Gabe Toro

This one veers further from actual horror into an action picture. “The Purge” tries to unsettle. The Purge: Anarchy wants you to cheer.

Escape Plan deserves some credit for gradually rising from abysmal to almost-mediocre, though it’s needlessly complicated in every step of the way.

Van Damme’s an arresting presence in his old age... His performance is a wonder, showcasing a man who has never found his physical equal, and how amuses himself by telling stories that ultimately mock opponents.

As an affecting romance between a woman caught between two worlds, it very nearly sticks the landing. As a showcase for Ms. Bosworth, never better, it's often sublime.

It’s as if “The Man Of Steel” was ninety minutes of supervillians shit-talking Superman, then casually sticking kryptonite in his face without even pretending it’s a surprise.

Up until the very very end (which uncorks a CLASSIC cop cliché that seemed long dead by now), The Sweeney is straight dumb procedural, no chaser.

Oconomowoc seems like a cartoon pilot that IFC doesn’t pick up, only to be turned into a film.

It's mythmaking for dummies, a Hercules with no poetry, only incompetent brute strength.

The intensity of Burdge’s excellent performance—and Fidell's intense, often claustrophobic filmmaking—carries the picture far, but when she turns away from the camera (and she does often), you can almost feel Fidell reaching for spare ideas.

Unfortunately, there are few screens small enough to properly convey how inessential another deadpan suburbs satire is in 2012.

Ultimately, American Mary simply reveals itself as a film with little on its mind, content to scare rubberneckers into contemplating the backstory of the more outlandish body manipulation jobs they’ve seen in public. A documentary would have sufficed.

A couple of shootouts and chases are impressive, giving the film a little bit of momentum it sorely lacks, but it’s heartbreaking that ultimately the film doesn’t work.

It's not a surprise that he most resembles an older Charles Bronson in Taken 2, as both found the enthusiasm to soldier on in the action genre well into their old age. Bronson had a bit more patience with these films: after this, it's doubtful Neeson will.

About Alex is about too much and too little, a sandbox for its considerable cast, but ultimately just following the reunion rulebook.

An end-film tease for a laughably unnecessary part two feels emblematic of the entire film: McKee and Sivertson aren't interested in laying any groundwork regarding cogent themes or diverse characterization, because there are skulls to be split and blood to be drank.

In other words, here's the same slop you've seen before, only with brand new accents. Also, more pooping.

The Family is ultimately a headache, nearly two hours of baseball bat beatings and dull witticisms, with zero inventiveness or energy.

Like its predecessor, Machete Kills is never less than busy with ridiculousness.

It's like stocking a team with proven performers and hoping that everything else will work itself out at the end, including a rickety script, indifferent direction, and a plot that pretends its final act is anything other than a cliché-hugging inevitability.

He (Fishburne) rips into his dialogue like steak, savoring every word as if he were paid by the syllable. For a moment, we’re in a different movie, one where someone has decided to singlehandedly deconstruct a cliché. It’s a very short moment.

The crime isn’t that Kick-Ass 2 is vulgar (which it is), but that it’s for so little gain.

Hell Baby works as a joke factory first and foremost, a collection of tropes (some mocked) second, and a movie a distant third.

Temple and Panabaker are quite good in their lead roles, to the point where you start to hate the fact that the movie's thesis thrives on the girls being damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

Comes to you courtesy of WWE Films, though it's a considerable departure from their recent family-friendly approach. But it does make sense that the audience for post-apocalyptic films will start out with the Speak & Spell version of this premise, a knuckle-dragging time waster you could predict with your eyes closed. But hey. It's a movie.

The picture isn’t plotted with story beats, only shock moments.

Ultimately of course, this is Statham’s show, and as always he doesn’t disappoint.

The little action in 'Percy Jackson' wouldn’t be out-of-place in a superhero film, which is to say it’s mostly functional, and sometimes quite diverting.

For being a kids-centric film, the picture is relatively slow and joyless.