A film so obedient to current academic fashions in both politics and cinema aesthetics that it ends up feeling both contrived and a bit dishonest.

A modest little suspense puzzle that simulates rather than builds on vastly better “my neighbor may be a murderer” stories from “Rear Window” to “Stranger Things.”

The optimistic, twisting core of what 2067 is about will keep genre fans engaged even as the increasingly bad performances and frustrating writing pushes them away at the same time.

There’s a lot of potential in the ideas that King plays with in “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone.” If only they had been given to a filmmaker willing to answer the call.

The film version of the best-selling novel The Fault in Our Stars feels emotionally inert, despite its many moments that are meant to put a lump in our throats.

There's a good movie in Romano the feature filmmaker, but this isn't it.

The project of Anthem is special and compelling, but the documentary lets itself down.

Ultimately amounts to a visually ambitious tone poem about the none-too-surprising caprices of male adolescence.

The film patly confirms what "The Lion King" already taught '90s kids: we should take comfort in knowing that everything in life is natural when seen as part of the "circle of life," as surprisingly effective voiceover narrator John Krasinski reminds us.

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story is one of the most frustrating Martin Scorsese films as well as one of the most out-of-character.

This unabashedly trashy project from director Peter Thorwarth has its moments of invention and excitement in the early going, but the constant spray of bullets and body parts proves numbing.

This big, splashy blockbuster is perplexing because it's full of loosely-connected incidents that are rarely character-driven, or even narratively intelligible beyond a point.

I cop to not being a fan of Lynn Shelton’s work. Her films fall apart in their third acts. Rather than simply crumble as they have in her prior work, the third act of Laggies implodes in grand fashion, spewing contrivances, bad clichés and an ending that is simply unforgivable.

Drunktown's Finest shows a filmmaker struggling to find her voice. It's a whisper here, but we can hear it.

The movie doesn’t quite make it to two hours, but my patience was tried pretty much any point at which the movie went a long stretch without a song.

Typically, when Araki misses the mark, he misses wildly and with fascinating aplomb. White Bird, despite the best efforts of stars Shailene Woodley and Eva Green, is flat when it should be edged; something I never thought I’d say about the man who made a movie called “Totally Fucked Up.”

Free Fire is neither the best nor the worst of the Tarantino wannabes; at its worst, it's tediously unoriginal, and at its best, it's funny and reasonably involving.

Black Water: Abyss is one of those movies that isn’t particularly good but may not have to be if you’re in the right mood.

The first and maybe biggest problem facing viewers when they watch The Spine of Night is its drab and dramatically inert animation style.

On the whole, his (Griffin) indecisive The Wolf Hour tick-tocks its way to an underwhelming finale. And when it gets there, the most shocking realization you’ll have is how forgettable an affair it all has been.

A few compelling emotions and themes are suggested but rarely well expressed in Nimona, a sometimes cute but mostly hyper and overextended animated sci-fi fantasy.

If The Covenant were only an interrogation of the hollowness of American exceptionalism, as its first hour suggests, it’d be among the most honest portrayals of the country’s role in the region. But Ritchie eventually awakens from his stupor, pushing this combat-action flick to gonzo territory.

The film that Memphis most reminds me of is Bruce Weber's "Let's Get Lost," a meandering, ostentatiously gorgeous black-and-white documentary about Chet Baker.

It ultimately results in a cold, unsatisfying experience.

It may not be his worst film overall, but Stonehearst is Anderson’s flattest film, a disappointingly shallow affair that wastes an opportunity to breathe life into a timeless Edgar Allen Poe short story.

It is nowhere close to being the worst thing that he (Travolta) has ever done, but it never for a single moment makes a plausible case for its own existence.

Despite the sincerity that’s in every scene with Rylance’s performance, the movie's good intentions remain wistful, and thoroughly frustrating.

The acting starts off capable even if it reflects the same lifelessness of the film itself, but as the story continues the performances only magnify script issues that become unbearable.