There are some tonal problems here, particularly around the way the film tends to homogenize very disparate views and opinions into one sweet, easily digestible polemical smoothie.

At its best, which is often enough, the film does provide that sort of intimate and evocative insight into a culture too often vilified due to Western ignorance. At others, the gentle exquisiteness with which Longley approaches even the most unappealing sights and sounds feels like an evasion of something more troubling, and potentially more profound.

Odd, then, that [Brewer and Murphy's] Dolemite Is My Name is such a conventional-feeling biopic, one with its share of laughs and surprising anecdotes but little of the enduring strangeness that kept the 1975 Dolemite rattling around in our cultural memory

For those who like head-on, immersive emotional experiences at the movies, The Sky Is Pink may be a direct hit.

It's a wobbly but amusing pic that only really raises eyebrows at the end.

Hope Gap may engage the mind up to a point with its pithy dialogue and resourceful players, but it offers little insight into the complexities and wages of wedlock.

Even when it veers into familiar territory, I Am Woman remains entertaining and sharply packaged.

This moody, black-and-white period piece always intrigues, even if it only intermittently catches fire.

If the pic is ultimately an entertaining ride, it is because Sudeikis takes the audience by the hand through this very unlikely story that was inspired by true events.

The heart of this complex material for too long remains elusive to Assayas, and he locates it too late to give the choppy drama cohesion. That's not to say Wasp Network is dull or uninvolving.

Initially a caustic and somewhat programmatic checklist of alt-right obsessions, Cuck becomes more tonally and dramatically interesting after it shifts gear midway through, when Ronnie's story becomes a lurid psychosexual nightmare reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream."

Govenar is not what you'd call a natural filmmaker. Hodgepodgey in its storytelling, the film introduces enough appealing characters to hold the interest of a casual viewer; presumably, tattoo-diehards know much of this stuff already.

A good-natured ride at first, its limited scope grows more apparent as it goes; still, a feel-good approach is unlikely to hurt it as it begins a road-show release concurrent with the band's 50th-anniversary tour.

The movie — like the performances of its small ensemble — works best when the director gets out of her own way, forgetting her aversion to clean, conventional narrative and giving the material breathing space to resonate.

While it hardly sells Wrinkles as a culture-shaking phenomenon, this modest documentary will play best to those who enjoy being creeped out by him enough to suspend their disbelief.

The film captures the cost of Henry's well-intentioned sin, following this pained new creature out into the world and, very briefly, giving his suffering an almost Malick-like voice.

This well-intentioned meditation of the banality of evil packs a modest emotional punch, but it might have been more powerful if it had shown us a little less banality and a little more evil.

The critique of those in power and their need to put down others — preferably foreign or different-looking people — in order to stay on top is as relevant in 2019 as it was in 1980, when the novel was first published. But like its noncommittal production design, which combines various North African, Middle Eastern and Asian influences for the locals and locales, the critique itself remains finally quite dull and dispersed because it's so broad and unspecific.

Any failure to expand into cinema's possibilities is overshadowed by the uniformly strong performances in a four-person cast led by an excellent Kerry Washington.

One couldn’t wish for a more painstakingly researched or beautifully rendered account of the infamous Dreyfus affair than Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy (J’Accuse).... Yet the result is oddly lacking in heart and soul, almost as though a mask of military discipline held it in check.

The picture will naturally hold its biggest appeal for racing buffs but may also prove appealing to nonfans thanks to the moving story at its core.

While The Last Photograph ultimately feels too narratively slight to justify even its brief 85-minute running time, the intriguing film demonstrates that the actor should follow in his legendary father's directorial footsteps more often.

Modine makes it work anyway thanks to his charm and charisma. His enjoyably playful performance helps prevent Miss Virginia from feeling entirely like an issue-of-the-week television movie.

The central character never develops in an interesting way. Well before the wrap-up of this brief tale, her cultivated recessiveness becomes tiresome and, in these particular circumstances, a bit dull.

The high-wire tonal balancing act proves a little wobbly at times, resulting in a film that is feels less than the sum of its parts. But some of those parts work very well, providing moments of uncomfortable hilarity and genuine poignancy.

But for all its vividly detailed eccentricity, the movie, like Abby, connects the dots rather too easily. As Clifton Hill digs deeper into exceedingly sordid stuff, it doesn't dish up the kind of aha moments or chilling frissons that would lift the story from clever contrivance — until a final, delicious twist pulls the rug out from under this richly atmospheric but not always convincing tale.

The film takes a more prosaic approach to its sci-fi premise than its predecessors did, presumably in an attempt to reach viewers who need more hand-holding. ... Despite its uncanny start, Synchronic is just more normal than it might have been, and less deep.

Engrossing on a moment-to-moment scale thanks so some very fine performances, the film doesn't click together in the transformative way such stories occasionally do, and does less with themes of wealth and class than it surely intends to.