Let’s Be Cops takes its premise in the dullest, most predictable direction imaginable, as a wacky mismatched-buddy-cop movie pitched to the lowest common denominator.

It becomes clear that this isn’t just a documentary that seeks to demystify green burials. It’s one that tries, and largely succeeds, to demystify the process of letting go of life.

Dinosaur 13 is haunted by the nagging sense that only one side of the story is getting told.

There isn’t much to it, really, but a little truth and loveliness is always welcome.

Abuse Of Weakness is the director’s attempt to account for actions that seem inexplicable, and make the audience understand and sympathize in kind.

Beyond its mere unfunniness and stupidity, Septic Man is criminally unimaginative.

Following the self-importance of recent (and inexplicably prizewinning) films like Arirang and Pieta, however, Moebius feels like a giddy, playful return to form. It’s as uproarious as genital mutilation gets.

Here’s a seemingly twee movie that ultimately, surprisingly argues that some music isn’t for everybody, some people are too broken to fix, and some would-be artists are better off in the audience.

The best that could be said of Ragnarok is that it delivers the goods—nice scenery, crisp pacing, the requisite horror and suspense beats—but it needs something, anything, to give it some distinction.

The exuberant dance sequences have long been the series’ saving grace, but even those are starting to feel redundant and interchangeable.

Every part of Wojtowicz’s story is touched by madness, though The Dog doesn’t miss the depression and tragedy that lingers around it.

Nothing is surprising about The Hundred-Foot Journey. It’s a film that telegraphs all its beats and character arcs, executes them adequately but without passion or personality, then congratulates itself on a job done.

TMNT confuses “dimly lit” for “gritty” and humorless for substantive. It’s afraid of being too fun or too light, and doesn’t seem to know whether it wants to be a Nolan film or a 21 Jump Street-style spoof.

As clumsy as Quale is with the sequences of people shouting exposition back and forth, or delivering teary Blair Witch-style goodbyes into a camera that would have died long before its operators, he handles the CGI action with breathless intensity.

After is essentially The Room of 9/11 movies, a position that was really best left unfilled. Its heart might be in the right place, but that gulf between pain and understanding has never been clearer, and might now be even wider than it was before.

It’s so high on the thrill of discovery that it might even win over people who can’t stand the guy.

At a time when the once-dominant romantic comedy is an endangered species, What If proves the formulas can still work, under the right circumstances, and without really needing to tweak the recipe much.

If About Alex were the pilot to a new television series, there’d be reason to stick around for a few episodes, if only to see these actors grow into their roles and develop more chemistry. But About Alex isn’t television, and Zwick never really solves the problem of how to make a houseful of semi-likable characters into cinema.

Farahani’s elegiac documentary takes far more interest in Mohassess the man than Mohassess the artist.

Shlam and Medalia haven’t constructed the film particularly artfully—it’s sluggishly paced, and the two boys at its center aren’t vividly drawn—but Web Junkie is a case where the access is so unexpected and revelatory that it’s a wonder just to have the footage.

It could generously be referred to as a character study about a detective haunted by her past, and a case that forces her to confront that past in Biblical terms. It could less generously be referred to as a pseudo-spiritual thriller that tries to literalize scriptural mythos in the same bloody terms David Fincher’s Seven used to literalize the Seven Deadly Sins, only far less artfully.

When it comes time to get to the bottom of what’s really going on, McDowell and Lader start losing the thread.

A beautiful, mysterious, beguiling cinematic doodle, and an absolute master class in mise-en-scène, unfolding in odd, fragmented frames and precisely choreographed movement within those frames.

This film about the loneliness of the young middle-distance runner drops so many heavy obstacles in his way, with such grueling regularity, that it’s like he’s practicing to be a hurdler instead.

Sincerity and good intentions are all it has going for it, alas, and the result is the cinematic equivalent of a plate full of spinach.

As fresh as a stiff tissue and even less appealing, the film takes its cues from so many disparate sources, it almost feels like an accidental spoof.

While it’s less playful and less giddily, enjoyably excessive than The Guard, it explores similar ground, as a good-hearted man largely abandoned by his community attempts to do the right thing as he sees it. But it brings in much more complicated matters of religion and morality, asking what it means to be a man of faith in an age of doubt.

The energy never flags, the film conveys a deep love of Brown’s music (which fills almost every scene), and Boseman remains magnetic whether onstage or in quiet moments.

The parts of Finding Fela that best handle the tricky nuances of Kuti’s worldview are the parts that show Jones and the Fela! creative team grappling with those same questions.

As a tightly constructed look at the more serious symptoms of Peter Pan syndrome, The Almost Man mostly works. The fact that it departs from the usual vehicles for good-natured, non-threatening Vince Vaughn jackassery is refreshing, albeit in an often jarring, disturbing way.

Gunn, a B-movie enthusiast who got his start at Troma, has found a way to bring funkiness and humanity to a galaxy-spanning blockbuster, one filled with dogfights and floating fortresses, but also with heroes quick with a quip, fast on the draw, and more than a little beaten up by the universe.

[Andrews] and screenwriter Jake Wade Wall seem fully aware of the long line of icky horror comedies that precede theirs, but their attempt isn’t scary enough for homage or funny enough for satire.

What’s left in the absence of McCarthy’s prose is a sincere but fundamentally pointless ode to a madman, which does little more than invite viewers to gawk at the unspeakable.

Make no mistake: Rich Hill is a social document, and conclusions can and should be drawn from its beautiful, empathetic portrait of life on the fringes. But Tragos and Palermo content themselves with shining a light and leaving it at that.

Title aside, what distinguishes The Fluffy Movie from a standard stand-up special is its willingness, even eagerness, to dive into some seriously heavy shit. It’s funny, to be sure, but also unexpectedly substantive.

Young and Bamberger’s insultingly trite bro comedy is too content with the stink of its own reprocessed garbage to serve as anything more than a reminder that some actors should be in better films, and some producers shouldn’t be involved in any of them.

Brett Ratner remains a director of no great distinction, but here, he proves himself an adept orchestrator of battle scenes, clearly presenting the forces on both sides, and using clear, coherent editing and dynamic compositions.

Romantically uninspiring and comedically unstable, And So It Goes is a poor excuse for a rom-com, even one that continually plays by the rules of the genre and has two major stars to keep it bouncing along.

The Kill Team tells a compelling story, but the 79-minute runtime leaves that story feeling incomplete.

Because little happens story-wise, Cannibal necessarily functions as a character study, but one that’s frustratingly short on character.

It’s hard to tell who’s who; it doesn’t really matter, because they’re all equally bland, and the threat these ciphers face is almost certainly nonexistent. It’s just about the perfect formula for tedium.

The sumptuous production values and stirring performances that make the equally brutal Game Of Thrones so irresistible are nowhere in evidence in Battle For Blood, which has all of Thrones’ savagery, but none of its mystery.

Early on, it feels like it might become one of Allen’s best. Then the narrative direction becomes clear, the possibilities narrow, and the film shuts down along with them.

Lucy earns points for its unpredictable treatment of its vaguely superhero-ish premise and an appealing silliness, but it struggles to match wits with the genius at its center.

Movies about female friendship are rare, so it’s dispiriting when one comes along, then hauls out the same tired plot in which both women fall for the same guy. Very Good Girls can’t even blame rampant film-industry sexism, as it was written and directed by Naomi Foner, making her directorial debut after many years as a screenwriter.

A Most Wanted Man is a cold film that examines its characters from a clinical distance, but its iciness gives way to raw emotion in a powerful final sequence.

Shawn’s adaptation mostly follows Ibsen’s original text, which is what keeps A Master Builder on the level of a well-meaning but only intermittently electrifying exercise.

This is an accessible, briskly paced documentary about a phenomenon that warrants exactly the level of investigation Hodges has given it here.

The film compares the behavior of ravens and humans—their similar tendencies to be protective, flock, and mate with others—with an expectation that profundity and insight will come. When it doesn’t, the film’s emotions feel calculated, not earned.

The hypnotic, clicky soundtrack, Bergès-Frisbey’s playful yet sad performance, and a few significant script moments laying out the film’s philosophy all aim toward a sleepy trance that helps put the biggest flaws into soft focus.

The jokes are few and far between, and the film lacks the spark of imagination required to engage meaningfully with young viewers... but Fire & Rescue is a competent distraction all the same, mostly on the strength of its non-threateningly round animation and magic-hour color palette.

It needs to be emphasized again for the record that The Purge: Anarchy is a tremendously stupid film... But there’s an almost-camp quality to how DeMonaco takes this stupidity to greater heights, building a complex mythology around the plot like a giant moat around a pillow fort.

Sex Tape is a case study in how little interest American movies—and especially American sex comedies—have in dealing with sex as anything other than a source of cheap giggles and nonstop humiliation.

Rather than having its characters’ circumstances reveal something about societal dynamics or human nature, Aftermath avoids depth; Engert casts his material in strictly suspenseful terms.

If Persecuted wasn’t such a dire thriller, its sweaty fear of pluralism (Obama’s “We are no longer a Christian nation” speech gets handed to Davison’s evil senator here) might at least be amusing.

A Five Star Life steers away from pat answers and stereotypically Hollywood conclusions, a narrative direction that’s all the more refreshing with a woman in the lead role. But in its second half, Tognazzi’s movie derails as it starts trying to hammer home its points with too much force.

When the film doesn’t strain for twinkly enlightenment, it stoops to find the easiest possible joke.

There’s little analysis, in-depth history, anecdotal humor, or even well-selected gameplay clips. Ironically, Video Games: The Movie is almost no fun whatsoever.

Cohen’s goal—to bring music to every nursing home—is modest, and the film is smart to follow his lead by keeping bombastic rhetoric to a minimum. Strangely, though, the movie lacks any discussion of professional music therapists, who have been doing this kind of work for decades.

A lot of the story’s emotional shifts seem designed expressly to prolong the narrative, which is pretty darn skimpy.

Visually, nothing’s changed, with Auteuil still framing his actors (and himself) in purely functional medium shots, occasionally punctuated by postcard-pretty views of Marseilles’ piers. Dramatically, however, Fanny is a bit meatier.

It’s a perfectly pleasant cinema-studies seminar, but one that stops just short of teaching its students anything truly insightful.

Gondry’s latest demands a high tolerance for whimsy, and will undoubtedly prove anathema to his skeptics. Yet for those willing to abandon logic, suspend disbelief, and give themselves over to Gondry’s crazy, deeply immersive world of play, the result is a wildly inventive head film that’s mood-altering and mind-expanding in its own right.

Too much of Ari Folman’s half-animated science-fiction feature The Congress feels just a bit off—but every now and then, the concept, the performances, and Folman’s visual flair combine to produce something extraordinary.

While Land Ho! feels like a direct extension of its characters, with sedate compositions that are a far cry from the youthful opportunism steering the camera in Katz’s previous films, the uncharacteristic transparency of its agenda clashes with the joy of discovery its story craves.

Yet for all the heady ideas at play, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes remains a visceral film, one of movement, action, unexpected developments, and disarming poignance.

Momoa does capture some scenes of genuine warmth and beauty that suggest he has the potential to develop a filmmaker’s eye for visual poetry.

The two halves of Closed Curtain complement each other, but the first is more compelling than the second, partly because the mysteries of construction trump the grind of deconstruction, and partly because Panahi channeled his anguish more directly and affectingly with This Is Not A Film.

If the movie is about any one idea in particular, it’s about how parents do their best to stay on top of how their children grow, by taking pictures and documenting the memorable occasions, only to learn too late that most of life happens between the posing.

Made In America is a puff piece, a shallow, insufferable exercise in hagiography that seems to operate under the delusion that a festival bill combining rock, pop, and rap acts represents a dazzling innovation, not the status quo for festivals like Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonnaroo, and countless others.

Rage actually has something to say about the futility of vengeance, though that doesn’t become apparent until a climactic revelation re-contextualizes everything. Unfortunately, getting to that sorrowful ending is a real slog.

Swanberg isn’t doing anything new with Happy Christmas, but sticking to the same non-formula formula this time around yields unprecedentedly inspired results.

Nothing is revealing or surprising in this horse-beating tale of spiritual poverty among the extremely wealthy. It’s uninvolving enough to make Ayn Rand herself beg for a bailout.

Me And You is palpably frail cinema, its every movement heavy with its director’s strain and the reluctance of a kid shuffling off to do his chores. And yet it’s also compellingly clear that the movie has restored Bertolucci’s strength, just as it’s easy to see why this particular story was able to reach into the depths and rescue a titan of Italian cinema from his darkness.

Cannon is a big believer in the power of repetition. He apparently nurses a strong belief that if a gag isn’t funny the first time around, it will somehow become hilarious the eighth or ninth time it’s repeated.

Death is a part of life—one that informs everything we do, on some level or another—and watching Ebert characterize whatever time he has left as “money in the bank,” from what viewers know is his deathbed, is life-affirming and heartbreaking in equal measure.

A crowd-pleasing, proudly working-class celebration of large women, old women, broke women, and women who love women, Tammy isn’t just consistently funny and unexpectedly touching and tender, it’s also genuinely subversive.

Derrickson gives it everything he’s got, but when a film offers “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” as a spiritual pathway, it’s hard to take seriously.

Writer-director Katrin Gebbe rubs viewers’ faces in this dog dish of a film, with the promise that some sliver of transcendence will redeem it. But it’s all dog dish.

Premature isn’t nearly as inventive and witty as Groundhog Day or Edge Of Tomorrow about finding fresh angles on repeating events, and it overestimates how much the audience might care about the self-improvement of a bland, clueless douchebag.

Earth To Echo is yet another found-footage film, and not a particularly inventive one at that.

First Cousin Once Removed doesn’t come across as overly demeaning or exploitative, because Berliner himself is so kind to Honig in their meetings. But it’s hard to deny that Berliner is using Honig’s deteriorating condition as fodder for his art, just as it’s hard to deny that Berliner’s willingness to risk that criticism is what makes First Cousin Once Removed such a great film.

Topical as it may be, Drones consistently manages to undermine the points it presumes to be making.

It’s a slick crowd-pleaser, but it’s perversely unrevealing about anything other than Manganiello’s affection for a the stripper experience.

Begin Again is all about the untrammeled joys of music, but like a hit pop song, it works better in the emotions than it does through any close examination.

Give Age Of Extinction this much credit: Of all the Transformers movies, this is the longest. And save for a few visual centerpieces and a couple of amusing supporting turns, it’s also an endless, incoherent mess.

It’s a call to action in the form of an adoring profile, which is effective (and affecting) strategy, but narrow, propagandistic filmmaking.

Yves Saint Laurent is the kind of heavy-handed, substance-light, spectacle-driven period film where the set decorator and the costume designer don’t just have the most important jobs on the film, they have the only important jobs.

There are a lot of laughs in They Came Together, but few curveballs. The biggest surprise is that the film feels so safe.

It’s a compelling story. Trouble is, it isn’t a terribly visual story, and this documentary doesn’t serve it nearly as well as a book or lengthy article would.

Jackpot feels more like Guy Ritchie than the Coen brothers. It revels in moronic violence, unleavened by playfulness or wit.

Evans is a revelation here, delivering a haunted performance that his previous work has only suggested he had in him. He gives the film a solid center, allowing others in the cast to explore the extreme.

Third Person’s considerable strengths generally come from the actors.

Troell’s portrait, driven by a desire to excavate the truth, is a refreshing respite from artificial biopics.

Think Like A Man Too isn’t a movie, or even an arbitrary sequel to an arbitrary adaptation of a novelty book, so much as an extended victory lap from filmmakers and actors convinced that all they have to do is show up to equal or top the first film’s success. The sad thing is that they’re probably right.

Between the high-gloss, desaturated prestige-picture look of the film and the visibly fakey soundstage sets of the Jersey boys’ hometown, Jersey Boys feels plastic and artificial throughout. There’s no sense of authentic urgency or intensity to any of it.

Polanski’s direction of Venus In Fur is masterful—a pleasure in and of itself—but Seigner is the star attraction here, giving one of the best performances of her distinguished career.

Norte is the rare film where the characters seem simpler the longer we spend time with them. They’re humans that evolve into types.