Cheadle the actor is nearly perfect in the role.

If you needed that explanation, April and the Extraordinary World might not be for you. If you’re a steampunk fan, by all means go. Just don’t expect a classic.

If one can accept the story’s videogame logic and cope with the kinetosis, “Hardcore” is often exhilaratingly extreme.

There’s nothing wrong with stretching audience credibility, but, to quote another movie that dabbles in the highly improbable, these things must be done delicately.

Though Michelle’s transformation into a family-loving gal is hardly convincing, the film still moves along quickly, and McCarthy has some memorable moments in which her comic chops are on full display.

Midnight Special is a sincere movie, but sometimes sincerity is half the problem.

Transfixed is proudly personal, which is its strength.

Surely, there’s the potential here for a kind of Country and Western “Amadeus.” Instead we get I Saw the Light, which will do until something better comes along.

As Marguerite, Frot is a completely open vessel, ready to receive the muse that cannot come. She has a childlike quality here, but she also seems (and this is both funny and sad) very much the mature artist.

It’s a good, not great, movie, but it has some of the elements that make Linklater’s work special. Few filmmakers are quite as keyed into the passing of time, as the source of all sweetness and heartache in the human experience.

If you haven’t seen a Weerasethakul film yet, here’s a good opportunity, but leave your expectations at the door. There’s no one like him.

It’s a wild ride from beginning to end, thanks to a fearless performance from Finnish actor Elmer Back, who is a perfect match for Greenaway’s mischief.

For baseball fans, it delivers the high heat. For the non-fan, there may be a little too much inside baseball.

Nia Vardalos has such a warm, alert energy that’s impossible to hate My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, even as it’s impossible to like it, even a little.

More than just culinary recommendations, he provides a cultural guide to the Los Angeles that is almost never seen in movies — and then the film makes an argument that Gold’s L.A. is more relevant than the one we all know.

It may be as emotionally exhausting for the viewer as for the participants.

“Batman v Superman” is an insanely long and convoluted action movie, made worse by an air of importance. It’s dispiriting and visually bland.

The opening is hilarious, but it also sets the bar extremely high for whatever may follow.... The film doesn’t always hit that bar, but it comes close enough times to make “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday” a holiday for viewers.

Intelligently made and contains some impressive set pieces.

Porter’s film is undeniably skewed to the pro-choice position, although she does interview antiabortion advocates as they protest.

There’s a nude scene that comes out of nowhere that’s almost embarrassing. Why is it there? Like the movie itself, it’s almost daring, except it’s not.

Combines the usual dumb ideas with one good one. And not just good, but impressive, in that it makes sense of much of what went before.

The videos speak for themselves — and provide a worthwhile time capsule of a turbulent era.

Eye in the Sky is refreshing in its lack of a political message. Mirren is chilling as the cold-blooded colonel.

As one might expect from a Christian film, Miracles From Heaven centers on faith — and a major miracle — but it’s also a decent family drama about a mother’s tribulations in caring for her sick child.

Jia’s languid style and exquisite framing complement his understated approach to the material, which opts for depth over melodrama. But Mountains May Depart is grounded in Zhao’s delicate performance, which is her best.

Usually, with movies, you can imagine how they were made — how the idea came, and the process of its creation. But Knight of Cups seems as if it arrived whole. If there’s a better film this year, get ready for a very good year.

At one point, this movie had me so on edge that I had a fleeting impulse to run out of the theater. It might be weird to say that and mean it as a compliment, but good thrillers work that way sometimes.

An entertaining film. Few will agree with every word spoken, but Chomsky’s vision of history is worth encountering and considering.

Margot Robbie plays Tanya, Kim’s best friend and professional rival, and it’s a real asset to have someone with that kind of a star wattage in a supporting role.

Throughout Zootopia, each bustling frame is packed with so much repeated-viewings-rewarded imagery that the screen must be sampled rather than taken in as a whole.

When viewing the action thriller London Has Fallen, there’s no escaping the reality that you’ve seen everything on the screen before — many, many times. For every bullet, and you will lose count, there is a cliche.

Gods of Egypt is an epic — an epic disaster.

Maybe it’s unfair, but I came away feeling cheated by Eddie the Eagle. It’s a jolly real-life tale about an underdog who made a splash at the 1988 Winter Olympics, and it does make you feel good, but it turns out that the film’s story is 90 percent fiction.

Creating this kind of otherworldly mood takes exceptional talent, and this is a film worth experiencing.

Triple 9 is terrific melodrama, but it’s melodrama all the same, and shameless.

Whatever your religious affiliation, you will come away thinking that if all this did actually happen, it probably happened something like this.

The film is well acted, with especially strong work by Alonso and Zegers. And director Larraín has a powerful knack for depicting human monsters. But he stacks the deck so heavily that at times the film can seem like simple-minded anti-clericalism, and at least some viewers are bound to resist.

Its slow-boiling brew of dread turns out to be more tepid than terrifying.

The film is cleanly made and moves quickly, which enhances its effectiveness. It raises moral issues that simply can’t be addressed too often.

This is a profound saga that makes for a great American movie.

How to Be Single is over a half hour before it’s over.

As a piece of filmmaking, Where to Invade Next gets off to a strong start and then sags in the last half hour, but it makes a lot of interesting points and, in the way it shows other countries, conveys something about the United States.

If the ultra-slow pacing, sparse dialogue and depressingly gray pallette don’t get you, perhaps that super big close-up of a toe-clipping session will.

Sometimes unapologetically stupid and joyously crass, it’s often brilliant in its absurdity, one of those rare comedies where the audience sits there dumbstruck, wondering what crazy thing will happen next. It takes really smart people to make a movie this silly.

This is bad, borderline garbage, but disturbing, too, in that it’s just the kind of fake-clever awfulness that might be cinema’s future.

Fourth Man Out is a coming-out tale with well-worn themes, but its blue-collar spin and appealing cast give it a charm that’s hard to resist.

The Choice has a twist or two toward the end, and they’re about as cheaply maudlin as the movies get. The only choice is to make sure a barf bag is nearby.

Compared with other Jane Austen movies, it isn’t much, but compared with other zombie apocalypse movies, it’s an intelligent, literate effort.

One of the Coens’ most inspired, bizarre touches is to cast Tilda Swinton as rival gossip columnists, twins who hate each other. She’s quite funny — blithe and vindictive in one incarnation, insecure and vindictive in the other.

45 Years is very much an English film and in the best sense. It’s subtle, understated and ultimately devastating, but only if you’re paying attention.

It does not follow the usual pattern of a Hollywood film. It goes to places that are desperate and irrevocable.

At 100 minutes, it feels about 80 minutes too long, and that’s not a good sign. Lazer Team might have made a fun and pleasant short.

Kung Fu Panda 3 has a moment or two for everyone, but no chance develop any character beyond a single dimension.

What happens is important, but more important is how it happens and whom it happens to.

The movie establishes a quality of history by filming in black and white and shooting from a distance, so as to emphasize the broad picture.

While The Lady in the Van is one of those quaint and quirky little films of which the British are inordinately fond, Americans will find it equally endearing, with the exception of the hideously over-the-top final scene.

It has the curse of earnestness. It is so sincere ... it is so sincere it could put you into a coma.

Norm of the North feels as if it intended to be a better movie, but got confused along the way.

A melancholy Spanish drama that’s competently made and checks off all the boxes defining a contemporary art-house movie. But it lacks the spark that separates top-of-the-line films from the pack, and watching it becomes something of a slog.

This film doesn’t know exactly what it wants to say.

Almost too much to bear. But brace yourself and see it anyway. It’s worth it.

It’s a formula movie, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, except that it’s a sort of bad version of itself.

It’s long, downright dispiriting, enjoyable only sometimes, and yet there’s a feeling of authenticity. It’s neither bad nor good, but interesting. It might improve with age.

The only thing good to say for The Forest is that Dormer is interesting, that she creates a different vibe and essence for each sister, and that it would be nice to see her in a better movie.

To be sure, Censored Voices can hardly be seen as anything but a political document, one that shares Oz’s views.

Anomalisa may simply be a brilliant one-off, but it’s pointing a new direction for animation, if anyone cares to follow it.

I might be tempted to vote DiCaprio best actor — or at least to propose a new category be inaugurated, the acting equivalent of the Purple Heart.

The makers were clearly paying attention to the smaller details. But somehow, they missed all the big things that made the first Point Break a memorable escapist film of its time.

Needless to say, if “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained” were too much for you, The Hateful Eight won’t be any easier. This is a big step beyond.

Writer-director Peter Landesman has a fascinating and appalling story to tell here, and that cuts through the layers of corniness.

Joy never completely loses its way. But it almost does, and it never quite arrives.

The impressive film not only underscores the clash between traditional and modern values, but also provides inspiration for deciding your own fate, even when the world seemingly doesn’t give you a choice.

Going into Sisters, the thought is, “It’s Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. How bad can it be?” Going out, the thought is, “Now we know.” It can be downright awful.

Yes, the life expectancy of a chipmunk maxes out at 10 years in captivity. So biologically, we must be coming toward the end of this franchise. That’s not the type of thing a critic looks up when filmmakers make more of an effort.

The storytelling in The Force Awakens is masterful, in that it seems to be taking its time but is always moving relentlessly forward and coming up with surprises.

With In the Heart of the Sea, director Ron Howard has given us a painstakingly crafted bore, a lovingly rendered snooze, and a very expensive means by which audiences can experience restless leg syndrome before being carted off to the land of happy slumber.

It’s obvious that this is a well-intentioned, sensitive labor of love, and Hooper’s strategy of keeping it safe is bound to bring in folks who might otherwise avoid such material. For the rest of us, we must settle for a film that is solid but never quite soars.

Haynes elicits two great performances and provides the perfect frame for them, not just in terms of setting, but through smart casting and attention to the smallest of performances.

Simply the most relentlessly entertaining film of the last few months.

In the end, Chi-Raq is a positive movie that wants to jolt us into doing something about the very real emergency in Chicago. Along the way, the execution of the narrative gets muddled, but there’s no denying that this risk-taking film has a pulse. A strong pulse.

This is history of a personalized and meditative sort, and you ought to give it a chance.

As for the movie’s ultimate resolution, nothing specific can be said here, except that it borders on inexcusable.

The documentary “Amy” left viewers feeling a little shame, as if the audience and society was an accessory in Winehouse’s death. Janis: Little Girl Blue is a more clinical treatment, with more complicated messages.

Kurzel and three screenwriters have figured out a way to make Macbeth boring. Now that they proved it can be done, no one need ever do it again.

To take such a subject and render it without focus, interest, or joy—to make a long, dull movie from it — qualified as some perverse sort of achievement.

Rocky might not be the brightest guy, but he knows things. He has his limitations, but he is, in his own way, extraordinary, and when we look at his/Stallone’s face, we can have no doubt that Rocky has gone through life and learned things. He has been awake all these years, and growing. With no exaggeration, this is a beautiful and moving thing to see.

A bleak, tedious enterprise, shot in earth tones and Gothic gray and blue.

The Good Dinosaur has an original concept, disarming emotional heft and features the most impressive visuals in animated cinema to date.

With more than a hint of the magazine’s trademark insouciance, the film gives us a close look at how the selection process works and introduces us a to a handful of younger artists, as well as such stalwarts as George Booth and Roz Chast.

There’s still plenty of laughs left over for the audience, and the aggressive randomness of the script fuels some genuinely inventive comic moments. Although the writers of this R-rated cinematic binge frequently lose their focus, they never lose their sense of humor.

The result is a reminder that, with weak material, it’s often worse to have a really good actor. The weaknesses just stands out in sharper relief.

Perhaps it's the soothing, storybook quality of Steve Martin's narration, or the predictable third act turn, but Love the Coopers does come together in the end.

Even the brilliant Juliette Binoche, a welcome presence in any film, is reduced to whipping up empanadas and looking wistfully beyond a fence — basically standing there and doing nothing. And this is one of the most developed characters in the movie.

One of the best films of the year.

Every key plot turn is telegraphed at least twice, just in case you missed it the first time. Every emotional moment in the movie is foreshadowed a few beats in advance by the manipulative musical score.

The magic of Brooklyn can’t be analyzed, but something in the richness of its relationships puts an essential truth before us — the brevity and immensity of life. We know all about that, of course, but that’s the beauty of great art: It takes what you already know and makes you feel it.

Gripping and compelling.