Claudia Puig

While other Alzheimer's-related films, including "Amour," "Iris" and "Away from Her", delved more deeply into the subject, Alice is understated yet still moving.

Partners is exceedingly well-cast and well-acted, bringing a lightly satirical and witty script to life. Meester and Jacobs have a disarming chemistry, and their conversation is filled with a comfortable shorthand.

Translating solitary musings, raw despondency and personal enlightenment into arresting visuals is a substantial feat and novelist/screenwriter Nick Hornby was the perfect choice to convert the fascinating book into a lively script.

"Imitation" illuminates Turing's brilliance in an engrossing and moving film that features a standout, Oscar-worthy performance by Benedict Cumberbatch.

This is a joyless, frenetic film that is very rarely funny.

This ill-conceived sequel to 2011's entertaining Horrible Bosses is base, moronic, insulting and vulgar. It's also cringingly unfunny.

It's easily the most political of the three films. It also is the most absorbing and best in the series.

Foxcatcher might just be the feel-bad movie of the year. But it's so well-acted that audiences won't want to miss its dark, chilling yet restrained story. A little less muting of this outlandish true-to-life tale, however, might have made it even more mesmerizing.

With its focus on integrity, creativity and identity, Beyond the Lights is a rare intelligent romantic drama.

If there was any doubt that most things in society have been dumbed down in the last couple of decades, Dumb and Dumber To could be exhibit A.

The Homesman aims for a story that's poignant and told sparely, but comes across as mawkish, tedious and self-indulgent.

The year's most riveting documentary.

The film is involving, nimbly acted and smartly directed, though conventional in its narrative style.

The most endearing character in Disney's animated superhero animated movie is a one-man Affordable Care Act. (Make that a one-robot ACA.)

The corny love story is all the more disappointing given the pedigree of the octogenarian actors.

Through most of the movie, the former star of the Harry Potter movies sports an impressive set of curling ram-style protuberances that bring to mind a character in "Pan's Labyrinth."

Thirty pounds lighter, all cheekbones and bulging eyes, Gyllenhaal plays one of the year's most memorable characters in this dark, provocative drama.

While it reaches for the stars, director Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is a flawed masterpiece...The story is ever-ambitious, sometimes riveting and thought-provoking, but also plodding and hokey and not as visionary as its cutting-edge special effects.

White Bird in a Blizzard is blank, pale and flat when it needs to be probing and suspenseful.

A deadly dull and overly familiar movie about summoning ghosts that draws upon nearly every horror movie cliché.

John Wick serves up a noxious, clashing blend of hyper-realistic and cartoonish violence. Too bad there's no cinema decontaminating service that can wash our memories clean of such useless gore.

What makes it slightly better than the others is an affable, low-key chemistry between James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan as star-crossed lovers.

One of the year's most audacious, savagely funny and unpredictable films, it features an outstanding performance by Michael Keaton as the has-been star of a superhero franchise desperate to be taken seriously.

While the story is not as mythic or fanciful as it seeks to be, its predictability is trumped by the film's beauty.

Fury does capture the brutality of war and the misery of life spent largely confined in an armored tank during the war's final weeks, in April, 1945.

As suspenseful as any episode of Showtime's "Homeland," which director Michael Cuesta also executive-produced.

The exhilarating, inventive and suspenseful story hinges on a pair of commanding performances.

A film in which precocious kids say things real kids never would, and larcenous drunks come off as adorable.

The overall message is pleasantly sweet: Bad days happen. Not only are they inevitable, but they serve to make the good times worth savoring. There's nothing dreadful about that.

A classic example of a second-rate courtroom drama.

An awkward blend of fable, travelogue and relationship drama, it's the story's hybrid style, vapid message and predictable arc that disappoint.

Annabelle invites unflattering comparisons with scary movies that came before, but its disparate parts never coalesce into a genuinely fearsome thriller.

Audiences could use a wise and probing movie about the meaning of our increasingly digital, techno-juiced lives.Men, Women & Children is about half that movie.

Lie is openhearted, earnest and well-intentioned.

Grimly dark humor and spot-on production design buttress the captivating story and heighten the unnerving atmosphere...Gone Girl will leave you breathless and haunted.

Maze Runner feels only partially formed.

As a film it feels overly familiar, with some amusing scenes, but not enough to make for a wholly satisfying experience.

Though dialogue is kept to a minimum, the deeply felt, complex performance by Mia Wasikowska and the assured direction of John Curran render the film — based on a true story — a riveting adventure, as well as a dreamy meditative saga.

Unlike his tough guy roles in "Taken" or "Non-Stop," Neeson is at least given some good dialogue. And he's a jot more world-weary than kick-ass here.

As a chronicle of the collapse of a marriage, the film is choppy, contrived and cloying.

Drop is based on Lehane's short story Animal Rescue, and the terrific cast and punchy dialogue make it particularly worth seeing, bringing energy to a deliberately-paced tale that occasionally feels plodding.

Informative, morally complex and supremely well-intentioned, it generally sidesteps sentimentality for appealingly straightforward storytelling.

As forewarned, so avoid.

Peña is a standout, and Longoria is a revelation as the vulnerable, pregnant Paulina. Hers is a decidedly un-glamorous part and Longoria compellingly fleshes out an under-written role.

It's an idea that might have made for a mildly intriguing skit, but blown out into a full-length feature it's at best campy and at worst an amateurish, sentimental schlock-fest.

Cantinflas is a nostalgic, occasionally schlocky, look at the Mexican icon. While a substantial number of scenes are heavy-handed, the actor who plays Cantinflas— Óscar Jaenada — is a standout.

Though it features no battle scenes, The Notebook shines a powerful, unflinching light on the horrors of World War II.

A predictable espionage thriller undercut further by loose ends left dangling, November Man is worth seeing only for Pierce Brosnan's dynamic lead performance.

The two main characters in Are You Here spend much of their time stoned or weeping. Those who watch this dreadful film may seek to escape or sink into despair as well.

The adults fare best. Leonard and Enos have more electricity than the teens do. And the best performance is a low-key, authentic one by Stacy Keach as Mia's grandfather.

The cartoonish mayhem in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For aims for a film noir sensibility, but too frequently the script simply resorts to anachronistic scenes of Jessica Alba twerking.

The best thing Life After Beth has going for it is what star Aubrey Plaza calls its "zom-com-rom-dram" premise. And the clever wordplay of its title.

The Expendables 3 is as boneheaded and disposable as it sounds.

While the adult performances are strong, especially Jeff Bridges in the title role, youthful characterizations are not nearly as illuminating as they were on the page.

One-dimensional characters play second fiddle to the main event. Given the large cast of faceless players, it's hard to care when a few get sucked into oblivion.

Is there a word that means the opposite of Cowabunga? If so, that's the word for the charmless, dull and derivative new take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Calvary is also profoundly compelling for the light it shines on how public attitudes have changed toward the clergy in the wake of the abusive-priests scandal.

The musical numbers, with Brown's remixed vocals and Boseman re-creating his signature dance moves, are mesmerizing.

With its introduction of wonderfully memorable characters and blend of humor, action and catchy tunes, Guardians is perfectly pitched escapist fun.

A gently funny ensemble comedy that feels less like a movie than a short story.

A pleasant, but forgettable, trifle.

An exploration of where science ends and spirituality picks up, this second feature from writer-director Mike Cahill (Another Earth) is captivating, suspenseful and thought-provoking.

While the tension is sometimes muted, this is more than a procedural round of spy games. The deliberately paced but riveting film is made all the better because of Hoffman's breathtakingly nuanced portrayal.

Scarlett Johansson is ideally cast as a rapidly evolving kick-ass hero in Lucy, a stylish action thriller that is equal parts dazzling and ludicrous.

With the lackluster quality of its characters — aircraft, a smattering of trucks, RVs and motorcycles — the movie makes Pixar's Cars and its sequel look like masterpieces.

Viewers seeking a fresh comedy, a seductive romp, or even just an escape from boredom for a couple hours will be left dismally unsatisfied by this stilted, nearly humorless, non-titillating slog.

The film is at its best when it focuses on the more specific conflicts of five people thrown together on Purge night.

More than anything, the movie makes the viewer want to hop on a plane and visit Iceland.

One of the most extraordinary films in decades, this family drama is also one of the most ambitious in scope, having taken more than a decade to shoot. Yet it comes across as effortless and unassuming. Boyhood is an epic masterpiece that seems wholly unconcerned with trying to be one.

It's a provocative sci-fi action film with dynamite special effects, a powerful humanistic theme with echoes of real-life social conflicts, and a truly wondrous performance by Serkis.

Where 1991's "Thelma & Louise" was funny and action-filled, Tammy's story is thin, cringe-inducing and, worst of all for a comedy, not funny. Jokes land with a thud and the pacing is leaden.

Earth to Echo is about adventure, bravery and excitement, but mostly it's about friendship— a subject that resonates with audiences of all ages.

Ruffalo and Knightley make an engaging pair of colleagues and their musical adventure together results in an enchanting, gently funny and occasionally poignant story.

A rare hybrid that perfectly blends the dazzle of a futuristic action thriller with the intellectual substance of an art film.

The film's most engaging character is not actually human: It's Manhattan, of course, a point made repeatedly over that protracted dinner by the voluble lovebirds.

Silly, unfunny and formulaic.

What was blandly charming on stage — characters addressing the audience, ultra-broad jokes and showbiz patter — feels contrived, cheesy and cliched onscreen.

The car chases are unremarkable, but the stunts — which comically juxtapose Tatum's athletic grace and Hill's stocky clumsiness — are a hoot.

Myers' sense of humor is interspersed throughout the engaging film, which consists of a host of wild stories, as well as vivid archival footage, talking heads and cleverly made re-enactments.

A thoughtful film about ideas — creativity, the power of language and the eloquence of visuals — it features two impeccable performances full of vitality.

Cruise and Blunt have a measure of chemistry, however their characters go undeveloped, given short shrift amid the spectacle. But the pulse-pounding action scenes are briskly directed by Doug Liman.

The movie is well-written, well-acted, acerbic, funny and wisely observed. Fans of the book will be glad to hear it is faithful to Green's tale.

Night Moves is a thoughtful, clear-eyed and provocative film that raises thorny questions but doesn't offer easy answers.

A remake of a 2003 French Canadian movie, The Grand Seduction is more bland than grand and more eccentric than seductive.

It fails to live up to its early promise, mostly because of an uneven tone and murky character development

Like "Blazing Saddles", A Million Ways to Die in the West has a slew of comic set-ups and one-liners that kill. And, as with Mel Brooks' classic 1974 film, it steps unabashedly into vulgar terrain.

The Love Punch is a romantic comedy as painfully unfunny as a sock in the jaw.

Think of it as a thrill ride with gravitas.

You have to work hard to make an African vacation seem unpleasant. And Adam Sandler nearly pulls it off in Blended.

Godzilla 2014 is a more somber and frightening reboot than the cartoonish 1998 movie.

Glimmers of a fascinating and lively period film surface and fade in the first half-hour of The Immigrant. What predominates is a dully morose, overheated and implausible story.

When it focuses on the clash of cultures, laughs naturally flow. When it follows the familiar sports movie playbook too slavishly, it grows tedious.

Neighbors is the "Animal House" for an era in which food fights seem quaint.

Mothers deserve a much better break than the hectic, shrill and dismally unpleasant Moms' Night Out.

While the film is not nearly as evocative as Egoyan's 1997 masterpiece "The Sweet Hereafter" (also about children who died tragically), it is still an intrinsically fascinating story.

The layered film's blend of Austen-style romance, courtroom drama and historical look at the British slave trade works surprisingly well, though there are moments — especially involving the conniving suitors — that teeter on melodrama.

Aerial sequences are often thrilling. However, interpersonal relations are front and center in this installment.

Narrated by Johnny Depp, a portrait emerges of an anarchic, humble spirit who now fears becoming "a visual polluter."