The Glass Castle is at odds with itself. Maybe that contradiction is by design. Maybe it’s inevitable, given the emotionally complicated terrain it treads. But the result is a film that never quite clicks tonally and doesn’t do justice to its harrowing central story.

West of the Jordan River works best when Gitai involves himself in the interviews. Gitai is a compelling screen presence—empathetic and patient, but also skeptical and necessarily forceful.

Only fitfully entertaining or illuminating.

As the director, co-writer, editor and composer of ominous piano tinkling heard on the soundtrack, Jason Saltiel is nothing but ambitious when it comes to this semi-successful creepy thriller that, intentionally or not, pushes the #MeToo buttons perhaps a little too hard.

We meander from one story to the next until every idea, big and small, gets cast aside with childish zeal.

Joan Jett deserves a great rock doc. This isn't it.

The only thing worse than hot garbage is elaborately lukewarm mediocrity, and for too much of its running time, the new comedy Stuber is just that.

Branciforte's writing lacks the nuance to take its absurd concept seriously, so it awkwardly injects comedy.

The mythology here is both dense and frequently silly, with the movie grinding to a halt around the one-hour mark for an extensive information dump. By the end, you may still be unclear as to what’s going on, but you also may not care.

The fact is that as good as Plummer and McDermott are here, Ford ultimately writes himself into a corner that requires actions in the final act that don’t ring true.

This all sounds like it could make for a fascinating movie. But The Devil and Father Amorth feels at once bloated and slight, like a DVD supplement puffed up to feature length (an hour and eight minutes, just long enough to be exhibited in theaters as a stand-alone title).

The Mauritanian fails to humanize the story it’s telling, never coming off as something more challenging or interesting than a superficial, manipulative accounting of true events.

For a movie about a larger-than-life personality who shook up the world with his brazenness—and since has had to seek political asylum because of it — The Fifth Estate feels unfortunately small and safe.

The Quarry may be a slow burn from a dramatic standpoint but it is only when Shannon is around that it flickers, however briefly, to life.

All of these interesting performers can't save a dull script. To work, Draft Day needs the kind of witty dialogue and snappy energy that Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin brought to “Moneyball” but the screenwriters mistake constant activity for actual screenwriting.

All of these nuances, as well as whatever satirical social commentary the movie wanted to make, are lost in the climax, a press conference staged with a threadbare quality that’s sadly typical of too much original Syfy fare.

The adaptation (by Josh Boone and Jill Killington) lacks any inference, mystery, or discovery: it is all text. Any complexity that there may be is all on the surface. Problems are easily solved, since there's nothing left unsaid, or if something is left unsaid that Ruthie says it for us in the voiceover. This makes for predictable viewing.

An impressive display of film craft and a profoundly ugly movie—so gleeful in its violence and so nihilistic in its world view that it feels as though the director is daring his detractors to see it as a confirmation of their worst fears about his art.

The adult viewer, reflecting on the idea that this is “just” a kid’s movie, might conclude that kids deserve a little better.

Never as giddily awful as Gotti, this movie suffers more from a case of what film critic Andrew Sarris called “Strained Seriousness.” Except the ostensible seriousness here never runs particularly deep. Lansky is for Keitel completists only.

Every bit of this movie yearns to be on the same proverbial shelf as something like Bay “Transformers” or Anderson’s “Resident Evil” films, but it doesn’t do enough to carve out its own space. An alien planet shouldn’t look this rote; same goes with the life-or-death action that happens on it.

The multiple twists, double-crosses and leaps in logic are more likely to prompt giggles than gasps, despite the impressive production values and the earnest efforts of an A-list cast.

It’s not badly made, just uninspired and played out. If you like B-movies made with a budget and are specifically looking for an undemanding time, “Abigail” might be for you. “Abigail” might also disappoint you, especially if you’re hoping for more than what’s advertised.

It's so repetitive that it will make you want to pick up your phone while it’s playing on Apple TV. You should play Tetris.

As an achievement, Computer Chess is laudable. As a film, it's missable.

Hamilton deserves better. So do the other strong women who make up the film’s trio of warriors, fighting to protect each other and all of humanity from technological destruction. Again.

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.

Van Dormael’s film was pure torture from first to last, about as mirthless a comedy as I ever hope to see.