Ernest Hardy

The characters are put through worn-out cinematic paces, making both them and their tales tedious. Green Dragon plays as hollow catharsis, with lots of tears but very little in the way of insights.

A documentary that is by turns exasperating, illuminating, and intentionally infuriating.

All the characters are broadly sketched, though well acted. Beyond that, the innate tension of the subject matter — and the shamelessly manipulated emotions — carries the film to its uplifting ending.

The cast—and Evans's deft hand with them—makes it worth checking out.

Manipulative, feel-good drivel wrapped around a cloying performance by Kevin Spacey.

Patterson seems more concerned with getting the surfaces right (costume design, production design) than tapping any of the adrenaline that should be pumping through bank robberies, love scenes, and confrontations with barking loan sharks — adrenaline we should feel even if the protagonist is meant to be cucumber-cool.

One of the best films of this year...unlike anything you've seen on the big screen.

We should expect more of summer fare than that it merely be a visual junk-food snack as we cool off in the chill of a darkened theater.

A tad dry but never boring.

One part stand-up comedy concert film (think Kings of Comedy) to two parts social outreach activism, documentary The Muslims Are Coming! works somewhat better as the latter than the former.

The best parts of the movie occur during the outtakes, which are genuinely funny. The movie proper is insufferable.

It's very funny and - at times - even witty in a crude, drunken frat-boy-with-an-epiphany kind of way.

In many ways reminiscent of "Mesrine" but suffers greatly in comparison. It hits many of the same marks -- but the scenes unfold almost elliptically, never really building or illuminating character, and never sparking narrative momentum.

That crack in Vitale's storytelling foundation would be forgivable if the writing, acting and character epiphanies . . . well, existed. As it is, not even Scotti's formidable lips can blow life into this stillborn flick.

It's almost foolish to review Hannah Montana: The Movie as anything other than the latest cog in a cultural phenomenon/mass-marketing juggernaut. The film itself certainly doesn't aspire to anything more.

What follows is a film as odd as its title character. Timothy flings grown-up ideas at the viewer but rips the teeth from them rather than risk our discomfort.

Intermittently amusing, rarely illuminating and ultimately tedious documentary.

What's fresh for these people is, frankly, old news for anyone who has seen even one or two documentaries on similar subject matter.

Stylish, beautifully shot film.

Hardwick doesn't have the chops yet to give the movie the caffeinated zip that it needs to really fly. There are too many dull, flat stretches…(however) the soundtrack kicks ass.

Crushingly airless film -- Food chokes on its own depiction of upper-crust decorum.

Although the hinges connecting the film's elements -- slapstick, political satire, thriller, gross-out shots -- sometimes squeak loudly, they hold the movie together nicely.

There’s nothing new in the movie’s sociocultural insights, especially for those of us already interested in how identity is shaped by pop culture, but the breezy tone and obvious fun being had by the cast make Finishing the Game a slight, low-key cool cinematic essay on identity politics.

Director Christopher J. Scott hits all the technical marks with his look at the history and current status of snowboarding, yet he doesn’t find a strong enough hook to pull in any except the already converted.

Sitcom humor substitutes for wit, and tedious angst supplies the drama.

Empty details pile up, awful performance art is doled out, talking heads are intermittently identified, and the late Brandon Teena is evoked to little real purpose.

Though the film is generally weak, treading very familiar ground, those dashes of insight and humor - along with Griffiths' performance - pull you into the film.

Reiner, in very broad strokes, works in issues of poverty, thwarted dreams and family obligation, and almost pulls it off, thanks to Anthony Edwards, Aidan Quinn, Rebecca De Mornay, Penelope Ann Miller and John Mahoney, who impart humor and humanity to thinly sketched characters.