A Compassionate Spy takes a far more rose-tinted, one-note view of Hall—a tack that requires skirting past major conflicting particulars and eschewing the very uncertainty that Hall himself exhibits in numerous archival interviews.

It’s consistently engaging, but also not much more revealing than a quick perusal of Jennifer’s Wikipedia page, and the fact that its real-life saga may not be over only amplifies the impression that it’s less than the full story.

Affords Julia Roberts with her best part in years as a professor whose role in a burgeoning scandal threatens to expose her deep, dark (related) secrets. She’s not enough, however, to make this wannabe-conversation starter coherent, much less insightful.

Devolves into such a morass of shrill chaos and affected symbolism that it’s difficult to feel anything other than exasperation with its central maternal crisis.

Burdened by a hazy and mannered style that drains it of urgency and feeling, it’s a self-conscious curio that’s less dreamy than dreary.

The Mean Girls movie-musical barely differentiates itself from its predecessor.

Considering Rogen’s participation as both a writer and actor, it’s surprising that Mutant Mayhem plays it so safe, not merely in terms of plot but with regards to its comedy.

A daring saga that boasts far more moments that stumble than soar. It’s a mess that can be admired—but a mess, nonetheless.

Largely faithful but unwilling to pick a funny or nasty lane, it’s the most impersonal film of its writer/director’s career, and a revolutionary thriller that too often falls back on establishment conventions.

The amusing thrills intermittently appear, but the novelty is gone.

Yanking unashamedly at the heartstrings, however, it’s a manipulative and uneven tune that strains to elicit the sniffles it so hungrily seeks.

Though Monkey Man is exasperating, Patel’s work shows heart, love, and promise—something that can’t be said about many other action films.

Those with a hankering for willfully pretentious absurdity may find this festival entry right up their alley.

A would-be franchise re-starter that resembles a Saturday morning cartoon come to overstuffed, helter-skelter life.

Although handsomely mounted and occasionally chilling, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a one-note tweet.

A sci-fi story that spirals about in circles on its way to a predictable and underwhelming twist and an even less satisfying conclusion.

Despite looking great, it comes off as a humdrum knockoff of yesterday’s fashion.

This movie is nice to gawk at, though the character models of Disney films are starting to get a little too interchangeable, a little too… well, on model. But as a piece of storytelling, Wish is as flimsy as a star decal stuck to a wall.

A socially conscious romantic comedy, and if those two modes don’t sound compatible, [writer/director] Libii does nothing to alter that impression.

There’s no mystery to Speak No Evil, and even less disquieting creepiness; instead, it’s a bludgeoning beast, epitomized by McAvoy’s Paddy.

The main takeaway from this dreary dud, however, is that winning an Academy Award is no guarantee of continued big-screen success.

[Wheatley’s] chaos and madness is of a blandly cartoonish variety, neither serious enough to scare nor outlandish enough to elicit laughs.

Kurosawa creates such an eerie atmosphere in the first hour of Cloud that watching it crumble into more generic action territory is challenging, and feels like a miscalculation. It doesn’t help that much of the action in the second half isn’t particularly interesting.

Ripped from yesterday’s headlines, it’s as fast, flashy and superficial as the director’s prior efforts, and also as exaggerated.

The legendary star spends the majority of this misfire looking alternately bored and really bored—an emotion that viewers will find all-too-relatable.

Its formal lyricism offset by a script that’s intolerably clunky, it’s an affected portrait of euthanasia and friendship that gets lost in translation.

It’s quite a shortcoming when a documentary avoids so many elements of its own story that it proves less comprehensive and compelling than a Ryan Murphy drama.

It has one thing to say, and it says it over and over again with a dismal lack of nuance.