Betsy Sharkey

Not "An Affair to Remember," mind you, but a welcome change from the Nicholas Sparks brand of mush that has overtaken the hearts-and-flowers corner of movieland.

The banter between Brian and Arielle is easy and often amusing. But despite all the tangled sheets and entwined bodies during assignations at the St. Regis hotel, the relationship never moves beyond the look of puppy love.

Tension is one of Home's biggest issues. There just isn't nearly enough of it. Story is another.

Instead of a pot-boiling crime noir like the one that exists in the pages of the late French novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette's "The Prone Gunman" (which sounds better in French), the adaptation is a frustrating fiasco that kills the material and squanders its exceedingly fine cast.

Despite Almereyda's invention in approaching this tawdry Shakespearean tale, he misfires badly. All that is left is the semblance of Cymbeline.

The movie has a few bursts of energy and invention — a cleverly executed jailbreak is one. But the story drifts and the pacing drags, failing to gather much steam until the final moments.

All the Wilderness seems tailor-made to play to the actor's strengths — Johnson's script is as lean as Smit-McPhee, both proving adept at doing more with less.

Romance, or the desire to find someone special, isn't a bad thing — if it's not the only thing. But as it stands in DUFF, the denouement at prom has cliché written all over it.

The Last Five Years is not unpleasant to watch — the leads are delightful — but as a movie experience, it's not especially satisfying either.

What saves the film is that it is also packed to the gills with the classic slapstick sweetness that makes SpongeBob — in or out of water, on big screen or small — hard not to laugh at and love at least a little. Giggle, giggle.

Although the film has little of the smarts and the sizzle of the best of Goldman, it does have a splash of the writer's sense of irony.

The look helps provide a little subtext, but not enough. For such an emotional piece, the dialogue stays too close to the surface. More problematic, the trio's encounters feel contrived; you can see the filmmaker's hand staging each one.

It's not quite a match made in heaven, but there is considerable comic chemistry between the high-octane Kevin Hart and the energy-conserving Josh Gad. A good thing since theirs is the only relationship worth watching in The Wedding Ringer.

This portrait of a woman on the verge — of success, of suppression, of submission, of rebellion — is never fully realized.

The finale is not an all-out disappointment. It should satisfy the franchise's fans, and it does wrap up any loose ends you might be wondering about.

Ultimately the documentary falls short of explaining why Vreeland not only made his choice but maintained it.

The heat that should saturate the film as betrayals mount and boundaries are broken flickers and dies many times over Miss Julie's languid two-plus hours.

The pun is a gun for Penguins' writers. Not a sharpshooter rifle, but a machine gun that unloads a nonstop quip barrage, mowing down the real promise of this 3-D animation action comedy.

Make no mistake, despite some well-earned laughs, "Horrible Bosses 2" is not what qualifies as a good movie or even a particularly good R-rated comedy. But there is more to laugh at in "2" than the first, so let's go with less horrible, shall we?

The sequel sometimes feels like a series of gags ginned up by a gaggle of writers who are not always on the same page.

It's when the film detours into Irving's personal attachment to the birds, including photos of her as a child on the beach, that Pelican Dreams gets seriously off track. Fortunately, pelicans are interesting creatures and the time spent with the lens focused on them is payoff enough.

By boiling too much down to black and white, Camp X-Ray's ability to say something significant is diluted.

On the surface, Anderson seems to have all the necessary pieces for a surreal psycho pop. But the fear factor eludes him, leaving Stonehearst Asylum more insipid than insane.

At the moment, modestly amusing does not stave off that desire for a really great live-action family film after years of watching the terrain land-grabbed by animation.

It turns out Two Night Stand is a one-act sex comedy badly in need of two more — acts, not nights.

You can see the years of effort, the polish and precision that went into creating The Boxtrolls... But somehow it still doesn't add up to enough.

All the possibilities of a richly drawn family squabble fade faster than the final days of summer.

In trying to create a balanced portrait of the conflicts and the ordinary people affected by them, director Michael Berry, who co-wrote the screenplay with Luis Moulinet III, chips away at the authenticity and intensity that an issue-driven film like this sorely needs.

Instead of a cautionary tale, they've looked at Flynn's life through rose-colored glasses.

Cantinflas the movie tries to capture the magic of this much-loved legend, and it does so in fits and starts.

There is an interesting kernel of a story about beauty, betrayal and brutality inside each of the film's scenarios and a cast that could handle anything thrown at it. But the kernel never pops, and all we're really left with is a whole lot of neo-noir corn.

On the face of it, tackling the warring sides of science and the spirit seemed a good fit for the writer-director, who continues to be drawn to existential themes. There are occasional flashes of the exceptional, but the film's dodgy story can't sustain them.

The Purge: Anarchy is a good deal bloodier, but also — gulp — a good deal better than its predecessor. Make no mistake, a good "Purge" does not equal a good movie, but the post-apocalyptic thriller is slightly more interesting because it takes itself, and its menace, more seriously.

Since it's a comedy, much could be forgiven if the film was consistent in generating laughs, but the comedy is as erratic as the couple's sex life.

There are some laughs and, at least on screen, more than a few tears. But it doesn't come together with the kind of satisfying punch a comedy should deliver.

Let's say "Bayed," as in "being Bayed," is the core principle at work in the films. In general, being Bayed means being beaten, blasted, bashed, crushed, melted, morphed, reconstituted and remade over and over and over again.

In blurring the lines between truth and fiction as well as right and wrong, Third Person maddens far more than it intrigues. Indeed, more curious than anything about the movie itself is how such an artistic stumble happened.

Everything unfolds at a glacial place, with so many emotional beats overplayed that the experience is more wearing than moving.

MacFarlane is a very funny dude, and there are times A Million Ways to Die is indeed funny. But too often the movie feels half-baked.

For the most part, the florid flourishes are so lightly played by Owen and Binoche, screenwriter Gerald Di Pego's melodrama can almost be forgiven.

Ironically this big, lumbering movie could have used more, not less. More Godzilla without question, and more emotional content for its very good cast too.

The script, written by director John Slattery and Alex Metcalf, drifts too quickly into blue-collar cliches, leaving its interesting collection of characters only half-drawn at best.

Belle is greatly buoyed by Mbatha-Raw's performance. She infuses Dido with a confident and intelligent grace that keeps you engaged long after the tangled story has let both the actress and audience down.

The division between the personal and scientific stories is not a clean one. It gives the film an uneven rhythm as it at times lurches between the two women's very separate lives.

The Occasionally Amazing Spider-Man 2 might be a better way to think of the not-always-spectacular but sometimes satisfying Spider-Man sequel.

Slyness, slapstick and sex can often be mixed to amusing effect whatever the specifics — the original "Hangover," for example, did a credible job of it — but The Other Woman is ultimately undone by its indecision.

Unlike the teeming world living between the lines in Munro's story, there is not nearly enough in Hateship Loveship to keep you invested.

What the movie could use is a little more faith — in the power of its message and the art of filmmaking. Instead, Heaven is sincere to a fault, and the closer it gets to heaven, the more it wavers.

Wonderfully animated and well-voiced, Rio 2 is nevertheless too much. Too much plot, too many issues, too many characters. But not too much music.

Between Law's performance and Shepard's script, which brims with explicit and expressive dialogue, the movie is remarkable for its ability to exhaust, irritate and also entertain.

The man was not, by most accounts, pedestrian. In trying to follow so closely in his footsteps, the film, however, is.

Waugh has a good feel for the cars and action extremes, while director of photography Shane Hurlbut acquits himself nicely. But the screenplay written by George Gatins is full of potholes.

The animation style mirrors the original, which is simple in an appealing way. It is particularly effective in the action sequences, which make the most of animation's ability to create a playful reality. But the multi-layered historical references designed to be adroitly wry are a trickier gambit.

The spectacularly brutal fighting is the film's main calling card, and in that "Rise of an Empire" doesn't disappoint. Still, in the battle for best guilty pleasure, I'd give it to the Spartans of "300," by a head.

It is the most nonsensical crime caper to make it on screen in a while.

The film is helped by Costner's self-deprecating, aw-shucks charm. The actor is game whether he's being asked to fight off truculent teens or treacherous terrorists.

For all of the substantive issues underpinning the documentary, it still feels a slight film for Berlinger, and very unlike the documentary veteran's best work, found in his dogged following of the West Memphis Three case.

Every time things between blue-collar David (Pettyfer) and pretty, privileged Jade (Wilde) get sticky — either kissy/gooey or teary/hurt-y — and the film could go deep, "Endless" morphs into music video territory.

Although the movie isn't a complete disaster, it's not your father's RoboCop either.

Garcia and Farmiga have such an easy, natural chemistry that their on-screen sparkle helps mitigate the film's weaknesses. At others times, it serves to underscore what might have been. It's a feckless conundrum.

What makes this film particularly bedeviling is that you get the sense there is a nice guy behind this mess, one not so callous about matters of the heart. If anything, the raunch seems forced. The closer the film gets to real emotions, the more authentic it feels.

Gimme Shelter, a ripped-from-real-life story of a pregnant teen's journey toward hope, is filled with very good intentions, very bad dialogue and a surprisingly affecting turn by its star Vanessa Hudgens.

A hyper-realistic-looking, character-driven story of survival with talking dinosaurs that can't decide whether to inform or entertain. The film and its featured creatures do a little of both but modestly.

With so many sight gags and nearly every living comic in the world making an appearance at some point, the entire operation, like Ron's ego, feels a bit bloated.

This drama, about an ordinary guy trying to keep his infant daughter alive in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, is sincere but struggles as much as its hero.

Many of the transitions between narrative and music are rough. The temptations of the street, all too real in the real world, feel forced. Confrontations become clichés. The substance of human motivation is missing. And thus the heart never beats as it should.

A joyous, raucous, righteous film but also a frustrating and disappointing one.

Peirce has done a remaking rather than a reimagining.

Far too conventional underneath all the trappings, you wish it would howl.

This is Shakespeare lite, which ultimately makes for Shakespeare slightly trite.

The struggles in the movie are with the moments when life and liberty are on the line. The ones that should put you on the edge of your seat are more likely to have you glancing at your watch.

Thanks for Sharing is a bit like the recovery scene it digs into — filled with intoxicating highs and dispiriting lows.

It's a challenging film, but maybe not as challenging as it should be.

For a movie about planes, a lot happens on the ground — those refueling stops can take forever. But the animators take advantage of the power of flight, packing the action sequences with daredevil runs. But it's a race, and a kind of sameness occasionally sets in.

We're the Millers is full of moments that feel as forced as the marriage of convenience — and contrivance — in the movie.

The To Do List is neither supergood nor superbad, but passable doesn't exactly raise the bar.

Red 2 is much more of a mixed bag than it should have been.

The animation is snappy in the way it handles an extremely eclectic-looking bunch of monsters. The 3-D effects are nifty but, as with so much about "MU," not necessary.

Make no mistake, it is lovely to look at this celebrity bedazzled bit of L.A. crime history for a while. But the movie ultimately leaves you feeling as empty as the lives it means to portray.

Violet & Daisy comes out of the gate guns blazing. Too bad it ends as a misfire.

The movie is not exactly a laugh riot. But its comedy is amiable enough — and surprisingly clean.

When the movie should touch the heart, it just misses. When moments should produce gales of laughter, it struggles for a smile. When panic and fear should set the heart racing, it doesn't.

The great failing of The Iceman is not in giving us a monster, but in not making us care.

That sense of extreme, excess, over-the-top everything is there from start to finish. And isn't that what Bay fans count on even at cut-rate prices?

The promise it begins with doesn't pay off. And while Arthur Newman is not a complete disaster, it does leave you wishing the romance and the ride had been a whole lot smoother.

Almost from the beginning the message overwhelms the medium.

Pawn's cops and robbers game could have been far better played.

Music in Babe's and Ricky's is righteous and raucous and easy to come by, but the story of Mama Laura is more elusive. And that is the frustration.

It's massive, all the retaliation and the world saving stuff. And it's convoluted. Frankly no one should have to think that hard to keep up with the Joes.

Good stuff comes when bad stuff happens; that's when some of the movie animation prowess kicks into high gear. But too many of the "solutions" the guys concoct are so impossibly complex or just downright ridiculous — puppetry comes to mind — that like the continents, it's a little too easy to drift away.

With so many twists, the movie feels like it's trying too hard. Some moments are cleverly constructed; and others seem as if the filmmakers have left themselves no plausible escape.

The war crimes and romance stories theoretically run on parallel tracks, but the overall pacing is ragged and the dialogue frequently out of step with the characters we've met.

The new thriller from South Korean director Park Chan-Wook is a bizarrely perverse, beautifully rendered mystery that you may or may not care to solve.

Beautifully envisioned, badly constructed, the only truly terrifying things in the new horror movie Mama are the fake tattoos, short black hair and black T-shirts meant to turn "Zero Dark Thirty" star Jessica Chastain into a guitar-shredding, punk rocker chick.

All the talking would be fine, but the dialogue is preachy, the drama too earnest and the action kind of sluggish, though it's hard not to get a jolt when Johnson jumps behind the wheel.

The heart of this film is on the road with Bateman and McCarthy. If not for their brilliance, Identity Thief would be running on empty.

If you're going to saturate a film with so much violence, at least it's nice to see an action hero - or antihero - actually feeling the pain.

At first Tabu is intriguing. But the enigma gets wearing as the director's attention is divided between the homage to the silent film era and the film's underlying exploration of the regret of old age.