As a virtuoso experiment, the freedom provided by animation maybe lets the camera “flow” a little too much. The film’s choice to integrate rather pretty 3D animation with more cartoonish designs produces mixed results for pure aesthetic pleasure, and in a brief 84-minute runtime it still manages to be a little repetitive.

Happyend outlines two kinds of responses to a future that seems bleaker by the hour: one is abdication, the other resistance. But the split between the two is never clear-cut and Neo Sora imbues the film with doubts, hesitation, and hope in equal measure.

As everything comes to a head, it becomes clear that it’s not Andy we’re rooting for––it’s Anna. The city has swallowed Andy whole, but he can still do right by his daughter. For such a small, simple film, this is quite powerful.

The biggest issue Ick faces is its ability to sustain momentum.

While Robinson’s full-length feature as star does not reach his show’s highs, it’s still a hysterically funny, pitch-black comedy.

Harvest operates on the level of humanism and micro-history, conjuring the feeling it’s possible to inhabit a lost past––even for a little bit––as if it was a myth, before we made the crushing reality that eventually overtook our present and future.

Minahan and Klass struggle to balance the film’s many characters and disparate storylines, but at the same time they’ve created a film populated by people who are wildly compelling.

The Return looks rather cheap: there’s a real lack of pictorial beauty here, even if you can tell it was shot in a nice location. That wouldn’t be an issue if the prestige-television grit applied to this oft-told tale had a little more passion.

I only wish the third act didn’t devolve into generic action set pieces that ultimately leave the quieter, cerebral intrigue behind.

You watch the scraps of footage, and while it might offend conventional critical opinion, then and now, there’s something very pure about the man’s artistry––one feels him struggling to reconcile conflicting desires to be serious and commemorative with his goofball streak, offering that unique Lewis tonal and philosophical recipe present in his best work.

Chew-Bose’s filmmaking can be tasteful to something of a fault; the number of whispery conversations begins tipping the film over from gentle character piece to slight self-importance, a palpable self-consciousness of hyper-sensitivity.

And while the inevitable devolution of Mia and Aaryan’s union under the stress of this assessment and their respective truths hidden beneath their ideal of love is dramatic, it’s Virginia who steals the show. Not because she’s an absurdly insane character that Vikander knocks out of the park, but because there’s a reason for her intensity.

It’s a solid debut for Morrison and a star-making turn for Destiny with a message for girls and boys to know their worth and never settle.

All technical prowess, from Flanagan to his strong ensemble cast, can only go so far when it’s in service of such shallow, offensive escapism. This is a childish take on a universal experience and everyone, from the people involved in the production to the viewers, deserve better.

That, in the end, everyone is yearning for Horizon remains a beautiful melodramatic touch: in this symbol Costner has weaved a Romantic thread without diminishing the traumatic resonances associated with every depiction of that era.

Green throws his characters together: rather than giving them depth, they come across as ciphers for a predictable journey that hits all-too-familiar notes. If the director was looking for a return-to-roots comeback vehicle after his recent Hollywood horror journey, this is not it.

The issue is that the mania never builds: a few crashing stage lights and the personalities surrounding Lorne never are convincingly erratic enough. There’s no real tension, and certainly nothing in the way of feature-justifying stakes.

Best of all, Lojkine’s film comes with a refreshing generosity of spirit.

More airport paperback than theological treatise, Conclave is undeniably silly throughout, but its last-second reveals choreograph the sensibility too openly, undercutting much of what was masterfully unfurled up until that point.

It’s a helluva ride through the annals of religious history and the ways in which the concept of God has been bought and sold by charlatans and pop culture.

The result is a smart, emotionally satisfying exploration of people who may no longer have a place in modern Las Vegas.

It’s a wonderfully gentle piece of filmmaking––something of a low-key triumph that offers a novel perspective on a topic that had become, if not entirely worn out, at least clichéd.

Eden wants to leave the audience brimming with respect for the survival skills of Floreana’s inhabitants. Unfortunately, the endless scenes of discord are what will be remembered. This is a script problem that’s never solved. Howard’s ambition is to be applauded, but that alone is not enough to make for successful cinema.

Bring Them Down is not a great film. It’s occasionally compelling thanks to its haunting, almost otherworldly locations in Ireland. Mainly, though, what stands out are performances of the ever-intense Christopher Abbott, Nora-Jane Noone, and, most notably, Barry Keoghan.

It’s a rich subject that Heller dives into without hesitation, including some of the thornier aspects, until a disappointing final act where she settles on basic end points for her ideas.

It doesn’t take much to write or perform an explosive scene of unmitigated furor. It does to balance it with the empathy to know it comes from a place of fear. The acting is a huge piece to that puzzle because none of this works without believing Almut and Tobias are soulmates.

Dea Kulumbegashvili has found a way to draw mystery from the literal instead of turning it into metaphor––April’s hypnotism is made possible because everything onscreen is what it looks like, but it is also something more. But never something else, as a metaphor or an allegory would suggest.

The End carries that rare sense of a lack of compromise––a fully realized world from a visionary director. It’s exhilarating to simply exist in this world that Oppenheimer and his team (including co-writer Rasmus Heisterberg) craft.