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.

This newest Sandler vehicle is inspired and warm-hearted where his other recent movies are lazy and soulless. Does that make it a winning success? Hell no, but it’s good to see Sandler put his heart into his work again.

Gifted means well, but it’s nonetheless a formulaic movie, missing the wit and charm needed to make this kind of picture add up to something truly special.

Perhaps the array of characters read better on the page, but it all feels slight in execution, particularly when half of the running time is spent on Tommy’s past and what unfolded between himself and Shelley. Combine all that with a particularly lackluster sense of urgency and pacing, and you have film that offers few reasons for investment.

The Fate of the Furious is almost impossible not to like. It achieves exactly what it sets out to do, successfully lighting up the brain’s pleasure centers at each opportunity with a variety of tools in its arsenal.

The Ticket exists better as a parable than as a true-to-life drama.

Arnow sheds any trappings of fiction, presenting herself, her filmmaking, her relationships and her sex life in an at times shockingly frank manner. It’s refreshing to see a filmmaker embrace this honesty with such gusto (which, like life, is often painful or awkward to experience).

Perhaps the best that can be said of Salt and Fire is that its flaws are wholly Herzog’s. Those flaws are deep. But so is the man responsible for them.

This is, ultimately, a slow-burning story that requires commitment and focus from the viewers, but rewards them with characters that are properly constructed and reactions that are comprehensible once we learn more about each person, their relationships to one another and to the community.

Chastain is as good as ever, but it’s a shame that such a gripping, tender, and vulnerable performance is lost in a period drama as flat as this one.

Gay’s picture proves once again that one can construct a comedy out of such material, as long as one respects the subject matter and refrains from being gimmicky in order to feel edgy and cool.

By the Time It Gets Dark jumps at first into an examination of Thailand’s repressed history of political violence and dictatorial control. But that initial pencil sketch of a thesis is soon shuffled away in favor of several other less-interesting story threads which add up to much less than the sum of their parts.

Visually dazzling, but dispassionate and hollow, the film often looks impressive, with some incredible action sequences to boot, but otherwise keeps the viewer at a considerable distance.

Folk Hero & Funny Guy is an amiable road movie powered by great music. But it’s much more than just that, with deeply felt, lived in emotions capturing the ups and downs of longterm friendships, the nervous spark of a new attraction, and the power of making amends.

The Art Life is more concerned with the art rather than the life of Lynch, and this is the only true weakness of the doc. While informative to a certain degree, there’s always a sense that something is missing here. That there’s more to Lynch than the film cares to explore.

All This Panic doesn’t offer any revolutionary approaches to this type of intimate documentary, and the subject matter might be too broad for some, but it makes up for its lack of originality with heart and genuine emotion.

Considering how much screen time they share together, Lister-Jones and Pally need to have fantastic chemistry to keep the audience rooting for Anna and Ben and, luckily, they have more than enough.

It isn’t just one of the best debut films of the year, but one of the year’s best films, period.

It’s a remarkable picture of inbound focus and outbound ambitions.

Never quite fun enough for kids or teens, but also unlikely to appeal to loyal fans, Power Rangers feels like a film that’s not quite finished morphing into its true form.

It is a hard film to recommend, and only more dedicated and patient audiences may find themselves satisfied overall.

Movies today are too long and overstuffed; Life is lean, mean, and terrifying. It doesn’t have much to say beyond “hold up, maybe we shouldn’t poke around uncharted terrain so much,” but with actors this committed, set pieces this exciting, and direction this confident, it doesn’t really matter.

Betting on Zero takes a matter-of-fact approach to its material, but it makes a convincing and sometimes emotional argument against Herbalife.

The film doesn’t feel like a fiction. Instead, it plays like one of those great stories you hear late night over beers, and marvel, thinking, “That’s so wild it can’t be true… But I hope it its.”

Even though the plot loops in police corruption, murder, revenge, and blackmail, it’s pace never manages more than a sleepwalk shamble.

Gemini is deliriously entertaining, an intriguing gem and as Katz graduates to the next level, his best film to date.

When even momentary flourishes of action this good remind us how poorly filmed and choreographed most modern action films are, it is hard not to recommend Atomic Blonde on that basis alone.

The toughest thing about watching ‘Giants’ is the fear of inevitable, the fear that all of this could easily come crashing down, with Youssef displaying a thorough lack of respect for a government he’s long lost faith in, via a program that will certainly violate the country’s censorship laws.