David Chute

Gandhi, My Father radiates sincerity. It’s a beautifully shot and staged period reconstruction, and is at times impressively acted, at least in the secondary roles. What it lacks is fresh insight.

The cast of the Disney Channel's Lizzie McGuire romped strenuously through a plot that would be old hat as a two-parter on a sitcom.

Mathews has obvious storytelling chops, and a sharp eye for absurdity. But there are sacred cows in hip, progressive America, too, and the truly fearless satirist has to be a carnivore.

Startlingly raw and honest, playing at times like one of those blistering Donald Goines blaxploitation pulp novels, only with Jesus.

The result is a soulless piece of product, an ungainly hybrid of sketchy hand-drawn characters in blocky CGI environments, derivative at just about every level.

This shaggy-dog sequel is ultimately satisfying for the most low-tech of reasons: The competitive bond between the two central characters.

This brittle little confection from director Peyton Reed (Bring It On) may drive you up the wall -- unless you're willing to settle for great frocks, stylish production design and wicked opening credits.

The Whoopee Cushion hijinks here are punctuated with incongruous outbursts of bloody violence.

The film is so single-mindedly determined to be light and comfortable, to not raise a sweat, that it forgoes even the mildest surprises. The only things that get heavy here are the viewer's eyelids.

A solidly crafted family comedy.

As a narrative, “Evangelion 3.0″ may make you feel your brain is turning into goat cheese. As a showcase for pure visual ingenuity and splendor, though, it rocks.

Feels like a big-budget "Dharma & Greg" episode with toilet jokes.

Apart from an extended scene-setting flashback that takes the form of a lavish Farah Khan song-and-dance montage, most of the running time is devoted to wearying flop-sweat farce.

The film's snazzy new automated animation style falls short: The supposedly human face of our metal-plated robocop's partner -- the inevitable curvy female in a leather jump suit -- is an inexpressive, glossy doll mask, untouched by human hands.

Instantly forgettable caper comedy.

Silly, derivative stuff.

Perhaps it is simply impossible, even with affection in your heart, to craft an evocative homage to the expansive musical melodramas of Bollywood on a small-scale indie budget.

The only thing remotely resembling a character arc is handed to Regina King, the ferocious Margie Hendricks in "Ray."

Perhaps only a filmmaker from a country steeped in Catholicism could turn out a consistently sharp and profane "divine comedy" (the title means "blessed hell") that is also, for the most part, theologically correct.

The slathered-on visual textures aren’t quite enough, however, to distract us from the glib, leftie posturing, the lazy writing and the drug-deep existential platitudes.

It’s a tale that was once thrilling, but the thrills seem to have evaporated.

Surprisingly, not bad.

The most exhilarating fight by far is an acrobatic wall climber between Ja Rule and Nia Peeples, choreographed by Hong Kong's Xin Xin Xong (The Musketeer) who, in terms of thrills per minute, is the movie's real star.

The only real-life situations the movie evokes vividly are the circumstances of its own production: underrehearsed actors in hastily staged scenes speaking page after page of awkward expository dialogue.

It simply takes faith for granted as a motivating factor, and thus pulls off the neat trick of never making us feel we’re being preached at -- Yet, as directed by first-timer Adam Anderegg, from Jack Weyland's 1980 novel, the movie is too amateurishly square to make the most of its own ironic implications.

Nepotism can't account for the movie's stylistic horrors. Writer-director Arjun Sablok, a TV veteran with visual ADD, has pitched the candy-colored cuteness at a frenzy that verges on hysteria.

The movie’s entire first half turns out to be an elaborate fake-out, a setup for a plot reversal so extreme it could induce whiplash even in seasoned Bollywood hands. As clumsily engineered by writer-director Kunal Kohli (Hum Tum), the sudden changeover from romance to political techno-thriller is likely to be especially startling for non-Indians.

As a director of melodramatic peak moments, Karan Johar has no peer: He stages a chance encounter on a New York street between an adulterous husband and the two women in his life with the slow-motion virtuosity of a soap-opera De Palma.