The fact that director Ben Berman is making a documentary would make this concept quite unsavory, that is, if the entire enterprise weren’t so damn dull.

As “Las Hurdes” blurred documentary and fiction, this film blurs what we traditionally expect from animation. As for why to tell this story, it’s all really there in an opening discussion about the impact of art and what is gained from dissecting it vs. just experiencing it.

A tremendously absorbing film, a documentary that plays like a first-rate thriller hinging on key issues of the Cold War and African decolonization.

The laughless mess of Sextuplets proves that Marlon Wayans still has a big obstacle in the way of his comedic greatness — himself.

Not even the most devoted of Mandy Moore fans would mistake 47 Meters Down for a good movie by any means.

This is a purely sensationalistic cinematic experience that paradoxically encourages reflection and contemplation.

It’s a privileged perspective with nothing to share for the rest of us.

Blinded by the Light, at its very best, captures the experience of being a fan, the pure exhilaration of it, and the sense of your vision opening out to vistas beyond your horizon.

While the premise eventually grows thin and the jokes turn repetitive by the third act, the chemistry between the movie’s three stars is both lively and substantial enough to keep the antics enjoyable.

As magnificent as the movie looks, sounds, and feels, this cut expands upon and unpeels the movie’s weaknesses both as story and meditation on Vietnam.

I didn’t laugh a whole lot while watching Adam, but I was never less than wholly engaged, and by the end, I felt grateful for having seen it.

The goofier and more random the movie is, the better it is, and it certainly gets goofier and more random as it goes.

Sama owes much of the authenticity and visual panache of This Is Not Berlin to his cinematographer Alfredo Altamirano. The DP’s nervy, panoramic compositions heighten the precise production design of various multimedia art pieces and an assortment of impeccably choreographed street protests.

A plainly affable romantic comedy that’s not too powerful with its romance, and certainly not its comedy.

Affleck's acting style has always been understated to the point of barely existing. It's why he was riveting in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” in particular. Affleck drifts, he floats through dialogue, he doesn't have words at his easy disposal. This works well for him here.

I’d have an easier time accepting the trite, asked-and-answered conclusions that director Muye Wen and co-writers Jianu Han and Wei Zhong lead viewers to if they were more adept at tugging at viewers’ heart-strings.

This is an inspiring film, a funny and informative feature whose subjects were creative kindred spirits I’d never seen onscreen before. I realized that I was being represented here, and my unreconciled shame morphed into a sense of liberation.

This is a Sad Rich People movie, no more so than a lot of American films dating back to the dawn of cinema, but it's no "The Leopard" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" or "The Great Gatsby" or you-name-it.

What gives Socrates its special distinction are the precision and excellence exhibited in all major areas of its making, from direction, writing, editing and cinematography to the two standout performances by young actors that anchor its drama.

Wang and Zhang's film ends with an explication of a new “two child” policy, a celebration of the one-child-policy’s overall success. The propaganda for his policy is as cheesy as that for the old one. A sense of dread as to how this policy will be enacted intermingles with a strange feeling that a true reckoning with the old way is still very far off.

Cliches aside, there's something at work in The Peanut Butter Falcon, something eccentric and exuberant. Nilson and Schwartz's devotion to the details of Zac's world highlights Gottsagen's funny and intelligent performance, giving the film an authenticity it wouldn't otherwise have.

I am here to tell you that you will be shockingly entertained. Dora and the Lost City of Gold manages to ride a fine line between being true to the characters and conventions of the series and affectionately skewering them.

Full antihero equality will only be achieved when women are permitted to carry a crime drama by being so charismatic that viewers would consider following them into hell rather than give up the buzz they get from watching them be bad.

Thanks to Øvredal’s visual flair and visceral dedication to the monsters of Guillermo del Toro, clearly a major influence on the “Trollhunter” director’s bittersweet approach to the field, this satisfying though far from innovative dish boasts comforting flavors throughout.

Playing Banks over the course of more than a decade, Hodge consistently makes the movie compelling, even when it veers toward a safe, faith-based uplift.

I have eaten stacks of pancakes that were less syrupy than The Art of Racing in the Rain.

Diane Kruger is as inscrutable to us as she is to her fellow Mossad agents and the asset she seduces in The Operative, a solidly crafted if forgettable espionage thriller.

When a comedy is made about a real-life topic that is no laughing matter, it had better be funnier than Sameh Zoabi’s Tel Aviv on Fire. The premise is a richly flavorful one, but the execution is as bland as unseasoned hummus.