The dénouement of The Artist’s Wife, wasting compassion on a character who has earned only the minimum, winds up fully validating an ideology and morality that is complicit in women’s oppression.

A handsomely mounted, largely watchable, and I suppose reasonably well-intentioned family drama with things to say about grief and loss and deception. It is also kind of irritating in is purposeful disingenuousness and determined challenges to plausibility. Your mileage may vary, as they say.

The movie version of The Reason I Jump does not, in other words, successfully illustrate what its title promises, but rather generalizes about a sensitive topic to the point of inadvertently making it seem more unapproachable.

There’s strong emotion in “Holy Days,” but it results entirely from the talented cast. The story’s structure is so phony and over-determined that there is no real suspense, and, even more deadly, the tone is artificially “comedic.” True moments of unfettered humor are nowhere to be seen.

Still, I laughed — enough to feel mortified at myself.

The Newell Great Expectations is just a good-looking Classics Illustrated rundown, something to help high schoolers labor through a Dickens English assignment a little faster.

Much like any child, even a supposedly surefire nugget of an idea requires careful nurturing. In this case, The Boss Baby often tries too hard and succeeds too little.

And it mostly doesn’t quite work, because Fred, as written by MacBride and played by Dylan O’Brien, just isn’t a compelling character.

The Quiet One is Wyman's journey, and because of that the documentary is intimate and personal, but by the same token it is also highly selective in what it shows and acknowledges.

Movies made over fifty years ago by the likes of Max Ophuls were more animated, more angry, more radical in their critiques of such injustice. So watch "Letter From An Unknown Woman" before you even think of checking this out, is my advice to you.

This is a flat, boring affair.

Song's performance makes me wish the rest of A Taxi Driver was as thoughtful.

There’s a slack nature to the film that almost feels like it has to be an intentional experiment from a filmmaker who has been so precise and intricate with his work in the past. It’s as if Kim is testing himself to see if he could make a self-indulgent, unsubstantial lark of a comedy. He can. Sorta. Now let’s get back to the good stuff.

47 Meters Down, despite a few things going for it, is an easily skippable work that will, ironically, probably wind up playing better on television and home video, where viewers might be more willing to overlook its failings

Oculus eventually becomes little more than a series of ghostly figures and twisted visions on its way to a cop-out of an ending that you'll see coming an hour away.

Despite an appealing cast, though, this film is as aimless as its characters, a slight story about one night in the life of a group of 20-somethings in a small town.

Life After Beth gets into the well-tread zombie-comedy territory in a clever and inspired way. Then it doesn’t get out of it nearly so skillfully.

Foiled by a weak imagination and clear limits to its awareness, Rainbow Time doesn’t become the strong feminist statement it ultimately wants to be.

This is a pretty rote story, and many of the plot points beggar belief, but Kusama's flourishes help somewhat to elevate the material into something more meditative, a character study of a woman in ruins.

It has so little to inspire conversation that I joked at the end that it was a cautionary tale about the mental and physical toll of being an unemployed writer. There’s something primal in all of us. Just not in this movie.

In the end, Raymond & Ray doesn’t really get to know anyone, merely pushing them toward the inevitable finish line, where they can start their new life chapters with the father who defined them for decades in the rearview mirror.

Suddenly, The Book of Henry turns into a not very believable thriller, complete with a ticking clock and a talent show.

For Philippe Garrel, the film is a family affair in more than one sense. As it happens, son Louis is playing a character based on his own grandfather, who left Philippe’s mom for another woman. Perhaps making Jealousy thus comprised a bit of group therapy for the Garrels, and no doubt it would have cheaper than psychoanalysis for all concerned.

He’s a welcome presence in his first on-screen performance since 2016, but Clooney’s direction is as cold as the landscape his character travels, never once finding anything that feels organic or character-driven. It looks good. It sounds great. It’s as hollow as can be.

What comes across as genuine in the film, and might also help explain its origins, is its air of melancholy and loneliness.

A cross between "Ocean's 11" and "The Expendables." American Renegades is also not nearly as fun as that sounds.

In the end, it feels more like a cheap trick than a study in filmmaking restrictions or an actor's showcase. Worst of all, it’s always reminding the viewer of its construction, relying on shaky camerawork to produce tension but failing to do so, and almost defiant in its lack of actual characters.

While the first hour of “New Gods: Yang Jian” is about as attractive as it is surreal, the back half only works if you care about the destinies of its undistinguished protagonists.