Crown Heights works best when the political and the personal merge with the insidious nature of corruption and systemic cultural, societal and economic oppression.

The doc does an admirable job of giving pretty much equal screen time to hunters, conservationists, and other experts on all sides of the argument, even though it becomes pretty clear early on where the directors stand as far as their personal feelings on the subject are concerned.

A Dog’s Purpose is an awkward, graceless, meandering and unnecessarily cruel dog movie, and therefore a fairly meaningless one.

As the story progresses it becomes less and less interesting and worst of all – gasp – cliché.

Heineman has a unique ability to condense and explain complicated information and political events without straying from the deeply personal journeys of his subjects or relying on talking heads or text.

There is an eventual reckoning, but one wishes that Tan, at least for these moments, had allowed the film a few more inches of dramatic space.

There are elements of “The Yellow Birds” that should equate to a unique cinematic experience. Unfortunately, like Bartle’s return home, you leave the theater somewhat dazed, confused and thinking of what went wrong.

This Wilson is sweet and pleasant and occasionally riotously funny. But it’s still the simplified version of a much more complicated work of art.

Sheridan pares his story and characters down to their barest essentials, making a movie that comes off sometimes as slight, but which ultimately delivers the goods for those who like smart takes on life-or-death macho adventure.

Mudbound soars thanks to the impressive performances of the ensemble cast and, notably, Rees’ intent on depicting the harsh reality of this pre-Civil Rights era, warts and all.

This isn’t the kind of genre piece that everyone will warm to. Some might find the subject matter too bleak; others might wish it were pulpier. But on the whole, Berlin Syndrome is incredibly effective, while offering a perspective that these kinds of films usually lack. It gets to know the innocent, while rendering the evil banal.

Before I Fall is a movie that will make its core audience of teenage girls melt and is a nice diversion for everyone else. It will make Hollywood studios take Russo-Young more seriously and be a calling card for Deutch, Sage and Miller. That’s not so bad, is it?

Even if The Little Hours never becomes a knee-slapper, it’s consistently entertaining…kind of like a laid-back, stretched-out Monty Python sketch.

Outside of a few short moments in Ismail Merchant and James Ivory’s “Maurice,” and Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” the love and intimacy between two male characters has never truly felt this real or emotionally heartbreaking in a theatrical context. It’s almost revolutionary. It’s cinematic art.

The McConaissance finds no purchase here. Mining for something adventurous and coming up empty handed, ultimately the dramatically-challenged Gold digs for something fiery and collects zero treasure along the way.

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

[Morgan's] observations about Hollywood’s image-consciousness and the transactional nature of L.A. relationships are nothing new. But there’s a specificity and a liveliness to her jokes that makes them feel almost fresh — or, at the least, relevant.

A Ghost Story has the structure and rhythm of a musical suite, with Lowry working variations on the same themes, the same characters, and the same location. The result can be lyrical and poetic, or more naturalistic and minimalist. In both cases, A Ghost Story is absolutely mesmerizing, with an anything-goes quality that’s endlessly fascinating.

The movie lives and dies, however, on Ingrid herself and, remarkably, Plaza finds a way for you to root for her even when she crosses line after line after line.

Unlike McDowell and Lader’s underrated 2014 comedic thriller “The One I Love” the most disappointing aspect of The Discovery is that it’s something of a bore. And when you find out what “The Discovery” really is you simply don’t care anymore.

There’s a certain flat indie artlessness to “The Big Sick,” but it’d be shortsighted to discount how well-written and well-acted it is. This is a very funny movie, yet always plausibly so—never throwing in jokes just for the sake of a laugh.

There’s something fresh in Detour, but it’s buried underneath a largely unremarkable movie.

One should applaud Diesel and Caruso for breathing unexpected energy into what could’ve been another lame, uninspired continuation. It’s wild, loud and totally out of control, and that’s periodically a pretty good thing.

What Blair is trying to do is quite ambitious for his first feature. He alternates moments of high comedy with serious tension and a touch of magic realism for kicks. For the most part, the tone works.

The Red Turtle is poetry made cinema, an exquisite existential allegory that says everything without having to say anything at all.

It ends up feeling like going to a festival headlining date by a reunited Britpop band. It’s great to see them back together, they look pretty good for their age, and there are transcendent moments when they play the hits. But the set goes on a bit long, and the new material’s a bit forgettable, and they’re sloppier than they used to be, and in the end, you start to wonder if it had been better if you’d been left with your memories from back in the day.

They Call Us Monsters is restrained, sensitive and quietly heartbreaking.

[Shyamalan] still knows how to manipulate an audience with an original story, and with “Split,” we don’t mind him pulling the strings again.