[Lhermitte's] energetic performance is by far the best reason to see the film, which should probably have been directed by somebody else; Tavernier has little flair for comedy.

Those willing or prone to buy into the idea of “Disney Magic” are likely to choke up at least once or twice over the course of Saving Mr. Banks, while those who resist it—the Traverses of the world—will choke on the heaping spoonfuls of sugar the film ladles onto its story.

Ivory Tower asks a lot of provocative, important questions, but it’s decidedly short on answers, and even shorter on satisfying or convincing answers.

Janiak handles both horror and drama ably enough to suggest that she’d excel at either genre. She hasn’t yet mastered the combination, but it’s only her first try. Give her time.

What saves 1001 Grams from being excruciatingly cute is that it does have a clean look and a pleasant tone, and it’s about a subject that’s both unusual and entertaining.

It’s false as social document, often gripping as entertainment.

Pokily paced for a 78-minute movie, The Jungle Book counts on winning characters and memorable songs to carry it along. That turns out to be a safe bet.

Part of what makes The Parallax View so unnerving is that it also offers no explanation.

The film is fitfully amusing but a bit too shapeless, even for a story about slackers.

Darkman is funny, but it’s no joke; it’s the work of a man who underlines the conventions of adventure stories and horror because he enjoys them, and knows that even when rendered tongue-in-cheek, they’re timeless.

Shot over five nights in a single location, and almost entirely improvised, Coherence is no-budget filmmaking at its most delectably inventive.

Do I Sound Gay? gets into the mysteries of homosexual attraction and eroticism, and suggests that if Thorpe wants the kind of long-term relationship that Takei, Sedaris, and Savage have, he’ll have to get over his fetishization of the macho and learn to accept himself. That’s a poignant, powerful conclusion, all from asking one question.

It’s an unusual but surprisingly effective mix of outrageousness and sincerity, in which the four anxious revelers somehow function both as broad caricatures and as real, complex human beings.

Pacific Rim never amounts to more than the sum of its setpieces, but it delivers on the promise of its premise.

While Michôd never satisfactorily develops the central relationship, The Rover is still a showcase for two strong performances.

As an enjoyable documentary about the history behind a surprising game-changer of a song, this film works well. But it misses the opportunity to take its material to the next level and say something bigger.

Everything about the way this story is rendered makes it feel much bigger than the characters and their limited travails can make it.

Dark Touch is meant to touch a nerve, not merely spook. It’s about deeper fears, and realer monsters.

Whether Edwards intended it or not—and his inclusion of hippies in the third act points to yes—The Party seems keyed into the spirit of ’68, with the house representing the upending of old money and hidebound tradition.

Matt Wolf’s innovative documentary is a bracing reminder that the notion of adolescence as distinct from childhood and adulthood is a relatively modern phenomenon.

For much of The Patience Stone, Farahani is the movie, and as she shifts from fear to despair to anger to emotions she’d never previously considered, her magnetic presence goes a long way toward putting a human face on the film, more successfully than the material around her.

Keshales and Papushado have great filmmaking chops—as Israeli imports go, this is as far from the austere norm as it gets—but there’s a hollowness at the core of Big Bad Wolves, a creeping sense that they have no clear perspective on they mayhem they’re presenting.

As a period production, Belle is gorgeous, dazzling spectacle, replete with ornate costumes, lovely sets, and in Mbatha-Raw, a striking, charismatic lead. But the film never finds a way to invest its narrative with a sense of urgency.

Director Thomas Allen Harris, who has a background in transmedia art, has made an earnest, though often sloppy, documentary on the essential role imagery plays in shaping the narrative of a people.

After watching Bettie Page Reveals All, even longtime devotees may not be able to look at one of her pictures again without hearing her voice, remembering her story, and appreciating her joy all the more.

As in Hoop Dreams, troubles at home raise the stakes hugely on the court, though the dream here is far more modest: to slake their thirst for just one victory, and to know, for once, what winning feels like. Their pursuit of this elusive goal gives Medora a strong narrative through-line, but Cohn and Rothbart cling to it too fervently.

At first, the movie is offbeat enough to be entertaining anyway; but like the title character, it quickly outstays its welcome.

Canopy most convincingly creates the illusion of war when it narrows its eyes on the two men trying to endure it, and the urgency on their underlit faces is more transportive than the canned sounds of mortar fire.