The Playlist

The Diary of a Chambermaid makes for an immensely enjoyable companion piece to that earlier masterwork in its freedom, its distaste for conventions, and its embrace of modern European life with all its confounding contradictions.

There’s something fascinating about watching hackery attempt to transcend hackery, and for stretches, Verity achieves a strange sincerity of insincerity. But self-awareness isn’t intelligence, and intelligence isn’t craftsmanship. A movie can be deliciously over-the-top, trashy, campy, completely in on the joke, and still fail to deliver.

The film leaves us with the uneasy possibility that the story can end, the audience can applaud, and the iceberg will simply keep inching towards our collective doom.

The story is simple enough, but the last reel is so hell-bent on trying to surprise that it fails to illuminate. Williams is talented, and Doherty and McAvoy impress, but “Faith” isn’t an exemplar of any of the trio’s gifts.

Rogue Trooper seems unlikely to mint many new enthusiasts for the property. Its greatest value may simply be offering curious moviegoers a glimpse into a comics franchise that would otherwise remain largely hidden from them.

Is the story increasingly messy as it goes on? A little bit, sure. Does it maybe take a bit too long to get to all the fantastical magic stuff? Again, sure. But the voice actors are absolutely euphoric and perfectly cast, and there are multiple scenes where the animation is so inspired, so creative, and spellbinding, you sort of can’t believe it. And, more importantly, you hope Crawford and Mercado get to make something completely original, on this scale, again and again and again.

Despite all these intriguing elements, the movie takes a turn in the final act that is simply jaw-dropping in how misguided it is. A melodramatic twist that almost throws the goodwill the film has cultivated until then out the window of Leo’s apartment.

[Corbijn] and his team have assembled a first-rate mystery that, like the best page-turners, keeps you guessing about what might happen until the very last frame.

Yeoh, a legendary action star in her own right, isn’t doing high kicks or punches to get Eliza out of this jam, but she’s more than skilled enough to convince you this scenario is plausible in the real world. She’s always been masterful at quiet intimidation, which suits Eliza to a tee.

A story about a loving bond between a person and their animal friend is inherently disarming. “Heart of the Beast” knows this and eventually leans a bit too strongly on the heartstring-pulling with heavy-handed music. It’s moving nonetheless, since the purity of Odin’s devotion comes through.