Ends up being an emotionally empty, thematically ill-defined, and listless affair. It is never able to communicate the complexity of the woman at its center.

While Smurfs: The Lost Village may not be better or more entertaining, the acknowledgment that it is aiming solely for the kiddie audience this time around at least makes it slightly more palatable than its predecessors.

Knowing how it all ends is the main problem with a lot of gambling movies, and Win It All is no exception.

A fascinating and fastidiously complex study of one man’s moral choices at a crucial juncture in his life, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation is a thoroughgoing masterpiece which offers proof that Romania’s cinematic upsurge remains the most vital and important national film movement of the current century.

This movie feels as if somebody woke from an intense nightmare, decoded it and realized it was rather unsubtly working through some of their unresolved issues, then brought it to Judd Apatow and said, "Here's your next comedy."

The comedy is bigger, the supporting players are wackier and the antics move to the bouncy beat of an incessantly perky soundtrack.

Despite the care put into the story and its heavy themes, Live Cargo has no emotional impact.

Nighy is never less than splendid.

It’s a beautiful, captivating piece of work that gets off to kind of a rocky start but achieves remarkable momentum toward an emotional, powerful ending. And you won’t see a better-looking animated film all year.

This cockeyed, oblique attempt to get closer to the worldview of David Lynch — one of American cinema’s finest oddities — is a compelling slice of cinephile inquiry.

The entire thing feels like it's happening underwater, sound distorted, movements impeded. A lot happens, but without any urgency inspiring it.

Johnson keeps it all moving at a decent clip, though, with the help of Michael Penn’s score. And she photographs Powley and her mesmerizing blue eyes so lovingly that it’s hard not to find her adorable—even when she’s being awful.

Full of dazzling images that suggest a rich, profound narrative the film is never able to achieve.

Cézanne et Moi is at its most intoxicating whenever it looks and acts like a landscape painted by its title 19th-century French artist.

The effort is noble, to give Bishop a chance to tell her story, however compromised its framing and end product might be, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

No wonder the lean, 79-minute running time of All This Panic is not a liability: Gage makes each minute boldly and deeply matter.

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.

In spite of some compelling performances and a consistent mood, the film fails to ground any of these aesthetic flourishes in story or emotion.

The small but wonderfully rich details of the film invite us in: the trembling of a wrinkled cheek, the arch of an eyebrow, the flicker of a candle, and especially the superbly evocative sound design.

As Antonina, though, Chastain seems bound up as an actress, held back in creating a character mainly by the demands of doing a Polish accent.

American Anarchist presents us with a young man who believed he was living in the apocalypse, and whose book has gone on to have an apocalyptic effect on society.

Only worthwhile storytellers could take an elevator pitch like this one (the last two people on Earth) and produce long-lasting curiosity about its inherent beauty and horror.

Lowe's attempts at getting into anti-heroine Ruth's head are largely unsuccessful, though her performance is sometimes effectively hysterical.

Tomas Weinreb and Petr Kazda’s film, on the other hand, narrates a true-life crime but fails to provide an element that might’ve lifted it above tasteful art-house ordinariness—an engaging point of view.

I Called Him Morgan evokes times and places, and the sorrows and joys of the jazz life in those times and places, with real integrity.

While Wilson peters out at the end, one can’t totally dismiss a movie that gets away with a visual “Umberto D” joke and showcases probably the worst tramp-stamp tattoo ever.

This is an uncommonly smart, well-made and ultimately touching meditation on grief, revenge and the ordinary perils of adolescence that should resonate strongly with adults and thoughtful teenagers alike.

Through it all, a few performances actually increase the disappointment, for one wishes they were in a better film. Leo is perfect casting as a woman whose acerbic personality helped define her.