David Hiltbrand

If the Brothers Grimm had devoted themselves to farce rather than scary fairy tales, they might have produced something like Seventh Son, a whacko sword-and-sorcery exercise.

The Boy Next Door aspires to be a cautionary tale, but it unspools like an infomercial - with a shockingly gory ending.

The premise, which initially has a certain interior logic, grows implausible and then nonsensical.

Nothing gets taken here except your ticket money.

Unbroken is a grueling endurance test - for the audience just as much as for its cutout champion.

Most of the humor in this film arises from the ludicrous squabbles among Bateman, Sudeikis, and Day, who can springboard from logic to lunacy in a single exchange.

To give the film its due, the stupidity is served up with energy and good pace. But it takes a thin premise and stretches it like Silly Putty. The title should really be "Obvious and Obviouser."

Gorgeous and disturbing, Big Hero 6 is a departure for Disney: a film targeted at older kids, and the studio's first venture into straight-up comic book culture. Walt would flip in his cryogenic chamber if he saw this anime-style production.

This is a complicated story, but it's efficiently laid out by Poitras in this smartly edited project. She has posed Citizenfour as the final piece of a post-9/11 trilogy that began with "My Country, My Country" (about the 2006 elections in Iran) and "The Oath" (about Guantanamo).

Clare Lewins' dizzyingly disjointed documentary, I Am Ali, has one thing going for it: its subject, boxing immortal Muhammad Ali.

Dracula Untold is a movie that gives good trailer. That's not surprising because it's a visually arresting saga. Unfortunately, the story in the final, full version is thicker than blood.

A sweet, if predictable, kids' comedy. But you have to overlook the conveniently inconsistent behavior of all the characters - except in Garner's case. She never establishes a character.

The raw emotions on display need no translation. David Mackenzie directs the film in a piercingly realistic style. His ingenious decision to forgo a score makes Starred Up even more immersive, because all you hear is the dehumanizing din of prison.

Life of Crime is like an errant golf putt that appears headed for the hole, but just keeps rolling and rolling, all the way off the green. In other words, just missed . . . by a mile.

The script depends entirely too much on a succession of reporters, announcers, and spectators to provide context and detail in clunky, implausible dialogue.

The constant flipping between stagecraft and reality creates a dissonant static that prevents any satisfying connection with the film.

Mostly, Dinosaur 13 is far too long, slogging along without momentum or suspense. These events would have been better handled in a single installment of Dateline.

The gadgetry and fight scenes are nicely rendered. The aeronautical battles, though, fall well short of state-of-the-art. Maybe they're collateral damage to the film's goofy style.

The animation in Planes: Fire & Rescue is considerably better, the landscapes grander, and the 3-D flight and firefighting scenes more exciting.

There isn't an original frame or line of dialogue in Rage. It's strictly paint by numbers. Or in this case, plasma.

An exceptionally fine children's film.

Blended throws a lot of things on the screen, but in the end, it has to confront its awkward and artificial "romance." And that's just ugly.

The result is a funny and raucously lewd comedy fueled with enough penis jokes to keep an actual fraternity in stitches for a trimester.

This is a very New York film with a distinctly vintage atmosphere thanks to the sepia tint and cool jazz that plays throughout scenes - and sometimes over the dialogue.

Lean's classic is something of a picnic compared to The Railway Man, which contains horrific scenes of torture.

Although it is based on a true story, the dramatization doesn't make much sense psychologically.

This is the type of movie best enjoyed as a late-night indulgence on cable. Really late at night, when your eyes are still partially open, but your brain has called it quits.

Veronica Mars is a great deal more than a bonus episode, but slightly less than a movie.

Israeli director Noam Murro does an excellent job of managing and expanding the franchise established so vividly by Zach Snyder.

When the big caper finally arrives, you will neither grasp nor care about what's going on.

With no clear idea how to end the movie, which has come to resemble an excessive episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, writer/director Stuart Beattie (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) uses an old but still effective Hollywood trick: He blows up everything on the screen to smithereens.

Ride Along is a film so casual in its conception and execution, it should be titled Drive Thru.

It's highly doubtful that you'll grasp even a little of The Truth About Emanuel after seeing this film. It's not so much a thriller as it is a ride on a runaway crazy train.

An odd mix of stiff and sumptuous.

Even though it's all preliminaries, no main event, Grudge Match is harmless enough as entertainment. Just not as harmless as its poor protagonists.

The sheer brutality of Oldboy is stunning, especially a deeply disturbing scene in which Brolin tortures Samuel L. Jackson. But this is an unrelievedly grim and hermetic experience throughout, the cinematic equivalent of blunt trauma.

Frozen establishes a strong, confident tone: Cool mythology, rich, vivid animation, and 3-D effects that are actually worth seeing, not just migraine-inducing distractions.

More important, Nicholls has created a rich alternative conclusion, one that poignantly sweetens the love story. It's a novel approach to Great Expectations - sharp and gritty giving way to a sentimental finish - and a satisfying one.

It's a tasty buffet of food gags, both visual and verbal. When they say "We're toast," they really mean it.

A devastating psychological thriller, Prisoners pulls us deep into our worst fear: the Amber Alert. Then it holds us under.

The Family is a film at once strange and intriguing. It can't seem to settle on a tone. The early eruptions of violence are treated as slapstick when they are most assuredly not. But the climactic showdown, which fairly cries out for a touch of humor, is played as a tense and grim action sequence.

Purely as an action film, Riddick is passable, if grueling. The problem is tonal.

Though imaginatively directed by Harald Zwart, Mortal Instruments, which is adapted from Cassandra Clare's YA novels, is marred by significant flaws.

The animated film has all the hallmarks of a straight-to-DVD project - inferior plot, dull writing, cheap drawing.

In its long, punishing final act, Red 2 goes beyond its mandate as a lark to pose as a true action caper.

Let's face it: Kids aren't a very demanding audience. If there's color, movement, and a high quotient of silliness, they're happy.

If you were to judge Let Me Explain purely on its performance portion, filmed at Madison Square Garden during Hart's 2012 tour, the film would merit a full extra star. But at 75 minutes, it feels too skimpy to rave over.

The main flaw of White House Down is that it overstays its welcome, thanks in large part to a silly climax that seems to unfold in three laborious acts. At least, Tatum keeps his shirt off.

The plot and dialogue are still stilted and stupid, but that only proves that Justin Lin, who has directed the last four F & Fs, has his priorities straight.

Yep, it's all fun and games until someone gets brutalized repeatedly. Before you can avert your eyes, it's Katie, bar the door and break out the chain saws.

Sly can still fill a too-tight polo shirt at 66 - in the same way Jack LaLanne did in his later years. But no amount of movie magic can make him pass for a lethal and nimble juggernaut.

It's not so much a miscalculation of his audience by Burton as it is a disregard. What lingers after Frankenweenie, far more than its stunning technique, is a sad suggestion of solipsism.

For sci-fi action fans, it's an instant classic. For everyone else, it's a dark, bloody mess.

It's like a bath of stale testosterone as these Hollywood tough guys from the '80s swap references to their most famous movie lines. Their individual entrances are the primary pleasure of The Expendables 2.

Hit & Run is a pleasant enough diversion - but more of the PPV persuasion.

Part of Me is Perry's visually spectacular testimonial to her own indomitable determination to follow her dreams. The fact that the film lends itself to some really colorful Pinterest pages is merely a bonus.

Rarely has a film so equally balanced macho and nacho, but Wrath does leave us with a few valuable lessons: a.) fratricide is a nasty business, best left to the Greeks and b) fighting fire with fire may sound good, but it turns out to be a really stupid idea.

The problem is that these stoic warriors infect Act of Valor with more wooden acting than you'd see at a ventriloquism school.

The Woman in Black has lovely period atmosphere. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much else besides atmosphere.

There's not much to this movie beyond a slick procession of dark, gleaming violence. But Selene lovers would pay good 3D money to see her fight a parking ticket.

It would be inaccurate to say there are plots in New Year's Eve. There are a number of setups, and these get shuffled through faster than a card dealer in Atlantic City.

Part of Glee's charm has always been its innocent amateurishness, its just-folks aura. The live show clings to that conceit - with some pyrotechnics thrown in.

This is a straight-up gangsta film, yo. Spare us the phony redemption.

The film would be a moth-eaten mess without the wisecracking animals. Not that it's funny with them.

Brannaman is a fascinating character, but Buck is so tightly focused that only avid horse lovers will find it appealing.

Judy Moody has some enjoyable ingredients. The cast, for instance, rocks it, especially young Aussie actress Jordana Beatty as the title character, a bottle rocket with unruly red hair.

Hemsworth looks a good deal more like NFL receiver Jeremy Shockey than he does the immortal Avenger.

When remaking a popular film, you must remember this: First, do no harm to the original. Arthur accomplishes this, with Russell Brand slurring his way neatly through the title role.

The aquatic and surf scenes are spectacular. The story, a clichéed climb to inspiration. Soul Surfer is more parable than plot.

Gyllenhaal is particularly unsuited to this role, his saucer eyes flashing from calm to crazed.

A formulaic and fuzzy feel-good movie.

Dopey but resourceful yukfest.

You want to cut Cop Out some slack because it's just so darn eager to please. So let's grant that it will make a reliably fun companion when it's on cable 10 times a week.

As a cinematic experience, it's like being locked in a coffin for an hour and a half.

Get the soundtrack; wait for the movie to come to CMT.

BMH2 is a harmless, genial outing, a comedy that is amusing without ever rising to the level of funny. You sit through the film with a smile on your face, waiting for the laughs that never come.

Freeman and Hoskins lend the film a level of artistry it doesn't really deserve. Unleashed has a vivid concept, but savagery and sentimentality make strange costars.

This one is so bad that even Ed Norton couldn't get this mess to move through the sewer.

Appalling sequel.

Can be described as whatever is the opposite of a Christmas classic.

An engaging if transparent tearjerker of the first water.

This remake is about half of a very likable film. But in movies (as in auto races) it isn't how you start, it's how you finish. And Herbie should have kept something in the tank for the late going.

This hotly anticipated film delivers on the premise of its celebrated title. But it offers little more in terms of suspense, originality or enjoyment. Mostly, it lays there on the screen like a big lazy boa.

Succeeds because the action is supercharged in a style that recalls Mel Gibson's apocalyptic classic, "The Road Warrior." The characters are more than cartoonish, and the plot grips the road. But it's Diesel who provides the nitro injection

An unusually atmospheric outing. Splatter fans may be disappointed, because Nakata isn't interested in a body count.

Thanks to director Roger Kumble's breathless pacing, Just Friends manages to outrun most of its flaws. And its likable leads - the coolly clownish Reynolds and the feline-faced Smart - fill this empty Christmas stocking with glee.

Oddly enough, though Land of the Dead is more clever and grand than Romero's early classics, it is not as haunting.

Like "Man on Fire," the previous collaboration between Washington and Scott, Déjà Vu is stunning but poorly paced, a film that manages to be both captivating and frustrating.

This insipid take on the teens-in-peril formula, with a snake-bit ghoul chasing kids around the bayou, is truly a fangless task.

This isn't a movie, it's an animatronic theme-park ride - an artificially processed, easily digestible treat for kids.Ho, ho hum.

The whole thing is rather insipid. But Thomas makes it smoother and more palatable than it deserves to be.

The acting is better than the script deserves and Lexi Alexander's cut-to-the-hearse direction lends the film considerable kick.

So achingly empty, it's nearly existential.

The sequel is a dizzying succession of pranks, Candid Camera-like sketches, and, that old crowd-pleaser, the boys actively courting their own grievous harm. This is what you get when a generation grows up watching far too many "Roadrunner" cartoons while sitting on the couch eating bowl after bowl of Lucky Charms.

Surrogates, which borrows tone and content freely from "I, Robot," is all windup and no pitch.

You would think any movie with the word "salmon" in the title would have to be funny. Think again.

If you actually sit through this enervating ordeal, you'll swear that time is Frozen.

The Express eventually reaches its triumph-of-the-human-spirit climax, but it yanks too hard on the heart strings during the long journey there.