Two precocious adolescent siblings leave their single mother to visit their grandparents whom they've never met, and videodocument the entire encounter, although things are immediately amiss upon their arrival. M. Night Shyamalan's return to twist centered, old fashioned shocks also attempts to incorporate comedy and melodrama, and fails at all three, the scares being routine and obvious, the laughs feebly attempted and geared toward a preteen audience, and the melodrama unearned and coming out of nowhere. The young stars are obnoxious and insufferable.

* 1/2 out of ****

The profile of a young autistic man who learned to cope with life's turmoils and ever changing emotions through Disney movies, which he obsessively consumes and knows verbatim. Life, Animated, one of this year's Academy Award nominees, is a poor excuse for a documentary: soppy, forced, borderline exploitative and, perhaps at its basest, a shameful Disney Ad.

* 1/2 out of ****

Three black women (Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spenser, Janelle Monae) in 1960s Virginia contend with Jim Crow laws and condescending white folk while doing their part to assist NASA in the Space Program as human computers. Call it The Help in Space or a Right Stuff for the politically correct age, Hidden Figures is formulaic and tepid at best, a movie made to win Oscars and live a nice long afterlife as comfort food for middle aged ladies on TNT.

* 1/2 out of ****

An Army Colonel (Helen Mirren) finally has eyes on a long sought terrorist target, about to transact a gun deal in a Kenyan market district. While awaiting permission to discharge him from the face of the earth, a young girl wanders into the blast radius complicating matters and causing officials all the way up the chain of command to either shirk or pass on responsibility. Gavin Hood's Eye in the Sky is a movie that thwarts any hope for tension in favor of legal and moral debates that are about as lively as an ethics memorandum all the while patting itself on the back and basking in its unearned sentiment. Mirren is miscast with a bunch unworthy British actors filling out the supporting roles along with an insufferable Aaron Paul as the teary eyed morally conflicted drone pilot. Only Rickman delivers in one of his last screen roles.

* 1/2 out ****

A Danish soldier's participation in the Afghan War places immense strain on his family back home, a strain that is compounded up his return when he is put on trial for war crimes. Tobias Lindholm's A War is typical of the kind of Dutch film making their way to America lately and the kind of film they submit every year for awards consideration, namely moralizing, topical, and stagnant, while this particular one doesn't even have a point and adds nothing to any of the genres it dabbles in. The only interesting element is actress Tuva Novotny who plays the role of the wife differently than one might expect.

* 1/2 out of ****

After putting interview subjects through the ringer, three crass roomates (Ewan McGregor, Christorpher Eccleston, Kerry Fox) finally find a candidate to inhabit the fourth room of their Edinburgh flat who summarily winds up dead from an overdose, leaving behind a small fortune of the mob's money. Danny Boyle's feature film debut is an unfunny, cruel minded psychological thriller which drew comparisons to Hitchcock due to voyeuristic situations and body disposal but totally lacks the tension and wit. With characters so unlikable, lacking any human qualities until the screenplay wishes to humanize McGregor on a dime, and for all its so called originality, at its core the plot and themes could not be more hackneyed.

* 1/2 out of ****

An Irishman (Gabriel Byrne) finds the body of a missing Aborigine girl on a fishing trip and decides to carry on with his mates and not report their discovery to the authorities until the excursion is completed, a decision that places undue stress on his already strained marriage to his Aussie wife (Laura Linney). This overlong and unnecessarily expanded adaptation of Raymond Carver's short story "So Much Water So Close to Home" totally misses the point and is intensified by awkward scene transition and a tone deaf performance from Linney.

* 1/2 out of ****

In 1942, along with a team of paratroopers, two members of the Czech resistance (Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan) land in wooded area outside Prague and make their way to the occupied city to carry out their orders from London: the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the ruthless Nazi General and head of security, second only to Himmler and responsible for countless acts of savagery and murder. With Anthropoid (the code name of the operation), Sean Ellis takes one of the most intriguing stories of courage and daring to come out of the war and, while appearing to treat the material faithfully, drenches it in cliches, bad acting, and an overall drabness.

* 1/2 out of ****

After another child is killed by a stray bullet in the onslaught of gun violence in Chicago, a local women's group encourages females the city over to withhold sex from their counterparts until the gang warfare has subsided. A modern updating of Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata, Spike Lee's Chi-Raq is all over the map and wrought in the worst ways, approaching so bad its good territory which is made all the more insufferable by its good intentions and unrealistic aims. Angela Bassett and John Cusack are strong in support.

* 1/2 out of ****

When a nearly half century old letter from John Lennon is uncovered bearing advice of the kind of musician he could have been,  an aging, has been (Al Pacino) playing tired hits to a room of old ladies and going home to his disloyal trophy wife while blowing coke in his Beverly Hills mansion decides to get his ship in shape and contact his estranged son (Bobby Cannavale). Danny Collins is hackneyed cutesy tripe that goes to inconceivably trite places and yet another bad trip for Pacino that further evidences that good actors are only as good as the writers, which goes the same for Cannavale, Annette Bening, and a poorly cast Christopher Plummer, none of whom walk away unscathed.

* 1/2 out of ****

A punk-sore degenerate (Jack O'Connell) storms the set of a popular weekly finance show, taking its flamboyant and arrogant host hostage (George Clooney) on air while demanding answers for the bad stock tip that relieved him of his savings. Money Monster is a preachy, dumb, cliched mess that feels like every "live on TV hostage situation" thriller ever produced meshed with the latest blame Wall Street tripe that has been in demand lately, all served up on a feckless platter with a confused denouement for desert. Jodie Foster is probably the wrong person to direct this material, Julia Roberts, playing the show's director, is her usual insufferable, know-it-all self, and Clooney does what he can with more subpar "socially conscious" material which he again opted to produce with work partner Grant Heslov. O'Connell quickly wears out his welcome and (final gripe) why does Hollywood continually cast Brits to play distinctly American roles, especially when they aren't up to the task.

* 1/2 out of ****

Twenty years down the line, Harry (Jeff Daniels) springs Lloyd (Jim Carrey) from an insane asylum to once again set out on the road for another idiotic odyssey, this time to reconnect with the former's just discovered love child. The long belated follow-up the the very funny original resorts mainly to rehashed jokes, playing for sporadic laughs, and where the Farrelly Brothers found humor and even poignancy in crudity during the first outing here concoct a crudely unfunny and surprisingly amateurish production while wasting the services of their talented stars.

* 1/2 out of ****

The larger than life story of Louis Zamperini (Jerry O'Connell), a troubled son of immigrants who transforms himself into an Olympic runner, competing alongside Jesse Owens in Berlin in 1936. Afterwards, enlisting in World War II on a bomber crew, he was shot down in the Pacific surviving at sea for 47 days, only to be treated to an extended, hellish stay at a Japanese prisoner of war camp at the hands of a sadistic overseer. When I first read Laura Hillebrand's account of Zamperini's remarkable story, I thought it was the ready made, can't miss makings for a big screen treatment, and wondered why it hadn't been so in a more pronounced offering before. But somehow, someway director Angelina Jolie, working with a four man screenwriting team including the Coen brothers and cinematographer Roger Deakins no less), managed to drop the ball and screw up a sure fire thing presenting instead some glossy hokey pap with an ensemble of incompetent actors (O'Connell and Gomhnall Gleeson are especially subpar) told in the best tradition of schmaltzy, immediately forgettable historical epics.

* 1/2 out of ****

As an anti-communist wave spread across the country, with fears of it being dispersed by red agents of Tinsel Town, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) and the other members of the Hollywood Ten were called in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, found guilty of contempt of Congress, jailed, and blacklisted. Defiant in the face of injustice, Trumbo continued to work, polishing off B-picture scripts while anonymously penning screenplays for classics such as Roman Holiday, Spartacus, and The Brave One. Jay Roach's Trumbo is the type of rambling, sanctimonious Hollywood prattle where the audience is supposed to ooh and ahh at the Hollywood legends (John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Otto Preminger) being portrayed on screen by miscast or third rate actors while the filmmakers hope they ignore the total incoherent mess being presented to them. Cranston's performance is credible though one-dimensional and the film never even bothers to provide background or attempt to get inside the character's head or explore his genius. As written by John McNamara from a book by Bruce Cook, Trumbo is the kind of senses dulling drivel its subject wouldn't even think twice of assigning his name to.

* 1/2 out of ****

The story of Whitey Bulger (Johnny Depp), a relatively unknown South Boston crime lord and sociopath who built his bloody legacy not with the help of his State Senator kin (Benedict Cumberbatch) but through an unholy alliance with childhood friend and ascending FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton). From the unthinkable, cold-blooded crime story that served as partial inspiration for The Departed, Black Mass is really just another tiresome attempt to remake Goodfellas (and the third or so that Depp himself has been involved with), here with Irish tough guys being portrayed (poorly) by Brits, Aussies, and other Hollywood  flakes. Edgerton's performance is given to mugging and frankly is embarrassing (which sadly has become standard with him), Cumberbatch brings nothing to the table, struggling with his accent and seeming an unlikely casting choice, and Depp does his best screen gnawing Nicholson impression while combing his hair back, adopting steely blue eyes, and wearing far-fetched Nosferatu makeup. Further, Scott Cooper has yet to establish himself as a competent director (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace) and really seems out of his element here with a poorly written screenplay and an irritating camera addressing narrative approach as told in flashback by Bulger's cohorts during interrogation. The film is saved from becoming a total wash by talented actors inhabiting very minor roles, namely Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Adam Scott, Corey Stoll, and Julianne Nicholson.
* 1/2 out of ****

A Brooklyn orphan (Jake Gyllenhaal) sits undefeated atop the light heavyweight world with his  foster care sweetheart (Rachel McAdams) by his side until his temper and a tragic accident cost him everything forcing him to regroup, with the aid of a lowly, faithful trainer (Forest Whittaker), to win back the title and the thing that matters most in the world: his daughter. Southpaw seems like a 12 year old stayed up all night watching 8 Mile and The Rocky Marathon, wrote a screenplay, and invited his friends over to film it on his phone. Antoine Fuqua's punchless pugilistic saga isn't only packed to the gills with boxing and standard movie cliches, it is shockingly lacking in style and form, hurried to the point of sloppiness, and contains bout sequences that couldn't have been filmed with any more disinterest. The cast is either out of their element (McAdams, 50 Cent) or strong in roles that give them nothing to work with whatsoever (Forest Whitaker, Naomie Harris) and the usually reliable Gyllenhaal enters the ring with an impressive build and coughs up a lot of blood in the process but is surprisingly unconvincing as a slimshady.

* 1/2 out of ****

An alien life form assumes the guise of a seductress (Scarlett Johansson) who travels around Glasgow, luring lonely and eager young men to her residence and forever possessing their souls. Jonathan Glazer, who has made compelling fare from out there material (Sexy Beast, Birth), falls short here offering a plodding, pointless, and tedious exercise to which very little is gained from bizarre, state of the art visuals.

* 1/2 out of ****

A frustrated producer of a disdained, rough-hewn talk show (Seth Rogen) and his uncouth best friend/host (James Franco) find a chance for validation when it becomes clear that Kim Jong-un is a fan and wants to give an interview at his palace at Pyongyang. However, the CIA has different ideas and taps the boys into an assassination plot as no American has ever been able to get this close to the dictator before. The Interview runs way too long, goes for the kind of easy, stupid, and tiresome laughs that audiences have come to expect (and sadly embrace, in many cases) from this crew. Further, the movie isn't really worth all of the now forgotten hype and is pretty pathetic, even for a time waster. Franco is a particular dud, playing for laughs to poor results.

* 1/2 out of ****

Climate changes have led to the onset of a new Ice Age and wiped out most forms of life on earth. The few survivors travel the globe in a state of the art bullet train where a class system has emerged and the many are savagely ruled over by the few, inspiring a revolution led by a common, unassuming passenger (Chris Evans). Snowpiercer is predominated by tepid visuals, a vapid screenplay, and exhausting action sequences. Evans snoozes through another role and Tilda Swinton is both unrecognizable and insufferable. I can't really figure out why people ate this one up and can only speculate that when a movie is different, bizarre, and conveniently streaming on Netflix, then it therefore must be hailed as brilliant.

* 1/2 out of ****