Although it's undeniably well-made, it lacks the kind of energy that might have helped make it truly come alive, and seem like more than a historical reenactment.

While far from being a classic, “The Day the Earth Blew Up” is a charming and often invigorating reimagining of key Looney Tunes characters (Daffy Duck and Porky Pig), with a look and sound that links it to past versions without feeling indebted to them.

The movie practically sparkles in scenes at Melanoff’s candy factor, where the rainbow motif is woven throughout the space and even onto Melanoff’s commander jacket, which is topped off with candy buttons and cupcakes on his shoulders.

Although competently made, the film is such a run-of-the-mill military melodrama that it might have skipped its assuredly brief theatrical appearance and gone straight to VOD.

This movie shouldn't just engage and amuse and occasionally move us; it should shock and scar us. It should kill Ned Stark and Optimus Prime and Bambi's mommy, then look us in the eye after each fresh wound and say, "Sorry, love. These things happen."

The evident smallness of the production belies its power to disturb. It's like one of those knives that are small enough to be hidden in a coat sleeve or the lip of a boot but that can still cut a man's throat.

By the time you get to the end, Cronenberg has pinned all his people against the screen like so many laboratory specimens, ripped off their scabs, and vivisected their longings: an old wound here, a long--deferred dream there. Still, the movie sticks with you. It's a fleeting nightmare that refuses to fade.

With its frequent use of puppetry and quirky animation, Boom Bust Boom suggests what an old-school episode of “Sesame Street” would’ve played like, had it focused solely on the subprime crash.

While Juniper as a whole is not great, it has enough wit and intelligence to be better than it sounds. Most of all, it has Rampling, as captivating as ever; she proves once again that she can single-handedly take somewhat dubious material and make it eminently watchable.

This film doesn’t rumble through its 156-minute runtime; it flies by. And though “F1” has little to say about the sport’s past, present, or future, the propulsive ride it engineers isn’t a wasted diversion.

John Wick breathes exhilarating life into this tired premise, thanks to some dazzling action choreography, stylish visuals and–most importantly–a vintage anti-hero performance from Keanu Reeves.

The best An Inconvenient Sequel can offer is the formidable image of Gore, nearly 70, refusing to stand down. It's inspiring, but even the filmmakers have to know it's not enough. I was moved by the movie, and then I stepped outside and looked at my phone.

This one is a mostly likable effort, but it doesn't quite feel like a self-contained movie with a shape and a discernible point; it's more of a collection of material arranged in a way that more or less makes sense.

With a road movie story that aims toward simplistic and rather formulaic romantic wish-fulfillment, it offers some interesting scenery, but its main attraction is another estimable performance by the talented Garcia.

Sometimes I Think About Dying feels like it needs one more "act" to complete its arc. It's an unfinished bridge. The film attempts an eventual catharsis, but there's just not enough information to get us across the river. We're left hanging.

This is comfort comedy, pure and simple.

The result is a narratively relaxed yet intensely tactile experience.

There's nothing about this kind of film that is innately less "formulaic" than what you get when see a Marvel, Star Wars, or Fast & Furious movie; it's just gentler and more human-scaled.

Although Friedkin was notoriously grandiose at certain stages of his career, he comes across as mostly calm, self-deprecating and centered here, at least when he's concentrating on the nuts and bolts of moviemaking.

As a documented record of Hill's story and her achievements, Anita is a serviceable, at times riveting documentary.

There’s a priceless scene in Jack Bryan’s new documentary, Active Measures, where McCain is seen smirking through a speech delivered by the Russian president, as he sneers with theatrical menace in the senator’s direction.

By turns daffy and dazzling, awkward and artful, Journey to the West takes an ancient tale and gives it contemporary flair.

Avalon is often a warm and funny film, but it is also a sad one, and the final sequence is heartbreaking. It shows the way in which our modern families, torn loose of their roots, have left old people alone and lonely--warehoused in retirement homes. The story of the movie is the story of how the warmth and closeness of an extended family is replaced by alienation and isolation.

Though it too readily compares to other intimate observations on life-changing connections, you could place this take by director Maïwenn somewhere between Ingmar Bergman’s masterful “Scenes from a Marriage” and Derek Cianfrance’s searing “Blue Valentine,” while never being able to forget My King's two brilliant performances from Emmanuelle Bercot and Vincent Cassel.

A smart and strong genre work that makes up for a relative lack of gore and viscera with plenty of tension and suspense and a number of impressive performances.

Despite that emotional distance, the film is carried by young actress Lea van Acken, forced to really emotionally deliver given the lack of camera tricks some actors use as a crutch.

Basically, if you’re a fan of sports cinema where an all-American lad goes up against a Eurotrashy adversary (Fignon even looks like the blonde-haired dude who tried to kill Bruce Willis in “Die Hard”) on a televised world stage, The Last Rider gives a nice, nifty portrait of a guy who goes through one hell of an uphill battle—both figuratively and literally.

The Innocent is quirky, touching, and well-played fun.

Ejiofor’s movie eloquently harnesses all these customary elements and yields them into an irresistible family film that plays like a brand-new “October Sky” with an urgent human-interest dimension at its heart.

This may be the start of a most welcome girl-powered franchise.

There is nothing in this expertly-drawn character study that attempts to solve the mystery of Jeffrey Dahmer, because life rarely hands us those answers.

When it stays with the two leads, one Israeli, one Palestinian, it makes a compelling story.

Burns doesn’t delve into Sarah’s emotional psyche as deeply as one craves throughout Come True. The somewhat maddening twist ending—more a copout than genuinely earned—excuses some of that misstep, but only artificially so.

Omen excellently captures the feelings of both cultural and generational alienation. In script and performance, there is never a moment of certainty.

There are enough interesting ideas and at least two confident performances holding A Quiet Place: Day One together, even if it sometimes feels like a first draft of a richer, more complex final film.

This is a special movie. It has a life force unlike any other crime thriller I’ve seen. It’s about characters who suffer a personal failure but emerge transformed. It’s a violent movie, but not a cruel one, and unexpectedly moving by the end.

The footage of Bordeaux is awe-inspiring, with aerial shots of the great chateaux and the vineyards. Closeups of the labels from the different chateaux abound, along with luscious shots of glimmering wine being poured. The obsessive nature of the entire industry is reflected in these shots, a good marriage of theme and form.

From its opening, there’s a distinct sense of unease shrouded over Miracle, the third feature written and directed by Romanian filmmaker Bogdan George Apetri.

We the Parents, one-sided and promotional as it often feels, presents a possible solution, as well as the difficulties in achieving it.

While We Watched is an urgent interrogation of the state of journalism today. And yet, while important, it’s unclear what this has to say that hasn’t already been said.

Even as it’s closing character arcs that started years ago, it feels like a film with too little at stake, a movie produced by a machine that was fed the previous 24 flicks and programmed to spit out a greatest hits package.

The story told in “Out of Darkness” is ultimately sad more than terrifying, a parable about violence and the roots of human war. It’s an impressively credible and gnarly journey back in time.

Ne Zha 2 is a rare sequel that amplifies both its action and drama without sacrificing much of what already worked in the last movie. It’s also a rare blockbuster that offers something worthwhile for a wide-ranging audience.

While the cinematography and production design give The Double a formidable if not particularly original look, what really sells the movie is its acting. Eisenberg is unshowily brilliant in his dual role.

To feel seen is a potent, potentially life-changing emotion, and only those who were never in the dark would have a moral problem with it. Rafiki makes this serious point quite effectively, never losing its ebullience.

I’ll gladly take a documentary about a pop culture moment with too much to talk about when so many of them feel like they have nothing to say beyond what we already know and love.

Movies like Just Mercy spoon-feed everything to the viewer in easily digestible chunks that assume you know nothing, or worse, don’t know any better.

French writer/director Léa Mysius concocts a compelling witch’s brew with The Five Devils, but the result doesn’t quite come together with the potency she’d desired.

Executed with the confidence of a victory lap, the last hour of "1666" is a series highlight, especially as it captures the brand of out-and-out fun that has made Janiak a newly minted crowd-pleaser in horror.

Hayek turns Beatriz into her own breed of wonder woman, Lithgow’s Strutt is definitely a super villain of sorts and their head-to-head battle is clearly worth seeing even if, in real life, it has only begun.

We’re left with a mid-level take on Superman that, at times, will remind you of the 1978 version, but doesn’t quite match it for pure pop entertainment value.

A few heavy-handed stabs at commentary aside, “Queens of the Dead” gets by with good, flirty cheer.

This documentary directed by Lydia Tenaglia is a conspicuously imperfect movie that turns more compelling after trying your patience, then yields a final half-hour that’s as engrossing as a finely-wrought suspense drama.

Wisely, Kornbluth strives to put a human face on the situation, focusing on several families who represent hard-working citizens who are barely making ends meet with their shrinking paychecks—let alone building up any savings.

Like the subgenre that inspired it, Ghost Stories is just twisted enough to be humorous, but doesn’t shy at all on the creepy factor.

A documentary that had this reviewer wondering if it was a real or faux doc until the very end. Turns out it’s real, but the suspicion that it might be otherwise is a tribute both to the debuting filmmakers’ skills in shaping their story and that story’s innate dramatic power.

The cooking scenes comprise the best moments in this episodic film.

A thin, problematic and amateurishly-made documentary, 12 O'Clock Boys plays like two films awkwardly grafted together.

People Places Things treats its characters a lot messier than most romantic comedies, which makes it delightful at times. It also makes it disappointing when the film falls into the same traps that plague romantic comedies.

The New Black is an informative, measured, and never-not-engaging documentary about the emergence of LGBT consciousness in African-American communities across the U.S., and particularly communities with a strong church presence.

It’s a flawed film, but there are elements that really work, especially the lead performance and some of Flanagan’s gifts with composition. Before I Wake is also particularly interesting to watch now as one can see it as a career stepping stone to the movies he's made since.

This movie shows us the teamwork, the dedication, the national pride, the astonishing vistas, and the reason that Purja and his team deserve to be as renowned as Sir Edmund Hillary, maybe more.

At a daunting 188 minutes long, Never Look Away takes its time, doesn't force its themes. Like one of those novels that follows a family through multiple generations, Never Look Away follows Kurt from Dresden, to Düsseldorf, to Berlin.

No one holds the screen like Mac and Kelly’s big-eyed darling of a daughter, played by twins Elise and Zoey Vargas.

Noah is more of a surrealist nightmare disaster picture fused to a parable of human greed and compassion, all based on the bestselling book of all time, the Bible, mainly the Book of Genesis.

It’s not exactly revolutionary, and more alarming than scary. But it’s still provocatively feverish stuff from the dearly missed vintage annals of Cronenberg.

I wish it had been a lot more fun, frankly. The movie’s tone never quite gels; it’s too outlandish and cartoony to convince, but not so outlandish and cartoony that it takes off into a realm of over-the-top exhilaration.

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.

The Nightmare is more effective than the esoteric "Room 237" because it represents a full immersion into a common human experience. The re-enactments are superb.

There are a lot of fragmentary ideas in The Real Thing, but they’re not cohesive or worthwhile as they’re loosely formed into one grey 232-minute lump.

It’s ultimately a film that works on its own terms, a long-delayed enriching of the story of a beloved character that will make her ultimate sacrifice in “Avengers: Endgame” feel even more powerful in hindsight. Every blockbuster this Summer is being touted as the sign that the world is back to normal—“Black Widow” is more a reminder of what fans loved before it shifted off its axis.

Nesher skillfully balances a lot of characters and storylines, each illustrating a different kind of Israeli and a different connection to Jewish life, culture, and practice, but he never lets any of them become symbolic rather than real.

The interviews are the best part of the film, which lacks the sleek, focused, concentrated quality of the best Merchant Ivory movies but succeeds on its own terms as sort of a “hangout” movie, non-fiction division.

Worse, Z for Zachariah is ultimately too dramatically slight and brief for its ambitions, despite its sometimes labored myth-making script and visuals.

I can’t honestly recommend Climate of the Hunter to everybody; it’s not a generic horror movie, but rather a dark arthouse fantasy that brings to mind the films of Ingmar Bergman and Andy Milligan. To say that Reece’s movie is bound to be an acquired taste would be something of an understatement.

Knowing Julio Torres’ previous work is the key to understanding his feature debut “Problemista,” which combines his love of design, the inner lives of toys, surrealism, and whimsy into a race against the clock, the immigration system, and the art scene in New York City.

Miller owns the material and single-handedly elevates it to something you can’t look away from, while reminding us the effortless appeal she brought into even her relatively thankless part in “American Sniper.”

A tender and compassionate debut feature by writer/directors Mark Slutsky and Sarah Watts, the latter of whom grew up gay in a Jehovah’s Witness community, You Can Live Forever lets the romantic tension between its protagonists build slowly and naturally, in stolen glances and small touches.

It’s a movie best received in a relaxed frame of mind. Because much of it is a slow burn, if there’s indeed a burn at all.

The languidly-paced picture has a staggering array of beautiful images and vistas.

Rustin was undoubtedly made in admiration of its subject. Yet, with a stale approach to its plotline and confused narrative priorities, the film is more like an educational outline than a spirited story.

One might not think that bouncing back and forth between Jazz Hentoff and First Amendment Hentoff would make for consistently engaging viewing, but the movie is in fact remarkably fluid and never less than compelling.

I Was at Home, But... creates a space where questions are asked, but rarely answered, where things are suggested and never underlined, and every element — camera placement, music, blocking, sound design — is so deliberate that it pulls you into its vortex, and it makes you submit to its severe rhythms.

Excels when it dives into the complications of race and authority, articulated vividly by three excellent lead performances.

Probably a lot of people who see this film will get fed up with Gili's passivity, but some people in life are passive in a way that feels like a defiantly inactive reaction to ill treatment. These boys don't view her as a person with feelings, but Gurfinkel's film does.

The consequences of seemingly innocuous careless moments, the inexorability of fate, and the possibility of grace or just mere reconciliation in the face of disheartening catastrophe: these are the themes of Bluebird.

The most pleasurable part of watching this Nora’s story is seeing how the males in her life have to make room for her, and do some learning themselves.

At the very least, we should give thanks that an almighty cinematographer like Emmanuel Lubezki, who has won a record three consecutive Oscars for his work on “Gravity,” “Birdman” and “The Revenant,” exists.

Lister-Jones is the very definition of a "phenom," and if the film sometimes falls back on cliché, there's enough charm and interest here — particularly in the chemistry between the two leads — to keep it afloat.

Outlandish as its action often is, The Captain is based on a true story. Schwentke’s film, though, has an allegorical/satirical axe to grind, and it more often than not frames the narrative in dark archetypal terms.

The problem is that the sociopolitical underpinnings of “Ick” feel relatively shallow and borderline sadistic, leaving viewers with a hollow “Blob” riff with too little to hold onto regarding character, setting, or even horror.

Akilla’s Escape is undone by its own lack of faith in the viewer, opting to explicitly tell rather than rely on its fine actors to show us who their characters are.

V/H/S/HALLOWEEN is one of the best entries in this now-annual anthology series because it feels the most tonally consistent (and has maybe the best batting average). Not only are most of the stories tied together with themes of Halloween, like urban legends, bowls of candy, and haunted houses, but they mostly have the same tone: a tongue-in-bloody-cheek sense of humor and willingness to go beyond perceived decorum.

Through the ending and postscript, which leave you unsure how to feel about what you’ve seen but eager to discuss it with others, this is a nostalgia trip of the best kind.

While I admit I would have preferred a documentary about the people who have passed this tradition down from generation to generation, director Ricky Staub’s fictional feature serves as a worthwhile introduction.

Cameron invites viewers into this fully realized world with so many striking images and phenomenally rendered action scenes that everything else fades away.

The New Rijksmuseum is a four hour procession of minute details, an exhaustive catalogue of art world diplomacy and process, but what sticks is the way Hoigendijk weaves all the strands together, crosscutting here, overlapping there.

The Blackening is an unapologetically Black comedy through and through. It maintains its wit and bite to the very end, boastfully serving audiences a hilarious film we didn’t know we needed.