Midnight Sun does an effective job of tugging at vulnerable teenage hearts, while managing to provide a few laughs along the way. None of the film rings remotely true, especially the cornball conclusion, but the two young leads are so darn attractive and appealing that one can't help being caught up in their characters' poignant romance.

Hitman's Bodyguard offers more than enough shoot-'em-up to keep multiplex auds munching their popcorn, but sharper talents behind the camera might have made it considerably more enjoyable.

By the end, you'll feel like you've seen it all before. But for a good while, Retake...seems like it's carving out some distinctive new territory in the well-trod world of queer cinema.

Worlds Apart doesn’t manage to transcend the forced and familiar-feeling aspects of its multipart narrative, but it does offer an evocative portrait of its troubled milieu, and one of its segments, at least, has genuine emotional resonance.

While its narrative elements threaten at times to descend from whimsical into hopelessly twee, My Name Is Emily ultimately finds a proper, if not particularly compelling, balance.

Things get a bit busier than this modest film requires, but rural languor prevails in the end — if not with the "grace" of the title, at least with forgiveness.

This film about family dysfunction and ethical crises never reaches a fully satisfying conclusion.

The film has two powerful, loosely connected stories to tell but not a unifying vision that could package the often-potent material for maximum impact.

As a sympathetic look at two likeable lovers who don't know what's good for them, it's enough to give us a rooting interest — even if we're rooting for the two protagonists to accept the consequences of their mistakes and move on.

While it becomes slightly padded and repetitious in the eventual reunion of the six surviving dancers, the smartly assembled film makes points that resonate in a world where fame is increasingly ephemeral and life after the celebrity window closes can get awfully cold.

Even though this feature debut for director Matt Spicer, who co-wrote the script with David Branson Smith, is sort of all over the place, it’s still often sharply amusing, crisply assembled and features game, broad-brushstroke performances from leads Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen.

The farcical elements in the plot take far too long to gel, and Robespierre and company push too hard at mixing sad, silly and sweet.

Driven by a compellingly internalized performance from Teresa Palmer as the conflicted prey, this is a case of expert filmmaking craft applied to a familiar story that becomes unrelentingly grim and drawn out after its masterful setup.

Perhaps cowed by respect for a real man who suffered so much, Stanfield seems reluctant to charm viewers. Warner is sympathetic, of course, but Ruskin continually requires wounded earnestness from his lead, and shows little of whatever spark of inner life must have been required for Warner to survive these years without losing his mind.

Intriguing formal noodlings can’t disguise the cliches in the script. Even so, it’s clear that Abbasi has talent and ambition.

Jack Black...finds a role that invites a great deal of Jack Black-ness, full of peppy showmanship and thickly accented dialogue. But even moviegoers with a strong tolerance for that shtick may be less than involved with this half-charming feature, which inspires some sympathy for its protagonist but not enough to carry the film.

Kim keeps the action sequences tightly focused, particularly in the tense opening segment, but tends to let dramatic scenes go on for too long after they’ve conveyed their point.

It’s a meaty role for stage and film actress Mandat, whose very real pain at the thought of animals’ suffering commands sympathy, though eventually a little tedium. A tighter edit could avoid a lot of surplus emotions and possibly clarify a number of obscure plot points.

An intellectually rigorous but stylistically staid peep at the 20-something author of Capital and The Communist Manifesto, Raoul Peck’s The Young Karl Marx is at once historically impeccable and a filmic disappointment.

The film is more of a character study than a full-fledged family drama, though one that benefits from strong, naturalistic performances by castmembers that seem to know one another all too well.

It’s a smart film with engaging moments. But working overtime to build an involving multi-layered drama with a flurry of hand-held camera movements and dizzying flashbacks, it ultimately turns repetitive and annoying.

This semi-fictionalized account rings false whenever it eschews reality for a WWII cloak-and-dagger intrigue, trying too hard to dazzle us with plot instead of letting the music speak for itself.

Joan’s story unfolds all too neatly, but in Allen’s spark and grace there’s a real sense of discovery.

What the film doesn’t have is the visceral impact that would take it from a well-intentioned treatise to a searing work of art.

Danger Close provides a vivid portrait of combat and its emotional and physical aftermath. But despite its harrowing footage and moving elements, the film may feel all too familiar to viewers who have become numb in the face of seemingly countless other similar efforts.

Throwing in a natural catastrophe in the form of an earthquake as well as a nuclear power generator meltdown for good measure, Pandora ticks off all the current societal scares and packs them into one slightly bloated, often-shrieking action drama that nevertheless gets the job done despite its worst narrative instincts.

Although her colorful life would reach a tragic, decidedly pulpy end, Leo plays it to the absolute hilt.... Unfortunately, the other characters and the vehicle that supports her turn out to be less satisfyingly dimensional.

While Afineevsky generally manages to pack in a lot of detail, analysis, nuance and humanism, this is largely absent in the last chapter, which feels like it was rushed together at the last minute and didn’t receive the same amount of time, care and thought as the film’s previous chapters

Robert Mockler's Like Me, while hardly for every taste, rises above the pack in a few ways — ranging from its ambitious style to the out-of-whack humanity of its two lead performances.

Although visually observant, the film’s narrative remains frustratingly vague, disclosing little about its central characters and often burying the principal plot points.

As the stakes are heightened, the filmmakers too often short-change dramatic verisimilitude with movie-ish cliché, implausible plotting and cumbersome dialogue.

Rawson Marshall Thurber's Skyscraper is one of the most idiotic action movies to come down the pike in some time. It's also a lot of fun if you're willing to go with it, and getting viewers to go with things is one of several fronts on which The Rock routinely earns the money he gets paid.

It's chiefly notable for Cara Seymour's nuanced supporting turn as Anna's sometime best friend, Kate.

If The Nightingale doesn’t quite fulfill the high expectations for Kent’s sophomore feature, it still shows a director with a muscular handle on her craft, though in this case she could have used a script collaborator to address the weaknesses.

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

Seeing these likable oldsters talk at length is just about the entire point of this picture, which isn't nearly as good at guiding us through history or explaining technical minutiae as it is at relating to their well-earned sense of pride.

It's the chemistry between Domhnall Gleeson and newcomer Will Tilston, as the awkwardly matched father and son, that makes the movie more than a mélange of inept parenting and Tigger too.

By and large, very few remakes, other than Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot reproduction of Psycho, have adhered as closely to their original versions as this one does. Everything here is so safe and tame and carefully calculated as to seem pre-digested. There's nary a surprise in the whole two hours.

Heartfelt, if not entirely satisfying, Walk With Me provides an up-close glimpse of the life of devotion, focusing on the monks and nuns who live at a rural monastery led by Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh.

While the intriguing setup pulls you in, this gentle American heartland story peters out into an unsatisfying payoff.

A filmmaking decision at the end of the film thumbs its nose at us, with the language of editing seeming to contradict the message of Shoaf's screenplay.

The good news for fans is that The Trip to Spain is no Godfather III. The moderately bad news is that this sometimes hilarious outing is the one in which the conceit comes to resemble a lushly produced, irregularly broadcast TV series.

Frozen 2 has everything you would expect — catchy new songs, more time with easy-to-like characters, striking backdrops, cute little jokes, a voyage of discovery plot and female empowerment galore — except the unexpected.

As a trilogy-closer, it's a mixed bag, tying earlier narrative strands together pleasingly while working too hard (and failing) to convince viewers Shyamalan has something uniquely brainy to offer in the overpopulated arena of comics-inspired stories.

A film with some real stunning visual highlights but a narrative throughline that feels patchy and unbalanced.

This stranger-in-a-strange-land adventure has enough appeal to sustain its limited theatrical release.

The doc is less interested in analyzing Ledger's acting technique than in impressing viewers with his overall creative drive.

We are left with a powerful sense that her death was a tragic loss, both privately and publicly, but Can I Be Me never quite tells us why.

The latest schlocky actioner by B-master Herman Yau, Shock Wave is a workmanlike (yet protracted) genre entertainment that benefits from knowing precisely what it is and its place in the cinematic hierarchy.

Although the film manages some disarming insights into the man’s complex makeup and difficult behavior, a service enhanced by Louis Garrel’s very good lead performance, serious cinephiles will likely reject it as glib and disrespectful, while more mainstream viewers could be amused but not that interested.

There’s absolutely nothing memorable about the film.... But it boasts plenty of gritty period atmosphere and earns points for its lack of pretension.

Despite the wildly uneven plotting, Gordon’s atmospheric direction in coastal New London propels the drama, as does her sensitivity to what remains unspoken between people. That everyone in the film is drastically off-balance may just be the point.

The Incomparable Rose Hartman doesn’t quite make the case for lengthily profiling its irascible and not particularly interesting subject.

This intoxicatingly stylish work is all over the place, a hot mess at times so ravishing it sends shivers down to the toes. Unfortunately, it’s also at times just plain crass and silly.

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

Minutely observed and framed with great precision, this finally has a few too many characters and twists to become a fully satisfying drama.

A minor addition to the Korean action cinema canon, The Merciless offers thin pleasures in a glossy package.

Bu I, admittedly, had a hard time getting on its woozy wavelength. But The Beach Bum is a work of undeniable commitment and craft — a gonzo picaresque, soaked with booze and filled with gyrating, jiggling flesh, that will play well to the not-negligible segment of the population where cannabis lovers and cinephiles overlap.

Mysius loses control of the tone, and the wayward direction of the last half hour, which unfolds mostly at a gypsy wedding and goes on 15 minutes too long, suggests difficulty finding resolution, a common problem with first films.

Finally less a two-stories-for-the-price-of-one situation than essentially two films of about an hour each, this is nonetheless a visually impressive Hollywood calling card for Jimenez, who almost manages to overcome the material’s structural weaknesses with impressive directorial verve.

The pic ends with a sermon on self-determination, and the dialogue tends toward the on-the-nose instead of the kind that allows viewers to draw their own inferences.

Parker, a more competent and imaginative director than Mamma Mia!’s stage-show holdover Phyllida Lloyd, likes to assemble the musical numbers in such a way as to recall the very earliest days of pop videos, with snappy editing or Busby Berkeley-style overhead shots of choreography veering on abstraction.

It may lack the refined wit and revered pedigree of blue-chip animation franchises such as Toy Story, but it still ticks plenty of lightweight fun boxes for its prime target audience of younger children, with just enough adult humor to keep parents from yawning, too.

There’s something admirably honest about the meta-method Amalric and co-writer Philippe Di Folco have chosen.

The film was shot chronologically and this is clear in the increasing fluidity of Gras’ camerawork, which is less and less searching the closer they get to the city.

Competent on all fronts but never dazzling, it should please genre devotees.

More convincing in its outrage and inspiring in its show of what the people’s will can do as long as the masses protest and demand to be heard, than as a rigorous historical analysis.

Drew Stone's Who the F**ck is That Guy shows how total, unabashed music fandom took a nobody from New York City's far reaches to the heart of the music business.

Although the film’s overstuffed, overpopulated storyline proves only sporadically interesting, it’s notable for at least providing an alternative view of a city more commonly associated with wintry gloom, corruption and heavy drinking.

This story of sibling camaraderie and familial strife at a Burgundy winery unfolds against the backdrop of reliably picturesque views, with its bouquet of largely familiar elements presented with a modern finish.

Unfortunately, something at the center just doesn’t hold, and it flies apart over the course of 133 minutes into confusing shards of plot, legalese-heavy monologues and, perhaps most surprising of all given Gilroy’s bona fides, a touch of soggy sentimentality in the home stretch.

Treating the subject of creative exploitation not with overheated moralism but as a year-in-the-life social chronicle, the picture makes a solid, if very tardy, follow-up to the director's 1999 breakout Jesus' Son.

Despite occasionally shaky storytelling, the doc sticks to its mission even as the most fundamental obstacles arise, producing a dramatic account that will make all do-gooders think twice about how they spend their charitable dollars.

It is Gubler’s appealing performance that anchors the proceedings.

The film veers between inspired and strained and finally settles into the realm of self-improvement pop psychology.

Wolf Warrior 2 is even bigger and bolder than its predecessor, which doesn’t always work in its favor. But genre fans will definitely relish the near-constant barrage of elaborate set pieces that are choreographed and filmed for maximum impact.

This tale of a young linguist seeking to keep a dying language alive is thought-provoking, visually compelling, and hopefully will help to raise awareness about this indirect form of cultural destruction. But its themes are subordinated to surprisingly bland treatment

While Imperfections lives up to its name with its too clever by half plotline and failure to find a coherent tone, the indie film features enough enjoyable moments to overcome its flaws.

There's still a lot to love. Gadot remains a charismatic presence who wields the lasso with authority, even tethering lightning bolts in some arresting moments. However, I missed the more hand-to-hand gladiatorial aspect of so many fight scenes in the first movie.

It may not rank up there with Skyfall, but it’s a moving valedictory salute to the actor who has left arguably the most indelible mark on the character since Connery.

Although it never quite lives up to the satirical possibilities of its high-concept premise, Unleashed delivers some mildly enjoyable laughs thanks to its engaging female lead and the exuberantly physical performances of her co-stars.

There's a nicely rendered sense of aesthetics, whether it’s in the safe pastel shades which fill Bea’s bedroom and which contrast with the high, sharp tones of the fantasy scenes.

Despite its obviously strong philosophical and emotional interest in the nature of memory, the picture is most satisfying as a whodunit, observing Dinklage's deeply empathetic interviews with those who've been wounded, not helped, by a procedure that was meant to be therapeutic.

An affectionate and sometimes vibrantly imaginative biographical sketch, Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards could have used more shoes and fewer people.

Where the final minutes of the movie suffer from clumsy storytelling, most of what precedes them sits well within the romantic finding-oneself comfort zone, and Solo, while not able to imbue her character with Amelie-like spark, helps keep things from getting treacly.

Though less funny than the first, it will play well to those who are in the mood.

This stylish chamber piece plays like a cross between Ex Machina and The Tree of Life, mixing a cleverly conceived biotechnical fable with sun-dappled sentimentalism that doesn’t always resonate like it should.

Triet tempers her style a bit while upgrading her production values (especially the vivid and colorful cinematography of Simon Beaufils), resulting in a movie that can feel both original and somewhat conventional — a classic working girl rom-com with just enough kookiness to set itself apart from the pack.

This is certainly an entertaining-enough watch, even for those without much rooting interest in Gaga.

A resourceful, if rather hyperbolic documentary that devotes 90 minutes to analyzing one of the most famous scenes in film history.

It's a role very well suited to Liam Neeson, whose righteousness fills the screen and sometimes seems all the movie can offer.

An acting-forward sports film capable of engaging viewers who don't know their 30-loves from their birdies or hat tricks.

If the film remains largely watchable it is because Farhadi has cast some of the finest actors in Spain and they know how to breathe life into their characters even when they don’t have all that much to do (though a few of them have quite a lot to say).

It packs plenty of rabble-rousing ammunition, but its sloppy execution is unlikely to win any merit badges for marksmanship.

The sad truth is that we’ve heard countless harrowing stories of the Holocaust, and this one, for the most part, isn’t presented in a way that makes it indelible or urgent.

The film’s first hour and last reels are now a not completely organic fit, taking things from an intimate and personal level to a global scale while skipping over an awful lot of things in between.

It's the kind of cartoonish film where, no matter what the odds and how many bullets are flying at our heroes, they never get seriously injured.

For much of its running time, Zama is merely remote and enervating, too accurately reflecting its protagonist’s predicament.