Like the ambitious The Wandering Earth, the last Chinese epic to make a play for international glory, and indeed Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, The Eight Hundred is thin on characterization, and too often slips into rote narrative and war movie cliches (really, a runaway white horse?). And that's despite eight writers working on the script. The sheer volume of men fighting and dying in the face of overwhelming odds and stellar technical spectacle step into the gap where emotional connection should be.

Paper Spiders is a message film, but one that's spiked with welcome humor, and its excellent cast is led by the reliably compelling Lili Taylor as the afflicted woman, tormented and tormenting, and Stefania LaVie Owen as her smart and sensitive daughter.

All In offers compelling visual history and civics lessons that will still serve an educational purpose long after the next presidential inauguration.

It successfully imagines a place for its heroine in Holmes' world, then convinces young viewers that Enola needn't be constrained by that world's borders.

While scribe Zac Stanford's premise invites a Charlie Kaufman-like, reality-bending take, Schwartzman plays things straight enough that one has a hard time believing the action. But viewers who get through a credulity-testing second act may laugh enough in the third to be glad they did.

The Owners proves a nasty, if not exactly credible, thriller.

Buying Pepe as misunderstood and buying Pepe as a character destined for redemption are two different things, and it's the argument after the buildup where Feels Good Man stopped feeling persuasive for me. Your hopefulness may vary.

The literary source is one of only a couple of real draws in what is otherwise a fairly routine present-day crime saga.

Despite all the splendor, there’s little sense of vision.

It's an unassuming and delicate work which demands but ultimately repays close attention.

A refreshing, beautifully made documentary set in a nursing home under suspicion of elder neglect, Maite Alberdi's The Mole Agent begins with its tongue in cheek but grows quite moving by its end.

Robin's Wish proves both emotionally harrowing and cathartic.

In the end, Antebellum is undone by a lack of empathy and emotion. It has no real perspective on the past and thus fails to make any real impact on the present.

A rich and illuminating piece of cultural history.

This is a raucous, happily irresponsible party that should help locked-in, bottled-up Americans release some steam. The only downside to its being released when we need laughs so desperately is that this is just the kind of pic that becomes several times as funny when seen in a packed theater.

Neither tense nor thematically resonant enough to overcome its literally small-scale aspects, Centigrade proves as much an ordeal for its viewers as its characters.

Dean Parisot's Bill & Ted Face the Music is almost exactly as good as its two big-screen predecessors — make of that statement what you will — while cleaning up some, but not all, of the things that might make an old fan of those films cringe today.

There’s no denying the power inherent in Shimu’s grueling pursuit: one which, in many other countries, would simply be a matter of filling out some forms, but here takes on nearly Melvillian proportions of impossibility.

On many levels it's a bold, brilliant work, uncompromising in its darkness and distinguished by rigorously committed performances from a superb principal cast. Yet in many fundamental ways, the movie is frustrating; it's frequently a hard slog, as distancing as it is illuminating.

The picture wallows for a bit, having deprived itself of the teen cheer that was its main driver. Of course the sun will come out again, after those Amber has given so much to eventually find a way to force her into the role of gracious recipient. The fact that the way they do this is entirely appropriate to the character doesn't keep the film's feel-good climax from feeling very, very familiar.

Generic and, at its best, straining to be heartfelt.

Chastain is utterly convincing in another tough-as-nails role. If audiences stick with the movie, it's largely thanks to her movie-star charisma, which almost compensates for the increasingly ridiculous plot. Malkovich and Farrell seem to understand they are A-list talent in B-movie roles, and relish the opportunity.

Peninsula suffers the same type of sequelitis that suggests a second entry must be more/bigger/louder than its predecessor. Where Train to Busan’s two hours were impeccably paced and every frame meticulously used, Peninsula spins its wheels in between its admittedly impressive key set pieces.

As recently as last year's "Motherless Brooklyn," Willis has proven that, when he feels like it, he's capable of giving interesting performances. Although no one begrudges him a decent living, it's frustrating that he seems to be settling for such low-rent VOD Steven Seagal/John Travolta-style vehicles at this point in his career.

A delicate miniature that’s magnificently humanist, occasionally amusing and shot in a palette of rich, saturated nighttime hues, this is the kind of really small movie that is actually really great.

While Sandoval's hard-working dedication is admirable, and her semi-autobiographical story full of latent dramatic potential, Lingua Franca is ultimately an underpowered, amateurish disappointment.

Not intended by any stretch as a proper biography, the film is also not one of Herzog's more mainstream efforts. But admirers of either artist will find it very worthwhile, as will viewers who need the occasional reminder that the world still contains wild places to explore.

Design values and Conrad W. Hall's photography are as flatly unimaginative as the rest of the film, which, in its avoidance of distinguishing features, would make a better candidate for witness-relocation anonymity than Margot does.