Ingrid Goes West doesn’t quite go south, but in diving headfirst into the swamp of Internet addiction, its vision gets a little murky.

Although Sheridan has approached the setting with the sensitivity and respect of his deeply empathic protagonist, the film still bears a slight but inescapable whiff of cultural tourism.

Even at its most contrived, The Hero exerts a soothing attraction not unlike the man at its center.

Betts has put together a talented acting ensemble, and the performances are, for the most part, uniformly good and subtle, particularly among the actresses who play the young novices.

“Brigsby” never ventures into the caustic simply for the sake of comedy. These days, that’s refreshing. There aren’t many movies that value sweetness over cynicism.

There are moments in Dina that invite viewers to wonder whether Santini and Sickles aren’t veering into voyeurism, such as when Dina presents Scott with a copy of “The Joy of Sex” and proceeds to have a conversation about masturbation and other matters.

In the end, Viceroy’s House works, but mainly as a historical refresher on the 70th anniversary of Indian independence. As drama, it’s a reminder that truth is sometimes more affecting than fiction.

A murky stew of sin, vengeance and expiation boils up and over in Dig Two Graves, a flawed but gripping horror-thriller, handsomely wrought on a slim budget by filmmaker Hunter Adams.

Although the film ultimately strikes a celebratory tone, the stark divisions it reveals offer an unsettling look at the state of public discourse.

It’s funny and sad and weary and wise, which feels just about right for now. War Machine is a weird, unsettled movie for a weird, unsettled time.

This sweet, affectionate (and unapologetically slight) comedy is an all-too-rare homage to harmless, hilarious incompetence, at a time when there is plenty of the more hurtful kind to go around. If it isn’t quite up to the standards of “Ed Wood,” Tim Burton’s 1994 tribute to the auteur of such misbegotten fruits of moviemaking as “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” it is nonetheless a much-needed distraction.

“Spider’s Web” may have its flaws, including a bit of villainous motivation so oversimplified it makes Dr. Evil’s thought processes look like Einstein’s. And yet despite Lisbeth’s makeover, there’s still something cool, complicated and compelling about this “Girl.” Lisbeth may be stuck in a silly movie, but she’s nobody’s victim.

An engaging exercise in discreet, incisive and good-humored hokum. Although Rocky III is a vivid piece of popular filmmaking and a considerable bit of harmless fun, the star doesn't seem to derive as much pleasure from the experience as he should.

The film looks handsome and expensive, building up a nice head of suspense before sputtering to a less than wholly satisfying conclusion.

Like “The Revenant,” The Nightingale becomes something of a slog, as Clare’s journey plods toward its maybe-inevitable end.

The Old Man and the Gun ambles along with such unhurried, folksy ease that it’s easy to overlook the people — mostly women — Tucker leaves in his wake, victims who may not be physically scarred, but often look as if they will bear unseen injuries into the future nonetheless.

I wouldn’t call Band Aid profound, but it’s wiser and deeper than the average pop song, if not by much.

Although many of its subjects are endearing characters, the film’s scattered approach undermines its point about the simple endurance of an artifact.

Yes, UglyDolls is a musical, and the peppy songs, while devoid of any subtlety, help tell the story, and are delivered with sincerity. Such ditties as Clarkson’s “Broken and Beautiful” celebrate body positivity and self-acceptance.

Structurally, The Meyerowitz Stories is a shapeless and baggy thing.

Though Goodbye Christopher Robin has moments of delight and even profundity, and looks-PBS pretty, too often it stumbles.

This engagingly goofy romantic comedy speaks the international language of food.

The plot simply doesn’t have enough juice.

Thanks to the director Khan — who co-wrote the script and has an obvious fondness for her characters — The Tiger Hunter transcends comic stereotypes. But its predictable success-story arc isn’t entirely convincing.

The result is a solid if conventional bio.

For all its late-in-the-game silliness, The Exception is a solidly acted, well-told tale about how love of country holds up in the face of other, less nationalistic passions.

Still, the movie has a kind of optimism that is reflected in the new generation of English thespians in its young cast: Imrie is the son of actress Celia Imrie, and Serkis is the son of actor and filmmaker Andy Serkis.

Winds up being giddily entertaining, first as an exercise in so-bad-it’s-funny kitsch, and ultimately as something far more meaningful and thrilling. Every now and then, a film comes along that defies the demands of taste, formal sophistication, even artistic honesty to succeed simply on the level of pure, inexplicable pleasure. Bohemian Rhapsody is just that cinematic unicorn: the bad movie that works, even when it shouldn’t.

The uneven tone especially undermines the ending — one that’s as tragic as it is predictable. Viewers may expect — even crave — to feel an emotional impact, but the movie hasn’t laid the groundwork.

Happy End, for its part, signals a return to form for the director, who here makes a stark departure from the sweet tone of “Amour” — perhaps his most mainstream work — in favor of the vinegary outlook on life manifested in such films as “Funny Games,” his 2007 horror movie about violently psychopathic home invaders, and “The White Ribbon,” his 2009 pre-World War I period piece about, among other things, child abuse.

Hogancamp was a talented illustrator before the attack rendered him unable to draw. In retreating to a world of his imagination as a way to exorcise the demons that tormented him, he ended up creating real art. I’m not sure Zemeckis’s achievement rises to the same level, but this cinematic excursion to Marwen is almost certainly a trip to someplace you haven’t been before.

Autism aside, writer-director Rachel Israel’s debut film is a fairly typical, low-budget New York romance, complete with an excursion to Coney Island. What distinguishes it are Israel’s empathetic characterizations — she’s known Polansky for 15 years — and the winning performances, not only by the leads but also by the supporting players.

Defiantly inscrutable, Woodshock can test a viewer’s patience, yet the filmmakers’ consistent self-confidence creates an alluring, oddly hypnotic effect.

The movie often undercuts itself by spelling things out rather than hinting at them, belaboring emotions and ideas to ensure that the audience understands what the characters are feeling and thinking.

Unfortunately, Desplechin stuffs too many subplots into the film, diminishing the power of his central conceit — that our most persistent ghosts are the living whom we’ve failed.

Setting the film in the punk heyday underscores the film’s themes of personal freedom and defying authority. And there are heartwarming touches, despite a plot that is muddied by sci-fi mumbo-jumbo about cannibalism.

For all the story’s cosmic echoes across the ages, the pacing just feels off. Still, the approach is inventive.

Visually captivating even when it’s narratively uneven.

Blade goes for the carotid while offering a classic look and a comic-book story. It’s part Kurosawa, part “X-Men,” part “Ichi the Killer.”

In some ways, My Friend Dahmer is a typical coming-of-age movie about an awkward teen. What distinguishes this particular case of adolescent angst is that it’s the true story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Quirky to a fault, the film’s most absurd moments are nevertheless grounded by the human need for connection.

The Angry Birds Movie 2 is not great cinema. But the animated sequel — inspired by the popular Angry Birds games, available on mobile devices and other platforms — goes above and beyond what is to be expected from such things.

What little dancing we do see is lovely to watch, but it’s also lovely to see a performer who once seemed to have an iron grip on the barre finally learn how to be gracious and let go.

Stewart’s unexpected casting here, in a frothy action comedy, injects the movie with a shot of much-needed unpredictability. Of all the Angels, she works the hardest, ensuring that the movie isn’t forgettable.

The movie’s most piercing barbs are left for the tech world and the inevitability that our phones will make zombies of us all. Does that make the Boss Baby franchise a bold cinematic bet? Not exactly. But as a safe play for parents and kids alike, it’s tough to complain about the return on your investment.

Both simplistic and overcomplicated, Us depends on some of horror’s most hackneyed cliches and gaps in logic — by now, shouldn’t all movie characters know never to go back into the house and to always stay together? — as well as a few windy speeches explaining why bizarre things keep happening. The viewer begins to wish that Peele had given his script one more pass, either to pare it down or beef it up.

As the wily leader of the Japanese forces, grizzled Kurata Yasuaki has more presence than Zhao, who’s bland in non-action sequences. But Zhao’s ability to deliver dialogue is less crucial than his skill at leading hundreds of extras through elegantly choreographed, sumptuously photographed chaos.

Moka is a stark, moody mystery that doesn’t actually contain much mystery. Instead, it excels as a character study and a dynamic face-off between two formidable actresses: Emmanuelle Devos and Nathalie Baye.

White Boy Rick is permeated by an atmosphere of grimy hopelessness that makes it hard to watch.

The film’s central metaphor — life is like wine — is an overripe one.

Birthright suggests that the loss of women’s bodily autonomy — via laws limiting access to abortion — is a human rights issue. But it raises the alarm in ways that are as unflashy as they are disturbing.

Given the low budget, there was no money for transitions or fancy wideshots, so the look is strangled, stranded and somehow like stagework. All the same, if you are a woman who loves women, you will no doubt love Desert Hearts. But it doesn't seem a good bet to cross over. [18 Apr 1986, p.27]

Too frequently and too loudly, the sci-fi bells and whistles of Chaos Walking overwhelm its quieter, more engrossing elements, making it hard to hear what the film really seems to be saying.

Thunderstruck is an after-school special that lucked into a couple of NBA all-stars for its ensemble. The language is a little coarse for a family film. And, yes, sometimes it feels like a Durant highlight reel - or an OKC Thunder infomercial - stretched to feature length, with the occasional life lesson tossed in to balance the film's obvious commercial angle. [24 Aug 2012, p.T34]

For the first hour and a half, WW84 is a delightful flight of escapist fancy, with Diana and Steve's love story ensconcing itself comfortably, if a bit talkily, within the confines of an action adventure. Then, at the 90 minute mark, it’s as if Jenkins remembers her other deliverables, in the form of special effects, epic global crises and a plotty, ever-more-muddled story line that metastasizes into something much darker and more violent.

Like a real-life game night, the comedy may not leave a lasting impression, but it’s plenty of fun while it lasts.

It’s when the dream of “Annihilation” collides so felicitously with lived reality that the film coalesces and takes hold. It may be broken eventually, but for a while the spell is a powerful one, and nearly irresistible.

Hong Kong director Stephen Fung (“Tai Chi Hero”) is no John Woo, but he gives The Adventurers almost as much style as its larcenous characters exude.

Lamarr had been blessed — or, perhaps more appropriately, cursed — with leading an interesting life, and Dean’s film seems both too conventional and too shallow for its subject, who seems as hard to pigeonhole, at times, as to understand.

In place of catharsis, the climax provides gross-out slapstick, but writer-director S. Craig Zahler takes his handiwork so seriously that viewers may do the same.

Beast sounds like a straightforward erotic mystery thriller, but that atmosphere is at times overshadowed by Pearce’s exploration of British classism, bullying and bigotry.

An intermittently effective biography, marred by a frequently intrusive score.

Boy Erased is a showcase for Hedges, who played a closeted boy in “Lady Bird” and who plays a teen with a different sort of burden in the upcoming drama “Ben Is Back.” In each of those roles, the boy-next-door actor finds just the right combination of ordinary and anomalous.

Did you find “The Favourite” just too weird, too raunchy, too . . . too? Perhaps Mary Queen of Scots will be more your cup.

Well-made and likable, without any major missteps. It’s also just a little bland.

Blockers suffers from ungainly, choppy pacing. It feels like a slapdash collection of scenes rather than a balloon sent smoothly aloft, with jokes often falling as flat as Cena’s buzz cut (a running gag centers on his tough-guy character’s propensity for crying, a go-to bit that ages fast).

These ghost stories, if that’s what they are, aren’t terribly original, or even especially scary — at least, not by the standards of the genre.

As Nur, Kanboura delivers a performance that is the most varied and effective of the movie’s three stars, growing from the shy newcomer to become the story’s moral center and heart.

Out to Sea is out to brunch: It's got too much on the table, but if you look carefully and show some patience, you can pick out the odd treat. [02 July 1997, p.C10]

With its jazz-funk score and trust-no-one scenario, The Swindlers is an entertaining if mostly routine con-game thriller.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is often diverting to watch, and it’s been shot on 35mm film with lovingly expressive care by Robert Richardson. But true to its title, it plays like a bedtime story concocted by a petulant child who insists on getting his own back from the people who poisoned his most honeyed dreams.

What works best here comes between the movie’s heavy opening and its lightweight conclusion.

The rest of the film has a cozy TV-commercial vibe, pumped by tunes from Katy Perry and the inevitable Neil Diamond. It’s no champion, but it’s still a reasonably good cry.

Creed II is a respectable if not revelatory sequel to the sequel, even if it lacks its predecessor’s grace and narrative texture.

Grown-ups might not roll over for Show Dogs, but children almost surely will. With its fart jokes and smart-alecky canines, this talking-animal comedy is aimed at a young audience anyway. For dog-loving adults, well, it’s just engaging enough to make them prick up their ears.

Even ardent Pattinson fandom won’t be enough to convert mainstream American audiences to the art-house director’s dark outlook and elliptical style.

Fortunately, the maudlin moments are offset by fine performances, flashes of humor and a visual sense that’s more astute than the script.

Colette’s story is a good one — she went on to produce multiple works under her own name, the best known of which is “Gigi” — but here it’s shakily told. As a tale about a woman whose life was defined by fire, Colette lacks much of a spark.

This is a movie of myriad worthy, even urgently necessary, ideas; when it reaches its climax, it goes completely haywire in a preposterous, increasingly scattershot sci-fi pastiche.

Mulligan’s eccentric energy is her greatest strength, but it makes for a slightly wobbly — if just this side of wonderful — film.

Director Richard Loncraine (“5 Flights Up”) wisely gets out of the way, for the most part, letting his cast breathe life into the limp cliches that have been woven by screenwriters Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft.

The film is at its best when evoking the painful labor of adolescent self-discovery, a process — as rendered here — that is not unlike a butterfly struggling to emerge from a chrysalis.

Like most mysteries, this one relies heavily on coincidental discoveries, even if they arrive via Gmail or FaceTime, rather than more traditional means. But the plot’s contrivances are less problematic than the movie’s insistence on maintaining its artifice even after it becomes a hindrance.

Overlong and overstuffed with Southern rock and blues numbers, Burden is not exemplary filmmaking. But for viewers who can endure another spin through white-supremacist malice and ignorance, Hedlund and Riseborough make it a compelling ride.

All in all, the picture goes down fairly easily, and by any estimate it's an improvement over other Pryor nonconcert films such as The Toy or even Brewster's Millions.

An Innocent Man isn't an inspired piece of filmmaking, but it is tightly focused and efficient, and on its own modest terms it is effective.

As a form of life-coaching, this documentary is, in fact, kind of a dud.

The crime’s solution is fine and dandy, but it’s Poirot himself who most fascinates. This isn’t your grandmother’s Agatha Christie, in other words. It belongs to Branagh, heart and soul.

By the end, the outcome is still unclear, leaving viewers hanging. Such ambiguity might work for pure fiction, but given that there’s a real-life incident behind the story, the lack of closure is unsatisfying.

Sadly, The Secret of NIMH is beautiful but unbalanced: The animators gambled when they should have gamboled. [09 July 1982, p.13]

Earth Girls Are Easy, a frisky extraterrestrial romance starring Geena Davis, is the movie equivalent of cheap champagne -- even though it's lousy, it still gives you tickles up the nose. Even at its most rambunctious, the picture just never seems to get going, and if the performers weren't so consistently charming you'd be tempted to pack it in early.

Though slow and overlong, the movie is at least scenic family fare. This easily understood yarn should appeal primarily to boys who still think girls are yucky.

It’s all kiss-kiss, bang-bang and backstabbing, with a twist that, while effective, leads to a denouement of questionable — and not entirely satisfying — moral reckoning. In some ways, Yardie plays out like a film noir, but with a strangely sweet ending, and without that genre’s deliciously bitter aftertaste.

The greater charm of Tin Men is in its affectionate portrayal of small-time hucksters who gloat over classic scams (like cutting seven inches out of the middle of a yardstick so the square footage will be higher). In its own way, the film is a bittersweet drama, a sort of Glengarry Glen Ross without the vitriol.

The film is pretty conventional Disney fare: silly, slapsticky, all-too-neatly wrapped up and punctuated by a surfeit of poignant moments.

There is also something over-intellectualized and bloodless about this version.

Proves a welcome improvement on the original Conan the Barbarian, finding a tone of lighthearted preposterousness more suitable to the absurd heroic dimensions of the pretext. [03 July 1984, p.D9]

Plummer is particularly good, delivering every line of dialogue as if it’s improvised, and with an astringent snort that only partially hides the fact that Jack really does care about people. Farmiga, for her part, never strays into histrionics, although she comes close after allowing herself to be seduced by her caddish ex.