Marc Mohan

It's beautifully photographed, but pretentious, overlong and trite.

Ultimately, The Keeping Room feels more like a clumsy melding of "Unforgiven" and "12 Years a Slave" than a unique take on violence, race, and gender.

It's also exhausting, despite an engaging premise.

Crimson Peak ends up feeling like a bit of make-work, a project to keep the visionary filmmaker busy until something that truly sparks his passion comes along.

It's not that Pan isn't entertaining. There's plenty of color and action and some inventive 3-D effects. Jackman's unhinged performance is either gloriously great or gloriously terrible, but captivating either way. There's no magic, though.

Just because it's how they did things in the old country doesn't excuse clinging to these outdated, oppressive traditions, even if Ravi manages to negotiate them with surprising good humor.

If the filmmakers had opted to play things closer to the vest, this could have been the clever "Pineapple Express"-meets-"The Bourne Identity" mashup it wants to be instead of the shallow, gratuitously violent exercise it actually is.

Oscar-winner Davis can maintain her dignity in just about anything, and she almost gives Lila enough depth to be a compelling character. Lopez gets points for trying something a bit more challenging than the hot-for-teacher dreck of "The Boy Next Door," but she inevitably struggles to hit more than one note.

Brittain's life and literary output are worthy of celebration, and there's no better time that the centenary of "The War to End All Wars" to commemorate its bloody folly. It's a shame that Testament of Youth does both in such a bloodless way.

Aloft reminded me of the work of another Latin American filmmaker, Alejandro González Iñárritu, who made somber, constipated dramas such as "Babel" and "Biutiful" before loosening up and conjuring the lunatic profundity of "Birdman." Llosa has the intelligence and directing chops — Aloft looks fantastic — to do wonders, but she should take a cue from him and warm up by just chilling out.

Terminator: Genisys isn't so much a sequel or a reboot but a piece of fan fiction come to ludicrous, big-budget life. Even for an unnecessary entry in a series of movies about indestructible time-traveling robots and genocidal computer networks, it's pretty silly.

A recent article in Film Comment magazine praised Saint Laurent for avoiding "banal psychologizing," but Bonello avoids any insight into his subject's state of mind, banal or not.

Multiplex audiences can choose over the next few weeks between two starkly different views of the future. The remnants of humanity struggle for survival in the brutal world of "Mad Max: Fury Road," while Tomorrowland offers an optimistic retro-future paradise full of jetpacks and robots. Me, I'll take post-apocalyptic desert wasteland over soulless corporate utopia any day of the week.

It's a shame that a movie centered on such a powerful and unique work of art is itself so obviously a corporate product.

In the quest to purge this Cinderella of anything sly or post-modern, though, the filmmakers have eliminated any wit or distinction, making this a pre-modern disappointment.

If the star does his utmost to make a one-dimensional character interesting, his director, Clint Eastwood, adapts Kyle's memoir — a life story rife with moral complexity — by hammering it flat.

Even the show-stopper "Tomorrow" comes off as half-hearted and obligatory. The choreography looks like it was improvised by the young actors who play Wallis' fellow foster kids — all listless jumping and arm-folding, no inventiveness or energy.

As an action spectacular, Exodus is on par with Scott's other forays into ancient times, "Gladiator" and "Kingdom of Heaven." But as a believable human drama, much less a worthy exploration of Judaism's origins, it falls flat.

There are some attempts at a comic-bookish, film noir vibe, including a hotel where all the crooks and killers stay, forbidden by house rules from "doing business"on the premises. And everywhere Keanu turns, he bumps into a character from HBO.

There's potential here, as well as in Junn's touching relationship with a fellow resident at the home, for real intensity, but Khaou insists on sticking with a glacial pace and lip-trembling emotional repression when a little bit of melodrama might have gone a long way.

The lunacy to which The Equalizer descends is especially disappointing because the movie starts out with some promise.

Fonda gets some of the movie's best moments as the sexually frank, silicone-enhanced mom who got rich off a best-selling memoir that exposed her children's intimate habits.

Makes good, unobtrusive use of its European locations, and has a couple of well-orchestrated urban chase scenes. But, even in these days of renewed U.S.-Russian tensions, its Cold War demeanor feels anachronistic, and its simple cynicism comes off as recycled and cheap.

The movie's biggest flaw, from a local perspective, is its unconvincing use of Vancouver, B.C., to represent Portland, Oregon.

First-time director Jeff Baena struggles with framing, editing, tone and casting, leading to an unimpressive entry in the ever-burgeoning zombie comedy genre.

A good test of a movie like this is whether it would be more or less stimulating to hang out with people you really know for 82 minutes. If Happy Christmas is the time better spent, it might be time to find a new crowd.

Stage magicians often depend on sleight of hand to succeed at their art, but Woody Allen's new movie, Magic in the Moonlight, is just plain slight.

It's not as if empathetic peeks into the lives of America's poor white boys aren't valuable, and Hellion has nothing if not empathy for every one of its characters. But without a more original story or a distinctive visual presence, it's hard for it to rise above a crowded field.

There are plenty of very funny jokes in the movie, but near-fatal lulls whenever it tries to make MacFarlane into a romantic lead or a genuinely inspiring hero — in other words, whenever it tries to make us like him.

Neighbors makes "Animal House" look like "Remembrances of Things Past."

ASM 2 makes too many of the same mistakes that have brought other superhero movies low (including Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3"). It tries to pack in too many characters and plot lines, for one.

Partridge is a smidgen less abhorrent here than in previous incarnations, but just a smidgen.

A thoroughly mundane experience.

When the fly trapped in the spider's web is as clueless and selfish as the sap played by Mark Webber in 13 Sins, it's hard to muster much sympathy.

The scenes between Gainsbourg and Skarsgard are fewer and less engaging than in the first volume, and the dichotomy between them is simpler and more obvious. And that doesn't even include an ending that is as impulsive and deranged as anything Joe comes up with during all of her taboo-breaking adventures.

Goodbye World will remind you more of "Gilligan's Island" than "Lost."

In a movie that strives to offend with every spat profanity and cruel insult, the most shocking thing about Bad Words is that it expects us to care about its main character at all.

Sobol, directing his second feature, should have been able to prod this story to life, especially considering the cast he was provided. But everything proceeds in such an orderly fashion, right through the ostensibly 'twist' ending, that maintaining interest is a serious challenge.

If the behavior of the characters had been more recognizably human in its venality, and the film's perspective more ruthless, this custom-made compound might have worked.

With more discipline and a keener sense of family dysfunction, these ingredients could have gelled into something impressive. As it is, Awful Nice is closer to the former than the latter.

Overall, The Pretty One suffers from excessive, unfocused quirk and a predictable sitcom resolution.

Aggressively loud, terminally mediocre.

The story of the rescue of these priceless artifacts is absolutely worthy of as much attention as Hollywood can provide. But by the final, self-congratulatory, groan-inducing scene, it's more than clear that this telling of it is a monumental mess.

While it's nice to see Reitman try to branch out from the hip, acerbic humor of "Juno" and "Young Adult," his clumsiness with this more earnest material is an unpleasant surprise.

While it's an effective memoriam for the well-meaning Germans whose lives were ruined by Hitler's mad dream, the refusal of Generation War to focus on any other sort of German makes it both dramatically and historically suspect.

It's the sort of movie that would have starred Valerie Bertinelli or Kristy McNichol back in the 1980s, tricked out with PG-13 grittiness and religious wholesomeness. It's the sort of story that ignores unpleasant social implications in favor of programmed sentiment.

The movie is beautifully shot, and some of the scenes have a real exuberance, but it's also a blatantly manipulative piece of smarm.

Flat and uninteresting, both visually and dramatically, this is a waste of two appealing actors.

So, be warned: You may not learn anything from this mild, unremarkable film, but you might be tempted to order the deluxe, four-volume “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes” after watching it. I was, and I don’t regret it a bit.

There’s nothing approaching a unique take on the story.

Eventually the movie wants to have things both ways: to approvingly entertain mainstream audiences with the glittering spectacle of space battles and to pay lip service to the notion of conscience.

In retrospect, and with no disrespect meant, it may have been a mistake to entrust a story this polarizing to Bill Condon, the filmmaker who most recently made “Twilight: Breaking Dawn,” and “Dreamgirls.”

Blumberg tries to split the difference and ends up with a movie that wants us to make us laugh and cry, but fails to do either.

It's clear that Fidell meant to craft a nonjudgmental, non-exploitative exploration of this taboo situation. And she deserves credit for avoiding both tawdry melodrama and earnest moralizing. But by refusing to judge or exploit, she ultimately ends up without much of interest to say on the topic.

Closed Circuit ultimately feels like a cynical attempt to capitalize on security-state anxieties while examining them in only the shallowest ways.

The Canyons comes across as a desperate gambit for relevance by a group of artists who want to reinvent themselves but don't know how. Fittingly, that's the theme of the film itself.

By trying to inflate one remarkable life story into the chronicle of a generation, Daniels fills what could have been an inspirational, personal saga with a lot of hot air.

As with so many of his appearances, Franco manages to bring a jolt of energy to the film even while skewering its credibility.

Langella is solid as always, but his haunted, bitter character is pretty two-dimensional, and having to share all his scenes with Bentley doesn’t allow for much interplay.

The movie's fast pace, and the three gleeful central performances, keep I'm So Excited! mostly painless. But the rest of it has a whiff of the sort of desperation that can make an exclamation point in a title seem like a good idea.

Bening and Dillon both play roles they could act in their sleep, though it's still moderately fun to watch them do so.

Miller, who's still trying to find her way as an actress, isn't bad, and the Iranian-born Farahani is convincing, but their characters are blandly angelic, in stark contrast to the vast majority of men they encounter.

It's just a shame that the search for the missing formula ends up feeling so formulaic.

It's probably not a good idea to examine the political content of a film in which the leader of the free world proves that the pen is mightier than the sword by stabbing someone in the neck with one.

The Bling Ring still feels more like a magazine article overstretched into a feature length film.

Man of Steel has too many characters and too much plot, resulting in a movie that feels overstuffed and overlong.

The plot is simplicity itself, and Jaden's quirk-free character and bland performance don't add anything. It's actually a little sad that M. Night Shyamalan has descended to this sort of vanity-project work-for-hire, but at least he didn't insist on some absurd twist ending.

Although the filmmakers reportedly worked with David Copperfield and other renowned real-life illusionists and tried to minimize the use of CGI, you're still left wondering how much of the magic is merely the kind Hollywood spits out by the terabyte.

Aselton is clearly trying to broaden her reach as both actress and director beyond the rumpled indie comedy of "The Freebie," her directing debut, and the concept is there, but a movie like this needs a much more polished execution that Black Rock gets.

As far as the company Redford keeps, I liked it better when he hung out with Paul Newman and Sydney Pollack, but those days are long gone.

There's visual poetry here, in small doses, but it doesn't take long for one's patience to run out.

It's neither grounded enough to be genuinely horrifying nor over the top enough to be nastily fun.

Not content to make his point through sharp-tongued comedy, Hogan ends up beating a dead horse -- or shark, as the case may be.

Lily Tomlin gives the movie a boost as Portia's radical feminist mother, who would hate this movie.

It's almost too bad, then, that MacArthur and Jones take a back seat to the far less interesting Gen. Bonner Fellers in the stolid drama Emperor.

As is, the slapstick humor and mild repartee won't please many with a mindset above that of a 10-year-old, while the level of (admittedly fantastical) violence might be a bit much for the pre-teen set.

The film looks old-fashioned, too, with cinematography and special effects so reminiscent of old-school, live-action Disney flicks such as "Something Wicked This Way Comes" that you wonder if it was an aesthetic choice or a budgetary concession. Either way, it doesn't work.

It's a forgettable series of bullet points barely strung together by charismatic performances.

The visual design of Mama is effective, at least in small, quick doses. But those are about all the positives for this example of why a solid audition reel doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to churn out a feature.

Very few will remember it in a few months, which is probably just fine with the folks who made it.

The movie's conceit grows a bit stale even with a short running time, and ultimately the whole thing feels more like an acting workshop than a full-fledged human story.

It's a fine idea, but Dominik beats that drum without cease, making his passionately furious message come across anything but softly.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't come together. The animation ranges from crude approximations of Terry Gilliam's cutout style to borderline puerility, and the entire enterprise strives far too desperately for the sort of irreverence that Chapman could conjure with a cock of his pipe-clenching head.

War of the Buttons means well. But ultimately there's only marginally more edge to this treatment of World War II than there is to the average episode of "Hogan's Heroes."

This ode to indie legitimacy proves to be too cartoonish to feel real and not outrageous enough to be memorable.

One of the most lifeless and predictable movies you're likely to see this year.

As the action moves from Vienna to Paris to London to Denver to Phoenix and then back again, the vignettes blur into one another.

Well-intentioned but underdeveloped and self-satisfied, it feels at times like the ultimate movie for the millennial generation, or at least its stereotype.

The relationship between Trishna and Jay never rings as true as it needs to for the downbeat third act to resonate the way it was presumably intended to do.

Perhaps the most curious omission from the movie Grassroots is that there's no mention at all of the classic "Simpsons" episode "Marge vs. the Monorail."

The whole thing has the feel of a fact-based dinner-table anecdote absurdly puffed up to feature length.

The potential for an interesting story is high. Unfortunately, Miller's autobiographical tale, as told in Blue Like Jazz, squanders this potential by failing to take place in a recognizably real world.

The only thing that could make this movie more French would be a guillotine.

The cinematography is crisp but sterile, and no one's clothes ever seem to get muddy or torn -- in short, there's no real sense of the atmosphere of a sticky, buggy, fetid jungle, and no intensity to a story that cries out for a sense of moral outrage.

There's a conflict between the film's need for some sort of closure and the messiness of the reality it depicts that leaves The Whistleblower even more unsatisfying than it was meant to be.

Jumping repeatedly and randomly from present-day Shanghai to 1997 to 1829 and periods in between, the film has a pace that seems almost willfully tedious.

The storyline would appear trite and the message muddled even to someone who'd never heard the name Mel Gibson.

Whereas Carver writes about alcoholics, this movie is about alcoholism, which is completely different.