David Hiltbrand

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

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

At one point, Statham chases down a sports car while pedaling madly on a kids' bike. Pathétique!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

This film plays out like one of those trigger-happy video games -- it's all cranial splatter. Word to the squeamish: Dawn of the Dead merits a very hard R rating. The depictions of violence are exceedingly graphic.

Heights manages to make the lives of all these beautiful people seem quite tedious. Despite their accomplishments, the only thing they seem suited for is hailing cabs.

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.

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 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.

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.

A formulaic and fuzzy feel-good movie.

Invention - a mash-up of two Jim Carrey comedies, "Liar Liar" and "Bruce Almighty" - flirts with being a one-gag pony. Shocking sincerity loses its comic impact after a while.

If you can stomach the hard-R rating, this is a smart, sexy and funny sprint.

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

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.

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

All that's missing is the spirit and the anarchic humor of the sitcom created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The result is an overdressed, carefully stitched scarecrow of a comedy.

Like "Jumanji," Shorts runs out of momentum before it's half over. That leaves it treading slapstick and killing time until its strained and preposterous big finish.

An engaging if transparent tearjerker of the first water.

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

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.