Failing almost entirely at amusement, “The Road Chip” may be most useful as a lesson for children to be more discerning about their movie choices.

Abrams had the benefit of learning what didn’t work in Lucas’ prequels, and he’s gone in the opposite direction. He’s also set an interesting course for moving forward with this engaging cast playing new characters making their way through this beloved universe.

The Hateful Eight may frustrate some of his more literally sanguine supporters, but it’s nonetheless an entertaining piece of dialogue-driven theater — with the occasional rifle-shot to the head.

The Ridiculous 6 is everything wrong with Hollywood for the past two decades: a circle-jerk of imbecilic white-dude humor.

Delicate and restrained, the film offers the messages of redemption and renewal we so often crave from a Christmas movie without wrapping its themes and characters in tinsel.

Even the stray gross-out moments of Sisters register as humane and heartfelt; Fey and Pohler’s comedy comes from a place of warmth and intelligence, and so does the movie.

This is a rare misstep for Russell, who in the past has sold us on all kinds of stories, whether they’re as indescribable as “I Heart Huckabee’s” or as traditional as “The Fighter.” Unlike his indefatigable heroine, however, Russell just can’t seem to close the deal on Joy.

Is the relentlessness too much? At two and a half hours, perhaps, but inventiveness abounds.

Fassbender manages to find the psychological throughline that makes Macbeth’s increasing mental deterioration — a development that can feel overly formalistic, not to mention moralistic — wholly convincing.

The film has a killer case of the cutes that only Smith’s acidity can cut, and only so much.

Though not exactly a punishment, director Michael Dougherty’s tongue-in-cheek monster movie is hardly a celebration, either, despite initial promise that we’d be getting a niftier-than-usual package of subversive comedy and chills to shake up the usual holiday-movie sameness.

If “The Great Beauty” was a heady, humming party you wanted to live inside, Youth — its melancholy and splendor too often at odds — never rises above feeling like a pretty, meandering gallery show.

Lovers of spectacle for spectacle’s sake will come away from the film with many discrete sequences to admire, but there’s not enough of a human element to bridge them together. In terms of its lasting power, In the Heart of the Sea roars in like a great tide, but then just as quickly dissipates.

It’s as punishingly dull as Sunday-school homework — and just as unnecessary.

Whether or not one should tamper in God’s domain remains a matter of opinion, but Victor Frankenstein provides evidence that mere mortals should not mess with what Ms. Shelley hath wrought.

If the film’s pinning much of the world’s problems to sex at times seems excessive, silly or reductive, Lee justifies it with moments of unexpected grace.

Ergüven and her similarly green cast prove to be preternatural talents in delivering a story that’s simultaneously alarming and loads of tart-tongued fun.

#Horror” is fueled by the despairing fear and misanthropy you can only get from reading needlessly malicious Internet comments. But it’s also made with verve, style, and sparing gore by writer-director (and fashion designer) Tara Subkoff.

Both haunting and sweeping, Carol represents another masterwork from one of this generation’s great filmmakers.

Hardy’s virtuosity saves the picture’s artificiality at nearly every turn.

“Secret” contains a passel of interesting ideas and effective scenes that don’t add up to an interesting whole.

Instead of playing like the first of a series of Adonis Creed movies, Creed never rises above being one more by-the-numbers “Rocky” retread.

It’s as if the makers of The Night Before have it in them to make a touching and funny movie but instead throw that chance away by not taking what they’re doing seriously enough.

Abbott (“A Most Violent Year,” HBO’s “Girls”) is a revelation, creating a multidimensional character whose battling, sometimes uncontrollable emotions are clear in his warm and expressive eyes.

First-time helmer Peter Sohn and screenwriter Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out”) have created a fantastic and frequently exhilarating feature that showcases Pixar’s greatest strengths: technical brilliance, emotional texture, crossover appeal, and an impish sense of humor that takes the utmost advantage of the animated form.

This is a movie that is confident in clean living, blinkered righteousness, and manly sentimentality, and it is shamed by some brief footage of the real Freddie at the end, an actual person whose story has been diminished by this slack, dawdling, offensive film.

The vignettes sometimes resonate with the viewer but don’t really connect into a plot, there are too many characters with too many stories and pretty good flashbacks, and some of the jokes are impossible to laugh out loud at unless you’re a highly trained and paid actor.

The film’s compassion for everyday Americans...along with its energetic determination to entertain, enlighten, and infuriate make it a laudable surprise.