Keith Uhlich

Mostly though, it feels like we're watching a superficial gloss on Goodman's CV rather than a probing interrogation of his legacy. For the choir only.

This is hardly a symphony of terror, but it’s still a solidly composed exercise in suspense.

There’s no room for such soul-searching uncertainty with Gibson. After a few rapidly ticked-off minutes of gloom, the mission is clear: Get the sons of bitches, and make ’em pay.

Here, though, everyone involved seems above the rom-com conventions they’re satirizing, so anxious to get to each punch line that they let the connective tissue languish. You howl often but quickly forget why.

Ed Harris is a performer made for Westerns, and he’s perfectly utilized in debuting director Michael Berry’s middling if still very watchable modern-day oater as Roy.

The kids pick up the filmmakers' lyrical slack more often than not, but this ode to the power of verse could really use a redraft.

Though its insights are slight-the movie feels as delicate and ephemeral as its sleepy winter surroundings - you can't help but admire the overall generousness O'Brien shows to his characters and performers.

Clooney occasionally shows a surer hand: He gets great work from Downton Abbey’s Bonneville — notably in an emotionally charged scene revolving around Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges — and has a fine monologue himself, in which Stokes dresses down a high-ranking German commander (a moving encapsulation of the American spirit at its best).

Disney knows how to bewitch a crowd, but the sense that Tangled was made more by corporate mandate than artistic spark remains constant throughout.

Melodrama often risks the ridiculous to achieve the sublime, and though this unabashedly earnest tearjerker doesn’t completely transcend its narrative absurdities, it’s enough of a distinctively odd duck to keep you engaged.

Fortunately, Teegarden and McDonell make up for the hand-me-down plotting with a sweet, unaffected chemistry.

The sights and sounds are splendid--a lovingly hand-detailed portside city, a touching musical interlude in a windswept field--though they're largely disconnected from the narrative proper.

Both Robert and Gus seem defined purely by their eccentric speech patterns, and it takes a while for the duo to register as anything other than acting-exercise conceits. But once the story takes a defiantly odd turn into thriller territory (really an excuse to hole up two talented thespians in a single location), the affected nature of the performances becomes a virtue.

For everything admirable, like the way female Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana (the wonderful Gakire) resigns herself to a violent death, there's a heavy-handed metaphor-a cute gaggle of orphaned goats-ready to smack away the intelligence.

You can’t help but feel all the palpable joy is eliding some darker realities that would lend the copious musical performances a deeper resonance.

You still leave impressed at the way Stanton fiercely protects the aura of mystery that makes him such an indelible onscreen presence.

Sobering stuff for an animated movie that pitches itself somewhere between cutesy children’s entertainment and hectoring Grimm’s fairy tale. The problem with 9, though, is that it lacks a consistent tone.

Someone surely thought to call this knowingly ridiculous genre mash-up "Cowboys vs. Ninjas," though even that title wouldn't hint at all the you-gotta-be-kidding-me craziness on display.

Quentin Tarantino showcased her bubbly personality (and ass-kicking dexterity) in 2007’s terrific gearhead horror movie, "Death Proof." Now, seasoned stuntwoman Zoë Bell gets a vehicle all her own—a disposable battle royal no-budgeter that’s immensely elevated by her presence.

Adela’s troubles feel slight and underdeveloped in the face of the world around her; it’s all too appropriate, in the end, that nature swallows her whole.

The story beats are as familiar as they come, and there are a few halfhearted stabs at redeeming Roberts’s clueless character when it would have been better to push her feeble-mindedness to Anna Faris–esque extremes.

The filmmakers do a good job of laying out the whos, whys and wheres through diagrams, reenactments and testimonials from veterans on both sides of the skirmish.

Watching this see-in-the-dark muscleman brooding against gorgeous otherworldly vistas, all while crafting pointy homemade weapons and befriending a scene-stealing CGI canine (no joke), is a sci-fi aficionado's delight.

For an animation studio that too often specializes in the frivolous and glib (begone, Shrek series!), the move to the dark side is refreshing.

The film's commitment to representing the harsh truths of an unfortunate historical moment is admirable, but it tends to grate rather than illuminate.

It’s a kick to see Cera cut loose from his patented befuddled-nerd routine, even if the film’s caricatured performances and fish-in-a-barrel scorn are sure to be monotonous for some.

In many ways, this effervescent drama from Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan) upends conventions, even when it sticks to a familiar narrative path.

That T.J. and his family willingly allow this headbanging psycho(analyst) to move into their cluttered, dankly lit abode-the emotional damage is palpable, yo!-is just one of the film's many eyebrow-raising contrivances.