A by-the-numbers sequel that mostly ignores the stuff that made its predecessor stand out in exchange for formulaic would-be thrills.

The film is deeply sympathetic to the impossibly difficult choices these girls face and respectful of their efforts to do better for their babies than their parents did for them.

Even though we can pick our flavor of digital numbing, Birney brings his DIY mentality and a host of collaborators who are in sync with his sensibilities to craft a project that shakes us out of the tempting lull and urges us to live life as an NPC.

Unfortunately, more bland than broad humor otherwise stands in for Polsky and Herzog’s personalities.

Andersen’s film, in its attempt to present various perspectives in this story, shifts the viewer’s attention from one character to another, diluting its emotional impact.

It’s all just really bizarre, limp copies of better films.

It’s tempting to knock Primate for its dumb characters and contrived plotting, and for the various hoops it throws its characters through to get to the goods. And make no mistake, this script and its inhabitants are rock stupid, to the point where you might want to yell warnings at the screen. It’s an instinct that, frankly, I don’t get; don’t you want these people to get killed off in increasingly grotty ways?

What “We Bury the Dead” does really well is remind us that the zombies were once-alive. They are someone’s mother, child, husband. In many zombie movies, they are a faceless unstoppable mob, and you want all of them to be put down stat. They’re the ultimate “heavy”. Here, they are still scary, but they are also sad. What happened to them is tragic. “We Bury the Dead” never forgets that.

While the lessons of “The Choral” feel applicable to our present moment, Hytner is careful to ground its story in a richly realized setting of a different era.

It’s clear that the irrepressibly charming Sedgwick and Bacon love to share the screen, and it is an absolute joy to watch their effortless chemistry. I just wish it were in a better picture.

The Plague isn’t a horror movie per se, but it moves with the mood and music of one.

You may be left cold, feeling that you’ve seen a theoretical exercise whose purpose was never articulated. Or you may react as I did. I took pages of notes for this review, doing my best to describe the movie as a discrete work—an object to be contemplated. When the final credits rolled, I closed my notebook and wept.

One can’t help but feel sad, and yes, sometimes infuriated, that Chevy Chase never fully figured out a way to enjoy his great success without making so many others in his circle miserable.

By expanding the play’s world, Gaines opens himself up to new scrutiny. Beetz does the best she can with a thinly drawn character, but it’s hard not to wonder what The Dutchman would look like if Gaines showed any real interest in her.

The Testament of Ann Lee is a large-scale production, mighty in detail, and Fastvold proves herself up to the challenge of her own aspirations, tackling the weighty biography with the same sort of labor-intensive dedication characteristic of its subject.

With unbelievable dialogue and a truncated timeline of events, Song Sung Blue ends up dabbling in “Walk Hard” territory, making the film seem silly even when the couple at the heart of this story only ever wanted to play the hits.

There’s something so rewarding about going to a movie and giving yourself over to a master like Park Chan-wook, someone whom you trust through all the twists and turns of a film as tonally complex as No Other Choice. It’s so easy to see all of the places where this unique gem could have gone wrong, and so satisfying to see it only make good choices from beginning to end.

It’s an inspired idea, even though a lot of the industry inside jokes may go over most moviegoers’ heads. The playfulness of this self-referential structure gives the movie a zany energy off the top that it ultimately can’t sustain.

The alchemical collision of the actors, the style, and the real-life settings result in a film so attentive to fluctuations in the characters’ emotions that watching them exist is exciting. You never know what these people will feel next or how they’ll express it, and the camera’s always in the perfect place to catch it.

A well-produced, visually impressive, character-driven fable about the man who would be king.

By putting the garrulous, sometimes cranky Hersh on film, “Cover-Up” reveals, in the behavioral sense, the obsessiveness that makes an investigative journalist.

It ends up being little more than a rambling, undisciplined clip show that misfires as both history and entertainment.

This movie is a classic of silliness—no ifs, ands, or butts.

It’s not an unenjoyable ride, but there’s a lingering sense that it could have been made a bit more fun and campy along the way.

The structure dispels the idea that there is a “right way” to navigate the Kafkaesque complexities of an oppressive regime, as is made plain by the ultimate fate of Hind and the two ambulance first responders, Youssef Zeino and Ahmed Madhoun.

Great sequels don’t just repeat, they build. This one treads beautifully-rendered water.

It’s a smart, mostly light movie that will teach viewers a lot about processes they might not otherwise think about. You come away from the movie seeing the world in finer shades than when you went in.

It is a movie of moments. But some of those moments are so good, its optimism is so refreshing, its dialogue so bright, and its characters and performances so endearing, it well rewards a watch.