Joe Neumaier

For all the trickiness and bluster, Shutter Island is dead inside.

Cooper, Torre and Dane DeHaan, as a soldier smitten with a local girl, stand out among a strong cast. With its big ideas on an intimate scale, this is Sayles' best in a decade.

The cloddish, confusing action scenes make no sense. Young viewers’ eyes will glaze from the first-person video-game style. Nonaction scenes feature people sniping at each other, or, in Arnett’s case, croaking out the script’s half-assed witticisms, until the Turtles show up.

The end result is like Quentin Tarantino reworking a Charles Bukowski story.

It sharply fuses the humor and heart of the earlier films with a satisfyingly heavy-metal strength — and a darkness that’s more than earned.

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.

A little more variation in the script, though, might have yielded something truly great.

Boseman is watchful, winning and confident, but never saintly. Yet he keeps Robinson’s moral spine aligned with his skill and self-respect, showing how he needed all of those to succeed.

Sadly, Hit & Run, for as much sporadic fun and genuine heart it has, runs out of gas. But it's not for lack of trying, and that counts for something.

Despite a few fiery breaths, there’s mostly hot air from a lot of serious actors slumming it.

This terrific film certainly contains the spark of discovery.

Cenac is witty and Heggins has a wary stillness, but the movie itself seems too shy to let them really engage each other.

If it were just Hurt's show, it'd be a helluva trip.

The movie is filled with fun '50s Americana.

This sometimes-taut little thriller is sullied by its unnecessary masquerade as a documentary presented by HBO’s gonzo news show “Vice.”

Early scenes set up the tragedy, but the majority of Oliver Hirschbiegel's movie is set in a TV studio where the two eventually face each other, and the tension, unfortunately, quickly becomes stagey.

Jamie Bell gives a watchable performance in this self-conscious, coming-of-age drama, though the film's overall effect is best described as David Lynch lite.

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.

Actors are left with too much time to play emotional symphonies, while inevitably having to hit too many required notes.

It’s playful, stable and sexy, thanks to a cast that knows how to find the sweet spots.

Low-budget, grubby and gleeful, but with a nice sense of style and apparently an endless supply of dry ice. Points deducted, though, for a too-easy alien-corpse joke.

Marshall shows off the breathtaking landscape, but with interiors, he populates the ale houses and encampments with cliches - like dueling female warriors, one a mute and the other a white-haired vixen.

This doc, made by Kunstler's daughters Emily and Sarah, doesn't pretend to be unbiased, but it nonetheless has an unblinking view of its subject. They must have learned a thing or two from dad.

Director Michel Leclerc's comedy plays like one of those foreign-movie spoofs Jerry and the gang would go to see on a "Seinfeld" episode. Only here, there's no "young girl's journey from Milan to Minsk" - just from madcap to moronic.

A streak of "Cinema Paradiso" runs through this Italian dramedy - and while it lacks that film's overflowing emotion, it's filled with its own artfulness and warmth.

Yen, who also choreographed the fights, is a natural hero, and the large canvas and pseudo-superhero tactics work for a bit, but then the action gets sidetracked in place of myth-building.

Marie is middle-aged and at a crossroads in All the Light in the Sky, a movie that feels the same way — listless and searching and on its way toward something good.

When a movie is this strange, it's gotta count for something.

Though much of the film is overcooked and overwrought, it’s well-played, and writer-director Kieran Darcy-Smith keeps us guessing, and watching.

Writer Sarah Koskoff's nuanced script and director Todd Louiso's ("Love, Liza") delicate tone follow indie terrain, but go the right way.

The American, a movie as coiled as a snake and as still as a sleepy villa, is the rare grownup thriller that knows the link between peace and danger and the tension that comes from both.

African Cats, while often adorable and at times gripping, is more of a TV-ready experience.

This is what happens when the Norwegians try to make their own "Blair Witch Project": We get three-headed trolls that hate Vitamin D and references to "Deliverance."

The movie soon turns into only a production-designed run-and-chase game, and our curiosity about what happened to Earth and the crew is teased and teased again until the movie’s big letdown of a reveal.

Some of the talk gets a little bombastic, but it's hard to deny the thrill involved.

Sparky voice performances and heart make up for this family film's theft of Tim Burton's sensibility.

The genuinely sweet nature of this sometimes clunky movie is mixed with a little sass, and wins you over.

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.

When people complain about movies glutting the market, this moronic “Black Swan”-meets-“Phone Booth” thriller is what they mean.

Michael Starrbury’s astute script draws us in slowly, depicting the realities of Mister and Pete’s lives in progressive reveals.

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

A taut drama that manages to be thoughtful without forgetting it's a creep-out.

Though this well-observed, wry drama is determined to be quirky, its most endearing quality, like that of its heroines, is a willingness to wallow in foul moods and come out the other side.

Occasionally stumbles into charm but more often is just wayward and hazy. It makes you hungry for a real movie from writer-director Jonathan Levine.

This fawning appreciation wears thin, despite the good-natured clowning of Alabama dentist/would-be actor George Hardy, who's like a poor man's Bruce Campbell (our apologies to Bruce Campbell).

It never comes to much more than an atmospheric head-scratcher.

Based on a true story, the movie's best scenes involve its heroine breaking down barriers by force of will as much as by legal wrangling.

Well-acted and grounded in reality, Brick Lane is never overly emotional, even when it deals with the days after 9/11.

All of that ends up making this movie — originally titled “Jeff,” in a telling bit of overpersonalization — feel like a late-night cable-news hack job.

Like the bloated channels it parodies, the movie stretches to find something to say, then settles for stupid.

A delirious, manic, push-the-limits comedy of gaudy amorality that tests the audience’s taste. But it’s a gamble that works, since you leave this adrenaline trip wasted, but invigorated.

While Lomborg is an engaging though sometimes smug subject, director Ondi Timoner allows a coterie of scientists to spend too much time puncturing Gore than propping up Lomborg - who comes off as charismatic and engaged but, ultimately, merely a contrarian.

The result: a dangerously cracked creep flick.

Barrymore is a delicious opportunity to watch the great Christopher Plummer perform the role that won him a second Tony Award. But it's also a lesson in the pitfalls of personality-based minimalism. While Plummer acts his heart out, the script becomes one punchline after another.

Everyone thinks sex is easy to do, but that doesn’t mean they’re good at it. The To Do List is exactly that type of movie, one that thinks a sex-obsessed version of a John Hughes comedy by its very nature is hilarious. It’s not, but there are still some things to like here.

Writer-director James Mottern's drama has a lived-in feel, but is notable mainly for Michelle Monaghan's glam-less turn as Diane.

As narrated by Mickey Rourke and with appearances from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, the movie captures the men who mix “sports, entertainment, art and a way of life” — as the former Governator describes body sculpting. It’s their honesty that looms large.

Movie references abound, but there's not enough humor to fuel even 90 minutes.

There are laughs in Magic Mike XXL.... But the real eye-openers are the moments of sex-positive, woman-positive and emotion-positive contemplation.

It's hard to talk about The Soloist without falling into cliches, because this well-meaning but ham-handed drama is full them.

Dilutes the idea some by giving every four-legged hero a story arc. And there's not enough of the first movie's super-erudite monkeys. Yet the sitcom-style silliness is still there, and it's nice to see that the old "grin or frown as you wave a hand across your face" joke still has cross-generational, and cross-species, appeal.

Though Julia Leigh's surprisingly dull debut is meant to present the mysteries of a troubled young woman, you're more likely to wonder why its star, Emily Browning, is drawn to such demeaning roles.

Director Mateo Gill's autumnal movie has elements of other late-era Westerns in its blood, but it isn't easily pigeonholed. There are shootouts and standoffs, as well as great scenes like one between the grizzled, perfectly cast Shepard and Rea discussing the cost of criminality and the changing morals of old men.

Nachmanoff fills the movie with a sense of gripping, '70s-style grittiness that helps undercut the web-of-evil tone.

Empathy for the all-too-real plight of the working poor drives this heavy but bold indie. Sadly, though, it falters under the weight of too much drama.

Too bad its wide net ultimately results in diminishing returns.

Wallace layers on some era-specific meaning to Chenery, who seems to be simply following her lineage, thanks to Lane's quietly dignified performance. Malkovich is more fun, though Laurin isn't as outrageous as the movie thinks he is.

Here we go again. Danish director Lars von Trier has pumped out Nymphomaniac: Vol II just a few weeks after “Vol. I” came out. And the results are the same: zero stars.

This time the movie really is — as the old theme song promises — sensational, celebrational and Muppetational.

Where on the evolutionary scale of wacky-dudes-learn-to-grow-up movies does Role Models fall? Certainly less evolved than "Meatballs," but head and hairy knuckles above "Daddy Day Care" or "The Benchwarmers."

Roth and Hurt glower semi-engagingly, and while Norton's scrawniness works, he seems intellectually disengaged, despite his helping to craft Zak Penn's script.

In a film that deliberately recalls 1970's "Five Easy Pieces," Dano's performance as a lost dreamer running from adulthood resonates beautifully.

It's a shame neither actress can truly "go for the jugular," as Alan says at one point. This is a work that would allow for it.

A frisky, feisty heist flick with brains and charisma, the movie may make a few errors, but they’re forgotten in the blink of an eye thanks to all the twists, turns and close shaves.

Unfortunately, Elysium devolves. It doesn’t address the ramifications of making everyone healthy for eternity, or what it is on Earth they’re making or digging up that fuels whatever economy is left on the space station. For such a well thought-out premise, there’s not a mention of how capitalism works in this futureworld.

Utilizing copious film footage of her puckish subject and new interviews with Haring's contemporaries, gallerists and mentors, director Christina Clausen makes her fascinating movie as big-hearted, city-centric and energetic as its subject.

Good thing the Aussie star has the role down to a science, since the rest of The Wolverine is a howler.

This crisp, involving South African drama comes at you in waves, changing course and tone expertly.

Gets old fast.

The film winds up as a chronicle of uneasy forgiveness.

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.

Yoichi Sai's movie may be a bit tough for young viewers, but it is gentle and illuminating.

Despite a pleasantly laid-back demeanor, you wish it would just get focused.

The whole movie is about piecing together broken parts. It may not always come together, but what it makes, if you look at it the right way, is endearing.

For all the obviousness on the surface, and despite some forced last-act havoc, Breathe In works like a piece of chamber music. It goes up to the edge of emotion, circles it, then backs away. But the notes not hit seem as powerful as the ones that are.

The movie's lack of Michael Moore-style dynamism has a dulling effect. What saves it is the human face it puts on the crisis, and its indictment of corporate greed.

The movie lumbers, and Loach and screenwriter Rona Munro's affectless approach winds up tamping down the movie's good intentions.

Director Travis Fine gives his period details flourish and lets Cumming and Dillahunt create well-rounded characters, but Any Day Now winds up treacly.

Though much of the film's power is tamped down by the passive storytelling style, Dillane's performance as the adult Jakob is compelling, and Ayelet Zurer is beguiling as Jakob's late-in-life soul mate.

The drug that Ma-Ma trafficks in, Slo-Mo, slows its user's brain to 1% of its normal speed. Dredd unfortunately makes you feel as if you, too, have partaken.

Unfortunately, the fantasy-thriller they're in eventually falls apart, becoming a much sillier, less substantial movie than its lead actors deserve.

This heartbreaking and essential look into the lives of those who put so much into educating other people's children ought to be seen by anyone concerned about the fate of the public school system, and the nation as a whole.

Director Mike Newell’s rich take on the story is a fine introduction for new viewers.

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

So now we have a full-length Machete movie, and it turns out that, as usual, less is more.

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

This wildly entertaining Bollywood action-comedy, with Indian superstar Shahrukh Khan in two roles, pays homage to such '90s flicks as "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "The Matrix," adding whimsy and loads of heart.

Often static and follows a familiar trajectory. Yet it has power, partly because Simmons does a fine job of showing how hurt Henry is that his taste didn't imprint on Gabe beyond grade school; what was their music became, simply, dad's music.

Oddly engrossing, off-kilter drama.

As Richard Kuklinski, the Garden State guy who sleepwalks into an infamously deadly life he was born for, Shannon hits a whole other level.

Trust - a drama about the dangers of teen sexting and online predators - plays as prurient, ham-handed and amateurish.

Madagascar 3 can't upgrade its own shtick, becoming a craven example of a fast-buck, no-fun family film.

Dennis Quaid lends some needed saltiness as Hamilton's supportive dad.

So with a wink, a nudge and a heaping portion of Midwestern charm, Thin Ice reels us in. Comparisons to "Fargo" and other convoluted little capers like "House of Games" are fair, but when taken on its own terms, this quirky drama thrums along in a low-blood-pressure way.

Harlin even makes poor Kilmer go running about. Just like that image, "5 Days" is embarrassingly clumsy.

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.

Culminating in a high-scoring, exciting game, "Gunnin'" scores.

Director Jaak Kilmi's remembrance of growing up under Soviet rule never tries to be anything more than a curiosity.

A colorful account of the life and art of the recently retired Drew Struzan, whose amazing poster work from the 1970s onward still delights cineastes and casual observers.

When you get through it, though, you can’t help but feel uplifted by this tough-skinned movie that can stand with the best muscular wartime dramas in the American movie canon.

A dramatic tale of survival and horrific memories struggles against distracting melodrama in Sarah's Key, and unfortunately, melodrama wins.

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.

Haunting ideas and efficient storytelling, but director-cowriter Alex Rivera needed to fine-tune a bit more.

Stoker is like the baby David Lynch and Tim Burton had, then left on the doorstep of the Addams Family. Full of heavingly gorgeous images that envelop a viewer before smothering them, its maddening elements eventually become too much to bear.

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

At least Leonardo DiCaprio, grounded and sure, has commitment to spare. His portrayal of Hoover is undeniably terrific.

One of the year's most emotionally affecting movies.

Fatigue is all we get from Run All Night.

While its tone and humanity offset the futility of each side's need for one crucial hill, much of this intense, honorable film is too drawn-out.

Kurt Cobain, TicketMaster and the tragic concert in Roskilde, Denmark, are addressed through plentiful backstage footage. If only it was about something other than rockers almost irked they got famous.

Stone relies on his leads to guide us into this hyper-charged inferno, and they fit his juiced-up approach like James Woods and Woody Harrelson did in Stone's equally hopped-up "Salvador" and "Natural Born Killers." He gets us high on what they're selling before it goes south.

It doesn't try too hard, but what The Lie is working at, in its unassuming, amusing way, is a mini-portrait of growing pains in a time of extended adolescence. The truth is, that kind of thing is never easy, no matter what age.

For the uninitiated, this fun French documentary detailing the camaraderie and division between filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard reveals a time when "the cinema" was something to get excited about and literally fight over.

If "Ice" never really solidifies, it's nonetheless the work of a filmmaker whose seriousness is worth watching out for.

Among an excellent cast, Douglas truly is the nexus; he and Stone make this sequel pay off big-time.

Director Larysa Kondracki's fictionalized account of a true story is underserved by a melodramatic script; the result is like a film of a "60 Minutes" segment. Still, Weisz is strong and smart. And David Strathairn shows up in is-he-good-or-evil? mode.

A few really weird things happen during Paranormal Activity 3, though unfortunately, they have nothing to do with being frightened.

This honest and engrossing film shows how ingenuity and spark can restore excitement in education. That goal needs every helping hand it can get.

Jodorowsky turns his own youth into an odd, hypnotic mishmash.

Though there's too much movie-style self-deception, Sheridan is excellent, and his scenes with the consistently engaging, criminally underemployed Campbell Scott are subtle and serene.

There's a funny movie scratching at the edges of This is 40. Unfortunately, writer-director Judd Apatow sees himself as the John Cassavetes of Comedy, so every time that funny movie starts to emerge, Apatow tramples it with scenes of domestic irritation.

The cast gives it all a good go, and pip-pip and all that for noticeable intelligence and a bit of the old British satire. Yet Salmon Fishing takes patience and rewards with no bite.

This well-made, elegant doc follows the British actress as she travels and discusses life, art, fashion, sex and death with various friends and collaborators, including novelist Paul Auster and photographer Peter Lindbergh.

Viva needed to be shaved down to about 70 minutes, the better to really let loose and jettison some over-the-top jokiness.

To see these children of waitresses, salon workers and fathers on disability burdened because they stepped up is humanizing and heartbreaking.

It feels like a high-end perfume ad.

There are dull spots, as with any other day, yet "Life" aims to be, and occasionally is, like a YouTube-y "Our Town," giving a sense of what it is to be alive on planet Earth.

Tries to capture that moment -- complete with air guitar-playing deejays -- and unapologetically rides a wave of nostalgia, but ultimately sinks due to a bloated, watery script.

Trouble With the Curve is easily digestible in chunks – if it were a CBS show, it'd be called "Postseason With Morrie" - and it has an affectionate view of grubby motels, greasy diners and small-town scoreboards.

Craig, far from James Bond but still swaggering, makes a leathery, craggy commander, and Schreiber - who'll show his full-on action chops this summer in the Hugh Jackman "Wolverine" movie - is tough but sullen. Yet all this old-style moviemaking doesn't always pay off.

Toscanini plays a role in the tale, as does Einstein and a young Zubin Mehta. If director Josh Aronson tries to follow a few too many strands of the story, it's only because there's so many tantalizing ones.

Families who have already raced to “Monsters University” and “Despicable Me 2” will find Turbo an acceptable third-place finisher. A sort-of escargot-meets-“Cars” adventure, it has some sharp vocal turns and remains fun even when its inventiveness runs out of gas.

Here, it's all Bardem, and this great actor's careworn face and sensitive presence counts for a lot. He ultimately can't save the soul of Biutiful, but he makes the journey easier.

The result isn't bland, but it's not exactly Bond either.

There’s social commentary in all of this, but it takes a back seat to a surprisingly compelling narrative of the two combating teams.

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

Dour animated adventure that aspires to holiday joy, but is as enjoyable as a sock full of coal.

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

Sports biodramas generally take one of two tacks: gauzily sentimental or scrappy tale of struggle. The Express runs the thin line between the two and, to its benefit, more often than not hits the first mark.

This frisky late-’50s-set French comedy about a competitive typing contest hunts and pecks a bit for fun after its story gets rolling, but it’s visually vibrant throughout.

Brothers tries to delve into how war can tear families apart, but only succeeds in showing how miscasting and melodrama obscure good intentions.

Filmed over six years, “Ashes” is joyous and uplifting, full of spirit, memorable athletes (including Olympian Adrien Niyonshuti) and remarkable achievements, both big and small.

Falls short of being revelatory, yet has a mysterious, sturdy power that grows on you.

For all its shortcomings, “Gigolo” knows when to turn on the charm.

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.

"Field of Dreams" this ain't, and Crowe, whose "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous" are justly held in high esteem, can't build the right frame here. It's neither fish nor fowl; a "guy-gets-his-life-right" rom-com runs smack into a "kids-with-animals" lark.

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.

Norton, too, keeps us guessing, though his pseudo-tough-guy line readings (and cornrowed hair) are initially distracting. But his scenes with De Niro -- who fills every twitch or glance with Jack's long-buried guilt -- are the guts of the movie.

There are times when a Kilmer performance is like watching a clock move: well-timed and oddly compelling, even though it's totally predictable. That's the case with Felon, which doesn't belong to Kilmer but which he steals anyhow.

Once it's high-concept plot kicks in, Gervais' hilariously self-deprecating persona is really all that keeps it grounded.

Atmosphere is three-fourths of the game in a horror film, and The Lords of Salem has it in spades. It’s not too much to say that until this culty-witchy throwback chiller turns too bloody, it shows how far a little style can go.

The film ends up wrestling itself into a corner, though it's saved by a corrosive central performance from Ryan Gosling and a disconcertingly hypnotic feel.

Ferrera's shaggy tone, which fits the iconic building, gets irritating. Still, if you come for the stories, you'll stay for the company.

Despite the Spierig brothers' punchy visual style and satiric tone, Daybreakers eventually devolves, though Dafoe and his Southern drawl goose things up and Hawke has a greasy romanticism.

No matter how the filmmakers move Heaven and Earth, this comic-book adaptation looks cool but contains very little thunder. The fault is a script by a five-headed beast which contains fateful missteps.

It's like torture, though Body of Lies has nothing to spill.

Ball knows one trick, and it's sure over.

Despite the human drama here, we’re kept at a remove by stolid direction and by-the-numbers storytelling.

Sturgess is solid and Kingsley predictably sneaky, but the atmosphere -- scurries through the Catholic/Protestant border, tense stand-offs, spontaneous riots -- is what's genuinely gripping.

A frosty-eyed, imperturbable actress in “Atonement,” “Hanna” and “The Host,” Ronan is at least able to sell Daisy’s new focus while the movie loses its own.

In what world does Smart People exist? Clearly not the real one, though this dramedy wants to think it's filled with ironic insights about love and family.

Close and McTeer, an evenly matched odd-couple pairing, keep it real. They do the heavy lifting, and are utterly enchanting, whether in bonnets or boots.

Amiable but ambling.

Chimpanzee lets everyone feel like a mini-Jane Goodall.

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

Transporting as it is, this doc leaves a bad taste in your mouth, if just for the ill will it drudges up.

It's a big fat missed opportunity.

Writer-director Kari Skogland adapts a beloved Canadian novel gracefully and with plenty of spunk, the same way its main character moves through the world from cradle to grave.

Spottiswoode relays this tragic story with respect and sadness. But Michael Donovan's script is stuffed with clichés, and Dupuis is unable to convey the depth of Dallaire's emotions.

Writer-director Michael Goldbach fills the story with too many distractions, but Dennings, known for "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist," is feline and fun.

As a vampire might say, "Be- vaaare , all who enter here above the age of 7! What lies on the screen ... is not for you !"

Lengthy clips of leaders including Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael bring us back to emotional moments in this country's history.

Despite the presence of Jet Li, only the last half-hour of this chatty epic truly flies.

Iron Man 2 sets gold standard for sequels thanks to Robert Downey Jr.'s Stark performance.

Proudly matter-of-fact but, sadly, far from gripping.

This savvy and sensitive company has unapologetically made a movie for (very) young moviegoers.

The cast hits the right notes. Fraser, switching between affable good sport and heroic goofball, clearly doesn't mind this stuff. He realized early on with "George of the Jungle," "Dudley Do-Right" and the "Mummy" movies that his B-movie build and persona is perfect for live-action cartoons.

By the middle of the second hour, you'll be wishing a zombie would just chomp off your head to end the pain.

Director Danis Tanovic never undersells the anger and tension in the family, yet while the emotional underpinnings feel raw, much of "Cirkus" also winds up spinning 'round to obvious, if uncomfortable, places.

This National Geographic production mixes two amazing adventures, neither of them quite what you expect.

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.

Though he has a true appreciation for detail, Joffe has the scar-faced Pinkie so scurvy that Rose ought to run the minute she sees him.

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

This often-witty baby-of-"Broadcast News" tries hard to be liked, like the TV fluff it's built around. The news is that, often, it succeeds.

If you're going to have a ghost in your movie, it might be a good thing to present a viable alternative to that ghost. Mama, however, presents a battle between two not very good options before crumbling like a sheet on a string.

Hey, isn't summer a good time for a salad?

It's not a lightning show, but "Flash" still shines.

Cahill, who did the equally heady, intriguing drama “Another Earth” (2011), keeps the tone consistent. He makes certain his cast walks a savvy tightrope, keeping things taut.

The film works better as an uncomfortable character drama than as a murky family mystery, which Karpovsky deepens with some psychobabble. Still, a nicely sinister and shuddersome effort.

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

Branagh, taking advantage of his experience helming 2011’s “Thor,” shows an allegiance to the genre he’s working in; both as director as co-star, he pours on the menace.

Downey has a winning take on Holmes: He's always on.

Director Justin Chadwick ("The Other Boleyn Girl") shows admirable restraint bringing this true story to the screen, and Litando does much with glimmers of emotion and wells of dignity.

The splintered viewpoints help with the monotony, but from the taunting of new inmates to the cell-block sadist, we've gone through all this before, right down to the final twists.

The class issues make them pariahs, the love scenes belong on Cinemax After Dark, and the emotions writer-director Catherine Corsini believes are so adult are clichéd. Still, Scott Thomas is beguiling as usual, the one expected thing that's welcome here

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

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.

It is how the film never loses sight of the closeness of the combatants, turning national intimacy into a tragic casualty.

Sex is plentiful, but the lust is for paydays. This is territory covered far more vibrantly in “Margin Call,” yet director Costa-Gavras (“Z,” “Missing”) still has good, old-fashioned indignation to count on.

What he does do finally in this funny, refreshing movie is assert how unrestrained religiosity could guarantee the "end days" many of his subjects admit to looking forward to.

Has warmed-over chills and a muddled, zombie-like execution.

The most pleasant surprise in the movie adaptation of "Watchmen" is the pop-art fusion set off by placing superheroes in a "real" world. The film's biggest challenge – and accomplishment – was making that plausible.

This year-in-the-life comedy will appeal mostly to its target audience -- the boys of middle school, USA -- and frankly, that's all it needs. Who else would appreciate the idiocy of social pressure,

Will Smith may have run through every trick in his bag. In Focus, the one-time fresh prince and former box-office champ looks tired, bored and, even worse, uninspired.

Where the film fails, ironically, is in the central love affair. Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen is undeniably gifted, but his Stravinsky is a blank, stoic presence only comfortable at a piano.

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

The best twist is how Neeson’s growly presence makes a bumpy ride enjoyable.

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

If there are Nazis fighting other Nazis in a movie and it's still boring, something's gone wrong. Valkyrie has a coterie of problems, and represents a whole new front in Tom Cruise's public relations war, but first and foremost there's the tedium.

The rhythms of this comedy-drama may be familiar, but besides its fratty title, it's surprisingly sophisticated.

The trouble is, too much of director Shawn Levy's '80s-ish lark is filled with noise, when it really needed more quietly silly stuff.

It’s slow, lethargic, utterly lacking in charm and undeserving of the Cold War setting that is its best trait.

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.

In either a stunningly brave or misguided act of meta-absurdity, Real Steel, which is about a boy, his dad and the robot that changes their lives, actually feels as if it were made inside the mind of a kid obsessed with robots.

The self-conscious poetry and Cruz's diagnosis of bipolar disorder threaten to add too many notes to this quiet drama.

Twisty, engaging thriller.

Luckily, the cast is comfortable going with the flow. Ribisi is amusingly corrosive, while Jenkins and Rispoli are sweaty, cigar-chomping movie-journalist archetypes.

Director Jon S. Baird lets Welsh’s language fill up the room, even when it’s a wee bit hard to fathom.

It doesn't help that Eastwood's laconic style is as torpid as it was in such misfires as "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and "Changeling."

So much of this irritating film from first-time writer-director Daniel Barnz feels like a writing exercise it's amazing Elle Fanning, in the title role, comes off as well as she does.

Angelina Jolie is so wickedly enchanting in the magical, magnificent Maleficent, you may not notice how transporting this female-driven blockbuster really is.

The movie shows the city as both an intimidating and enticing place for new arrivals, but ultimately gets bogged down in the cliched split destinies and intentions of its main characters.

While the climactic dinner is a bit too much like a circus audition, Roach -- who helmed the "Austin Powers" movies as well as "Meet the Parents" and "Meet the Fockers" -- knows how to enjoy each sideshow.

A fascinating, alternate-universe look at the dawn of the music-sharing phenom — once a cause of concern in the industry, yet now a footnote to our all-digital music marketplace.

There's just some great imitations of what remains an acquired taste.

The movie covers all the bases, but doesn’t advance the story.

This action-comedy will seem fresh only to 8-year-olds -- though it may give parents an excuse to introduce some of the '50s horror movies it parodies.

A measured and thoughtful meditation on a leader who, this terrific movie believes, inadvertently made the world as roiling as his soul.

Some may still be surprised at this fun, well-informed chronicle of what was happening in the U.S. as lighted floors, boogie shoes and Saturday night fevers were the rage.

Only DeWitt looks at home, but Shelton allows “Touchy Feely” to be so wishy-washy that we can never get a hold of the star, or the movie.

Quirky, but infinitely more interesting than big-budget Hollywood cousins.

The serious-minded result has many super-cool moments. But when it gets clunky, it’s super-meh.

Like a dime-store holiday card, this Christmas Carol is well-crafted but artless, detailed but lacking soul.

Something of a traffic jam--even with his usual restraint, Lee couldn't recount a key moment of the '60s without a blurry parade of personalities--and also lullingly dull.

This old-fashioned sword-and-sandal drama has all the bread and circuses we've come to know from the movies. It flirts with interesting story choices, but ultimately, all roads lead to boredom.

Fred Schepisi's sly, stately comedy-drama that will please fans of BBC melodramas. But even on its own merits, its mild manner has sneaky stings.

For all its strengths, the film is cursed by an ADD-style structure and a flashy but inevitably ineffective casting stunt.

Some of Hyde Park on Hudson feels like lost scenes from "The King's Speech," the 2010 Oscar-winner about King George. It doesn't help that "Hyde's" own rhythms, appealing as they are, are often soporific.

Whether it works is a matter of taste, but the fact that Burton's revisit unearths enough fun while feeling like four films in one is testament to the source's seductive bloodline.

A fast and relentless hostage thriller that never stops.

Hellion is a glimpse into rural American childhood that’s both tense and melancholy.

Pure charisma is sometimes the best special effect. That’s what Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg bring to 2 Guns, and after a season full of superhero duds, they deliver a crucial dose of cool.

Noble but dull.

Safe arrives filled with bombast and sneers but barely any thrills.

So that's three snickers, not counting the Bush quote, 'cause including that one ain't fair, man.

Any movie with food as a motif runs the risk of pouring on the metaphor, and that happens here, too.

Plays like a throwback to gritty-but-softhearted English dramas of the 1980s like "Mona Lisa" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid."

Rois has moments of desperate urgency and depth, but Twyker's love of parallels is finally done in by artsy shots of the threesome au naturel against stark white backdrops.

This engrossing documentary winds up being about nothing less than making one of Shakespeare’s greatest works come alive through hard work — and the spark that happens within an acting company.

Krasinki's soft-sell script, lets the movie's ideas get absorbed without grandstanding or pretension. Its issues go down with a smile and common sense, which turns out to be exactly the right formula.

not a good comedy. But there's no airbrushing out the funny surrounding its star.

Though it eventually gets down to more serious business, this Glasgow-set apocalyptic romance-drama seems, at first, to be most concerned about whether restaurants will survive the end of the world.

Here's a rough-and-tumble British drama that, despite a strong spine, ought to be more like its title character: quiet and deadly -- and less showy.

This gorgeous-looking documentary is crying out to be remade as a family film feature.

Liberal Arts is at its most nauseating when we hear Jesse and Zibby read their oh-so-self-aware love letters.

Filmed — patiently, beautifully — over that same length of time, the film’s day-to-day aches are quiet and lovingly rendered.

In a pleasing contrast to Fey's sharpness, Poehler keeps her performance unpredictable and fuzzy. In this just-add-water comedy, a very funny movie star is born.

Noise ultimately becomes a slice of city life instead of a great satire.

Without pushing too heavily, Green makes the parallels between Enrique and Michael's situations genuine.

Nonetheless, if you're a Force completist, this is as crucial as a bootleg of 1978's "Star Wars Holiday Special." Which, by the way, was awesome.

This is an odd little directorial debut from Matthew Lillard - the onetime Shaggy from "Scooby-Doo," now a solid character actor thanks to "The Descendants" and "Trouble with the Curve" - but it has its rewards.

When the haze wears off and the movie grounds itself in reality, it's a bummer. Until then, though, what's weird here is gloriously weird.

With no heat at all and a woefully disjointed cast, De Palma’s danse macabre never catches fire.

Stone, last seen in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” is served best. Gliding through the film in sailor-girl outfits that evoke film stars of the 1920s, Stone’s big kewpie eyes and long-limbed gamine appeal fit in this era of silent films.

Much of the young cast - especially a miscast Page - make the oft-repeated mistake of saying Allen's dialogue as he might say them; the result is a lot of hyperarticulation, stammering and gesturing.

More deft than it first appears, director John Crowley's gentle-but-not-sappy drama features another late-day masterpiece-in-miniature from Michael Caine.

For the first time since "The Nutty Professor," Eddie Murphy successfully mixes his adult and kid-film personas -- imagine that.

The story Stiller tells manages to float in a most peculiar, satisfying way.

His humor works best when it's throw-away, but "Zohan" throws everything up to get a yuck. It's a shock to see how many "yuck!" moments Sandler settles for.

Thor: The Dark World may not be thunder from the movie gods, but it is — shock! — an entertaining journey into mystery, action and fun.

Sometimes, less is more. Case in point: Thanks for Sharing, a film that’s a little too eager to be ID’d as a “sex addiction dramedy.” As a result, solidly grounded performances from almost all the cast members wind up playing second fiddle to navel-gazing.

Well-intentioned but as earnest as a college freshman discovering campus politics.

Feels stagy and anti-visceral.

Feiffer sometimes gets snagged on the look-at-me nature of her meta-performance, veering from pathological to pathetic, and not always in the best way.

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

And then there is the most annoying animated sidekick in a long time: a bulb-headed, trying-to-be-cute glow creature called Kilowatt (Kristen Chenoweth), who sings an ear-piercing, high-pitched note when it's scared, which is often.

Unlike last year's superior "Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer" - which put its grade-school heroine through similarly seasonal woes - "Dog Days" squanders several chances to find something magical in the mundane.

The Tracey Fragments is a grating stunt that plays like a film-school project, cutting a bland story into a million tiny irritating pieces.

The title of The Misfortunates ­really applies to any audiences unlucky enough to sit through it.

Movies like this, from "Diner" to "Beautiful Girls" to "Garden State," have a standard trajectory, and this film's no different. But it has a nuance and a rumpled comfort with itself, which turns Fairhaven into an inviting place to visit.

“Holiday” is more palatable than similar, American-bred films like “The Family Stone” or This is Where I Leave You. Still, once Connolly’s sad-eyed, hippie-ish cancer sufferer is gone, there’s little reason to keep going.

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.

Kosinski’s ultimately underwhelming film leads nowhere. As its palpable sense of dread — well-sustained in a gently cascading first hour — gives way to dead ends, this Omega Movie shoots itself in the foot.

Writer-director David Riker's film is tough going, but worth it.