Keith Uhlich

That the duo will work their way back to each other is never in doubt, although Chazelle doesn't succumb to easy sentiment. If anything, he moves too far in the other direction, aiming for a wizened ambiguity that doesn't entirely come off.

A believably unbalanced Bening scores the movie’s true coup: Karen’s revitalizing relationship with a sweetly persistent coworker (Jimmy Smits) is a rare example of Hollywood doing right by midlife romance.

As subcultural anthropology, it’s unassailable. Yet the often ugly-looking DV aesthetic dilutes the cumulative effect.

You can't help feeling that an initially adventurous movie has had its rough edges sanded away.

It's the casting, stupid!

There's enough filmmaking talent evident throughout that you wish the journey were more satisfying overall.

Once the story takes a murderous turn, things quickly fall apart. Too many perfunctory side characters, such as Dennis's clueless parole officer, dilute any sense of tension; the bargain-basement visuals-all overlit interiors and unmotivated zooms-never rise above the luridly cheap; and hoo-boy, those final scenes.

Imagine "His Girl Friday" crossed with "Armageddon" and you’ll get a sense of the unfortunate disconnect that prevents an enjoyable light entertainment from achieving rom-com nirvana.

The setup is pure Looney Tunes, and indeed, Despicable Me is at its best when trading in the anything-for-a-laugh prankery that was a specialty of the Termite Terrace crowd.

The movie’s admirable fleetness, however, doesn’t mitigate some of its narrative errors — Alexander’s opening voiceover suggests his family is totally oblivious to his role in their misery, which is disproved by a later scene — nor does it counteract an overall sense of slightness that prevents this from being a family-film classic.

Pascal and Thatcher are an outwardly compelling team, though they’re playing constructs instead of characters, hollow vehicles racing through this ragged future as opposed to convincingly long-term inhabitants of it.

The early scenes of Gabe Ibáñez’s impressively mounted but uneven thriller do some terrific dystopian world-building.

The overall effect is not unlike watching a chef de cuisine experimenting in his off-hours; not everything takes, but you still come away with a pleasingly stimulated palate.

Stick with the film, though, and you might find yourself strangely moved by its oddball mix of ripe melodrama, overwrought violence and regional verisimilitude.

At its best, which is often enough, the film does provide that sort of intimate and evocative insight into a culture too often vilified due to Western ignorance. At others, the gentle exquisiteness with which Longley approaches even the most unappealing sights and sounds feels like an evasion of something more troubling, and potentially more profound.

There are plenty of formulaic boo! moments, yet Craven intelligently treats Bug's otherworldly issues like hormonal growing pains that must be tamed.

The belly laughs do come, many of them courtesy of the mechanical bird companion.

The uniformly showy performances (Acting with a capital ‘A’) are what do in Prisoners more than anything.

About as deep as a kiddie pool, which isn't to say it's an unpleasant frolic.

When The Father of My Children shifts focus to Grégoire’s wife (Caselli) and children (the eldest is beautifully played by De Lencquesaing’s actual daughter, Alice), Hansen-Løve’s hand steadies, and she reveals a true talent for intimate, behavioral observation.

Fortunately Coppola’s sensitivity is always evident, especially in the open-hearted performances she gets from Roberts and Kilmer (whose father, Val, has a funny, pot-addled cameo).

The divas rule in this glossy musical.

It's fascinating to be so close to a then-sitting head of state as he negotiates for his homeland's survival, and the news that Nasheed was recently deposed in a coup by Gayoom loyalists makes the hard-won victories he did secure all the more poignant.

This is not a choice made lightly by anyone involved, but the admirable, multilayered toughness of these sequences is unfortunately weakened by the filmmakers’ saccharine touch whenever they explore the doctors’ personal lives.

Miners' is tiresome and scattershot.

The subjects - a husband and wife struggling to make ends meet, mostly for the well-being of their infant daughter - are eminently engaging.

Inventive yet exhausting tale of two circus clowns.

Subtlety is not this movie's strong suit; even the terrific Chemical Brothers score pounds your nerves a bit more than it should.