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.