things. It's also stylish as hell.

Black folks don’t need the classes in Racism 101 “Master” offers; life gives us PhD’s early on. It’s not for horror fans because it’s a complete failure as a horror movie.

Movies rarely come as chic as The Outfit, a thrifty, continually unpredictable whodunit, fashioned with the same meticulousness found in the bones of a deceptively simple suit.

It’s really a vicious piece of work, a movie made by a filmmaker who is unafraid to see the primal, darker parts that beautiful people hide behind their gorgeous facades. It may not be the comeback that fans of Lyne’s were really hoping for, but it’s a reminder that this kind of movie can still get made today.

If this film were a person, it would tell you it had a Black friend and voted for Obama twice. That’s how insultingly simplistic it is about race.

The gloom is practically enveloping. But, in the end, is it really all about hope? Black Crab is more than sufficiently gripping to make you want to see it through and find out.

The latest Cheaper by the Dozen is worse than formulaic; it is lazy and condescending to its audience.

The film bizarrely takes what could have been a touching and powerful drama about the traumatic family ties that bind (and occasionally choke) and attempts to refit it as a straightforward, if mostly low-key horror exercise chock-full of scenes involving various things popping up out of the darkness with numbing regularity.

The film struggles from scene to scene, incoherently tying elongated and repetitive montages of Guy and Sullivan performing together to hagiographic perspectives explaining how giving Guy is or the brightness of Sullivan’s future.

They’ve shared home movies previously, but this documentary—meaningful in concept, but fleeting in its expression—puts them in close-up, with Gainsbourg behind the camera in her debut.

There’s more atmosphere than plot in the Romanian drama Intregalde, a moody parable that sometimes feels like the Eastern European arthouse response to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Plemons brings such a fascinating energy to his character that he really holds the film together.

Directors and co-writers Adam and Aaron Nee understand exactly what their audience wants—much like a good romance novelist might—and deliver an undeniably charming (and refreshingly IP-free) romantic romp.

What The Seed lacks in profundity or consistent atmosphere it very nearly makes up for in its application of nasty effects and striking makeup.

X is a clever formal experiment, but one that plays like a feature-length joke for horror fans and filmmakers rather than offering a distinct perspective. West conjures nasty fun with a genre enthusiast’s expertise and then doesn't offer much beyond that.

Filled with easter eggs for fans of any facet of Cage's career, the filmmakers don’t place a judgment on which of his films have the most value, understanding that a favorite film is intimate and personal, and that what matters is that it does resonate on some level.

Yeoh is the anchor of the film, given a role that showcases her wide range of talents, from her fine martial art skills to her superb comic timing to her ability to excavate endless depths of rich human emotion often just from a glance or a reaction.

With a movie like “Offseason,” you can tell that the filmmaker knows what the usual benchmarks for a “good movie” are—something you can’t say for all B-movie directors—and Keating does achieve them in some aspects of the production. That’s what makes it so confounding when other elements don’t live up to those standards.

It's pretty standard man vs. nature stuff. It’s also a pretty simple parable about the perils of greed. All of this would be fine if “Gold” had more to it, but aside from its undeniable style, there’s very little there there.

The Exorcism of God indulges in many aesthetic and narrative cliches as it reaches a very literal climax, but it overall features more than enough flourishes of originality to elevate it above most possession films.

Ultrasound is a beautiful sci-fi indie that shows us why the horrors of the future may not be so far away, and how our identity is memory.

There is genuine tenderness in his realization that anger does not prevent sadness and that second chances are possible. The action and fantasy are fun, but this is what families will want to talk about after they watch it together.

While the film’s slightly bloated finale overpowers some of the leaner moments that come before it, Turning Red flickers with a bright feminine spirit, one that feels new, crimson-deep, and unapologetically rebellious.

An engaging and sneakily profound film.

Huda's Salon does not stop for one second to take a breath, and the subjects revealed have enormous and urgent philosophical reverb.

Allow the tongue-in-cheek “Fresh” to satisfy your appetite for a generous helping of heartening sisterhood and eradicate your cravings for a juicy burger, possibly forever.

This film is exceptionally skillful in matching the footage to the commentary in thoughtful, illuminating, and often touching pairings.

Co-writer/co-director duo Harpo and Lenny Guit’s apparent disregard for their viewers’ comfort can sometimes be quite funny, depending on your tolerance for messy, meandering absurdist comedy.

Dear Mr. Brody does a fine job of showing how the financial chasm between rich and poor people is as wide and insurmountable today as it was in 1970.

It's one of [Rogowski's] most moving and fully imagined performances, anchoring a drama that tries to do a bit too much for its own good in terms of structure.

Asking for It, the pitifully underwhelming feature debut of writer/director Eamon O’Rourke, is like a guest that shows up to the party late, empty-handed, and without the common courtesy to at least be a good conversationalist.

The Weekend Away is the best kind of purposely preposterous potboiler. The scenery is gorgeous, the twists keep the adrenaline pumping, and the performances are memorable. Even though you might not remember everything that happens, you’ll have a good time while it lasts.

Against the Ice delivers all the delirious period drama thrills and survival horror angst that you could want from a movie with that title.

The prior end to this series, “A Madea Family Funeral,” was actually a decent movie. Madea should have quit while she was ahead.

This is the most beautiful Batman movie you’ve ever seen—even if it’s not really a Batman movie at all.

Cyrano gets the big things right, and Dinklage embodies it all.

Studio 666 is the kind of broad horror-comedy that could certainly stand to be a little scarier, a little funnier, and more clever overall. But then again, no other horror-comedy stars rock band the Foo Fighters as themselves, which is the main pull for this special Foovie event.

The Burning Sea may ultimately be too uptight for its own good, but there’s enough here to satisfy disaster aficionados who’ve already been here before and only really want to root for more of the same.

This ambiguously humorous film with a shaky pace and viewpoint sets forth a tough proposition: will you be patient for its 80+ minutes of running time, accept that nothing much will actually happen throughout that duration and settle for occasional jolts of rewards only?

Feature-length failures as abject as this one are almost frightening, in part because one worries about what kind of a snit the director will be working out if/when he gets a second shot.

Once in a while, you see a film where it's clear that everyone involved is operating at the peak of of their skills, yet the whole is so misguided that the result is still awful. Such is The Desperate Hour.

Instead of exploring the more complex dynamics of adolescent social structure, it limits itself to an artificial set-up and a superficial level of storytelling, more afterschool special than feature film.

No Exit is imperfect and struggles to get going, but it's a grisly piece of work that earns your suspension of disbelief.

Like “The Deeper You Dig,” Hellbender gets better as it gets more surreal, but this one has a nice balance to the out-there imagery in Zelda’s grounded, coming-of-age performance. I love the movies she’s making with her family, but I’d also really like to see what she could do with another director too. She’s got the range and potential.

There’s so much going on in Three Months, so many emotional pieces in motion, but very little of it is particularly moving.

Fistful of Vengeance is a movie in duration only; it’s pretty slapdash in terms of its execution, even during its glossy-looking action set pieces.

Strawberry Mansion sacrifices nothing. It's whimsical but it's poignant, it's light-hearted and it's deep.

It's all so rich—and so richly executed by Ellis, a total filmmaker—that one wishes it added up to more than a series of smart variations on a certain type of film.

Downfall so completely erodes trust in a once-revered institution and the others meant to regulate it that Boeing’s recent claims the 737 Max’s issues have been addressed—that the aircraft is now safe to fly—can only be met with high skepticism. If it’s Boeing, I’m not going.

Copley’s performance remains riveting throughout. It’s a testament to his delivery and physicality that we can hear Kaczynski speak expansively about what he’s going to do, and we can watch him experiment with various explosives, and we’re still on edge, wondering what might happen.

Director Ruth Paxton puts you on edge from the beginning in “A Banquet,” and holds that unsettling mood throughout. But because the sound design is so vivid and Paxton’s eye for disturbing detail is so creative, it’s even more frustrating that the payoff is so unsatisfying.

It’s a startling misfire, a movie that fundamentally fails at almost everything it’s trying to do. Leatherface deserves better.

Dog is uneven in tone and quality but shows promise in the way Tatum and Carolin approach the story with care and heart.

This is a nuanced film, one that doesn’t lay itself out in what we would consider a satisfyingly linear fashion. But it’s the sort of thing that gets a grip on your spine when you’re least expecting it.

Whatever "Breaking Bread" lacks in artistic ambition, it makes up for with its good heart, sincere intentions, and, most importantly, all of those luscious images of food.

Aimless, immature, and frustratingly amateurish, Richard Bates’ “King Knight” feels like it was made exclusively for those involved in it, with no regard for an audience’s patience or time.

There’s enough here in the sheer wealth of material that fans of Peterson’s or jazz could find this documentary worth the runtime. But it’s unfortunate that Avrich and his team were not able to shape this material into an overall stronger narrative.

How is a movie based on a video game more soulless than the game itself? The knock against the world of gaming has long been that they lack a human element, but Ruben Fleischer’s Uncharted feels emptier than the award-winning franchise on which it’s based.

Yes, the script might as well have been written by an algorithm to hit every rom-com beat, from the meet-cute to the magical connection to the setback to the happy ending, but it deserves extra credit for what it avoids. There are no silly misunderstandings, contrived situations, or cartoonishly awful people.

Gentle and lilting, "Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” moves at a hiker’s pace.

The glittering cast of Death on the Nile is all dressed up but, alas, they have nowhere to go.

Catch the Fair One is a revenge-thriller, and a satisfying one, since the evil on display is so total. However, the satisfaction is hollow. Hopelessness is the dominant mood.

Jenny Slate and Charlie Day deserve better than “I Want You Back,” a leaden rom-com that gives them a shot at being funny, charming, and sweet, only to squander it scene by scene.

Another season, another “Liam Neeson Has Skills” movie.

A tougher, smarter film than American sci-fi cinema buffs are used to seeing.

Fashioned out of fresh faces unable to lie to the camera, “Playground” is a study in human behavior wrapped in equal parts fear and curiosity.

The end result is that particularly crumbly kind of book-to-film adaptation that comes across more like a SparkNotes you can watch, a story told at double-speed with much of its impact missing.

Leading man Johnny Depp is up to the challenge, and he gives a finely tuned performance here that kind of feels like his first "old man" turn, and he’s matched by a charming piece of work from Minami, but Minamata is weighed down by self-important direction that loses the human beings in this story by prioritizing the headlines.

Sometimes, the suggestive nature of Gregg’s impressionistic mood piece—as well as a characteristically strong lead performance by Riseborough (Possessor, Mandy)—is enough to sustain one’s interest in Here Before. Right up until Gregg lobs an unsettling and only partly satisfying twist at viewers and leaves us to work through our feelings on our own time.

The Pact starts off on an intriguing note and has some moments when it does work (especially the ones involving Grete), but while it's theoretically filled with dark psychological underpinnings, it seems oddly reticent to deal with them in any significant way.

Ruthless and precise, Steven Soderbergh’s “KIMI” is a timely commentary on isolation and intrusion.

The Worst Person in the World, Trier’s stirringly sophisticated masterpiece, unrolls in piecemeal manner, but once fully extended is a tapestry of unfeigned experiences sowed with the thread of truth, in all its painful ambivalence.

Co-written with Harald Kloser and Spencer Cohen, “Moonfall” is a lumbering, long locomotive of one cliche attached to another, making time pass slowly even though there is so much juggling of these different one-dimensional relationships.

The film is clearly sweet and well-intentioned, but Mexican director and co-writer Analeine Cal y Mayor has trouble transcending the confines of her meager budget, which leaves “Book of Love” looking and sounding distractingly chintzy.

As we tag along with Haroun’s characters, we learn to appreciate their story as a small, but vivid study of lives that are so much more than their progressive developments.

It would have been one thing if Alone with You at least worked as a genre outing on some level. It doesn’t—the film’s chills and scares are nearly non-existent; plot, stretched to the seams, unable to sustain a feature's length; and camera work, amateurish.

Last Looks works best in its twisted often-incoherent plot, where no character is generic. Everyone has a secret. No one is on the level. Surfaces lie.

The Long Night wants to create a sense of encroaching fear and unease in viewers but cannot inspire much of anything other than boredom and apathy.

The wolf and the lion make a great team; the humans and the script do not.

It is equal parts Buster Keaton-Jackie Chan slapstick extravaganza, WWE-styled spectacle, and "geek trick."

This restless film is hardly content to present a portrait of an icon, instead insisting, with compassion and clear eyes, that icons are all too human too.

Fans of cheap thrills and cheesy B-movies are sure to be frustrated by The Requin, a new shark pic that waits about an hour before introducing major carnivorous fish action. That alone might turn off viewers since The Requin only lasts about 89 minutes, and most of the movie plays out like a soapy two-hander about survivor’s guilt.

Is it a compliment or a slam to say that "Sundown" could be the saddest "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode ever?

Pretend it’s not a “true story” and it’s still a shallow representation of sports, parenthood, and comedy, with almost no laughs.

Georgian filmmaker Levan Koguashvili’s Tribeca prize-winner, “Brighton 4th,” is a tragicomedy that sneaks up on you stealthily before flooring you with an emotional sucker punch in the final reel.

Allen’s direction, with Vittorio Storaro lensing, is typically fluid. If you’re at all inclined to view this movie, you’ll find it’s very easy to take in.

Again, merely watching Brody engaging in such painstaking work is interesting; the generic bloodbath that ensues, less so.

The passion for the food, the dream, and each other that fueled the beginning of the story is less vibrant when the details are revealed.

So many visions of the future seem distant, but “After Yang” hits home in how it centers connection and experience to which we can all relate. It’s a powerful, moving drama about what it means to be alive.

An observation that when you’re running away, it doesn’t matter where you’re running to as much as it matters where you’re running from. “Compartment No. 6” has an always energetic sense of place even when it’s keeping to the confined space of its title room. Combined with the committed acting, it makes for a worthwhile journey.

While Dosch’s work is ever-changing but always accessible, Polunin never comes close to matching her acting ability, which ultimately leaves “Simple Passion” lacking.

The British WWII drama “Munich - The Edge of War” starts off as a prim spy thriller and ends as an insufferable civics lesson.

One thing is certain: for all the strain the movie exerts, it never comes close to touching the hem of the writers it purports to depict. And it leaves the mystical and erotic dimensions of their lives and works far outside of its belabored vision.

The biggest problem is that the most touching moments are hammered so hard. "Redeeming Love" could have tried to reach a broader audience but settles for preaching to the choir.