The First Monday in May should prove catnip to fashionistas.

The only people sure to love this concoction are those working for Rio's tourism bureau.

Alternately both repetitive and repulsive, this home-invasion thriller never quite hits its stride.

Despite its promising set-up, Hostile Border lacks narrative tension, with the screenplay by co-director Kaitlin McLaughlin never quite coming into dramatic focus. The characterizations feel sketchy, and the paucity of dialogue proves more frustrating than atmospheric.

In his first narrative feature, documentarian Nitzan Gilady demonstrates an assured grasp of visual storytelling, using a stunningly rugged desert setting that’s as much a character as the film’s perpetually sunny, intellectually challenged 24-year-old and her world-weary mother.

Puts a human face on the issue of income inequality.

Posing serious questions about violence and vigilantism while reveling in both, Captain America: Civil War is overlong but surprisingly light on its feet. It builds upon the plotlines of previous Avengers outings, bringing together known marquee quantities and introducing the Black Panther and a new Spidey in winning fashion.

The trouble with Chongqing Hot Pot is that despite its brief running time, it takes too long to bring its various threads together.

The film feels at once incredulous and strangely inept, with the director resorting to facile plot twists or heavy-handed pathos whereas a little subtlety and sense would have went a long way

Colonia marks a truly misguided attempt to fabricate a Hollywood-style thriller out of the darkest quarters of Latin American history.

Florence Foster Jenkins is a modestly enjoyable crowd-pleaser, but it ultimately feels smaller than its subject, a deeply conventional portrait of a highly unconventional woman.

Barbershop: The Next Cut, the third installment in the film series, brings the laughs while injecting a serious topical theme that gives it a welcome edge.

Unlocking the Cage makes its case for reevaluation of non-human animals' legal status in crisp, convincing fashion.

There is a decorousness at play here that adds an odd new flavor to the Almodovar repertoire, a politeness that’s quite unlike the lusty vulgarity of the past.

Director Michael Damian does not bring any special spark to the film, but he recognizes the talents of his cast and allows them to shine.

The leading man aside, a fine cast is thoroughly wasted in a tale that centers on old-fashioned Cold War-style conflict rather than the sort of terrorist drama that's more pertinent today.

The rest of us will likely fall into one of two camps regarding this well-intentioned film: those who praise it for drawing attention to the suffering of helpless children, and those who find it sufficiently lacking in cinematic value to decide there are better ways of helping those kids than spending 90 minutes watching it.

Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt wrestles with its unwieldy subject with only sporadic success.

This posturing, airless exercise is wearing rather than exciting.

It's a welcome human-scale outing for a director who stumbled upon leaping from 2000's breakout debut Girlfight to the would-be tentpole dud Aeon Flux.

Its paper-thin characterizations, hackneyed plotting and overdependence on viciously profane humor put this effort more in the minor league of Tammy, McCarthy's previous collaboration with her director/co-screenwriter husband Ben Falcone, than her truly inspired work with Paul Feig on Bridesmaids and Spy.

Originality or insight aren’t very high on the priority list of this drama.

The film is a body-mover above all, with great vintage clips pairing nicely with well-photographed new material in which dancers wearing appropriate fashion dance in slo-mo — everyone reveling in the melting-pot beat.

On the surface, the doc makes some compelling arguments, although most of its power is emotional rather than informational.

Cedric Anger’s stylish thriller Next Time I’ll Aim for the Heart (La prochaine fois je viserai le coeur) offers up a strong central turn from Guillaume Canet while dishing out a number of crafty and suspenseful set-pieces. But it can also be too self-serious at times and winds up dragging a bit in its latter stages.

It’s passably entertaining, and like the last one breathtakingly crafted, especially Colleen Atwood’s microscopically detailed costumes.

Even as the drama and its treatment become increasingly conventional and familiar as the film moves toward its patly (and arguably overly) audience-pleasing wrap-up, the exceptional visual quality and lifelike animal renditions remain stunning throughout.

A wrongheaded, utterly incompetent, and nearly laugh-free satire.

The film is surprisingly shoddy stylistically.

If you’re looking for a brilliant talking-animal film, it ain’t this one, babe, but it’ll do — specifically as a lead-in to potential pet adoptions; the filmmakers are partnering with rescue groups for opening-weekend events.

The aim is admirable, the execution somewhat less so. The film makes a few too many missteps, but it does deserve credit for re-opening debate on an issue that merits serious scrutiny.

Highly engaging performances by Dev Patel in the lead role and Jeremy Irons as his curmudgeonly mentor gradually warm up the Cambridge story, but the Indian part feels perfunctory and unconvincing.

This offbeat indie chiller benefits from colorful cinematography and bits of satisfying butchery, even if a less than airtight scenario fails to make it run efficiently.

The powerful turns don’t necessarily build towards a satisfying conclusion, in a film that starts off strong but can’t always decide whether it wants to keep it real or give viewers the sort of movie moments found in less-inventive dramas.

It’s never dull. Without destroying the sheer poetry of the matchup between the pitcher’s mound and home plate, Hock explains it all, and in the process pays tribute to the extraordinary speed factor of a game that has been damned for its slowness.

A flawed but affecting two-hander that intrigues and frustrates in nearly equal measure.

Despite four credited screenwriters, including Evrenol, the mysteriously titled Baskin is thin on story, instead lurching in and out of a woozy dreamscape before arriving at its extended terror and torture set piece.

Mapplethorpe comes across as remarkably candid and unassuming, though his ambition was always clear.

This ensemble comedic drama maintains a light touch while surveying the challenges of accepting adult responsibilities.

The villain here, Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, is so intensely annoying that, very early on, you wish Batman and Superman would just patch up their differences and join forces to put the squirrely rascal out of his, and our, misery.

From the very first scene, the rhythm is off, the staging and editing graceless, and the dialogue (the screenplay is by Kyle Pennekamp and Scott Turpel) alternates between trying too hard and not hard enough.

It’s only when the story heads to pure sci-fi territory later on that April stretches itself a bit thin, though a smart epilogue manages to put things in perspective for both the characters and viewer.

That it all works to the extent that it does is due to its undeniably sweet depiction of a close-knit extended family whose members truly care for and help each other. It's cinematic wish fulfillment in this era of broken families and far-off relatives who keep in touch via social media.

Even given the standards of off-the-rails cinematic family reunions, you'd have to look a while to find one as bizarre as Anders Thomas Jensen's Men & Chicken.

This is a laborious film that dulls the human drama at its core. Rather than pulling you into the protagonist's gradual acquaintance with his unfamiliar conscience, it shuts you out, leaving you bored and indifferent.

By turns touching, funny and sometimes strangely existential, David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s documentary, destined for broadcast on public television’s POV program next year, succeeds in telling a highly personal story in a surprisingly relatable manner.

Making good use of his camera-department experience on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and elsewhere, Shirai seeks out the visual appeal of both the brewery's operation.

A resourceful dreamer needn't be alienated from fields of endeavor usually requiring years of training or unthinkable wealth. Imagination, seriousness and a small set of shop tools are sufficient.

It's so preoccupied with hammering home the point that Armstrong was a liar and a cheat, it can't risk giving him any credit for having charisma to spare, or at least enough cunning to know how to manipulate our current fantasies about heroic sportsmen.

Big Holiday’s episodic road-trip script is a good fit for the film’s sketch-based humor.

With its overt nods to movies, nonlinear structure and purple-tinged dialogue, the self-conscious artifice of Hauck’s first feature can be suffocating. This narrative puzzle should be more fun than it is.

Foodstuffs, metaphysics and a heap of raunchy action add up to something surprisingly hilarious.

The inspirational memoir Miracles From Heaven transfers to the big screen as a wholesome, crowd-pleasing drama, one whose subject is faith and gratitude. The tone is frequently more searching than self-satisfied, and the harrowing medical crisis that drives the family story gives it the nonreligious urgency to preach beyond the choir.

If the story is meant to represent a microcosm of the immigration problem, it’s woefully reductive. If it’s meant to be first and foremost an action thriller, it does have a few nice moves to offer.

Minimalist in terms of action and scope but attentive to the texture of what is onscreen.

Walken is the main attraction here; though the film identifies more with the wayward daughter, played by Amber Heard, it doesn't make her nearly as interesting as his name-dropping, spotlight-hogging entertainer.

This may not be adequate compensation for the end of their series, which gave them so many more opportunities to try on new personalities and take one-gag ideas for a spin. But it will delight the show's fans while winning over others unlucky enough never to have seen it.

The Young Messiah is just, like, barely competent enough that the faith-based target audience won't feel entirely cheated.

The director and his regular editor Eyas Salman notch up the tension by beautiful degrees as Mohammed overcomes each obstacle with ingenuity, charm and, hokey but true, sheer singing skill.

It's as honest and clear-eyed about the past as its predecessor, another in a filmography of unpredictable gems. It may be most like Dazed in that the public could take a while to appreciate it for what it is.

While Chow and Taiwanese star Eddie Peng aren’t going to make anyone forget Tsui Hark and Jet Li’s defining Once Upon a Time in China, or for that matter Jackie Chan’s earlier spin on Wong in Drunken Master, they do a frequently thrilling job with a familiar story.

Lerner alternates between well-observed character detail and clunky mystery-solving developments.

Beautifully captures the distinctive wit of its subject.

Pegging most of its hopes on two actors who hardly maintain the taut chemistry its long two-hander section requires, the pic plays like the feature debut it is, an uncertain drama full of attitude it can't back up with action.

A tough sell theatrically despite its merits, the film will rely on Jones' name to reach viewers via home-video outlets.

The second half groans under too many dumb contrivances, even if the dumbest — a sword fight at a publicity event — leads to a credit-sequence gag that earns more laughs than anything in the film.

More stylishly compelling and seamlessly produced than it is imaginative.

Geopolitical speculation aside, Gross makes a persuasive case for the bravery and sacrifice of Canadian troops serving during the Afghanistan conflict.

The final third shifts into high-adrenaline action mode with some thrilling set pieces as Michelle faces unexpected new threats, making the paradoxical conclusion satisfying on multiple levels as it delivers on the thriller setup while introducing surprising new developments.

For all its relatability, the movie is safe and sitcomishly amusing rather than sharply funny, hitting the same genial notes over and over instead of building real comic momentum.

For a film that takes great pride in its heroine's nonconformism, pretty much everything in Allegiant feels conventional.

Some of the surprises in store play better than others.

Galland's film plays more like a cable-ready mystery than a cult film in the making, offering just enough chuckles to stay afloat.

Taken separately, these two medium-length works would be diverting but also rather minor Hong, with their typical dry humor and observations about life and love. But taken as a single, 120-minute work, the small differences in the dialogue and attitudes of parts one and two reveal nothing less than the humanity, inner life and subconscious decision-making processes of the characters, turning the whole into one of Hong’s strongest features to date.

Trapped is a succinct and heart-rending revelation of this complex and controversial subject. Most strikingly, it puts human faces on a social and personal issue that has been often engulfed by the invective surrounding it.

Though the material is juicy and the interviews heartfelt, the doc doesn't completely succeed in efforts to explain the spell this and similar groups cast on their acolytes.

The Monkey King 2 is served well by Cheang’s willingness to keep the story straightforward and linear, weaving the various threads together seamlessly and complementing it with its outré action and stunts rather than smothering it with them.

The balance of humanistic and ethnographic filmmaking with poignant, often seemingly unscripted drama has many rewards.

Delivering some genuinely creepy slow-burn moments before devolving into baroque excess, Emelie delivers a nasty twist on an all-too-common scenario.

While not nearly as elaborate, nor as visually sophisticated as the last Mission: Impossible outing or the most recent Bonds, London Has Fallen is actually more plausible at its core, if not in its details, which is partly why it succeeds in laying claim to an audience's attention for the entirety of its swift running time.

As in their previous films (I Love You Phillip Morris; Crazy, Stupid, Love; Focus), directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa enjoy just scattershot success in hitting their seriocomic targets, scoring from time to time with their more coarse and outlandish gambits but rarely inducing one to take what they're watching very seriously.

Krisha Fairchild’s lead performance starts off as riveting and grows ever more compelling as the brilliantly off-center story unwinds.

Writer-director Xavier Giannoli offers up an amusingly entertaining portrait of fortune, infamy and severe melodic dysfunction in the polished French period dramedy, Marguerite.

Take a pinch of Top Gun, stir in a generous dollop of The Right Stuff, add a light sprinkling of Mad Men and you have the formula for this uplifting documentary portrait of former Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.

There's nothing moribund about the action in King Georges, the lively first film directed by doc producer Erika Frankel, which observes the perfectionist workhorse in his kitchen.

The story moves along in fairly predictable beats, including the inevitable denouement in which Jack's deception is exposed. But it's effective nonetheless, thanks to the authentic-feeling depiction of the physical and emotional toll of caring for an autistic child.

The director’s approach tamps down the story’s dramatic potential, while the screenplay she wrote with Jim Beggarly repeatedly defuses the emotional power of messy family affairs.

Director Naomi Kawase’s adaptation of Durian Sukegawa’s novel An aims so low that it makes good on its modest ambitions.

Doesn't delve deeply enough to be fully satisfying. Much like the drug it spotlights (to reference another journalism-themed movie), it will leave you hungry afterwards.

This overstuffed, witless and bloated stillborn $140 million epic is unlikely to spawn the studio's intended franchise — unless, as is so often the case, international audiences come to the box-office rescue.

One of the flaws that keeps the film being as engaging as it might be is the way every shot seems to last about the same amount of time, producing a monotonous visual rhythm that only serves to make the plot seem even more episodic.

A film about ordinary people doing nothing is a tricky thing, quickly numbing the audience to sleep unless the screenplay is electrifying and the actors greatly appealing. Unfortunately, neither of these is true of Rafael Nadjari’s A Strange Course of Events, which is anything but strange and eventful.

With its measured pacing, focus on family and repurposing of familiar horror conventions, the film represents a rather adult offering that can’t manage any memorable frights until well into the first hour of running time.

Despite a warmly interacting cast that includes Jennifer Ehle as Emily’s sister and Keith Carradine as her lion-maned, lionized father, and a valiant effort on the part of Nixon and Davies to externalize the poet’s inner demons in emotional, high-tension scenes, the film can’t escape an underlying static quality that extinguishes the flame before it can get burning.

While the casting of Thompson, just two years Carlyle's senior is a gamble that could easily have seemed gimmicky, the half-Scottish Oscar-winner is a riot as the grotesque Cemolina, a raucously broad-accented, chain-smoking schemer resplendent in faux-ocelot

The emotional connective tissue that made Lee’s film so poetic, romantic, tragic and thrilling is missing here, reducing Sword of Destiny to a series of loosely related fight sequences and gauzy, overwrought flashbacks.

Baron Cohen and Strong are both robustly physical performers, and their finest moments are when they’re grappling with each other, producing a great tangle of limbs and teeth. But the script, credited to Baron Cohen, Phil Johnston and Peter Baynham (based on a story by Baron Cohen and Johnston), is not especially generous to the other members of the cast.

Lacking the stylistic finesse that might have compensated for its schematic narrative deficiencies, Backtrack lives up to its title all too well.