This isn’t a movie about despair in the face of seemingly implacable problems; it’s about the heavy lifting that constant hope requires. Disappointingly, that surging energy which animates the activists profiled here, in ways both intimate and caught-on-the-fly, never coalesces into the desired blueprint for reform.

If anything can happen (and, trust me, it does), then there’s never a way of predicting where the next scare will come from. And for a genre that oftentimes feels threadbare and hopelessly predictable, this cannot be commended enough.

The movie has its flaws, but they’re tough to remember in the face of the fun it provides for two hours.

Brigsby Bear is easily the biggest surprise film of the year and is worth every laugh and tear that it brings.

With a deep understanding of the connective power of cinema, Weinstein manages to present this little Hasidic community upon relatable grounds by giving us Menashe, a resonant human being full of relatable pains in the face of a lifestyle kept secret.

The Dark Tower is a tepid non-starter from minute one.

Message from the King isn’t a chore to watch by any means; and there are moments that suggest the more colorful neo-noir that might’ve been.

If nothing else, Reybaud’s debut flaunts his knack for casting, particularly with the lead performance by Pascal Cervo.

While Detroit may try and cover too much ground, thus occasionally stumbling on its ambition, the sheer visceral power of Bigelow’s direction is worth championing.

This is a brilliantly constructed, whip-smart, and laugh-out-loud-funny romp from a filmmaker whose precision and craft is nearly unparalleled. It’s hard to think of a movie this year that has been as singularly delightful, one that, with each passing moment, reveals something charming or odd or real.

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

If nothing else, think of it as a hilariously repugnant curio, the kind of transgressive art you’ll be unable to unpack because you’ll be too busy chugging ginger ale to bother.

It’s a chilling, assured debut for writer/director Power, packed with promise and a startlingly mundane sort of violence which is all the more shocking for its realism.

There have been countless films this summer that have engaged in endless spectacle but Dunkirk is the rare blockbuster that will leave a bruise.

Lemon is too in love with being oddball to really have any connection to the real, non-quirky world. And so while scene-by scene its absurdism can be drolly amusing, it never coheres into anything more than a series of sketches.

While it does pay beyond fair deference to the science behind coral reefs and their devastation, its real strength lies within the pathos generated by the visuals that showcase the exact nature of their precarious state.

For all the tepid pacing and uneven storytelling, though, Collins and co. do a great job of making To The Bone a watchable film. They are, by turns, charming and heartbreaking — even when they aren’t given much to do by the script.

Despicable Me 3 is sadly a discouraging, hollow sequel that’s hard to love.

Even if the movie is based on an existing property, a beloved French graphic novel, as a producer and designer, Besson should be lauded; ‘Valerian’ is out of this world. But next time, he might want to reread the comic for its characters, checking the little word bubbles to see if there’s actually something there.

Throughout the film, Maclean and Perkins toy with the ever-shifting layers of truth and fiction in a theater rehearsal. But they’re also using Catton’s book to comment on how school can sometimes be a poor preparation for life itself.

While the film lavishes in the beautiful landscape and the vibrant, eclectic music that abounds, it never coalesces into anything greater than the sum of its parts, or become the film the subject deserves.

Ultimately pleasurable if very disposable, Homecoming offers strong teen dynamics and for once, serves up high school-sized stakes instead of placing the planet in peril.

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.

Brimming with emotional intelligence, the human texture Reeves delivers in Apes separates his film from the rest of the tentpole pack.

This is a terrific cast, appearing in scenes that have been beautifully framed and lit. Why weren’t they given anything memorable to do and say?

A gentle but sharply defined story, brimming with grace, compassion and performances of perfect naturalism, it is unashamedly intellectual yet deeply human.

May It Last plays more like a puff piece than a concert doc, never digging to discover the hard sacrifice to this hectic touring schedule, the dirt beneath the fingernails of such work.

The Last Knight is like a Red Bull-charged Bay yelling “I regret nothing!” as he jumps out of a plane backwards with no chute, detonating a megaton nuclear explosive while firing Uzis at his skydiving pals above him because hell, dude, that sounds like a wicked fond farewell. [