Laura Kern

There are stunning locales but not much subtlety on display in Milarepa, a straight-as-an-arrow mythical-historical telling of a mystic’s early life.

A predictable romantic dramedy that isn’t particularly tender, moving or amusing, Chaos Theory suffers first and foremost from featuring the least engaging couple to headline a movie in some time.

This innovative chronicle of a truly modern romance also conveys, in a painful, darkly humorous way, a variety of ultra-identifiable truths, including the loneliness often suffered by big-city inhabitants and the complexities of sexual intimacy.

At the very least, the documentary What Would Jesus Buy? might make a viewer think twice about that next purchase at the Gap.

A generally entertaining but half-baked variation on Richard Linklater’s high school period piece, “Dazed and Confused” (made in 1993, set in 1976), Remember the Daze (set in 1999) takes its cue from the earlier film in an excess of ways.

Hands down the most excruciatingly inept film to creep its way into theaters in some time.

Well shot but generically scored, Brothers at War has its share of potent moments, most of them with Mr. Rademacher’s family in the States.

Strains to sell itself as one crazy ride (raging parties! hot lesbian sex! bare breasts!), and chances are it won't disappoint those looking solely for unadulterated raunch.

Antonio Negret's sloppily executed film plays like a car commercial and a military-recruitment promo.

Even naysayers of reality TV’s simplistic structure, which the film openly borrows, may find themselves rooting for a couple of choice -- and having fun in the process. The real-estate game can actually be a laughing matter when you’re not a contestant.

The title doesn't lie. These guys know how to tell a joke, often at the expense of their customs, religious holidays, families and themselves.

Purely for curiosity’s sake this unusual, intermittently hypnotic quasi monster flick is worth checking out, at least until the initial "what is this?" effect wears off and it becomes as tiresome as listening to someone relate long-winded tales about nightmares or drug-induced exploits.

Because the lead actors work so well together, adding depth and levels of vulnerability to fairly underwritten roles, the emotional consequences of the sense of displacement these "lucky" characters -- lucky to be alive, lucky to have met one another -- must deal with always ring true.

Mr. Roth, part of a new breed of horror directors affectionately labeled the "Splat Pack," is regarded by some as a savior of the genre, though it could be argued that he is more effectively a saboteur. He might have mastered the cheap sadism-as-entertainment gross-out, but he has yet to produce a single genuine, old-fashioned fright.

As his character battles to grasp his newly fractured sense of time, audiences may also find themselves more aware of the time, which seems to creep along at an alarmingly slow rate.

Periodic bursts of cleverness and eye-popping imagery, further enhanced in the 3-D Imax version, can't disguise that this is just another movie full of jive-talking computer-generated animals with little new to say.

A straightforward, quietly persuasive primer on the climate-change crisis.

Comprehensive, fulfilling film.

Not as morose as it sounds, the film also features playful humor and steady promises of hope. And the boys, like the film, come off as very human: flawed, frequently awkward, but full of goodness at the core.

A date not entirely to be skipped. It's a movie tailor-made for those who think it's a turn-on to passionately kiss someone to whom they've just said, "I hate you."

An awkward “Lord of the Rings” knockoff, it features both elaborate battles and bumbling humor, though it’s never quite clear when you should be laughing.

After a whole lot of buildup, and a real letdown of a payoff, the only enigma left is why we should care.

Ffamily-friendly escapist fare that should enthrall, without insult, fantasy-minded viewers of any age.

Boisterous and bittersweet, the film is not dull, but it does feel hopelessly overstuffed, with scant time to devote to any one story line.

There's nothing remotely surprising in the entire film. But the generally winning -- and freakishly good-looking -- cast, endowed by Jacob Aaron Estes's script with intelligent, if occasionally overwritten dialogue, makes for viewing that is easy on the eyes and the ears.

When it finally seems likely to happen, the film crashes to a sudden and unsatisfying conclusion. But this is the first part of a projected trilogy and, assuming these characters’ lives -- or deaths -- will be further explored, it’s really just the beginning.