A disappointment ... The story feels lean, and most of the cast, while convincing, don’t leap off the screen the way the ensemble in an Andrea Arnold movie does.

A loopy entertaining WTF lark. ... The fact that it holds you, for 77 minutes, is a testament to the debauched rigor of Dupieux’s filmmaking.

Every line of dialogue in Trial by Fire is wrapped with so much exposition that the film feels tied to the train-tracks of good taste. Characters don’t converse, they simply say all their thoughts aloud.

Sure, Sagan’s scientific method dominates the universe. But here on earth, this crowd-pleaser convinces us to spend one day savoring an American Dream.

From its rigid, symmetry-inclined compositions to its heavily worked one-liners, this is cautious, stifling filmmaking in thrall to a reckless, retrograde man, who does little in the course of 90 minutes to merit great fascination or pathos.

What it means, Alcazar leaves open for interpretation. He’s more a mood maker than a story teller, and the film feels like people watching at a fancy party and inhaling different wafts of perfume.

The Dead Don’t Die fancies itself a cutting-edge macabre comedy, but the truth is that it’s behind the curve of pop culture. That’s why it’s a disappointing trifle.

This is the rare debut that derives its freshness not from inexperience but from a balance between compassion and restraint that most filmmakers take decades to achieve.

Stacie Passon, director of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, sharply channels the author’s atmosphere of dread, paranoia, and isolation, making the past feel prescient.

Within its bounds, Q Ball offers proof that rehabilitative programs like this one offer more than just a chance for prisoners to show athletic excellence; they also provide an opportunity for individual growth.

This tale of a spaceship stuck wandering the cosmos after being forced off course is both impressive in its scope and intimate in its portrait of human nature under long-term duress.

It’s a movie of minor fascinations and seductions; it exerts the pull of a natural-born filmmaker’s eye.

This melodrama, released to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Month, lacks the necessary polish to elevate not just its message, but also the actors’ performances.

Eden-Smith makes the film her own, right up to the surprising, challenging and altogether sharp final note.

On a level of pure craft, then, John Wick 3 is unquestionably great action filmmaking – certainly the most technically accomplished of the series thus far, with a good dozen scenes that could only have been pulled off by a director, a stunt team, an editor and a cast working at the absolute highest level. But as masterfully executed as the action is, watching two-plus hours of mayhem without any palpable dramatic stakes, or nuance, or any emotion at all save bloodlust offers undeniably diminishing returns.

Themes of parental guilt and the effects of broken families on children are hinted at early but discarded in favor of genre pleasures, which Carion provides to increasingly formulaic effect.

As a literal origin story about how we live today, it’s a captivating history lesson with global appeal.

While it’s hardly Hawkins’ error that his documentary feels unfinished — the self-defined activist’s dramatic saga is still unfolding as we speak — you can’t help but feel his unprecedented access to Manning should have emanated a portrait a lot more enlightening.

The Hustle, fun as some of it is, is a tall fizzy drink in which the fizz never completely rises to the top of the glass.

Overall, Poms isn’t a film that demands the audience’s attention — and that’s a shame given the breadth of skilled, seasoned talent involved. The blueprint for a genuinely inspired, warm-hearted dramedy is indeed there, it’s just that the filmmakers can’t figure out how to properly utilize what they have.

The friends we see on-screen are equally close in real life, and the outing depicted in Wine Country was inspired by similar trips they’ve made together. That explains the second-nature chemistry that makes them so much fun to watch, even when the shenanigans...leave one longing for the outrageousness of an all-female studio comedy like “Bridesmaids” or “Girls Trip.”

Rather than simply preaching to you-know-whom, director David Charles Rodrigues ... succeeds in humanizing the individuals on both sides.

One wishes the film were a bit more inventive with its dog’s-eye view: the odd ground-level action shot aside, there isn’t much to cinematically suggest how animals see the world differently.

Robert Bahar and Almudena Carracedo’s straightforward but emotionally acute documentary works as both a thorough history lesson and a work of contemporary activism.

A bold and unconventional thriller made real by the evolution of lead actress Haley Bennett ... Is it exploitative? Yes, to an extent that’s true. ... But, as in such Alfred Hitchcock classics as “Spellbound” and “Marnie,” with their facile psychoanalytic interpretations of compulsive and/or hysterical behavior, the approach can be quite effective in revealing the gender dynamics of the times.

It doesn’t sentimentalize Theo’s illness (much) or pull back from how disconnected he can be. “Lost Transmissions” may even sound like it deserves props for its straight-up, objective view of mental illness. Except for one small detail: That stance ends up removing the basic dramatic motor of the film.

In Yesterday, [Boyle and Curtis] reduce the Beatles to the ultimate product by declaring, at every turn, “These songs are transcendent!” And it’s the fact that they keep telling us, rather than showing us (i.e., with musical sequences that earned their transcendence), that makes Yesterday, for all the timeless songs in it, a cut-and-dried, rotely whimsical, prefab experience.

Much more accomplished and watchable than Hormann’s previous film about a real-life crime, “3096 Days,” “A Regular Woman” owes much to its fine cast and impeccable technical package.