Drew Taylor

In zany set piece after zany set piece, the movie sets itself apart as willing to try anything, do anything for laugh, and it succeeds more often than it fails, even when falling back on some creaky wordplay and the occasional over-emphasis on both fart gags and pop culture references.

It can be said, with some certainty, that ‘Fantastic Beasts’ has finally found its footing. This latest entry is the most fun and most buoyant in the relatively young series. And it’s enough to make you actually look forward to a subsequent installment (should there be one) instead of actively dreading it.

Non-Stop isn't exactly a smooth ride, but as far it being the big screen equivalent of an airplane novel, one that you read on the flight and throw away when you get to your destination, it is wildly successful. Just don't think too hard about it.

Turns out it was even trickier than originally imagined and that for all of its best efforts, The Monuments Men remains an unwieldy, overtly sentimental (but still emotionally distant) epic.

When Planes really takes flight, it can be boldly transporting. Other times, though, it feels like it's running low on jet fuel, full of limp characterizations and questionable set pieces.

Under the Electric Sky shows you the transformative, incredibly positive power of dance music, but in terms of a movie, it falls a little flat.

Writer/director Richard LaGravenese tries his damnedest to deftly navigate the clunky plot, and while it's not exactly a home run, it's still an incredibly stylish, evocative, edgy (was that an incest reference?) and frequently funny (there's even a Nancy Reagan joke) Southern Gothic romance.

Thankfully, as the movie goes along, he tempers his bloodlust, instead engaging in sequences that up the suspense and terror while not exclusively luxuriating in the bloodshed.

If anything can happen (and, trust me, it does), then there’s never a way of predicting where the next scare will come from. And for a genre that oftentimes feels threadbare and hopelessly predictable, this cannot be commended enough.

Riddick, as a character, is best when he's alone, fighting against insurmountable odds, with narratives that serve his singular nastiness.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is a mild lark. It's odd, off-the-wall, and has enough jokes and gags that if you're forced to take your little one to the theater, you won't spend the entire time looking at your watch or planning your escape.

In Brick Mansions Walker is understated and tough, a continued testament to his frequently overlooked accomplishments as a performer. You just wish the movie surrounding him was better.

What Ping Pong Summer lacks in conviction or ingenuity, it makes up for in heart. The nostalgia that the entire film is built upon doesn’t seem misplaced.

While the movie is not without its charms, there's nothing indicating that it's actually a Hammer movie.

There have been some reports that this is the last entry in the series, but it feels like the franchise is (finally) just getting started. "The Expendables 4" anyone?

With just a little bit more prodding and elaboration, the movie could have been rich and evocative. Even if you don't believe what he preaches, the movie (at least) could have bordered on a transcendent experience. As it stands, it's pretty good, but not exactly heavenly.

Ritchie’s ‘King Arthur’ is a pleasing big budget spectacle, oddly aligned to the filmmaker’s thematic interests and startlingly compatible with his signature razzle-dazzle style. In fact, the soggiest moments in the movie are the ones that adhere the closest to that ambitious multi-film strategy, lessening the fun, and emptying its impact.

Strange Magic is messy and uneven and occasionally annoying, but it also dares to be different.

3 Days to Kill might not be art, but it's better than most of the overtly violent action fare that litters the multiplexes these days, thanks largely to the fact that its heart is almost as big as its explosions.

If there's a problem that gets in the way of some genuinely scary moments, it's that the filmmakers (all four of them) don't ever give you enough information to invest in the characters.

Yes, it’s funny and charming and sometimes deeply amusing. But at the same time it lacks any kind of emotional resonance.

All in all, Earth to Echo is passable family entertainment, neither unforgettable nor particularly bad.

He's a romantic and a psychopath and creature of the night. Sadly, Dracula Untold, with its humorless aura and been-there-done-that feel, doesn't allow Evans to inhabit many of these aspects. Instead, Dracula Untold feels largely uninspired.

Apatow indulges in his freeform tendencies to a particularly destructive degree with This is 40, resulting in a movie in which the ambitions are only equaled by the shortcomings.

If you’re not looking for reinvention and loved the first "Sin City," then you'll probably love this one too. It's a gorgeous-to-look-at, brain-splattered case of "more of the same."

Quite frankly, The Jeffrey Dahmer Files would have been better if it had a little more meat on its bones.

While The Town That Dreaded Sundown is ambitious and supremely weird, it fails to cohere into something more resonant.

It might be overlong, overstuffed, and occasionally operatic, but that doesn't mean that it can wring the tears out of you.