Like Lee Daniels' hit TV drama “Empire,” Furious 7 is stuffed with situations that require go-for-broke absurdity, but even Daniels and his nighttime soap predecessor Aaron Spelling would pause before attempting the level of “get the f—k outta here!” style shenanigans director James Wan and writer Chris Morgan employ.

One of the film’s advantages over the book is that it brings in the testimonies of many other people — from friends and fellow ex-hustlers to Hollywood historians and insiders — all of whom support Scotty’s veracity while adding additional perspectives of their own.

The failure of The Wanting Mare is in how superficial its world building is, and how unexplored its greatest questions remain. Technically, the film’s use of visual effects is unquestionably impressive, but all that CGI is in service of a narrative so underdeveloped that its 88-minute run-time sometimes feels like an eternity.

An irresistibly gory science-fiction melodrama, is B-movie schlock done right.

Archive is a somewhat unwieldy sci-fi thriller to get into. The plot twists are many, and so are the cliches.

Making his directorial debut, Hsu clearly has an eye for striking imagery, and Detention is filled with moments of shuddering, abstract beauty. But his ghost story never quite materializes from its uncanny ether.

The quiet character-based scenes are often mesmerizing, as are the dreamy sequences where time seems to stand still. When the plot makes its demands, the spell is broken.

What elevates it and makes it special is the attention it pays to local geography and atmosphere, the mundane aspects of working-class Northeastern U.S. life, and the culturally super-specific types of people you'll find in that environment

Ultimately, “The Surfer” proves to be not much more than an audience endurance test that offers up plenty of upsetting imagery and moments of emotional torment but never quite manages to make them pay off.

The result is an occasionally strange, occasionally brutal and occasionally lovely work that goes up on the shelf with "The Ocean of Helena Lee" and "Girlhood" as one of the more impressive coming-of-age tales of recent times.

Ma is more about its visuals than anything else.

While it has a personal touch of a love letter, this documentary is nonetheless the work of compassionate filmmakers who know any adventure when they see one.

“Vol. 2” avoids many of the flaws of the first movie, and does several things notably better. It’s fun, clever and a great kick-off to the summer movie season.

While the results inevitably pale in comparison to "The French Connection" — which could be said about virtually every other film currently in release — they do make for an above-average work that offers viewers a new perspective on a familiar story.

This is a musical movie, not just because it features musical numbers. It weaves its spell not merely by what it does, but how it moves, and what it chooses to say or not say, and when it decides to proceed to the next scene.

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.

The Paper Tigers is still very much a martial arts movie that ends with a late-night rooftop fight, and then a celebratory dim sum meal. But if you already like this sort of lightweight crowdpleaser, you’re bound to find something worthwhile here.

As movies about misanthropic outsider artists with medical issues go, “Don’t Worry” doesn’t come close to the superb “American Splendor” with Paul Giamatti as the irascible Harvey Pekar.

Yen Tan’s “All That We Love” is a quiet drama that’s surprisingly moving yet gentle, giving a well-known comedian a complex role to prove herself. And in this case, Margaret Cho defies expectations, bucking the caustic and bombastic persona we’ve grown used to seeing her bring to the screen for an on-screen performance that’s almost soft-spoken, a woman who genuinely feels lost among life’s many changes.

My one real gripe with Stewart’s script is that it doesn’t make clear that Bahari (according to his own account), though admitting to “media espionage,” did not name names, i.e. implicate reformist leaders, fellow journalists or others, as his captors wanted him to.

By taking itself so seriously, “Final Reckoning” loses the cheeky ingredient in the recipe. It’s less fun, and that’s truly disappointing for a series that has given us some of the most exhilarating setpieces in action history.

The film's poetry is like the close-up of the clenched fist that Rowland uses to introduce us to his character study — there’s a thoughtfulness behind the tight fingers, maybe even a broken soul, but its expression is that of a blunt object.

Balancing itself with an enviable self-assurance between drama, comedy, character study, and, in the last ten minutes, suspense, the film sends the audience out of the theater with a sense of shame for laughing when the narrative wanted us to.

Ultimately, this film attempts to set up the future through Shuri. Wright is a talented actress with the ability to emotionally shoulder a movie when given good material. But she is constantly working against the script here.

Harrison’s powerful performance and the chance to learn about this extraordinary artist make Chevalier more than worthwhile.

Eliciting powerful performances from her two leads and striking visuals from cinematographer João Atala, “Medusa” casts its gaze at the hypocritical and violent world of purity culture with unflinching honesty that will leave the audience spellbound long after the credits roll.

Though the film initially promises to follow its subject into a dark night of the soul wherein he wrestles with demons, “McEnroe” is every bit as much a celebration of his legacy as a gifted bad boy.

It’s disappointing and actually kind of cynical in its unwillingness to try anything even vaguely innovative with these beloved characters.