Laremy Legel

Ride Along is a strong recommend when Hart is talking, but merely a mediocre attempt at a movie when he’s not.

Relentlessly awful.

Where The Banshee Chapter thrives is the overwhelming claustrophobia of the film.

Like a swollen boxer's eye, it should have been cut.

Educational content, clever and photorealistic dinosaur CGI, and John Leguizamo voicing a prehistoric bird. What else would one need for a fun movie stew?

One terrible sub-plot away from being a legitimately good movie.

The animation is beautiful, the music is catchy and the lyrics are clever.

A film that strives to make you think, and even tug at your heart. But the central foundation of the entire enterprise is so shaky that the walls and plaster are falling down all around you, even as you’re trying to make sense of it all.

A Stallone / Schwarzenegger film that isn't completely beneath them.

Could have been a fun film, but instead merely displays the trappings of one.

Little chance of finding realism or romance but the laughs are there.

Parkland mines some interesting scenes, if not in an entirely coherent fashion, resolving as more of an interesting concept than a fully rendered and effective film.

The best word to describe it is strange, though it could have been halfway decent (yes, all the way up to halfway decent) if the third act hadn’t succumbed to the crescendo of craziness that had been building for the first hour.

A film that inserts banal plot devices and endless cutesiness in place of where the “good parts” should be.

What’s truly unnerving about the whole thing is how good certain scenes are, and how great a few of the performances come off, especially Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep – they’re doing amazing work, only it’s the equivalent of building a lovely home on a foundation of quicksand.

Rush is one of those rare sports movies that’s compelling as both a drama and a spectacle.

Afternoon Delight will both depress and engage an audience, usually just depending on the minute of the movie you find yourself watching.

This is a story that has everything you’re looking for, provided that you’re looking for absolutely nothing.

Full of truth that's ultimately diluted by a lack of focus.

It’s half of a good movie, and another half that no one asked for or wanted.

The Smurfs 2 is not so much of a film as it is a collection of images and sounds that bludgeon you.

Boasting a compelling cast of characters, Wasteland” is a very smooth feature film debut from director Rowan Athale, and one that invites repeat viewings.

The Wolverine reveals itself to be a film in desperate need of a point, in dire need of consequences and in a wandering search of any semblance of emotional weight.

There is a legitimate film in here somewhere, buried deep beneath the rubble of its terrible script and editing.

Particular credit must be given to Samuel L. Jackson’s voicing of Whiplash and Paul Giamatti’s work on the voice of Chet. The chemistry between the two is awesome, hilarious even.

A movie of fools, by fools, for fools, Grown Ups 2 is easily forgotten, which isn’t as bad a feature as you’d think.

Despicable Me 2 is fun, especially near the culmination. Structural issues aside, it’s impossible not to like these characters, all of them, rendered with love, always entertaining even when the story around them doesn’t make much sense.

Thanks for Sharing can’t quite find its footing as either a drama or a comedy, and near the end it’s actively sliding off the rails.

A bawdy and belligerent comedy, meant mostly for folks looking for nothing more than to enjoy a few laughs.

After Earth stupefies us with nonsense, such little thought and logic went into this idea that it can’t even be considered a rough draft, this is a movie almost daring an audience to emotionally detach throughout. For shame!

Naming aside, Epic could have been good, except that it wasn’t, it was stone cold terrible, something even a six-year-old might scoff at. I know, I’m just as sad as you are about the whole thing.

The franchise is sent off in style, a reminder of why it earned such praise and affection in the first place, the wolfpack giving us one final howl at the moon.

This is a franchise entirely comfortable with what it is, what it’s not, and what it has to offer. It has a whole mess of “Fast” for us all, and woe be the souls who enter this film hoping to go slow.

Peeples saves itself from a complete belly flop, by the barest of margins, by leaning heavily on its initial strength of good-natured charm.

The film doesn’t come into focus contextually until the closing moments, but as the bullets fly the rhythm is established right from the outset.

Discordance, meet The Iceman, a film so wrong-footed it should take Eugene Levy out for a coffee.

The rare example of a film that had to have been a tonal mystery to everyone involved for the entire process of scripting, shooting, and editing. The lingering issue? They never managed to crack the case.

Scary Movie 5 is so massively un-enjoyable, a hate crime against cinema, a ringing indictment of the depths commercialism will go to in search of the lowest common denominator.

A kind and decent film, but doesn't add to Robinson's legacy.

This Chris Sanders fellow knows how to craft a heart-warming animation, and if not for a few minor problems this would have had a legitimate shot at the best animated movie of 2013.

An active affront to logic, placing us in a world we firmly know doesn’t exist.

The Company You Keep at least manages to maintain an audience’s interest for a solid 80 percent of the film. The ending is a slight flop, which keeps the film from an overall recommendation, and in the stark light of day, it seems fairly evident not everything adds up.

There is true beauty in the despair that pervades The Place Beyond the Pines, a film plotted out in triptych, a treatise on the moral compromises we all make to protect and provide for our loved ones.

The idea of the film is certainly clever enough, it’s the execution that lacks finesse.

An epically miserable viewing experience, go ahead and skip this one unless you’re seeking to answer the riddle of what happens when people don’t try at their jobs.

Sometimes in life, simple pleasures can be rewarding, and that’s certainly the case here. Parker is not a particularly innovative film, but it’s no less effective for the blemish.

There are many films that rail against the inherent injustices of any given power structure. Much rarer are the documentaries like The Gatekeepers which expose that the faithful stewards of a certain foreign policy no longer believe in said policy. This is an important film, showing the constant reaction and counter-reaction of each side.

The entire enterprise is a bewildering mess, put in place only to frustrate and alienate anyone who buys a ticket. Every action scene is telegraphed, and most of the dialogue is irrevocably stupid.

Even when compared against other films that have been adapted from Nicholas Sparks novels, Safe Haven is terrible.

This film could have gone horribly wrong, but the characters and chemistry are strong, and as such Beautiful Creatures should be lauded for elegantly delivering a tale that at least feels fresh and vibrant.

Not recommended for anyone but the hardiest of animation completists, this one is a definite skip. There’s nothing to note, nothing to grasp, nothing in which to find mirth. You could Escape from Planet Earth, but you’re better off just ignoring it.

You won’t be upset you saw it, you’ll have some fun, you’ll see Wolvie beat the living hell out of a helicopter. These are good things, and it’s why studios are provided huge budgets to play with in the first place.