It’s maybe Franco’s best-crafted film to date, and also maybe his dullest.

This is a saccharine science fiction romance that doesn’t actually concern itself with science fiction or romance; instead, it’s the equivalent of astronaut ice cream, lacking in substance and crumbling to bits at the slightest pressure.

The film might not have quite learned how to communicate visually rather than verbally, but the words are enticing ones and Sean Price Williams‘ serene, airy cinematography is fluid and varied enough that it never feels stagebound.

Directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel aka The Mo Brothers, with a script by the former, what they lack in original or even compelling drama in Headshot, they make up for with the film’s multiple action scenes.

Entertaining though it is in parts, it can’t really be said to mark any particular growth for McDonagh as a filmmaker, being both less angry and more cynical that the brooding "Calvary" and consequently less memorable and relevant too.

At no point in Patti Cake$ is there ever a hint that Macdonald is unable to legitimately rap. She’s simply a revelation.

At it’s best, Newness is about how nothing’s really all that new.

We’re left with a prickly kind of harmony that blends mundanity with profundity. There’s no more perfect a note for a film as intelligent, compassionate, and complex as “My Happy Family” to end on than that.

Rosefeldt’s visual panache and Blanchett’s astonishing versatility bring cinematic verve to something that could’ve easily come off as too dryly conceptual.

The Hero feels looser, more abstract, and more symbolically ambitious than the winsome “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” and at times you wish for a bit more narrative rigor. But it’s nonetheless a resonant depiction of a man fearlessly reckoning with his life, his image and, most importantly, his heart.

Only a filmmaker as talented as Alex Ross Perry could make a movie as misbegotten as Golden Exits.

While you know where “God’s Own” is going most of the way Lee finds a way to breathe new life into it (to a point).

While the surface glance of the film does feature a standard array of American indie signifiers, it’s worth emphasizing again that Abbasi’s voice is distinct, and is sure to become more sharply defined as his career evolves.

Bragança’s ambitions exceed his reach, and Don’t Swallow My Heart fails to reconcile its various story strands, conflicting tones and genre aspirations.

Hegeman’s brash picture burns brightly to the very end. If “Axolotl Overkill” ever overdoses on its dreamy, feverish style, it’s trainwreck-y, can’t-turn-away qualities ultimately rise and consumes you like a blaze of youth in revolt.

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.