Personal Shopper is a mess — not an uninteresting one, and better that than a staid, unadventurous bore, but a mess nonetheless.

It is indulgent in its length and relative plotlessness, though there’s no point at which the bravado of Arnold’s filmmaking, Lane’s riveting performance or Ryan’s stunning Polaroid-shaped lensing ever flag.

As polished a film in terms of craft and performance as Nichols has ever made, the director’s trademark considered intelligence shows itself in how subtly it reworks and refreshes the tired conceits of the historical biopic, while still remaining a conventionally appealing and, yes, Oscar-y example of the genre.

Spectacular, gross and delicious (so unsavory it’s almost sweet), the film is more proof of Refn’s mastery of his trash aesthetic and more fun than anything this indulgent and empty-headed has any right to be.

The somewhat drab aesthetic and almost vanishingly understated performance style dull the potential pleasures of a good old-fashioned whodunnit to roughly the luminosity of an above-average feature-length episode of a TV procedural.

Every family is its own country with culture and customs and embarrassments that seem alien beyond its borders, but the genius of Maren Ade‘s brilliantly funny and slyly crushing Toni Erdmann is that it makes the utterly foreign nation of its central father/daughter relationship feel so much like home.

If the resulting film, Julieta feels neither wholly Munro nor typically Almodovar in final execution, there is still a very compelling energy given out by the collision.

Not wondrous enough to be likened to a ghost, "Journey to the Shore" is the corpse of a film: lifeless, bloodless, insensate.

Falls flat on its face thanks to a severe lack of self-awareness and an air of dramatic self-importance.

The Nice Guys, which the screenwriter also directed, is the best of Black’s films. It is eccentrically, sometimes broadly funny, with top-notch performances from Crowe and Gosling and a pitch-perfect sense of timing to help smooth over some of the script’s fault lines and blind spots.

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.

Extremely entertaining and well-crafted, Crush The Skull promises a bright future in genre films for Nguyen.

Given how good the cast often are elsewhere, it doesn’t seem unfair to put this at Armstrong’s door, and the film has a very first-time-director feel to it.

The film is never as savage as the first-act anarchy suggests it might be, and its best ideas are subsumed into familiar thriller concepts. Good craftsmanship elevates the result above workaday thriller territory, but ultimately Money Monster never rages in the “mad as hell” mode that’s always kept just out of reach

Director Anne Fontaine’s film is based on actual events and grapples with thorny questions that plague even the most zealous during times of crisis. It’s a pity, then, that this picture finds Fontaine compelled to find a resolution in a situation that seldom yields easy answers.

What little shock of the new the film can provide us with comes from the honeyed cinematography by Vittorio Storaro which uses silhouettes, graphic compositions and glowing closeups in an often genuinely breathtaking manner. But it also comes from the performances.

Apocalypse feels like a cog in Fox’s perpetual-motion blockbuster machine, paying lip service to the story’s allegorical potential as it grinds our interest to dust.

At its best, the film becomes something winningly subversive.

A sinister dread pulses through Bridgend, one that is engrossing and terrifying.

Dark Horse is crowd-pleasing and rousing, but its biggest problem is that no successive part of the documentary can sustain the power of its opening prologue.

Mother’s Day is the cinematic equivalent of spilling boiling hot coffee on your mother when you bring her burnt toast for breakfast in bed.

Thomsen builds a fascinating film around a fascinating man, but never, despite his evident deep affection for him, allows it to fall into hagiography.

A moving movie that tries too hard to please and thus never truly satisfies.

Uplifting in a tiny, understated and very authentic way, Sworn Virgin shows us gently how its possible to be living in exile in the world you know best, and how it's possible to come home to a place you've never been before.

The actors test one another like boxers perpetually about to throw the first punch, but all the buildup around their encounter is flabby and forgettable.

Perhaps most impressive is how, despite the nostalgia inherent in this kind of endeavor, "Sleeping Giant" never sentimentalizes its story, and never compromises on the essentially bleak idea that you can be transformed from a carefree child shading your eyes from the glare of a huge, wide future to a scarred and haunted young adult in a single moment.

Hanks brings to Clay a nervous energy, a sense of desperation to even his most outwardly optimistic of gestures, that nevertheless always seems tempered by a more sober inner awareness of his own failures. It’s a remarkable performance in a film that is unworthy of it.

Though it delves into a number of topics beyond fashion, it refrains from going underneath the glossy surface. It will appeal to fans of Wintour’s brand and style devotees, but it likely won’t make too many converts outside her kingdom.

Striking and consistently engaging, the Russos deftly craft compelling blockbuster entertainment out of a a moral and emotional conflict, and that’s more impressive than any overblown display of loud and vulgar power.

Sure, there's a bit of spectacle to the film's utterly ridiculous violence. Even that dulls, however, without character or stakes to inject urgency into the parade of broken bodies.

For a movie that is all about accumulation, it adds up to very little, and for a story all about connectedness, 11 minutes, intermittently enjoyable though it may be, never connects.

A taut thriller that almost doesn't waste a single step.

McCarthy has a great knack for vicious verbiage, and in combination with her supreme physical control there's pleasure in seeing Darnell tear an opponent to shreds, even (or especially) when she's in the wrong.

Unfortunately, while Husson clearly has talent to burn, her film is something of a case of all talk and no trousers.

There’s very little in The Huntsman: Winter's War itself that is actively bad. Compared to some of its blockbuster rivals, it’s reasonably watchable, never offensive, and mostly coherent.

The strikingly realistic scenery is dappled with color, light and shadow to create dramatic stages for masterful character animations— if only the story played out on this impeccably-realized fantasy had the same persuasive command.

Get A Job is such a baffling endeavor the callow movie could conceivably come with its own milk carton campaign asking: “Where is Dylan Kidd and what have you done with him?”

Bercot's setting out to make both a character study of a troubled young man wasting his potential, and an examination of a system trying desperately to do right by its charges, despite the immense difficulties and occasional bureaucratic red tape that tie their hands. It's more successful at the latter than at the former.

There is plenty to marvel at in Tardi’s darker, alternate universe Paris, one that’s best watched with open minds and mouths agape at the incredible visual and storytelling imagination on display.

A film as mercurial as this can be an impressive thing, but the back half is so filled with half-baked metaphysics, pseudo-Lynchian maybe-dreams, and a sour, cheap conclusion that feels nihilistically cruel to at least one of its characters, that even the pleasures of watching the actors on screen start to fade away.

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice is an extraordinarily odd, idiosyncratic movie that presents aggressive, even warlike concepts of Batman and Superman without entirely justifying the eccentric visions.

The Trust is many other things — darkly funny, flawed, with a eminently watchable dynamic between Cage and Wood — but from frame one it reasonably entertains, while its characters have nothing but contempt for one another.

The result, while featuring some superbly non-sequitur moments and gags, feels forced into a road trip package caught between self-awareness and naivety.

As exampled in “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” any chance to hear Hawkes perform solo on guitar is time well spent. It’s time well needed, too, as it provides a moment of reflection to remember why we came — Hawkes — and wonder how he found himself in such a confounding misfire.

With a bare minimum amount of suspense, and a screenplay that needs too much work for one that has so many long stretches of silence, this film leaves you with too many reasons not to care about it.

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

It’s a profoundly vague piece of filmmaking that hides an undeniable magnetism beneath its bare-boned narrative.

After five incredible seasons of “Key & Peele” skewering black masculinity in its various forms, the duo here settle for an uninspired riff on Los Angeles gang culture, stringing together fish-out-of-water vignettes by using a stray kitten as thread.

An honest and sharply drawn account of the eternal questions of ego, friendship, and sacrifice in the comedy world.

It really is charm that drives the feature, with Walken pleasingly zipping around on screen while the rest of the cast gamely rally around him, particularly Heard and Garner, who would likely still be plenty of fun in even a Walken-less feature.

The strength of Linklater’s films have always been their ability to capture the textures of lived experience, and Everyone Wants Some!! is no different in that regard: it is a confident, hugely enjoyable return to a universe that treats the connection to “Dazed and Confused” not as an obligation or cash grab, but as inspiration to match that film’s level of energy and cast chemistry.

Cohen’s willingness to do, or say, anything in order to elicit a chuckle at least somewhat salvages The Brothers Grimsby — right up to a riotously nasty climactic gag shoved down the throat of Donald Trump.

For all the elements that don’t mesh naturally, Admiral still manages to be intermittently engaging and fitfully exciting.

Creative Control has a lot to say, and style to spare, but stronger performances and better-drawn characters could have made its message even more effective and enjoyable.

It’s [Trachtenberg's] measured hand with tone that's really noteworthy, never over-reaching with each twist of the plot, keeping the tension on a simmer, and even when things boil over, “10 Cloverfield Lane” gets feverishly exciting but not hysterical.

At 127 minutes, Giannoli’s script feels overlong and a bit repetitive in its heroine’s disastrous performances. Lucien, the critic who helps propel Marguerite and her story forward, disappears for a large chunk of the film, only to randomly appear toward the end. Other than these missteps, Marguerite is worth watching with a well-earned grimace, largely for Frot’s pitch-perfect performance.

A low-budget, slow-burning film, Thelin and cinematographer Luca Del Puppo develop a relatable universe that never really gets too frightening, but it certainly digs into your conscience, and will make you think twice before letting a stranger into your house.

While slight, the film’s genuine feeling and overall comedic consistency has enough breezy charm to make it go down easy and pleasurably.

Hong’s two-part structure in Right Now, Wrong Then, instead of just being a cute formal trick, reveals a character’s troubled inner life in fiendishly clever ways.

Fey's work is strong, yet it's difficult to squash the impression that this could be a more powerful movie, and an even more significant showcase for Tina Fey.

Brash, brutal, and simplistic in equal measure, it’s a retrograde work that, for better and worse, delivers its old-school mayhem with punishing precision and unrepentant glee.

Beautifully shot and edited, with incredible archival footage throughout, and compellingly scored, The Last Man On The Moon is, more than anything else, an engaging look back at one of the most exciting times in American history.

A story that’s specific, but universal in many ways, of family complication and connection, A Country Called Home, bolstered by the excellent score by Bingham, and Poots’ delicate performance, is worth the time.

It’s a spectacular mess that’s shameless in its desire to entertain through sheer, misbegotten excess.

Unfortunately, it proves to be as disposable as the snack it revolves around.

With Only Yesterday, Takahata not only succeeds in transmitting how years can flash by, but also the way that passage of time makes clearer the moments that define our character, and go on to influence how we choose to live later.

It's an overwrought, stagey muddle that suggests that Davies, ever a-quiver on the extreme high end of the sensitivity meter anyway, has quivered right off it and plunged into the depths of bathos.

Old-school western fans won’t find a lot of originality here, but if you’re looking for a well-executed, straight genre exercise, give it a shot.

It’s exciting as a raw, provocative, and vividly realized cinema of sensation. Wood doesn’t invite us to observe White Girl so much as she invites us to involve ourselves in its drama.

The documentary struggles to remain relevant throughout its short run time, and wobbles between glorification and reflection until it completely tilts over.

As well-handled as the set pieces are, the connective tissue doesn’t pull you along, and then collapses completely in a messy, unsatisfying final act.

Structured as a low-key chase movie, unfolding with the dark urgency of a conspiracy thriller, living mostly not in your heart or even your mind but in the hairs on the back of your neck, "Midnight Special" actually emerges most resonantly as an almost mournful ode, or maybe a psalm, to the primal instincts of fatherhood.

Crafted as a kaleidoscope of color and nightclub sparkle, The Lure's glitter does not distract from the fact that this is a technically confident and often quite accomplished piece of filmmaking, with a rare ability to dance intuitively between linear plotting and phantasmagoric fantasy.

Unlike its protagonists, Touched with Fire never reaches either impressive highs or awful lows. It’s a film that is capably made in most respects, particularly in its acting and visuals, but it’s not truly successful.

Though How to Be Single marks progress from the standard genre narrative and gives Alice in particular a chance to be herself, it’s not a clean win. But I certainly had fun getting dirty with it.

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

Zoolander 2 is no disaster, but it’s almost worse; a tedious jag that barely works as a disposable and mild, if-its-on-cable-TV, diversion.

Diamond Tongues is refreshing because it isn't an indictment of a demographic, or even of Edith, but is a portrait of a young woman whose ambition has curdled into something more nasty along the way.

It’s a film that desperately wants to upend the tropes of the comic book movie, but perhaps more shocking than anything that comes out of the mouth of its often obnoxious titular hero, is how blandly the picture sticks to the origin story playbook.

It is shriekingly loud but never surprising; goofy, but rarely funny.

Identifying the method behind the Coens’ madness takes some work, as the film moves at such a rat-a-tat-tat screwball speed that following along often feels like clinging for dear life to the side of a speeding train.

Swiss Army Man is a big swing — there's no denying the risk in putting two well-known actors in a film where one plays a barely-mobile corpse — but also a big whiff that rarely connects its characters and situations to humor or empathy.

Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers is a flabby, goofy, comically inert cartoon.

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

Heder's direction shines, shaping the film around the cast as each woman plays out their own specific nuances of loss and insecurity, and, occasionally, optimism. Tallulah is an impressive feature debut, and a welcome showcase for the talents of Page, Janney, and Blanchard.

The movie holds to a steady but too-straight rhythm, hitting all the expected romantic-drama beats, right down to the occasional argument that threatens to stop the date cold. But Southside With You is also winningly sweet and earnest, and refreshingly frank about the problems that minorities face when they try to get ahead in a culture dominated by white males.

What makes Sing Street such a joyously entertaining film (besides the songs) is that it thinks the best of its characters, and it presents them the way they’d like to think of themselves.

The end result is awfully sketchy, more a collection of ideas and memories than a proper film.

This film is an important historical record, and an important reminder of an event in American history that could have changed everything, that should have changed everything. There’s no reason why it still can’t. Newtown is a crucial reminder of that.

Focused on fetishizing rather than intimately depicting, director Chad Hartigan has produced a warm-hearted yarn that treats its two African-American leading men like props in his white-washed game of chess.

The tale of Choi and Shin is a true stranger-than-fiction one, as good a piece of material as a filmmaker could help for. It’s just a shame that, for the most part, The Lovers And The Despot feels like it’s giving you the Cliff Notes version of the story.

Beckinsale’s performance is so funny in fact that it sucks a lot of the air out the room for her co-stars. Whenever she’s in a scene, she delivers so many pithy putdowns per second that it’s hard to pay attention to anyone else. And whenever she’s not around, the movie dims.

The beauty of Little Men — and of the director’s work in general — is that it displays a rare understanding of how the world works.

There's a tangible sensitivity to Kate Plays Christine that is constantly present as the project explores two personas and a gamut of topics (gender politics, gun control, and depression among them).

The Intervention may not offer many new experiences, but its combination of tart and sweet is satisfying.

Deeply over-reliant on flashbacks, and ones that don’t particularly transition well, Jane Got A Gun is nearly a holding pattern movie.

While there are some missteps in the story, there’s a lot to admire in The Free World, particularly in what is sure to be a breakout role for Holbrook.

As uneven as the psychodrama can be at times, one thing is clear, Ross is a major talent worth watching. He’s got an eye, a strong p.o.v., and the movie has many perceptive observations about the self-destructive perils of possessiveness, ownership, and holding on too tight.