Hillsong — Let Hope Rise stands out against that harsh tone of much recent Christian indie cinema by being a winning, friendly, and at times moving film.

It’s a thrilling film with impressive set pieces, solid acting and a pulse-pounding climax. Movie-wise, mission mostly accomplished. But to experience Deepwater Horizon and ignore the external circumstances surrounding its creation is a difficult task.

This humanistic tale, helmed by a masterful filmmaker, offers a potent — and yes, inspirational — story of triumph against huge odds.

For a film that’s so politically risky — Stone hasn’t named names and pointed fingers (at both sides of the aisle, incidentally) in a mainstream movie like this for years — it’s surprisingly safe aesthetically.

Named as if it knew its destiny, The Disappointments Room brings together those horror movie standbys that just can’t quit each other — a creepy old home and a troubled family — for some truly convoluted, non-scary, and execrable psychological mishegoss surrounding a hidden chamber and the noxious historical shame it holds.

When the Bough Breaks is a very conservative film that ducks any issues that might be dramatically interesting in order to work up lame suspense sequences.

As a 20-minute short or even a 50-minute TV program, London Road might maintain its sharpness and its potency, but as a feature film, its cleverness wears a bit thin and its messaging gets too overblown.

Nothing feels remotely fresh, let alone savage or zany in The Wild Life. It’s a dull, uninspired and frantically tedious animated re-telling of the Robinson Crusoe story, complete with a menagerie of ditzy, caterwauling beasts.

The performances are dedicated, but the camaraderie feels perfunctory, outside of a few ruminative exchanges between Hawke and Washington.

She’s a woman gamely surviving the pitfalls and pratfalls of her own desperation and insecurities, and Zellweger creates a hugely sympathetic character.

While Hacksaw Ridge is undeniably made with great care and skill, for all of its good intentions it can never refute that famous Truffaut observation that making an anti-war film is essentially impossible, since to portray something is to ennoble it. In celebrating this legendary pacifist, Gibson and company ennoble the hell out of violence.

It’s a wealth of information The Ivory Game vitally offers, and action it means to incite. That may well be enough to get audiences involved.

The story of a woman dismissed by those around her who asserts herself through art testifies to the indomitable power of creativity. Why turn that compelling story into a predictable romance?

Una keeps drifting away into flashy and superfluous details.

It’s a humanist film; it’s about people, and it’s got a pulse. It presents characters as idiosyncratic, domineering, but mostly fearful — timid creatures ambling through life in the hopes of finding refuge.

"Louis Drax” is a curious melding of sensibilities, as eager to show off its mysteries as it is to neatly resolve them. It’s a pleasant enough reverie, but one from which you won’t mind waking.

Sully, an honest, skillful rumination on what makes a hero, is just one more example of how Eastwood, having directed movies only slightly longer than his protagonist had been flying planes, is still a masterful pilot himself.

Instead of a film that’s gleefully outlandish (see: “Sausage Party”), Yoga Hosers is a drag. It contains none of the vivacity of “Clerks,” “Mallrats” or “Chasing Amy,” and plenty of references to those days of yesteryear. It’s a cannibalization of all that we once loved about Smith and his movies.

Nocturnal Animals packs a real punch and confirms that “A Single Man” was no fluke.

White Girl wants credit for its provocations, but it’s not provoking us towards any particularly insights, just pointing out that white privilege exists and then calling it a day. It’s “Woke af: The Movie.”

It’s not impossible to give audiences both a puzzle-box narrative and an exploration of life choices and what it means to be human, but the balance just doesn’t play here.

The musical is as malleable and eclectic a genre as any other, and Chazelle reminds us how effectively it can be applied to intimate moments as well as huge ones.

It’s a grand, old-school saga full of sacrifice and betrayal and loss, and just when the audience is gearing up for a powerfully tragic resolution of the kind that Thomas Hardy might have written, the movie veers off into Nicholas Sparks territory instead.

The truest test for unrepentant treacle like this is to imagine how invested one would be if Lewis weren’t headlining his first movie in 20 years.... The answer is, barely invested at all, considering how simplified and pandering is Noah’s approach to issues of grief, aging, and family dynamics.

Whatever its flaws, this is a rare genre movie that allows two women — both Mara and Taylor-Joy are coolly riveting, particularly when they’re playing off each other — to take center stage in both the drama and the action, both of which get pretty intense.

Even flashy, grumpy Jones can’t act like a defibrillator powerful enough to crank this generic movie into competition for Statham’s better solo outings.

The Hollars feels so painfully familiar and so dramatically undernourished that even the great Margo Martindale can only do so much with this cliché-riddled script.

The Intervention is a movie whose small moments are worth savoring even when the big ones don’t come off as intended

The Sea of Trees is a movie about guilt and grief that elicits just that in its viewers: guilt and grief. Because for every ephemeral moment to admire in Gus Van Sant‘s latest film, there are about a half-dozen more that make you wonder what went wrong.

Don’t Breathe makes a striking first impression but overstays its welcome.

For all its presidential trappings, the movie is most powerful as a straightforward romance with two endlessly charming black leads, of a kind that, as far as movies go, is outrageously rare.

Unfortunately, the new biopic Hands of Stone...is too often content to play like a lot of other boxing flicks instead of forging its own path.

It’s a story of closed borders in Europe, and foot-dragging immigration bureaucracy in safe countries, together spelling ruin for countless displaced victims.

The star’s transformation from nebbishy office kid to a frankly imposing skinhead street soldier is unsettling and impressive.

Neither obtuse nor obvious, Spa Night finds the perfect balance in communication. It shows enough, but not too much; it articulates its ideas, but it doesn’t asphyxiate the audience with them.

Many of Herzog’s recent documentaries have been produced under the aegis of TV channels, and “Lo and Behold” often feels like a miniseries compressed into feature form. Its segments broaden an understanding of the internet’s impact, but they don’t meaningfully interact with each other.

A Tale of Love and Darkness seeks to blend serious political history and probing psychological analysis. The effort does not succeed, coming across disjointed and grim.

This Ben-Hur may not be an epic fail, but its steady stream of shortcomings are certainly a cautionary journey for anybody with the hubris to try and rebuild the monuments of movies past.

Morris From America shines a deserved spotlight on Markees Christmas, who will hopefully be given more opportunities to command the screen, and it allows Craig Robinson a framework in which to deliver a career-best performance.

This airless, laugh-less true story about 20-something wheeler-dealers who became arms salesmen during the Bush-Cheney invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan has no point of view, nor anything to say about war or commerce or even 20-somethings who wheel and deal.

It’s not a flawless movie, but there’s real magic in it, and that’s more important, and no less rare, than perfection.

Hell or High Water is that rare offering that both feels old-fashioned in its action-thriller gratification and in-the-moment about everything else.

There’s a goofy spree of a movie buried deep within Sausage Party, but it’s missing both the spree and the goofs. This comedy needed to be a lot smarter if it wanted to succeed at being this stupid.

In both the writing (in collaboration with Jean-Stéphane Bron) and directing, Alice Winocour is careful and clever in how she dispenses information.

A deeply personal film about the crisis in reproductive rights that manages to be even-handed, insightful and deeply moving.

Little Men is a deceptively slight movie which brings us towards the revelation that life is disappointment, and that happiness comes in being ready for it.

In addition to listless direction from Sonnenfeld, and an overall feeling of cheapness and carelessness, Nine Lives also suffers from incoherence.

Indignation is a movie of great thoughtfulness and and rigor, but at times it feels like you’re buckled into Marcus’ straitjacket along with him, and you yearn to loosen the straps.

Restraint is a good impulse when dealing with such a simple story of grief, and Curran’s approach does lead to good incidental visions of each character’s devastated state. Yet Five Nights in Maine is as frustrating as it is mannered; we never see these characters truly engaging the pain they clearly feel.

The novella’s tale of the power of love is essentially a graceful story within that larger, clunkier contemporary story, beautifully rendered in stop motion. It’s enchanting, painterly and timeless, befitting the iconic French classic, with a style that feels both fresh and appropriately reverential.

Writer-director David Ayer tries hard to make this dirty not-quite-dozen into an engaging band of misfits, but the results feel undercooked and overstuffed, with 10 pounds of supervillain backstory being crammed into a five-pound bag.

Whereas Meera Menon’s film portrays the pitfalls that often await women who work in a predominantly male business, it’s also overcharged with so much grrrl power that it could blackout an entire Wall Street block.

What saves Tallulah from American indie sameness and its allegiance to neat resolution are its three lead actors and Heder’s apparent skill in bringing out their best work.

Combining so many disparate strands — historical, contextual, personal and even gossipy — with the performative could have felt disjointed. But in Armstrong’s capable hands, it all comes together fairly seamlessly, providing a compelling portrait of Kelly’s noteworthy career.

You have to forgive a lot from Bad Moms.... But the wonderfully unexpected cavalcade of hilarity — including one of the smartest and most unexpected celebrity cameos in recent memory — makes this summer sleeper a satisfying surprise.

Clay Tweel’s Gleason documents the agony and the ecstasy of its subject’s life, and is similarly exceptional in its avoidance of the cliches so common among inspiring documentaries.

David Lowery‘s ease with actors and command of tone make Pete’s Dragon one of the best remakes in recent years.

While the film’s vertiginous set pieces are appropriately heart-clenching, it’s not nearly as successful at little details like plot and character.

This fourth entry after a nine-year break for Damon and Greengrass should represent, for those ready and able to separate popcorn mayhem from the grim realities of world headlines, a bruising and exhilarating ride.

Don’t Think Twice is an impressive feat on all accounts. For a performer whose greatest virtue is his layered, detailed storytelling, Birbiglia has made a surprisingly impassioned love letter to improv comedy. Like the “yes, and…” art form itself, the movie shoots from the hip, ducks and dives unexpectedly, and excitingly.

An atheist’s inverse Balthazar, Wiener-Dog witnesses and experiences suffering but cannot transform that pain into anything substantive, nor can she redeem those around her.

Fontaine powerfully conveys the religious women’s inner torment, but with restraint, both visually and verbally.

"Hillary’s America” isn’t designed to stand up to skepticism. It’s not intended to convince or to provoke thought, but to confirm the biases its intended audience already holds.

This episode cuts right to the core of the series’s original appeal, giving the terrific cast a chance to play against one another in a straightforward story. It’s not exactly bold, but “Beyond” does satisfy.

Even if you agree with everything The Confessions has to say about the problems of our era and who caused them, you’ll learn nothing new and will find little entertainment in hearing your opinions espoused.

Gurrola and Alzati throw themselves into their performances, completely unafraid to explore the full range of physical and emotional characteristics of the people they’re playing.

The getting-to-know-them is the best part of this Ghostbusters: these women are a true democratic caucus of funny. That leaves the aforementioned bloat — CGI bigness and the current vogue for drawn-out showdowns — the only nagging glitch, although it’s all slickly rendered by the visual effects team.

Because the Zero Days subjects who are best positioned to provide new information are also the least likely to talk, much of the movie is devoted to rehashing previously published reports, which Gibney does with both cogency and style.

Nuts! is a brisk, engrossing, tongue-in-cheek film that unfolds at just the right pace — and it’s a piece of American history that couldn’t feel more relevant to modern times.

The film’s two-plus-hour running time is a patience-tester.

Zemljic spends most of the film front and center, and the movie wisely relies upon her to be our eyes and ears and insight into the story. It’s not a showy performance, by any means, but she earns our empathy.

For all the genuine charm on display, you may be disappointed to find that manic activity overtakes said charm, and that more isn’t made of a simple, clever premise.

At times, The Infiltrator feels like a movie we’ve seen before, but deft performances and Furman’s sharp sense of the era transform it into an engrossing drama.

Built on a shaky comic premise based on a real Craigslist ad posted by a pair of party animals — and smacked to life with relentlessly feeble, dopey improvisation and unoriginal crudity — “Mike and Dave” is more likely to tarnish its cast’s comedy-chops goodwill than to foster a desire to see any more raunch-till-you-drop yukfests.

Ellis and editor Richard Mettler craft an agonizing and unforgettable finale; if their sense of pacing had been as sharp throughout, “Anthropoid” might have fulfilled its potential.

If you can separate the art from the artist — as most of us do at some point, or there’d be almost no movies or plays or novels or music or paintings left to enjoy — it’s a stone-cold gas.

It sidesteps saccharine wistfulness to flow without pretense, consistently putting its finely-drawn characters before other concerns.

Grillo is exactly the right man for this role, the thoughtful tough guy who can pull bullets out of his own body and who always looks like he needs a shower, but who can’t stop for such indulgences until he knows everyone else is safe. And the ensemble around him forms a tight, empathic unit. We want the Purge to keep going; we also want this crew to smack it down hard.

The Legend of Tarzan isn’t as singularly joyless as many of this summer’s other current offerings, but it also feels distinctly like a missed opportunity. Even when Skarsgård offers up the character’s famous jungle cry, it sounds more mournful than enthusiastic, and that sentiment seeps into the entire enterprise.

If Swiss Army Man were a silent, scoreless effort, presented as otherworldly slapstick, or if it had employed Lil Jon to yell some obliquely connected, thematic exhortations and non sequiturs, it might have reached the heights of its music video predecessor. As it plays out, though, it smells a little too much like teen spirit.

The polished assuredness under which Refn operates is considerable, and even appealing, and yet there’s always one element in any given scene — a music cue, a banal sound choice, a shot held until it screams “look at me” — that breaks the mood.

The movie is not going to make anyone forget “Jaws,” but it delivers the kind of breathless tension that justifies its existence.

Though Bidegain’s effort has its moments, it never gels into a cohesive, intimate-yet-expansive whole.

The spaceships and the destruction are bigger but not better in Roland Emmerich‘s twenty-years-later follow-up, where only Jeff Goldblum‘s sense of humor saves the day.

That you may learn a good deal about an unusually driven man, but never quite feel emotionally connected to him, means Ross has hit a workmanlike middle, crafting a handsome textbook more than a blood-pumping portrait.

There’s plenty of fart jokes, forward motion and bright colors to engage easily-entertained children, but their parents will be subjected to yet another movie that has all the zing of watching evolution in real time.

Tickled inspires many laughs throughout but, true to its subject, more and more of them are born of discomfort as it goes on — part of you wants it all to stop even as you’re amused.

Central Intelligence doesn’t feel like the birth of a great comic duo — more like a blind date that goes a little better than expected. The chemistry’s not there yet, but let’s give it another shot.

Finding Dory never quite hits that sweet spot of sadness. The film definitely pushes our buttons as it portrays loss and separation, but it never slows down enough to let us ache. Even so, Finding Dory is rousingly entertaining.

That the film occasionally succumbs to certain rudimentary hallmarks of industrial studio horror is regrettable, but for the most part it’s agreeably suspenseful, date-night arm-squeezing genre fare.

To be fair, the unraveling of “Careful” is not the fault of the stars.

Though it deals with complicated emotions surrounding acceptance and individuality, Holmer’s movie, which she wrote with Saela Davis and Lisa Kjerulff, is a model of control, not unlike its strong, watchful central character.

No matter where Ferguson goes, he finds a way to sit someone in a chair and point a camera at them, resulting in a movie whose stultifying dullness works against the urgency of its message.

This sequel might lack the delightful jolts of its predecessor, but it nonetheless maintains a slow boil of terror that’s consistently unnerving.

Out of the Shadows stumbles from one set piece to the next, rarely offering viewers much reason to care in between, and its halfhearted attempts at moving toward the “dark and gritty” end of the comic-book spectrum never land.

Director Jon M. Chu has a lighter touch than “Now You See Me” director Louis Leterrier. The latter’s “Transporter” pedigree made sure there was plenty of rugged action, but Chu’s résumé boasts “Jem and the Holograms,” “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” and more than one film in the “Step Up” franchise. The man knows his cartoons, and that’s a good thing.

This new movie feels more like a series of sketches that all happen to revolve around the same handful of characters. That said, those sketches are fairly funny, and if this comedy has all the depth of a summer jam, it will eventually be the kind of late-night download that will inspire giggles for years to come.

Holy Hell — despite its unprecedented access — finds itself oscillating back and forth between mediocrity and illumination.