Genre comparisons aside, the expert timing and clever setups that were exhilaratingly employed in You’re Next are mostly absent here... Fortunately Barrett and Wingard haven’t lost their ironically humorous touch, as most of the film’s uneasy laughs revolve around upending typical thriller expectations.

Unfocused, overly long documentary raises provocative questions.

There’s no shortage of eye candy on display, with acrobats, dancers, fireworks and carnival rides providing a colorful backdrop to the fairly formulaic story arc. The lack of specific background on the event's origins and history is somewhat frustrating, however, since the 85-minute runtime could certainly accommodate further exploration.

This quietly impassioned indictment of child-labor takes its time to get going but then builds steadily to a surprisingly strong finale.

Blood-spattered crime comedy benefits from whip-smart pacing and quirky Scandinavian attitude.

In telling their remarkable story, filmmaker Leslie Zemeckis has not only etched a heart-wrenching portrait of their individual and dual misfortunes, she has subtly illuminated on the general public's dark fascination with “freaks.”

The movie doesn't really focus on many individuals long enough to make them compelling screen characters.

Postman Pat: The Movie is a mostly charmless and dark affair.

Drones is not exactly subtle, but it is a commendable attempt to dramatize a hot contemporary issue without resorting to clumsy didacticism or obvious political bias.

Strong performances by Lily Rabe and LisaGay Hamilton aren’t quite enough to redeem Redemption Trail.

Filmed in permanent twilight with a static camera and no music, it is gloomy and unrewarding with an oblique and uninformative script.

Hogg achieves remarkable results with the most minimal of means. Camerawork and editing are consistently on the money, while performances and dialogue feel utterly fresh, spontaneous and believable.

All but a must-see for anyone who knows enough to care about the way laws govern information transfer in the digital age, Brian Knappenberger's The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz is an inspiring account of the life of, and an infuriating chronology of the persecution of, one of the Internet's most impressive prodigies.

Sometimes tender, sometimes frantic and always funny, the film's surprising coherence is exemplified in a climactic scene that pairs credible heartbreak with pure slapstick.

As allegory, the picture requires viewers to connect most of the dots without assistance, offering a preachy bit of dialogue once or twice but failing to use action or the camera to say much about non-sanguinary addictions.

A lot of banality gets passed off here as profound thought. That and the somewhat self-conscious actors make it difficult to engage much with either character.

Personal Tailor is, indeed, a sad example of an once eagle-eyed director losing touch with his audience.

Snowpiercer is an ambitious piece with a universally comprehensible theme and accessible aesthetics.

Belying its ominous title, Age of Extinction barely skirts the idea that humankind and planet Earth are about to be totally annihilated. What is extinguished is the audience's consciousness after being bombarded for nearly three hours with overwrought emotions...bad one-liners and battles that rarely rise above the banal.

There's nothing new under the sun, but About Alex is very, very not new. Luckily, most of its capable cast muster the warmth we require, and Zwick's script offers more humor (however mild the laughs are) than sentimentality.

Simien intensifies the impact of both action and dialogue with a self-reflexive directorial style that creates a marginally heightened sense of reality, revealing more about characters' motivations than would conventionally be expected.

There's little in the way of genuine depth, complexity or nuance here, Diaz instead seeks to convey the illusion of profundity by having various characters throw around weighty social and philosophical verbiage in thuddingly sophomoric fashion.

Ahluwalia has striven for a very self-consciously arty aesthetic here, more Gus Van Sant than Michael Mann. This is a commendably bold way to approach material that might otherwise have drifted into routine lowlife crime-thriller territory, but it also drains a rich story of narrative momentum and emotional punch.

An ingenious micro-budget science-fiction nerve-jangler which takes place entirely at a suburban dinner party, Coherence is a testament to the power of smart ideas and strong ensemble acting over expensive visual pyrotechnics.

What sets Code Black apart is that the filmmaker is himself a physician. His extraordinary access to life-and-death moments and his illuminating perspective on the medical system make for a powerful viewing experience.

Doval’s handling of ideas, notably the bioethical issues raised by artificial insemination by donor, is deft, and she benefits immensely from the performance of Garcia (her husband in real life) in a role that requires him to weave between comedy and a portrayal of emotional growth.

Chan varies the film’s stylistic veneer of naturalism with occasional, lyrical scenes of the lush woodsy environs surrounding the family home and flashbacks to the kids’ childhoods, as well as moments of low-key visual humor, as the pair stumble about searching for clues to their mother’s secret life.

With its clichéd characters and situations, formulaic subplots (Alexandre neglects his grad student daughter to concentrate on his career) and overly cutesy comic tone, Le Chef is a cinematic dish best sent back to the kitchen.