Richard Linklater's 19th feature becomes compelling in its final act, but before that too often appears tonally addled and dramatically dawdling.

Ready has a fine time with its setting (the trappings of old money are much more appealing here than they were in Netflix's Murder Mystery), and Weaving is sharp enough to play things straight as the ensemble around her goes for the occasional laugh.

Set disbelief aside, and primal phobias may well suffice to get you happily to the other side of this adventure.

While one of the first rules of writing is to write what you know, Sabet's romantic comedy demonstrates that not everything that actually happens to you can be mined for comedic gold. The picture starts out promisingly enough, but eventually sinks under the weight of its implausibilities.

The story takes place in 1953, and the relentlessly artificial-feeling film feels like it could have been made then as well.

A range of camera positions, from wide landscape shots to ultra-intimate close-ups, instead allows us to appreciate the two hounds in their adopted setting of the Parque de los Reyes.

A surfeit of bad-ass mystery-man posturing and dearth of either convincing emotion or visceral kicks makes this pastiche unmoving, an assemblage of tropes few will enjoy wading through.

This bloodthirsty comic-book fantasy is let down by its infantile humor and derivative, incoherent plot.

Unfortunately, Every Time I Die doesn't quite have the cinematic polish to live up to its considerable aspirations, resulting in a frustratingly opaque viewing experience.

Ode to Joy fails to live up to its title by attempting to wring comic mileage from a medical condition that sufferers probably don't find very funny.

More than colorful enough to excite genre fans who like a dash of history with their swordplay.

As things stand, personal perspective brings something to this rudimentary documentary, but not nearly enough to help it compete with more polished portraits of big-top razzle-dazzle.

All of these beasties are "scary." Though they'd be much more so if they felt less like franchisable IP and more like fervent expressions of the ills of the eras on which the film aims to comment.

The documentary makes a persuasive case as to why this show — grounded very specifically in the lives of a persecuted Jewish shtetl community in 1905 Imperial Russia — continues to connect deeply with audiences across vast divides of religion, race, generation, personal experience and sexuality. Its layers of meaning to anyone who has ever felt ostracized alone have cemented its eternal relevance.

What's missing in this Kitchen is heat. A B-movie summer diversion at best, it's more a collection of genre tropes than an involving crime drama.

Socrates is a haunting slice of Brazilian neo-realism that marks its tyro director/co-screenwriter as a talent to watch.

To the director’s credit, the animated sequences are richly rendered, making the most of the rather stiff and plain-looking originals (though, if you want to get nitpicky, an early gag poking fun at the fact that Playmobil legs are unbendable is soon forgotten) and offering up a plethora of settings that help compensate for the lack of good writing.

Hodge’s performance is what keeps Brian Banks on track. He is powerful in scenes of anger, but he may be even better in purely silent moments where his unspoken reactions are eloquent.

Shaped by a near-constant monologue from a golden retriever named Enzo, The Art of Racing in the Rain is watchable but flat, with only occasional flashes of wit and feeling.

Ku shows a decent grasp of plot mechanics, but never manages to adequately develop the characters or effectively modulate the film’s pacing, even in the brief action scenes, which prove too tame by typical Cage standards.

A rich reminiscence of a gifted actor who died far too young.

Given the utter incoherence of the main characters' comings and goings, the pic's main point of interest is its documentation of Burning Man's many oversized art projects.

The first-time filmmaker (a Cuban who moved to the U.K. for film school) is deeply committed to the seriousness of his tale, but seems to feel a leaden pace is the only way to do it justice. The result is a movie much easier to respect than to enjoy.

Ladyworld proves as much of an endurance test for viewers as the central characters.

This misadventure of a project is a blip on the actresses’ résumés.

The coming-of-age theme doesn't mesh entirely well with the more lurid elements, and Coyote Lake doesn't quite achieve the narrative tension sufficient to lift it above the story's slow spots. The film is carried along by the strength of Mendes' emotionally complex, restrained performance that makes clear that Ester is as much victim as accomplice.

The two leads' highly competitive shtick is more amusing than not — the insults fly hot and heavy — as are the outrageously adverse predicaments over which they invariably manage to gain an upper hand. Director Leitch figuratively winks at the audience and elbows it in the ribs as he has his characters break the laws of physics time and time again as they confront a thoroughly preposterous lineup of physical dilemmas one after another.

The documentary rarely presses its larger points. But it calmly reveals how much journalism has changed since Ivins started out in the late 1960s, yet how relevant her observations about the blight of corporate money in politics and threats to the First Amendment remain today.