Although the prescription drug users that Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry) profiles have some interesting things to say about how these products affect their performance and perceptions, the steady stream of talking-head experts doesn’t do much to raise the movie’s pulse.

A good-looking debut that's as obsessive as it sounds, Koki Shigeno's Ramen Heads celebrates those for whom Japan's famous dish is anything but a simple bowl of noodles and broth.

The formulaic writing and stilted direction conspire to bring the movie, and these talents, down time and time again.

Though the story itself contains enough to intrigue a skeptic, Bagans' tendency to tart things up with horror-movie techniques makes this a movie to scare true believers, not win new ones over.

True to its title, Los Angeles Overnight makes excellent use of its extensive L.A. locations, thankfully foregoing the familiar landmarks that have become cinematic clichés. It's a shame, then, that the film doesn't succeed in its ambition to infuse noir tropes with originality.

Wang’s verite approach attempts to strike a tone somewhere between revealing and contemplative, but her principal subjects are too young and inexperienced with the world to have much of import to say.

Brandishing impressively packed abs and enough upper body strength to pull herself out of countless jams, Alicia Vikander gamely steps into the kick-ass role twice played by Angelina Jolie, but the derivative story and cardboard supporting characters are straight out of 1930s movie serials.

It’s a decent concept for any sort of movie – a thriller, a horror flick, a comedy – but the problem here is that writer-director Joe Martin never quite decides which one he wants to make.

Keep the Change acknowledges that people with disabilities can sometimes be largely responsible for the biggest problems they face, just like the rest of us — and it doesn't need to be Pollyannaish to believe those problems are solvable.

Although well made and acted, the real question surrounding this microscopic look at men enduring the severe pressure of trench warfare is what relevance it may have for a modern audience. The answer is, probably not much.

Playful, irreverent and unafraid to be politically incorrect, the pair script with assurance and direct with stylish understatement, pairing character and physical comedy to entertaining effect.

A rollicking adventure through worlds both bleak and fantastic, Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One makes big changes to the specifics and structure of Ernest Cline's best-selling novel but keeps the spirit and level-up thrills intact.

It plays to the strengths of its performers, from screen novices to the comic vet of the cast, Leslie Mann, who may never have had this good a showcase.

A terrifying thriller with a surprisingly warm heart, John Krasinski's A Quiet Place is a monster-movie allegory for parenting in a world gone very, very wrong.

James McAvoy and Alicia Vikander make a photogenic pair in this sometimes sweepingly romantic film, the most roundly satisfying fiction feature Wenders has made since, well, that first one about the angel so in love he gives up immortality.

A documentary that, like its subject, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is eminently sober, well-mannered, highly intelligent, scrupulous and just a teeny-weeny bit reassuringly dull.

Merging standard gangster movie clichés of both the Japanese and American variety, The Outsider only manages to be ultra-violent and ultra-dull simultaneously.

Juggernaut accumulates an undeniable raw power thanks to such elements as its bleak setting, evocatively captured in Patrick Scola's dark-hued cinematography; the jittery, strings and percussion-heavy musical score by Michelle Osis; and the excellent performances.

Despite its many engaging moments, Itzhak will likely prove frustrating for viewers desiring more information.

Featuring excellent performances by Forest Whitaker as Tutu and Eric Bana as an imprisoned racist government death-squad assassin seeking clemency, The Forgiven tackles its important political and social issues in an overly talky fashion.

A sometimes amusing, sometimes draggy and overstuffed affair that always relies on its talent-rich cast to carry the day.

This is the sort of exasperating horror film that whips audiences into a frenzy. Not because they're having fun, mind you, but rather because the characters behave so stupidly and self-destructively that yelling profanity-laden advice to the screen becomes a bonding exercise.

Only the faintest glimmers of genuine, earned emotion pierce through the layers of intense calculation that encumber Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time.

The film devastatingly makes clear the extent of Russia's propaganda meddling, which has particular resonance in light of its recent attempts to also interfere with elections and public perceptions in America and Europe.

The director does an excellent job of setting a properly ominous mood, effectively delivering a procession of jump scares that succeed in keeping viewers on edge. Unfortunately, the screenplay by Tarryn-Tanille Prinsloo proves less effective, failing to deepen the characterizations or situations in sufficiently interesting fashion.

Characters come and go quickly, leaving a feeling that there is too much compression of the multi-episode story.

To prepare himself for the big leap back onstage, DiMaggio talks to friends from the New York comedy scene of the ’80s, many of them now household names. Their conversations, filled with smart and spirited observations about showbiz and the business of life, are the heart of this engaging film, and a delight.

England steers his talented young cast in the right direction despite some snafus in his story, and the fine acting is what ultimately brings 1:54 to the finish line.

First-time screenwriters Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan have done their homework in organizing the material but haven’t brought an argument to the table that might have zapped the film to life; everything is methodical, it covers most of the bases, but passion and vitality are crucially missing from director John Curran’s treatment.

A slow burn often works in creep-outs such as this, but here the pacing is a deficit, despite an especially good performance by Harper (of NBC's The Good Place) as the worker whose partner may be turning against him.

Despite many script problems, Levine has kept the film tightly coiled and engrossing throughout.

Eli Roth and screenwriter Joe Carnahan could have done the same thing, manifesting the rages and fears that afflict the country we live in right now. Instead they offer a cheap and dishonest Death Wish that (references to social media notwithstanding) is interchangeable with get-tough knockoffs that have flooded cinemas for decades.

While its convoluted storyline never fully convinces, Midnighters never lets up on the tension, making it easy to go along with its contrivances.

The knack for biting dialogue that Mills brought to Guidance is still evident, although his new effort can’t match the bracing sting of his wickedly funny debut.

Respectful of its heroes' suffering and willing (for a while, at least) not to afford them the usual big-screen satisfactions, it mourns a centuries-old genocide through the torment of three young protagonists.

While it's uneven, and at times seems almost artless in its craft, the story has an idiosyncratic charm that pays off in an unexpectedly touching ending.

Dialogue tends toward the eye-rolling variety and performances feel uneven across the board, with the actors using a menagerie of accents, including some dubious Deep South ones, as they shout above all the pounding rain and thunder.

A lyrical work that’s as bright and captivating as it is poignant.

McKenzie deserves credit for revealing such a troubling facet of her homeland, and even if the shallow focus — both literal and figurative — of her movie can be frustrating at times, she bravely never turns away.

It’s an expertly carved chunk of cheese. But taken on its own, limited terms, Love, Simon is also a charmer — warm, often funny and gently touching, tickling rather than pummeling your tear ducts.

Director Hallivis keeps the proceedings at a reasonably fast pace, with Adam Taylor's electronic music score helping to quicken the film's pulse rate. But it's not enough to prevent the proceedings from lapsing into incoherence.

It should be a pulse-racing account of knife-edge real-life conflict and valiant heroics, full of needling political questions. Instead it's merely another slack thriller with underdeveloped characters and sputtering dramatic momentum.

The handsomely downbeat atmospherics overwhelm its themes of love, parenthood, crime and punishment. The narrative doesn't quite coalesce, and except for a few late-in-the-proceedings moments, it doesn't deliver the grim, indelible shivers of the best noir.

Everyone is extremely serious, which can be a bit of a drag at times, but as a study in trauma The Cured has its moments and the film plays best when it remains intimate.

The scene-setting works better than the storytelling in this sincere but clumsy picture, whose script (by first-timer Tony DuShane, author of the book it was based on) makes a bit of a muddle of the interactions between its teen and adult Jehovah's Witnesses (and the occasional troublemaking nonbeliever).

At its core is a well-intentioned message about inclusivity and valuing inner beauty, but the film, adapted from the 2012 YA best-seller by David Levithan (albeit with a problematic perspective shift), remains stuck in a stubborn rut somewhere between confusing and snooze-inducing.

Survivors Guide to Prison demonstrates just how seriously even a blameless citizen should take every interaction with the police.

If the way Davis wraps things up is neither surprising nor remotely satisfying, it does at least hold a lesson for white-collar tyrants who haven't seen 9 to 5 or the dozens of workplace-revenge fantasies that followed it: "The assistant controls everything."

While the pic proves too frivolous to make its satirical and social points fully register, it offers diverting pleasures along the way.

This B-movie thriller fails to go beyond its familiar underwater peril tropes, providing as nearly a claustrophobic experience for viewers as its characters.

The film, bearing no small debt to Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, inevitably has a familiar feel. But director-screenwriter Nguyen infuses it with enough fresh elements to make it fully entertaining.

For all its honorable intentions to address sensitive issues that still sting, Kings is an unconvincing tonal patchwork.

Is it possible for a viewer to be touched by a character’s predicament and despair when every element of their life is so strikingly arranged? Because Pfeiffer disappears into her role and plays it small, and because Dosunmu’s modus operandi privileges visuals and the unspoken over dialogue and facile melodrama, the film sort of gets away with it, if just barely.

Unsane is a dispiritingly pedestrian woman-in-peril shocker to have come from such a maverick filmmaker.

To be sure, the climax delivers copious amounts of blood and guts and tension and look-away temptations. But there are enough interesting surprises, in addition to the narrative promise, to provide for the presumed, and now quite desired, sequels.

There are chuckles here and there, but a striking absence of belly laughs; Girls Trip it’s decidedly not.

Though the emotional pull of this love triangle grows more compelling in the second half, for much of its running time November prefers to beguile us with the strangeness of its setting and characters.

Charlotte Rampling gives an emotionally rigorous display of bruising internalization, without an ounce of vanity, in the title role of Hannah. But although the lead performance commands admiration, the overall impact of this unrelentingly dour account of a woman struggling to carry on with her life after her husband's imprisonment is dulled by its distancing approach.

While the film is a much more powerful visual feast than the original Monster Hunt from two years ago, it offers little in terms of expanding the first film's themes or pushing the storyline significantly forward.

Neither impressive enough to prove inspiring or campy enough to be entertaining, Samson is as underwhelming as its title character if he went bald.

Whatever pathos is generated comes from Reynolds' commitment to all the self-exploitation. His inimitable charm is still there beneath all the corporeal decrepitude on which Rifkin and company shamelessly linger.

A pervy premise and top-flight cast yield a mixed-bag spy flick.

Though competent in technical aspects, the pic's third-hand script and uninspired direction make it hard to invest in the heavy weight each character carries around with him.

Cheang does his able best to balance a love story with the heightened fantasy action expected of the previous two films, and after a rocky start he largely succeeds.

A diverting if unimaginatively named little doc.

Wohl never manages to achieve the proper tonal blend. The result is neither sufficiently funny nor moving, lacking the truly daring humor that might have made the film a bracing dark comedy. It's a shame, considering the estimable ensemble.

The unique charm of Isle of Dogs is its bottomless vault of curios, its sly humor, playful graphic inserts and dexterous narrative detours.

The Scent of Rain and Lightning is a well-acted, intelligent thriller that ultimately rewards the viewer's patience even if it too often sacrifices narrative clarity in favor of atmosphere.

Considering its lurid story arc and troubled characters, the film almost feels tamped down as Hunter strives to create an atmosphere of mystery and slow-burning tension. What he delivers instead is tedium, where even the climactic reveal proves both underwhelming and predictable.

While its frank approach is refreshing, there is a sense of too much.

The film is very well designed by directors Rohrbaugh and Powell, the musical interludes really sing and the actors make for scintillating company.

An empathetic drama ready to put straight-laced audiences in the shoes of a maligned subculture.

It does offer a consistent level of tension, a few decent scares and a terrific lead turn by Christie Burke.

Judged as a fiction built on a kernel of fact, Fake Blood hardly distinguishes itself from the glut of mock-docs; it may be a refreshing break for the filmmakers, but viewers might prefer another zombie flick.

A love story whose resolution remains tough to predict, Outside In respects all its characters by not pretending their choices are easily made.

Utterly and passionately hagiographic, the documentary Seeing Allred presents 96 minutes of reasons to stand and cheer for celebrated feminist lawyer Gloria Allred. That means, of course, that for ultra-conservative lovers of Netflix documentaries, it's doubtful that Seeing Allred is going to dramatically change any opinions about her.

It's easy to see why this deeply thoughtful, self-made diplomat has succeeded where so many others have failed. It's thus all the more poignant that his own demons have proven far more difficult for him to tame than so many of the world's.

Eastwood's main achievement here lies in trusting his hunch that the young men could handle playing themselves onscreen, with an acceptable naturalness and without self-consciousness. This they do, without a false note.

In terms of drama, or melodrama, or just bad drama, Freed rarely delivers the goods while trying hard to give fans what they came for.

Trafficking in familiar themes, Permission ultimately doesn't have anything very new to say about them.

Shot before Brie Larson appeared in her breakout film Room, this fish-out-of-water musical set largely in India is the sort of unmitigated disaster that the actress would no doubt have preferred to stay under wraps.

The actors are all seen to very good advantage. Boseman certainly holds his own, but there are quite a few charismatic supporting players here keen to steal every scene they can — and they do, notably the physically imposing Jordan, the radiant Nyong'o and especially Wright, who gives her every scene extra punch and humor.

A trainwreck of a sci-fi flick bent on extending a franchise that should have died a peaceful death almost exactly one decade ago.

While Potter devotees will no doubt be scandalized by the edgier bad-boy ‘tude now possessed by Mr. McGregor’s mischievous cotton-tailed nemesis, the greater offense committed is the awfully flimsy plotting that fails to take full advantage of terrific production values and the work of an engaging cast led by the affably energetic James Corden.

Beautiful settings and eccentric effects work enliven a tale that's more than meets the eye.

Lacking narration or graphics, the documentary employs a fly-on-the-wall approach that proves frustrating.

The movie soon devolves into an extremely familiar escape-the-monsters affair, with all the compounding dumbness usually involved when our fleeing heroes are forced to keep filming the action.

Mirren always brings a touch of class, of course, even to deluxe schlock like this. But Clarke is something of a blank leading man while the secondary characters are mostly pale phantoms sleepwalking through a thinly drawn plot.

First-time director Oeding, a veteran stuntman, clearly knows how to effectively shoot an action sequence.

Discerning viewers will recognize The Music of Silence for the tediously sentimental, rote exercise that it is. It's the cinematic equivalent of listening to opera in an elevator.

Whether viewers show up for the controversy or for the Bollywood star power of its charismatic leads, they should emerge impressed by its dazzling visuals and Bhansali’s masterfully composed and executed musical numbers.

Perhaps fittingly given the downturn in the repetitive final act, over the long haul the joke starts getting old in every sense.

While very much a film of two unequal halves, there's more than enough cinematic chutzpah on display here, especially in the early sections, to confirm the Floridian writer-director as a name to watch.

Any meager pleasures that Lies We Tell offers are purely technical.

Easily the most ambitious film of the director's career, but also the most infuriating for all of the sociological and psychological points that it tries to make in ways that are too often unearned or poorly defended.

The often-very-funny picture entertains while affording its characters their share of no-laughing-matter concerns.

A pulpy and fun fight flick that is better in some respects than it needs to be, Retaliation may not do for Moussi what the original Kickboxer did for Van Damme, but it won't send fans home disappointed.

Somewhere in the murky depths of this modestly gripping thriller lurks a more interesting film about real-life monsters, the kind that prey on human minds not human flesh.