The Kill Team is expertly edited, at one point overlaying interviews with the men who participated in the war crimes with B-roll of infantrymen milling about, weapons in hand. And it’s all set to a brilliantly spare and evocative soundtrack. It’s a beautiful way to lose faith in humanity.

In addition to “pervert” — which Wojtowicz makes sound like a badge of honor — the film offers many other seemingly contradictory assessments of Wojtowicz, mainly from his own mouth: troll, Goldwater Republican, McCarthy peacenik, crazy man, crook, romantic. He was all of those things and more, as The Dog makes vividly obvious.

In some ways, Mowgli feels like an origin story. There’s a slight but unmistakable suggestion of a potential sequel to its open-ended climax.

The battle scenes are alternately tense and thrilling, especially during one climactic sequence.

One of the delights of the documentary is hearing Terry tell stories. Watching the movie feels as if you’ve sat down in someone’s living room to hear tales of other legendary jazz musicians, such as Count Basie or Miles Davis.

Even when it skates recklessly close to shopworn cliches, Pride manages to navigate around them with vigor, as well as disarming, even wholesome, open-heartedness.

The power of images — to distort, define, denigrate and celebrate — emerges with clarity and force in Through a Lens Darkly, a fascinating, visually stunning, emotionally devastating documentary by Thomas Allen Harris.

99 Homes isn’t just a straightforward drama. It’s a suspense movie.

There are slow bits, as Baumane delves into stories that are less interesting than others. But overall, her family history is rife with complex characters, and she brings them all to life in a loving, if scrutinizing, way.

“Thunder” doesn’t boast a distinctive look or a cast of famous voices. But its characters are engaging and its action sequences exhilarating.

The three actors excel in their roles, and director Matthew Saville gives additional insight into the men through small yet informative details.

It’s more than great dancing and tragic strings that elevate The Last Five Years to a very funny, deeply affecting portrait of love lost and found. Kendrick and Jordan are both Broadway performers with powerful voices.

Overall, the movie presents a worthy and historical look at the link between genius and mental illness.

Hoss’s breathtaking portrayal, especially in the film’s final minutes, makes it clear why director Christian Petzold has made a habit of working with her.

Admittedly, Top Five suffers from its share of too-convenient contrivances and clunky passages... But Top Five is also buoyantly self- sustaining, thanks in part to Rock and Dawson’s easy, convincingly seductive chemistry and some genuinely hilarious surprises.

It’s a funny, fascinating look at why Landis became an art forger, how he got caught and what he plans to do in the future, which may be more of the same.

If A Most Violent Year has a weakness, it’s in that structural looseness.... Still, A Most Violent Year is an engrossing, often beautiful film, and a breakout opportunity for Isaac.

If Reilly’s presence gives Kong: Skull Island its playful, gonzo edge, it’s the title character himself who gives it soul, morphing from a monster into a brooding symbol of the colossal folly of military belligerence and hegemonic hubris.

Details count in this movie, whether it’s well-executed camera work or the affecting score.

The film’s patina of richly textured grime lends the film a gloomy, claustrophobic beauty that serves its mood, as well as its satisfyingly misanthropic message: Greed isn’t good, and most people aren’t either.

When disaster strikes, about an hour into the movie, we’re put in the uncomfortable position of admiring the fiery spectacle that Berg has created with sophisticated visual effects, cinematography and editing, while being aware that unspeakable real-life suffering has been packaged for mass entertainment. Berg does a good job of maintaining a thoughtful balance between those somewhat uneasy stances.

Exciting, absorbing and stubbornly optimistic in the face of overwhelming devastation, E-Team will, with any luck, shed deserved light on the routine sacrifices these activists and professionals make for the sake of human values.

While the main themes of Moana are identity and self-discovery — familiar territory, to be sure — the film manages to enliven such well-traveled latitudes with a breeze as fresh as the islands.

The fate of these birds, which, the film tells us, could live into their 40s, becomes as engrossing as many a human drama.

It has, simultaneously, the exhilarating feel of a departure and the finality of a full stop.

Wonder Woman may not cure all the ills of pop culture’s superhero-saturation syndrome; in fact, in many ways it succumbs to some of its worst excesses. But at least it brings an exhilarating, vicarious kick to the sagging, bagging table.

Shazam! operates as a thrilling fantasy and a comedy about the learning curve of growing up. It’s also a stirring tale of the heroic potential that lies inside each of us, if only we’re put to the test.

VanDyke might have set out to give himself a crash course in manhood, but Point and Shoot gives us a crash course in the myriad and contradictory things the word has come to mean.