Joe Neumaier

This beautifully observed drama creates an intimate feel and gently observed moments of connection and angst. Then things move forward with almost too heavy of a heart.

The success here is mostly due to nuanced performances and an appreciation for what these kinds of films require.

Unfortunately, there’s a more potent power present here: dullness.

“Natural” perfectly describes Nolte’s performance, too. With his growly voice and bear-like aura, he might be dismissed as a walking sight gag, but don’t let that fool you. Nolte’s way with a joke is nimble, and his delivery is spot-on.

It’s rare when a psychological drama gets us into a character’s head without tricks or a voiceover. This drama from Alex Ross Perry burrows so deep that it’s scary.

Jason Schwartzman does the full Bill Murray in 7 Chinese Brothers.

There’s no fleeing the clunkiness in No Escape.

The cool cast includes casual drop-ins from Sam Rockwell, Melanie Lynskey and Sam Elliott. The actors give off the feeling that we’ve wandered into the middle of a conversation among friends. This being a Swanberg movie, that’s kind of what is happening, complete with tiny epiphanies and people you want to hear keep talking.

Those who came of age during Knievel’s rise, rise and fall will enjoy the fun moments. But this family-sanctioned film comes up short in terms of objectivity.

Director Juan Feldman trusts his actors to charm us, which they do — up to a point. But there’s only so much that can be wrung out of this spinster-meets-exotic stud, “Summertime”-lite affair.

A terrific, quirky New York-set character piece.

This stoners-meet-government-assassins mashup is as meandering and paranoid as a guy toking up in front of City Hall. Sometimes that’s amusing, but most of the time it’s tiring.

The story here, like a lot of bar bands, goes loud to cover up mediocrity. When Streep sings, though, so does the film.

A work of words as lovely as “The Prophet” deserves a better artistic interpretation than this animated venture, which consists mostly of pedestrian, ’70s-quality visuals.

This terrific, full-meal chronicle of the men and their mouths lets us hear from them not only during debates, but also in subsequent interviews, memoirs and articles.

After a while, Vacation starts to reek like a car when the kids have their shoes off. Really, though, that stench is a studio digging through its old titles, trying to find something fresh to remake.

If you’re searching for smart, soulful teen entertainment, you can start looking inside Paper Towns.

When boxing cliches work, they can deliver a knockout. When they don’t, as in Southpaw, we get just punch-drunk.

Some segments are too long, but Famous Nathan contains a unique flavor that history-loving New Yorkers should relish.

Stories about mythic figures at the end of their days are compelling — but they still need some zing. That’s what Mr. Holmes is missing.

Because of his easygoing comedy persona, Rudd is a perfect choice — and another example of Marvel’s savvy casting. He never takes anything too seriously, but he seems invested in the emotional side of the story.

It may not be one of his finest roles or one of his more memorable films. But in its own way, Boulevard may be one that says the most about him.

There’s politics involved, along with personal stories, extraordinary tense standoffs and down-and-dirty drug business.

There are parts of “Escape From New York,” “Air Force One,” “Cliffhanger” and countless Luc Besson movies strewn about. Big Game doesn’t stomp on their memory, but like an overenthusiastic fan, it does smother them with amateurish zeal.

Director Andrea Di Stefano’s filmmaking debut has a spotty sense of urgency, but we get to know neither Nick nor Escobar, so both the innocence and the fiery threat lack impact.

Saldana has a harder lift, as Maggie is striving for something better yet has to often be reactive. In scenes with the adorable Wolodarsky and Aufderheide, she listens and acts intently. But there are too many times when she’s forced to just look worried. Still, Saldana, like so many things in Forbes’ likable but tricky film, does her best in a tough situation.

Most of the young men interviewed by Berg will be seen, and heard, by many audiences for the first time. Their voices are hard to forget.

High art swings sort of low in this watchable but thematically repetitive drama.

The moments when Spy falls apart are when the film fancies itself the real thing. The times when it works are due to its leading lady.

Mostly, though, there’s hopefulness here, and determination to win a fight worth fighting.

Entourage plays like a solid, if slightly too long, episode. But even given the bloat, the cast’s easy camaraderie and a “play it as it lays” atmosphere wins you over.

Aloha isn’t horrible, but it does have a pitiable odor about it, like a dog that’s sat too long on the beach. Crowe aspires to Golden Age of Hollywood repartee, but something feels off, just as it did in “Elizabethtown” (2005) and “We Bought a Zoo” (2011). Everyone just seems to be trying too hard.

The emotions are florid and the entanglements heated. But the film become preoccupied with, as Flaubert would say, the pettiness and mediocrity of daily life. Arterton, though, is plushly magnetic. She draws us in despite the overly lyrical atmosphere.

Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi did a wonderful job adapting “The Borrowers” into “The Secret World of Arriety.” But this slow-moving film, also from a book, tends to plod rather than float.

This fantasy adventure lacks focus when it should be laser-sharp, and stumbles when it could soar.

Because it's so rooted in real life, the drama Good Kill is even more terrifying than “The Purge,” Ethan Hawke’s horror film from two years ago.

Director Tiller Russell sometimes get sidetracked — a dangerous thing in a story that already has a lot of twists, turns and off-ramps. But it’s a story you have to hear, from the guys who lived it and may never live it down.

Screenwriters Chris Shafer and Paul Vicknair’s script feels like a first draft that was written in one night as they got pumped up on Red Bull and speed-watched Netflix. Guys: Another few polishes could only have helped.

Kristen Wiig is scary. That’s a good thing. It’s part of her appeal as a comedian, and crucial in the funny-weird comedy-drama Welcome to Me, which uses the working-without-a-net aspect of Wiig’s humor to unsettling effect.

Despite the incongruous romance and abrupt action beats, Crowe gives a likable, sympathetic performance. But it all starts to dry up before our eyes. Emotions feel false or melodramatic, flashbacks are drawn out and coincidences and connections are forced.

The mystery at the heart of the film is a riddle wrapped in an enigma covered in dullness.

True Story is a prisoner of its own dull storytelling.

This exquisitely acted, genuinely creepy minimalist drama does spin its wheels a bit before a cool conclusion. But the movie has a spark of creativity not seen in “Chappie” or “Eva,” two of the recent robots-among-us flicks.

Just when it seemed Hal Hartley was going to be forgotten, along comes the Long Island-based auteur’s terrific new feature. It’s a follow-up to his opus “Henry Fool.”

What remains rote is how easily the fiend’s victims fall for his tricks. It’s almost as if they’ve seen too many movies like The Barber, and shaved away all common sense.

Just when you thought it was safe to stand up to a bear in the woods, this jarring indie horror drama will make you scurry back indoors.

Leave it to Al Pacino to find the good in the mediocre.

There’s a lot left unsaid in director Anja Marquardt’s chilly yet intimate and thought-provoking indie drama. But what should be said loud and clear is that actress Brooke Bloom is riveting. Emanating everyday grace and real depth, she plays a sex surrogate handling several needy and emotionally wounded clients.

Sean Penn’s bad side makes for good action-drama in The Gunman. There’s a grubby, redemptive quality that makes this tough-minded flick feel like the son of “Serpico” and “Salvador.”

Crisply directed but inescapably pious and, worse, narratively poky.

Branagh, working from a script by Chris Weitz, gives the film emotional heft. James’ performance — never saccharine, often staunchly independent — makes the story’s more regressive elements float away.

Intimate and intellectual, the film — with a title taken from J.D. Salinger — focuses on the type of person you pass on the street, see in a coffee shop or sit next to on the subway who makes you wonder what life he’s led. One full of melody and muse, it turns out.

Often it’s the fighters themselves who best sum up the appeal of “the sweet science.”

Sam Worthington and Jim Sturgess are solid as two of the four kidnappers, but Swedish director Daniel Alfredson pushes the caper button too many times. More sly wit would have helped things come to a head.

Yes, there are good moments from a team of veteran British actors, but overall, this return visit to the 2012 gray-set rom-com is deadly dull.

Forget the minor, derivative scares in The Lazarus Effect. The real jolt here is seeing a well-known name playing a monstrous evil force.

The actors are in good form, but McFarland, USA can’t find its footing.

All the low-hum, behavioral buffoonery gets a bit tedious. Still, cheers to Cross for the satirical road he covers, even with all the potholes.

This is a terrific time capsule with a resonant message.

Director Sergei Bodrov’s movie is based on a kids’ book in which Tom was a 12-year-old, and the actors wisely pitch their performances to a young crowd.

A racial melodrama that, until it stumbles into obvious and maudlin territory, is a thoughtful work thanks to Octavia Spencer, Anthony Mackie and especially Kevin Costner.

Every generation gets the time travel it deserves. Project Almanac isn’t “Time After Time” (1979) or “Back to the Future” (1985) or “12 Monkeys” (1996), but the new release does turn out to be a surprisingly jaunty trip for jaded Gen-Y kids.

Aniston is fine, and sometimes good even, in director Daniel Barnz’s maudlin and overly obvious drama. She has layered moments of sympathy as a woman afflicted with chronic pain. And unlike in the bad rom-coms she does too often, Aniston absolutely shows some serious chops.

The manic energy of Kevin Hart is, surprisingly, toned down in The Wedding Ringer. Which may account for almost the entire first half of this wannabe-raucous buddy movie being laugh-free.

Colangelo shows a mature levelheadedness in depicting how close-knit communities fall and rise together.

Unfortunately, Mann’s newest film, Blackhat, fails to connect.

As an exercise in atmosphere, this claustrophobic creeper does a lot with a little, even if the movie winds up providing just superficial shivers.

Predestination may have the trippiest, weirdest take yet on the time-travel concept.

There are big special effects, of course, but refreshingly, this third (and final?) movie in the franchise is like a pleasant stroll through familiar halls.

Real-life geopolitical blunders aside, The Interview generally hits its marks. And every time it does skid into juvenile idiocy — with too much scatological humor, for instance, and an overuse of “you-go-bro!” attitude — it follows it with a stride or two toward uproarious meta-satire.

There’s far too many moments of sabre-rattling, and too much confusion about who is aligned with whom, and why. Those who know and love Tolkien’s texts will have a vested interest. Everyone else may grow restless.

Franco himself is ponderous playing Williams, which tends to overwhelm everything. A cool concept, and A for effort.

Liv Ullmann’s screen version of August Strindberg’s 19th-century drama is an austere, pared-down take that does one thing extremely well: It allows actors Jessica Chastain, Samantha Morton and especially Colin Farrell to shine. But this emotionally brutal work is anything but cinematically engaging.

So the big surprise of Horrible Bosses 2 is how far it gets on the hopped-up jabberjaw alliance of Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day. In the 2011 “Bosses,” they were swamped by the conceit: White-collar pals try to kill awful employers. Now, freed up to free-associate, they’re totally winning.

There is a serious lack of action here, which might be overlooked if the script were as smart as in the previous films. What passes for parable here is merely overplotting.

If you succumb to The Better Angels, the effect is like falling into a gorgeous photograph, but that also means the narrative in this arthouse film is oblique and sketchy.

Rather than go for big ideas, the movie cozies up to small wonders. Instead of an ah-ha moment, we get a sigh of familiarity. Still, in this biopic about Hawking, there’s one explosion that blows your mind: Eddie Redmayne’s performance. Redmayne as Hawking, if the stars align, should be an Oscar lock.

The movie could have gone several ways, too — and it is heartbreaking to watch this ambitious story choose the wrong one and get lost in space.

Fans of PBS, history and a certain kind of old-fashioned moviemaking may fall in.

This dull thriller wastes the potential of Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth.

Plot is not the movie’s strong suit. But stylish set pieces are, including one epic blast-a-thon alongside a pool.

Director Jeff Preiss soaks his movie in a brownish retro atmosphere, which helps smooth over the many dull spots, but only briefly. Though his cast is strong even when the movie lags, they often feel like soloists doing their own thing next to each other — always melodic but never truly meshing.

Sadly, this gorgeous-looking adult movie plays out the same theme over and over, never going anywhere surprising. At least we have Binoche to guide us to hell and back.

William H. Macy has pitch-perfect instincts as an actor. As a movie director, he’s bound to do better than his first feature, this big-hearted, nicely paced but ho-hum character study.

Strong acting all ’round helps, but unfortunately this is just a slow ride to nowhere.

Just another loud, boy-centric comedy aimed at ’tweens. The movie turns a slight children’s book — in this case, Judith Viorst’s 1972 fave, from which it takes mainly the title — into a charmless mishmash.

The movie hits a beautiful, celebratory note.

It’s hard to fault a movie like The Good Lie for its intentions. But it can be faulted for pandering, both to its subject and to audiences.

Cusack and Jane look like they’re improvising much of the time, and while that doesn’t lead to a better movie, the off-the-cuff approach is the best thing in the film.

Ridley and Benjamin have done more than capture Hendrix’s moves and sounds. They’ve captured his spirit.

Kids who get a kick out of the macabre will enjoy this exquisitely crafted but tedious film.

The movie is tense and coiled for its first hour, then becomes routine in its second half.

With the combo of Neeson’s natural solemnity and his action chops, “Tombstones” treads compellingly amongst lesser thrillers.

Hector wants to connect to our inner child, but it feels more like a long story from a good-hearted but dull grandparent.

This all feels like an homage to Gilliam’s “Brazil,” though Zero Theorem also has shadows of “12 Monkeys” and other films in the onetime Monty Python animator’s cinematic carnival.

The modern, gritty Western Frontera takes a lot of the clichés and delicately upends them to tell a tale about undocumented immigrants.

The Identical is one wacky movie, based on a bit of truth.

Kline sinks his old smoothie teeth into the part of Flynn, but is careful not to draw blood too easily. The man’s pathetic nature, after all, doesn’t spring from his movies. (Flynn worked right up to his death, in 1959.) It’s deeper than that, but also more shallow. Walking that knife’s edge is a trick. Kline finds exactly the right path.