Keith Uhlich

Fincher's film tips much more in the indulging direction of crowd Comic-Con - delighting the franchise junkie above all other considerations.

The movie is never less than involving, but rarely amounts to more than a third-generation grindhouse knockoff.

If you’ve seen "Species," you know where this don’t-mess-with-Mother-Nature horror show is going, though director-cowriter Vincenzo Natali has a few interesting twists up his sleeve.

This is no family-friendly "Peanuts" special.

Well, Ghost Protocol ultimately ends up as an eye-rollingly towering totem to L. Ron's favorite son, complete with treacly music cues and longing glances - bromantic and otherwise - that will send you screaming into the thetan-stealing clutches of Lord Xenu.

It's especially disappointing when the story takes an inevitable turn to starry-eyed mush, dulling the sharp satire of the crazy, stupid ins and outs of romantic entanglement with an unconvincingly saccharine one-true-love-for-all moral.

That One Lucky Elephant ultimately comes down on the side of anthropomorphizing Flora and her kind is extremely disappointing - a little clear-eyed ambivalence would have helped the film feel more focused and less like patchwork.

It's prime B-movie material put through the Ridley Scott Cuisinart.

Unfortunately, Kim nearly wrecks the film's observational acuteness with a climax that shamelessly steals from Bob Rafelson's classic blue-collar drama "Five Easy Pieces," and this faux-gut-punch finale feels haphazardly sutured on rather than arrived at organically. Guess that ham-fisted opening shot was a sign of things to come.

Often resembles a prime John Carpenter thriller--call it "Assault on Manger 13"--until an overcaffeinated angel-fu climax significantly lowers the intelligence quotient.

More stupid movies should leave you with such a blissfully stupid smile.

The troubling turns the story takes, which are meant as a rebuke to happily-ever-after stereotypes, are much more interesting in conception than they are in execution.

The filmmaker's work is infinitely more exhilarating when he's relieved of the need to be in any way serious. He should play dumb more often.

There’s still enough of merit here (particularly a movingly low-key finale that strikes just the right note of reconciliation and regret) to suggest that Porterfield has the chops to eventually hone his talents to a fine point.

Less deadpan spoof than loving act of possession, Black Dynamite near-fully channels the look and feel of its blaxploitation ancestors, warts and all.

Comparable works like John Gianvito's "Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind," or nearly anything from cine-essayist Chris Marker's oeuvre, mine similar territory much more rewardingly.

A Matrix Reloaded–like cliffhanger reminds that this is only the second installment out of four (good lord), but at least the flick leaves us with more than a tinge of interest in whom the odds will favor next.

Begins in the land of lunacy and ends up somewhere on the far side of deranged.

The rousing speeches and booming battle scenes are all well done as far as blockbuster spectacle goes, but you can't help but feel the filmmakers' resistance to the story's grimmer undercurrents.

All the retroactively enlightened symbolism gets monotonous, and reaches an absurd apex with the introduction of a party-line newspaperman played by that scowling emblem of Teutonic depravity, Ulrich Tukur.

This is still a fascinating history, especially when Limelight touches on the club scene's dark side: A lengthy dissection of the Angel Melendez murder, complete with an appearance by weathered-looking killer Michael Alig, chillingly shows how the out-all-night lifestyle can take its toll.

It's almost worth wading through the wearisome setup to get to the fun stuff. But there is a reason fast-forward buttons were invented.

The film's numerous idiosyncrasies - virtues at the outset - ultimately suffocate it.

The story's half-baked environmental themes become more prevalent as Letters from the Big Man progresses to its back-to-nature finale, which unfortunately distracts from Munch's consistently sure hand with his actors.

Crank’s Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor direct with their usual flashy brio, and basso profundo Keith David has a sublime cameo as a cop indignant at the thought of a pistachio peanut butter sandwich. It’s that kind of movie, folks.

One senses this is a production better suited to the stage.

Fans of Moulin Rouge–esque repurposing will be in hog heaven. Everyone else will want to hop that midnight train going anywhere pronto.

As the Sherlock Holmes of the second Zhou Dynasty, Lau is so effortlessly appealing that he manages to anchor the fatigue-heavy proceedings, even when his character has to outrun both the rays of the sun - don't ask - and a collapsing statue while crawling over and under a pack of stampeding horses. Now that's star power.