With no sheen of reflexivity, and no in-jokey admission of its hokiness to hide behind, can this non-ironic un-re-invention possibly work? Actually, yes it can, and does surprisingly well, by approaching the story with a sincerity and sweetness that defy cynicism, and by casting Cate Blanchett.

Mr. Holmes is not so much the story of Holmes' last case, as the story of his last choice: whether to go gentle, or whether to rage against the dying of the light.

At almost two-hours Worth somehow feels almost twice as long. Granted, we understand it’s a cliché to describe a film in such terms, but Colangelo and Borenstein are trying to cover too much ground that is, for lack of a better word, repetitive.

The specificity of the documentary, staying within the walls of the boot camp for virtually the entire movie, is one of its biggest strengths since it is able to place you right alongside these kids.

Ruby Sparks hits that sweet emotional spot much in the same way "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" does. While you are at once charmed by the whimsy and romance, there's still a gut punch of emotional rawness just waiting to be delivered.

There’s a ton of truth and ugliness to You Will Be My Son, and the minor digressions into soapy territory keep threatening to derail. It never does thanks to Arstrup, a force of nature who grabs his scenes by the throat and never lets go.

Gabriel often feels like a feat, for both writer/director Howe and Culkin. It's a movie that might not be easy to watch, but is well worth the effort.

What is, at its outset, a rather charming film about the world-famous card mechanic Richard Turner and the obstacles he has overcome, winds up being a searching study of the painful nature of coming to terms with your own vulnerabilities.

While this doc lacks a few crucial interviews, it nonetheless charts the course of one of ’60s television’s most recognizable stars. For fans of Mary Tyler Moore, James Adolphus’ doc is a must-watch.

Wonder promotes the benefits of human decency in a time when those virtues feel limited, and wins you over by being a pretty good film about being good — and that’s good enough for it to work.

The film is not only one dimensional when it comes to its subject, but also of the time and place where Hendrix arrived.

In the new documentary To Be Takei, it becomes clear that Takei is a man who defies expectations and subverts stereotypes at virtually every turn. It’s just a shame the movie wasn’t as progressive as its subject.

The broad-spectrum approach of LA 92 resists easy answers while still holding a strong editorial viewpoint about the overlapping institutional defects that led to the riots.

Brunner puts his ability to invest anything and everything with a malevolent charge to chillingly effective use.

Brydon and Coogan are the same gifted improvisers they’ve always been, shooting the breeze until it sweeps them into some absurd playacted scenario.

The Wind still checks enough of the right boxes to please horror fans; it’s creepy, features some gruesome images, and has a couple standout scares. This film also has its share of flaws; it’s held back by some pacing issues and weak performances.

With pitch-perfect performances across the board, and boasting crisp photography and editing, the film never ceases to twist, turn and surprise, taking wicked joy in constantly switching us back on ourselves and our expectations of the characters.

The picture’s strength is in its honesty.

Some might dismiss the film as minor Wheatley — made in just a couple of weeks, on a budget likely smaller than even many of Wheatley’s inexpensive earlier pictures. But there’s a lot going on in it, from the genuinely profound portrait of how families can bring out the most toxic sides of their members when they’re together, to a light sprinkling of state-of-the-nation, post-Brexit commentary.

Watts’ film is comprised of terrible coincidences, bad mustaches and a pervasive sense of desperation. It’s also wholly unable to live up to its obvious promise.

The narrative provides enough thoughtful laughs that fans of politically-tinged genre fare featuring phallic fire totems should chuckle enough and have fun.

The Lost Arcade suffers not because it lacks an egalitarian heart, but because Vincent makes his arguments through a myopic lens.

While its structure is a little lopsided (the beginning portion plays like a doc about Choy) and the tone tends to sway somewhat harshly between justifiably acidic and politically enlightening, “The Exiles” is an essential look at “philosophical homelessness” and an expert example of documentary cinema as a truth-telling device.

For all its bluster, end-of-doom stakes, gravitas and super-seriousness, what Whedon’s movie does best is communicate its concern for the all the human beings touched by this story: the broken, nearly shattered heroes, their extended families and even the civilians caught in the crosshairs.

Collette delivers one of the best performances of her already impressive career in Glassland.

Meticulously crafted and investigated (and no doubt heavily vetted by lawyers), Berg brings a sobering solemnity to a very grave matter, but also lends a dignity to its subjects without pandering.

Flawed but still engaging, “The Kitchen,” at least, has good intentions about togetherness and brotherhood and is a promising debut for Kaluuya and Tavares.

Like Searching, Missing has something tenuous it wants to say underneath its shocking mystery about viral social media culture and the true crime craze; how our social media culture is too prone to exploiting real peoples’ pain for clout and consumption. But if there was an inkling of profundity in this regard in Searching, there’s none of it to be found in Missing, which functions more like a direct copy of true crime rather than an interrogation of it.

Its half-baked political ideas take away from the wholly satisfying and surreal Pixar riff it could have been.

Shin Godzilla ushers in a new age for Godzilla, and a welcome one at that. It’s not perfect, but it’s ready to ask big questions and also demand thoughtful answers. In that sense, it’s one of the most valuable Godzilla movies to come along in years, decades even.

There are moments of genuine magic that make you wonder what this movie could have been. But do they linger like that imaginary friend you’ll never forget? In this case, perhaps not.

While Leigh transports you back to 1819 through these rich characters, he simply tests the audience’s patience in getting to the heart of the story. There is an abundance of formal speeches and long monologues in the film, and they are often arduous and repetitive.

The pleasure and the pain are all up there on the screen; we just wish it was less painful to watch.

This is a film that’s wantonly absurd and even silly, and yet, bubbling underneath it all, Clara’s Ghost never takes its eyes off its protagonist or our empathy for her even when she pushed to the edge of the frame both literally and figuratively. And Niedert Elliott’s performance is haunting, perfectly capturing that ambiguous space between comedy and drama that gives the movie its edge.

The film comes to life when Majors and Powell are in the air. Dillard and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt make the sky feel vast and alive, threatening to swallow up Jesse and Tom at any moment. Along with the film’s thrilling flight scenes, Majors is the biggest draw of Devotion, showcasing his distinctly masculine vulnerability to portray a man as strong as he is silent.

Fortunately, the events onscreen do little, if anything, to tarnish the careers of two beloved actors who are still consistently operating at the top of their game despite the seemingly accidental efforts of director James Ashcroft.

Creed II is exactly what you want from a ‘Rocky’/’Creed’ film: it’s engaging, emotional, gripping, and entertaining and as a part two nudges the characters forward in all the right ways.

Clearly, the director takes great risks off-screen. If only they were as great on the screen.

It’s an uneven film, but a deeply passionate one that also features an A-list actress at the top of her game.

What saves the movie is Solondz’s sensibility, which is still one-of-a-kind.

Gitai rightly trusts in the fascination of material that needs no sensationalism or gimmickry to command our whole attention.

The Founder certainly does not reinvent the meal, but as a bite sized, consumable snack (that feels like 90 minutes though is actually much longer), its lively and entertaining spirit does often hit the spot. And surprisingly, though traditionally told, the narrative does unwrap a deceptive bite along the way.

An epic coming of age journey with scale and spectacle, and rousing heart, Mulan, is a triumph and essentially boils down to a wholehearted tale of feminine resolve, proving the boys wrong and making a father proud while being true to one’s self. That sounds a little simplistic, but Caro’s movie has surprising layers, of color, contour, and shade to shape her magnificent new empowering fairy tale.

Some good laughs and a passable air of bonhomie do nothing to cover up the fact that The Angels’ Share is totally lightweight and distractingly underdone.

Spike Lee’s documentary on this formative period in Michael Jackson’s career derives its electric, enlivening energy from these fantastic clips. Alas, they’re not enough to alter the fact that this non-fiction effort . . . is merely a nostalgic promotional puff piece meant to look back fondly, and uncritically, at an artist transitioning from a youth-oriented pop fad to the biggest star in the world.

Chemistry wise, Miller and Luna work wonders together. Miller’s intense dynamic range: from impassioned to ebullient and afraid, plays well off of Luna’s boyish charm. They imbue these characters with troves of insecurities and mountains of love.

Coppola packs a lot into the film’s 85-minute runtime, but in many ways, the complete experience feels like a slight tease. There is more to explore. There are other portions of Shelly’s life or Coppola’s increasingly poetic perspective of Vegas itself that are calling. But some moments overcome the film’s thin narrative facade and not just Anderson’s triumphant climax, either.

What’s interesting is watching the way that Lin has to maneuver in and out of the limitations that the franchise has established, while attempting to push it into new territory.

Until the final shot, the Zellner Brothers leave unclear whether all of their oddball observations are building to a grand statement about humanity or a punchline. Sasquatch Sunset can accommodate readings of both.

Somewhat spastic and overcooked, Seven Psychopaths might have a few too many.

A crowd-pleaser for sure, Bumblebee can feel a little corny and on-the-nose when it comes to ingratiating itself to the decade and formula it idolizes, but overall, it’s a strong adaptation of what many wanted in the first place: a live-action version of the cherished 1980s animated cartoon.

As a straight-forward thriller, Holy Spider checks off all the boxes that make it an intriguing watch: it maintains a tense tone and has a gripping plot, it transforms into a courtroom drama halfway into its run, and features gritty and stylish visuals.

What makes Phantom Boy unique isn’t the questions it asks, but the way it asks them and the answers it arrives at.

Without patronizing or condescending, it’s an examination of how fame can change us and haunt us, and of the complicated relationships that survivors of something like “Star Wars” can have with it.

It's the picture's lack of focus that eventually diminishes whatever little The Bling Ring has to say.

Miller's documentary skills seem solid enough, but this particular story needed more objectivity, and a lot more rigor, to be worth telling in this manner.

There is drama in the source material for sure, but maybe a little more style could have helped elevate this moment in history for the masses.

The double character piece excels most when Neugebauer does her thing and facilitates her actors. Together, they build a pair of utterly real people, nonetheless confined to a dramatic universe more prone to contrivance. But the pleasures of the former generally outweigh the irksomeness of the latter, with Lawrence and costar Brian Tyree Henry joined in as a super-generator of onscreen magnetism.

You Don’t Nomi cuts through the excessive nudity and stylized hyper sex of “Showgirls” to reveal the heart hidden behind the grime, relishing in the entrancing panache that has fascinated and charmed viewers for years.

The Midwife is often unexpectedly funny and sweet. The film is more a celebration of life and its pleasures, big and small, rather than dwelling on death

Never entirely satisfying as a drama, Crimson Peak is visually dazzling, boasting lively and at times even transfixing performances that keep the story’s blood flowing.

This version of Cyrano feels less fresh or contemporary than it wants to be. Something is missing either in the songs, the staging, or, more likely, the screenplay. That being said, the core story will still be compelling to many as it has for over 120 years.

It's a sterile affair, no ambiguity, no ambivalence, just people doing one thing and then another.

The BFG exceeds expectations thanks to Rylance’s performance, and joyously expounds the essence of a cherished children’s tale in all of its imaginative glory.

The Kid Who Would Be King blows the dust off an old tale, and makes it invigorating and inspiring for viewers who will be forming their own round tables of world-changers for generations to come.

Users is too quiet to say anything provocative, too short to waste your time and too inconsequential to recommend to anyone searching for a fresh perspective on age-old material.

With a popular subject, and some downright corny visual devices, The Inventor doesn’t knock it out of the park as neatly as some of Gibney’s other works. Still, it’s a worthwhile and damn entertaining addition to the developing Elizabeth Holmes canon that makes up for its flaws with undeniable watchability.

The fact is that both actors are very good, even if trapped in the amber of Hooper's overweeningly tasteful direction.

Game Night is a winner, plain and simple. Brisk and engaging (and surprisingly powered by a score from Cliff Martinez that’s expectedly great), this is a comedy that’s worth rolling the dice on.

A beguiling romantic comedy with a heart, soul and pulse that will pleasure you for a full 90 minutes with hardly breaking a sweat.

Zellweger’s poise and presence make the entire affair more than worthwhile.

It is a delightful experience to embrace Wonka with the wide-eyed wonder it deserves.

Despite its tendency to lean upon self-serious reimaginings, it is nonetheless an engaging and tenderly drawn film that is likely to resonate with anyone who has had to do the tireless work of sorting through an estate of a family member.

Vanderbilt chooses to present the tale with a lighter comic touch in the early stages, and it’s a tone the picture can’t overcome in its final third.

Really a two-hander overall, Disorder is part home-invasion film, part bodyguard romance and part PTSD drama that delivers solidly on the first two fronts and and partially on the third.

There’s always been something romantic and powerful about relationships primarily built on letter-writing, and that’s true for Shepard and Dark too.

Unlike “Obvious Child,” Landline plays like a series of semi-successful comic and dramatic scenes, haphazardly arranged into something resembling a story.

Satirically tart throughout, The Reagan Show is still a schizoid experience. It mostly wants to dissect the Reaganites’ bread and circuses tactics, but also to present a thumbnail history of his presidency. Both are credibly delivered, but they don’t always necessarily mesh.

The plot is mostly irrelevant, aside from how it allows for Reeder’s ideas and imagery to flow. Oozing, gooey blood and messed-up school uniforms, secrets whispered in high school bathrooms, glitter dresses, and uncanny face masks all meld together to create a film rich in atmosphere and artifice.

Mustache does its job. It gives Ilyas catalysts for growth other than the cookie duster hanging out under his nose, and the writing invites us to laugh with him, not at him because it’s one thing to laugh and another thing to sneer.

Wéber’s writing and Kirby’s performance, working in concert with Mundruczó’s dazzling, multifaceted direction, Howard Shore‘s gorgeously mood-appropriate score and, again, Loeb’s drifting, searching, soulful camera together create, from so many disparate pieces, an entirely complete portrait, that even suggests further internal universes still to be explored, universes every one of us contains.

The story beats are predictable, but Decker forges her own unruly and unforgettable path through them, crafting a teen film with avant-garde flourishes that attempt to find a balance between style and substance.

Though given two committed turns by a tremendously sexy and vicious Arterton and a solid-as-always Ronan, Byzantium often feels as gray and lifeless as the corpses in the film.

From the performances to the repetitive jokes and bizarre actions that have little bearing on anything, Slack Bay exhausts you with its intense spirit.

Is it a somewhat middling ’90s dad-core thriller? You bet, but it’s also a totally underrated skeleton key for understanding the careers of its two leads: Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin.

Mostly, watching these characters tease out their problems is fun but from a far remove, and satire at such a safe distance starts not to really feel like satire anymore.

An engaging enough dramatization of the true story of a man who became known for spending months hiding out in a Toys “R” Us to escape capture after robbing businesses by coming in through their roofs, Derek Cianfrance’s “Roofman” is also a regrettably safe film defined by missed opportunities that ultimately steals any deeper resonances it could find right out from under you.

While the creators do their darndest to make an animated version of “Adaptation,” they’ve instead made an animated version of “Space Jam: Legacy”–a series of callbacks to IP that serves no other purpose than to remind you that they exist.

To witness one of the Oscar-winning thespian’s finest acting feats is reason alone to commit to the, not at all unforgivable, but still noticeable shortcomings of Swan Song.

Somehow, Gillespie manages not only to make it feel fresh but its own distinct chapter in this never-ending story.

There’s still that dissonance — Pixar is creating its own world, though the characters, and replicating our own, in the gorgeous vistas — but even when the combination doesn’t truly sing, it remains entrancing, and even surprising.

It’s undeniably impressive that such a tiny movie has garnered such a reputation. Ball has made an interesting attempt here, and it will be exciting to see what he does with a little more money and, hopefully, restraint. In the meantime, unless you want to tirelessly search “Skinamarink” for creepiness in all this filmmaking fog, you’re likely to find there’s very little there there.

The star-studded cast does good, dependable work. There are visual flairs that linger in the mind: For all its faults, this movie has a striking look to it. And Corbin’s best intentions are genuine. The ending comes with a startling bang. But what remains when the dust settles? By the end of the over-tightened 892, unfortunately, a memorialization to Brown-Easley’s plight, we know little about the actual man.

Diallo has crafted an incisive, intelligent, and stridently political horror film that is distinctly all her own. The terror at the heart of this film reverberates far beyond the myths of this academic institution. Master excavates the very roots of our country’s foundation and dares us to face the haunted ground on which it is built.

The Peter Jackson-directed Hobbit sequel might be the more vigorous, action-packed, darker and more (superficially) engaging version of the series thus far, but that doesn’t actually mean it’s a keeper of any sort.

Hill’s basically remaking Larry Clark’s seminal 1995 film “Kids,” a picture inherently more authentic because it was a snapshot taken in that moment. And if you prefer the rose-colored lens of nostalgia, that’s been done too, in Jonathan Levine’s 2008 effort “The Wackness.”

Just as the film is about to deliver it's package, it sends the viewer an I.O.U. instead, botching two-thirds of what may be Koepp's most entertaining film as a director.

Tamahori successfully brings a sense of scale and scope to “The Convert” He displays an eye for wide-screen compositions, and the film is frequently visually stunning.