The many, many action sequences are spectacularly conceived and executed, including a car chase on the Williamsburg Bridge that’s probably still tying up downtown traffic.

The characters are irritating, the look is cheap and the plot is reheated from other movies, but it has to be admitted that Dachra delivers its unsavory thrills.

Part gritty public service dystopia, part modern-day farce about the yellow vests movement that ripped through the country in late 2018, the film can be both entertaining and surprisingly funny, especially if you’re familiar with France’s politics and current economic woes. But it’s also too on-the-nose about what it wants to say, or rather, shout as loud as it can, regarding the country’s accumulated social wreckage.

Leclerc’s lack of introspection — you never forget his youth — puts a lot of pressure on the other talking heads. Fortunately, The Alpinist can always count on Harrington for amusing or poignant beats.

Juiced up with nods to Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and to classic David Cronenberg bug-outs, much of it set to insidious techno beats, this is commandingly creepy psycho-horror, even if its forbidding narrative loses momentum.

A strong cast and tightly focused direction make The Unforgivable an engrossing enough redemption drama, though this Americanized feature adaptation of British TV writer Sally Wainwright’s 2009 miniseries, Unforgiven, doesn’t always benefit from its condensed plotting.

Quickening does not end on a completely satisfactory note, and part of that has to do with the overall disjointed feel of this poetic project. Still, its narrative ambition and visual acuity make me excited to see what Waseem does next.

Though it’s not without cinematic touches and affecting, sometimes harrowing moments, and even with a convincingly fragile and unmoored Amanda Seyfried at its center, the drama is often hampered by an instructive sensibility that gives it the air of a feature-length PSA.

This shaky apocalyptic film doesn’t land at times, but its gripping final act, a handful of standout performances and attempts at commentary about class and climate change will probably keep most audiences engaged.

Viewers looking for explanations should probably stay away, but those willing to be carried by the film’s casual pace and haunting aesthetic will find there are few places like it in contemporary cinema.

With its tight structure, adequate level of suspense and inventive plot, The Manor more than fulfills the requirements of a thrilling horror flick. But its clumsy and at times repetitive script, along with its beautiful but predictable cinematography, kept me from feeling fully immersed in Belgian writer-director Axelle Carolyn’s project.

The Tale of King Crab strains mightily for a poetic quality that it never quite achieves.

Part Two is plagued by a nagging shallowness when it comes to portraying the Fremen, an indigenous people fighting for self-determination within the empire; the film has difficulty fully embracing the nuance of Herbert’s anti-imperial and ecologically dystopian text.

Credit to co-writer and director Marc Rocco for the film's consistently high-level performances. Mulroney and Boyle scrounge up all the right emotions and insecurities in their street couple portrayals, while Astin is particularly terrific as a pathetic, downsliding junkie. [14 Jan 1992]

Talkington indulges in a lot of directorial flourishes, some of which work and some of which don't, but they definitely lift the proceedings above the mundane. [28 Nov 1994]

Nothing in The Forever Prisoner feels all that revelatory, but the thing that’s essential in the doc is the reminder that for all of the story’s familiarity, it reflects a situation that has been barely ameliorated over more than a decade.

A film that doesn’t quite know whether it wants to educate its audience or give it a thrill ride. It proves more interesting for the former elements than the latter, but it nonetheless delivers plenty of compelling moments along the way.

Nothing if not true to its title, this frenetically plotted serve of stoner heaven is insanely imaginative and often a lot of fun. But at two hours-plus, it becomes unrelenting and wearisome.

At only 80 minutes, Beanie Mania offers only limited depth and it’s hard to imagine any viewer not being left with serious questions throughout, but as a superficial, hastily glossed nostalgic oddity, it’s a tidy way to wrap your 2021 viewing.

Earnest and slow, the film takes time to reveal its intentions and the result is worthy but not engaging.

Slasher film fans should embrace this Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which pays loving homage to the original via a variety of Easter Eggs and doesn’t at all stint on the gore. Seriously, there’s so much blood splattered on the screen that you’ll have an urge to wear a poncho if you sit too close.

Emergency mostly stays close to the surface of the issues it presents, which results in a darkly funny but frustrating viewing experience.

We know the achievements and victories of the era Nagy depicts, and yet, because she and her fine cast bring the story to such vivid, immediate life, the final moments of Call Jane are powerful with unanticipated joy.

It’s a restrained rendering of the events, a drama that plays, at times, like a documentary. But if Howard’s decision to spotlight the Thai characters in this harrowing narrative is a sound one, there’s an unfamiliar stiffness and self-consciousness in the director’s approach — an inability to marry the fast-paced, no-nonsense heroics that are his strong suit with more emotionally textured storytelling. The resulting awkwardness prevents the movie, for all the surreal tension and bravery it depicts, from feeling urgent or surprising.

Hall and Brown are a glorious kick to watch, their physicality at times bordering on slapstick.

Though a mixed bag as a piece of storytelling, the film’s greatest value for American viewers in 2022 is the truth it conveys to those hoping to preserve (or, let’s dare to dream, improve) a democracy facing immediate and very grave threats.

[López Gallardo] tends to eschew straightforward storytelling for something so elusive that her film nearly escapes us for its first half, until the pieces gradually fit together and we manage to make some sense of the plot, if not entirely what the director is going for.

Shepard’s reach might exceed her grasp, but there’s no question that she takes risks and is a filmmaker of notable promise.

David O. Russell’s Amsterdam is a lot of movies inelegantly squidged into one — a zany screwball comedy, a crime thriller, an earnest salute to pacts of love and friendship, an antifascist history lesson with fictional flourishes. Those competing strands all have their merits, bolstered by entertaining character work from an uncommonly high-wattage ensemble

The film flaunts vivid animation and some pretty striking moments, captured with close-ups and unexpected angles — but similar to Skydance Animation’s debut venture Luck, Spellbound inspires a sense of déjà vu.

In the spirit of its predecessors, Creed III gears audiences up for a fight of the century: The battle between Adonis and Damian is billed as one between an underdog and a man with nothing to lose. But the implications of those categories are murky and unsettling.

The film offers up more mysteries than it solves. Still, riveting work from Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux as performance artists whose canvas is internal organ mutations will draw the curious.

Audiences’ staying power for this meandering existential exploration of personal, professional and national identity — as tragicomic as it is rueful — will vary, depending on their interest in the artist or their appetite for the film’s aesthetic beauty.

There’s much to appreciate in Noah Baumbach’s alternately exhilarating and enervating attempt to tame Don DeLillo’s comedy of death, White Noise, not least the daredevil spirit and ambition with which the writer-director and his cast plunge into the tricky material. But little in this episodic freakout hits the target quite so well as the wild end credits sequence.

Though the farce has some lively moments and Pisano’s expressive performance exudes a crude charm, the picture is uneven as a work of entertainment.

It’s a pleasurable enough watch — nicely acted and with a gentle rhythm tuned to the main characters’ searching paths as they drift in and out of each other’s lives over 30 years — though ultimately, it lacks weight.

Even if it takes itself a tad too seriously, it delivers enough nail-biting stress and terror to justify a trip to the multiplex for action-thriller fans.

Léonor Serraille’s film Mother and Son contains moving strokes, but struggles to make a lasting emotional dent.

Quite watchable, even sort of plot-driven — for a Serra film.

Predictable but sweet.

While Paddington in Peru sadly lacks the absurdist wit and decidedly dark edge that elevated the first two Paddington movies, it’s serviceable enough given its limitations.

The team manages to hit most of the right notes with this perky, peculiar adaptation. Or maybe the film has just enough bright shiny objects and tightly synchronized dancing-child chorus lines to stop anyone from caring about all that problematic whatnot. In any case, it mostly works.

What makes his story particularly compelling is that most of it is true.

There’s lots on the menu, and León de Aranoa brings it all together in a smooth manner. But the jokes tend to be too broad, and the themes too tritely handled.

At times disarming, at others plain silly, it takes a few daring leaps without quite avoiding middle-of-the-road sitcom territory.

Neither the establishing dramatic linchpin nor the final conversion of conscience is terribly convincing, leaving this pared-down rendition of the original work diminished in power and meaning as well.

The film makes an extremely powerful, timely and important statement, especially coming from someone whose name carries such symbolic weight. Disney deserves tremendous credit for standing up for what’s right, even if it means biting the family hand that feeds her.

Hamm makes plenty of sense in this role, but Mottola and Zev Borow’s screenplay doesn’t totally convince us the character is series-worthy.

A Jazzman’s Blues is overindulgent, a narrative feast of twists and turns. The formidable work of the cast paces us, helping viewers digest the plot and saving Perry’s screenplay from the collateral damage of its broad scope.

It’s all a bit much, really, and the constant tonal shifts from a sort of demonic Fantasia to bouncy musical numbers proves more than a bit jarring. It doesn’t help that none of the songs are particularly memorable.

While these stories are relatable and well-acted by a sturdy cast of exciting talent, they lack the potency of depth. How to Blow Up a Pipeline is skillfully executed — it hits all the right beats as a genre film, especially when it comes to ratcheting up the tension ­— but suffers from the same narrative limitations as Goldhaber’s equally compelling debut feature Cam.

Lowery and Halbrook overstuff the narrative, which begins to wobble and drag under the weight of its obligations. Nevertheless, there are interesting changes and subtle ways the duo correct the original text.

Spirited owes its buoyancy primarily to the lively rapport of Ferrell and Reynolds, ultimately playing out the movie’s most convincing love story.

Medusa Deluxe is saved from its own potential waywardness by a series of stellar performances. The cast animates the strange, disquieting world of beauticians who describe their craft in profound, almost holy terms.

Though frustratingly unfocused and sometimes overreaching (even compared to Philippe’s other docs, which are never what you’d call precision-crafted), the film is consistently enjoyable, with just enough flashes of insight to justify its existence.

The film’s immersion into the anti-abortion movement — with a smattering of pro-choice voices woven in — is consistently fascinating. But Lowen’s measured approach also raises a question: How loud does a warning cry have to be to register? Eye-opening though it is, at times Battleground is muted to a fault.

Scenes with her family members — especially her younger sisters — reflect a people growing more disenchanted with the state of affairs. The interviews with the Taliban — which grow repetitive and often feel like part of a different project entirely — contextualize the group’s ambitions and increased brazenness. In Her Hands starts to resemble a high-stakes drama in tone and style.

While it zips along with pleasingly brisk economy in the expository establishing scenes, newcomer Evan Parter’s Black List screenplay indulges in too many movie-ish contrivances to offer a genuinely provocative spin on Beltway shenanigans.

With a refreshingly diverse cast and a compelling premise, there’s a lot to appreciate about Darby and the Dead — even with its muddied execution.

The pieces don’t always fit together neatly and Alexandra Pelosi struggles with a subject whose façade is proudly impenetrable, but there are points at which Pelosi in the House is engaging and enlightening enough to make up for it being simultaneously choppy and rushed.

Scream VI will probably prove as popular as most of its predecessors, proving that if you give the people what they want — namely lots and lots of gory stabbings with a little satire thrown in — they will come.

Twisters gets the job done in terms of whipping up life-threatening tornadoes that leave a trail of wreckage in their wake. But the extent to which all this is conjured with a digital paintbox lessens the pulse-quickening awe of nature at its most destructive.

Back to Black is, like its heroine, flawed and fallible but frequently very affecting.

For all the movie’s quite credible conjecture about technology rendering nature obsolete and procreation becoming the privilege of the wealthy, The Pod Generation never fully hatches.

Many cinephiles are nostalgics at heart, and the story of how Kim’s Video was founded, lost and eventually found again seems to reflect a greater story about how the cinema, whether consisting of Palme d’Or winners or Z-grade slashers, has been pushed to the margins of popular culture — to be fondly remembered in documentaries like this.

This is the first feature for Gordon and Lieberman and there’s little evidence of a visual sense, even if the rough edges are part of the appeal. But perhaps due to the elements of improvisation, the comic timing is uneven and the material tends to be more often cute than uproarious.

Maybe it isn’t exactly that Pamela, a love story is unrevelatory. It’s just that what it reveals is that once you get past the tabloid-friendly headlines from the ’90s and ’00s, the actual Pamela Anderson is a fairly smart, fairly funny and fairly boring — not in a critical way at all, just in a way that runs counter to expectations — woman who just wants love. She also — and this actually is a problem — has always been a fairly candid interview subject.

The jokes keep coming, but without a meaningful foundation — fleshing out the motivations of the group’s members would have helped — they start to wear thin.

While Body Parts is a smart film and a useful primer on big questions about filmic representations of sex and desire, one wishes its conclusions were more nuanced.

In terms of brutal spectacle, elaborate period reconstruction and vigorous set pieces requiring complex choreography, the sequel delivers what fans of its Oscar-winning 2000 predecessor will crave — battles, swordplay, bloodshed, Ancient Roman intrigue. That said, there’s a déjà vu quality to much of the new film, a slavishness that goes beyond the caged men forced to fight for their survival, and seeps into the very bones of a drama overly beholden to the original.

There’s a powerful social commentary running through U.K. horror flick Raging Grace that’s not always served by the film itself, which is neither scary nor all that convincing when it rummages through the toolbox of familiar genre tropes.

A committed, intensely physical lead performance by German actor Franz Rogowski (recently seen in Ira Sachs’ Passages), luminous cinematography courtesy of ace DP Helene Louvart, and stirring electronic music by composer Vitalic all come together to make this a sensuous, striking film experience. But, yeesh, that script by director-screenwriter Giacomo Abbruzzese is a mess.

As a nightmarish suspense drama about everyday life disintegrating, Esmail’s movie is sometimes effective, even while it echoes earlier films like The Road and David Koepp’s underrated 1996 thriller, The Trigger Effect.

It gets the job done and is sure to pull solid numbers. It doesn’t hurt that Gadot has appealing chemistry with co-star Jamie Dornan.

Suffice it to say that if you enjoyed Extraction, you’ll have a fine time with this one, which, in typical franchise fashion, busts its butt attempting to outdo its predecessor. And it does.

I’ll take this JLo as “nobody fucks with me or my daughter” killing machine, discovering her long-hidden maternal instincts, over those grimly generic rom-coms she cranks out once a year, which might as well be direct-to-inflight movies.

If Penn’s point in visiting Ukraine, meeting Zelensky and co-directing Superpower was to make himself heard, then it’s mission accomplished.

Atef toys with social themes but never connects the dots between her two plots, one dealing with reunification, the other with desire and doom.

Fletcher conducts the high-speed chase more than competently, but it’s the sparks generated by de Armas and Evans that keep it buoyant.

Self Reliance fares better when it plays up its fictional reality TV show. Johnson flexes his familiarity with the landscape and its mechanics.

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken charms and woos in a predictable manner.

The movie often toes the line between inner-city clichés and a vision that’s more stylish and unique, never quite landing on the proper balance between the two. But as a touching portrait of an outer-borough New Yorker whose talents are just waiting to be harnessed, it shows some true potential.

The potency of It Lives Inside — and why it might be worth checking out even if it isn’t wholly satisfying — lies in how it introduces Sam and Tamira’s relationship and links it to Hindu lore.

The footage-forward/talking head-free approach is a tough one to get exactly right, and Adolphus doesn’t always nail it.

You Don’t Know Me aims to cut past the mythology to reveal the flesh-and-blood woman underneath, and in doing so assembles a mostly sympathetic, mostly compelling portrait of an all-American tragedy. But when even a movie aimed at capturing the “true” Anna Nicole Smith seems unsure exactly who that might be, it’s hard not to wonder who any of this is really for.

The use of music and sound design is very thoughtful throughout, capturing the way music by street performers makes life in the city feel like a musical all the time while the murmur of traffic and general hubbub creates its own atonal backing track.

Engrossing enough but also a bit meandering and underpowered.

What Loach adds to this scenario, as he’s done in most of his films, is a natural intimacy that goes beyond the issues to bring something human and emotional to the table. In its best moments, The Old Oak hits those powerful notes without pulling too hard on your heartstrings, with lived-in performances from a nonprofessional cast, including a few actors who were in the director’s most recent movies.

Something You Said Last Night testifies to its director’s dexterity with constructing subtly meaningful moments, but without more insight into its protagonist, the film can feel unintentionally impenetrable at times.

Perrier’s direction — which pays sweet homage to romantic comedies and vintage Hollywood — makes up for the underdeveloped narrative and occasionally stiff performances from the supporting cast.

Poetic, painterly work Users looks and sounds stunning, but remains thematically a little too diffuse for its own good as it meditates on our children and the future they will inhabit, where perfect machines replace imperfect parents.

Maybe Korem’s primary objective is simply to make you think more about Milli Vanilli than you ever have before. In that, it’s a total success. It’s more of a failure when it comes to trying to answer some of those big questions and engage in direct accountability, and I don’t know if I buy most of its cultural conclusions

The thing about James Hawes’ film of the 1981 Robert Littell novel is that while it prompts raised eyebrows with the contrivances of its plotting and the seeming ease with which the underestimated protagonist outwits everyone, it at least looks and feels like a real movie.

This is a handsomely produced, solidly acted thriller that’s certainly watchable, though the perplexing subtitle is not its only issue. Unlike its riveting predecessor, it’s absorbing but never quite gripping.

The documentary that it chooses to be instead has appeal but, in the rush to get it onto screens before the next time somebody dares underestimate Curry, perhaps it lacks sufficient refinement.

None of this would work nearly as well without Bell, whose raspy voice and menacing gravitas are so riveting that he makes Jigsaw’s oft-repeated declaration “I’d like to play a game” scary as hell. He’s made the character truly iconic, much like Robert Englund did with Freddy Krueger. Accept no substitutions.

The film would have benefited from director Jeff Celentano perhaps picking up the pace a little, and the deletion of some extraneous subplots. But the climactic sequence, in which Rickey bats through the pain while encountering the toughest pitchers he’s ever faced, provides the perfect stirring conclusion.

Part of the attraction of Madeleine Collins is in seeing how far Barraud is willing take things until providing a reasonable explanation. It’s a tricky balancing act that’s one-third Hitchcockian intrigue and one-third Chabrolian study of broken bourgeois homes, with the final third bordering on kitsch.