Marc Savlov

Yeah, this movie's a dog, but you can't blame the producers for strip-mining the same old fool-proof formula to death … and beyond.

This is a strange, unfunny, and unmoving boxing riff that simultaneously apes the hoary templates of Thirties and Forties fisticuffs films, nails cliches, and telegraphs its eventual outcome at every opportunity. A remarkably uninspired movie overall, Grudge Match is pure pablum melodrama all the way down to the final count.

As with the original Anchorman, the gags fly fast and free; not all of them work, but a romantic subplot between linguistically challenged Brick and GNN secretary Chani (Wiig) is an inspired comedic dorkgasm.

The Desolation of Smaug is, on the whole, a vast improvement over The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It’s a popcorn movie (in the best sense) disguised as deep-core nerdism.

The Punk Singer (and the formation of the Julie Ruin) offers a welcome return to, if not the fray, then certainly the front – where, as every rebel girl worth her combat boots knows, girls belong.

Narco Cultura smartly and movingly focuses on the cultural cycle of violence, beginning with a young, Los Angeles-based rapper, Edgar Quintero, whose main job is penning lyrics celebrating the orgiastically violent lifestyles of the drug thugs for his band Buknas de Culiacán.

On the not-much-of-a-plus side, at over two hours long, sitting through The Book Thief engenders in the viewer some serious sympathy for the interminable plight of poor, sickly Max, concealed below stairs in a dank, dark corner of the house on Himmelstrasse.

From Lee’s point of view, I can understand the enticing challenge of taking on a revered cult film Oldboy. But a pair of ill-conceived casting choices can jolt you out of the film, or worse, elicit the rolling of eyes and barely stifled giggle.

The film’s love for its subjects is mirrored in their passionate frenzy for words, and language – spoken, written, body – in general. Above all, and what sets it apart from other cinematic takes on the Beatified, is how much fun it is. It may end in tears, but then, don’t all great love stories?

Suffice to realize that Reeves’ opening salvo is an ambitious and heady mix of the glorious (if overtold) past, the tense present, and the imperfectly perfect realm of Chen’s fighter, his conscience, and blow upon blow upon blow. The concoction works, despite – or maybe because of – its unjaded, fantastical familiarity

Hood's realization of Card's novel is a tightly constructed, thought-provoking meditation on adolescence trapped by permanent war footing, alloyed with some of the best CGI effects work I've seen since, uh, "Gravity."

There’s tension as the two hole up in Santa Fe to work on the book, but the bottom-line feeling is of two old friends, now two old men, who have found their place in each other’s complicated lives.

Fassbender, though, gets the kudos (again) as the man who has everything but loses it all – thanks partly to a slyly cast Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire) and, more important, to the character’s moral compass that points wherever he feels it should, until, of course, it points due south of heaven.

It’s still a hellish glimpse into one of climbing’s worst days ever, and there’s no way to resolve the unresolvable, but as it is The Summit, like K2 itself, remains an icily beautiful and altogether deadly mystery.

An American remake of Jorge Michel Grau's 2010 Mexican shocker, this Sundance and Fantastic Fest fan favorite is undeniably creepy stuff that’s been given a dusty, American Gothic anti-sheen courtesy of cinematographer Ryan Samul.

It works extremely well as a drunken, date-night midnighter or film-fest entry, all madcap bloodletting and surrealist non sequiturs.

As a surrealistic depiction of the mental disintegration of Jim (Abramsohn), a seemingly ordinary family guy, while visiting “the happiest place on Earth,” it’s a prank and a spit in the eye of Disney’s relentless cheerfulness. But director Randy Moore’s pièce de résistance goes far beyond flipping the bird to the mouse that roars.

Call it odious, call it repugnant, call it downright nasty – just don't call it dumb.

Gravity is a major filmmaking accomplishment, no doubt, although it would have been interesting to see how it might have played sans dialogue. Unthinkable to Hollywood, sure, but still … Kowalski and Stone’s backstories and banter are, in the end, secondary to the film’s jaw-dropping visuals.

Alternating between color footage and the genius interplay of startlingly lovely sequences of Stanton singing and playing harmonica in granular black-and-white, Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction perfectly captures the essence of the man.

It's a veritable shoo-in for an Oscar nod this year, and one of the more disturbing films to come out of a major studio in ages.

Insidious: Chapter 2 is perhaps an even more scattershot mess than its predecessor. Whannell's script is so rife with portentous backstory, third-act goofiness, and a denouement that practically screams "Insidious 3: Same Old Shit," that the film as a whole is jarring, and not in a good way.

Spark, however, is the best of the lot when it comes to attempting to grok the burn and the burners.

While "The Chronicles of Riddick" was an overstuffed melange of CGI and unnecessary subplots, Riddick is a far more streamlined affair, and all the better for it.

Wingard’s film is its own subset of fractious family crazy.

Still, the revelations of evildoers clogging the corridors of power pack very little punch; we're all too aware that such malfeasance and malignity have become the status quo in the real world.

The balance between the slight, near-mythic narrative and the eye-wateringly beautiful cinematography (courtesy of Bradford Young), as well as the aching, spare score by Daniel Hart, create a movie that’s a more lovingly crafted tone poem than anything you’re likely to see on Texas screens this summer.

It fails to rise above the inherent limitations of the traditional Hollywood biopic and it's about as insanely great as a Mac "low cost" LC model – which was, to be fair, pretty cool.

Kick-Ass 2 returns with the original’s rollicking sense of vulgarity and bodily trauma fully intact, but the story has more plot lines to string together than absolutely necessary.

Ultimately, Elysium ends up with explosions, running gun battles, and summer non-blockbuster tedium. The outcome is never in question, and while Blomkamp has proven himself to be a master of sci-fi social commentary in the past, this dull wheel in the sky just lands with a resounding thud.

Sea of Monsters most bizarre and apropos-of-nothing moment comes when the half-blood kids find themselves stuck on – I kid you not – what appears to be the Civil War ironclad ship Monitor, captained and crewed by a host of Confederate zombies.

It’s fun, gore-drenched, and even touching at times. All that’s missing from the toothy chaos and broad comedy on display here is Dame Judi Dench and the kickass title that could have been: "The Best Necrotic Mandible Hotel."

I could go on and on about Zombie’s style-over-substance direction, but why bother? The Lords of Salem is so clearly a project that Zombie has had stewing in his blood-and-black-lace heart for, I assume, ever, that the fact that it’s not a masterpiece seems almost moot. It’s a head trip, to be sure, but it’s Zombie’s electric, haunted head, so my advice is just sit back and goggle.

Let the brilliant, epic silliness of The Man With the Iron Fists engulf you in a tsunami of crimson cheese and you, like I, will have a super-happy-fun-big-smile-crazy-face-monkey-time.

Sweet enough but in the end a bit of a corny-syrupy wipeout, this is middling family-night fare, but it never even comes close to the emotional or technical wizardry of Pixar's finest moments.

A knockoff in everything from style to story, it also suffers from 3-D effects that are dim and underwhelming, a maddeningly obtuse storyline, and performances that could have used some serious Herbert West-style reanimation.

The House I Live In is depressing stuff, but it sparks the fires of anger, and from that anger, possible action.

If you've seen the 2006 Nick Nolte vehicle "Peaceful Warrior," then you've pretty much already seen this. Capturing the essence of surfing – or any sport, for that matter – is more often than not a fool's errand. A more fitting tribute to Moriarty's legacy? Go buy a board and hit the deep blue yourself.

This remarkable adaptation of the supposedly "unfilmable" novel by David Mitchell achieves near-perfection on virtually all levels.

This is one horror franchise that's burned itself out, and then some – not even the rare shock cuts to nothing much at all will startle anyone over the age of 8.

Least Among Saints is a heartfelt if not exactly heartwarming story of two wounded males, but despite top-notch performances from all the leads, it never really brings anything new to a story that's already overly familiar.

"Here Comes the Bomb" would've been a more fitting title, but props to Henry Winkler for rising to the occasion and turning in a sweet, idealistic performance in a film that otherwise feels like a tawdry commercial for the UFC and MMA.

It's a courageous but misguided move on Perry's part; he has none of Freeman's soulful, nuanced subtlety, and watching him display the gamut of emotions called for in Marc Moss and Kerry Williamson's script is like watching the Hulk attempt Swan Lake.

It is an inspired, strange, and occasionally choke-on-your-popcorn funny ensemble piece that, frankly, blows just about every other current comedy out of the water.

Definitely not for the squeamish, Wake in Fright is calibrated for maximum psychic impact. Its madness is viral and disconcerting. Truly, you're going to want a stiff drink and a hot shower, or a noose, after visiting the Yabba.

Frankenweenie is that rare film that's both kid- and adult-friendly.

It's fun enough on its own relatively low-budget merits, but it's really nothing to die – or kill – for.

As for Hotel Transylvania,, no need to put a stake in it, it's deadly dull already.

Absolutely, 100% kickass. Now would someone please get busy on the "Tank Girl" do-over, please?

Shue, to her credit, looks like she's trying to crawl out of her skin, but hey, anything to get away from this hell house, right? Right.

End of Watch is more than the sum of its parts, though; it ends on a downbeat note, but that's something I've come to expect from Ayer.

The film strives so much to have heart, it comes across as heartless and mean-spirited. Bah, humbug!

Jovovich's physicality and chilly mien (she was originally a "project" of the Umbrella Corp.) carry the series from start to … whenever it finishes, which might not be for quite a while yet.

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate isn't as much fun as the director's previous film – the wondrous "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame."

The film is an ingenious, deranged, bloated, and just plain batshit crazy riff on advertising and the mad men and women it creates and/or consumes. Heady stuff, but it's no "How to Get Ahead in Advertising." This film is absolutely mental, and not in a good way, either.

Weaver and Willis look bored silly while essaying their paint-by-numbers roles, and this film does nothing to make me think Cavill is going to be Zack Snyder's Superman incarnate.

It's a small gem of a movie, disturbingly realistic and profoundly terrifying on a near-primal level.

It's not atrocious, but it borders on it, thanks to Dennis Quaid's annoying narration and his even more irritating portrait of the self-loathing writer whose presence bookends the two main storylines.

Is this the start of a new subgenre? Probably not – 2009's "The Unborn" traded in Jewish mysticism, too – but it's considerably creepier than it has any right to be and, to be sure, righteous rabbis can be pretty terrifying in and of themselves.

We bear witness, via Brügger's film, to the slow-motion train wreck that high-echelon, African graft becomes.

You have to wonder – not too hard, though – what this gore-soaked auteur's bedtime dreams are like.

Come to think of it, it's a lot like the departed shade of a better, longer movie, hovering in tatters before us, vanishing when we blink. When you look into this abyss, it yawns back at you.

Both the yuks and the yucks are plentiful, but by the time the film reaches a montage sequence of these two boneheads (well, one bonehead, one dope) laying waste to Los Angeles gang members and other wastrels in an attempt to satiate Bart's thirst for the red stuff, you're more than likely wishing you were watching Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in something else entirely. The similarities between the two horror comedy pairings are just too obvious to be ruled out as coincidence.

As a portrait of both man and society in exquisitely poised decline, it's harrowing, hilarious, and horrific in equal measure.

Why make a new mediocrity when the old ones are still so much more fun to watch?

A bizarre mélange of earnest and romantic road movie, high-octane chase picture reminiscent of everything the mustachioed version of Burt Reynolds ever did, and a slapsticky comedy that gives Tom Arnold considerably more screen time than actually necessary.

The crime is beyond bizarre, and the film is relentlessly suspenseful, but perhaps the most disturbing question of all is this: Whatever happened to Nicholas Barclay? To that, there remains no satisfactory answer.

Laika's stop-motion animation is every bit as inspired here as it was in their rightfully lauded "Coraline," and the storyline never wavers from its boneyard-deep message: Being different from others is a good – nay, great – thing, no matter how many villagers (or zombies) are after you.

If ever America needed Hollywood to crank out a comedic antidote to the toxic political madness that has engulfed our nation, now is the time. Unfortunately, this loopy, muddled, and ultimately insulting Campaign isn't it. It feels more like an extended Saturday Night Live-meets-FunnyOrDie.com castoff than an actual comedic commentary on American politics.

It's ostensibly a Southern-fried comedy of terrors, but what little humor the film evinces almost immediately lodges in your windpipe like an errant bit of K-Fried-C gristle.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days is probably the most inoffensive kid's film you're likely to see this summer. And that's a good thing.

This Total Recall is fast, furious, and frequently confusing fun, but to be completely honest, it lacks the snappy, weirdo vibe of its predecessor.

In short, it's nothing you haven't seen countless times before and, while it's not offensively bad, it also adds zero to the same old routine. Meh.

The Watch is awfully lightweight, and while it earns its R rating via some comic gore and a whole lot of hyper-sexualized tomfoolery, it's hardly the best work of anyone involved.

Farrow and Walken are terrifically semicomatose as Abe's mom and dad, and Murphy – as a co-worker who takes what appears to be pity on the eternally adolescent Abe – is equally memorable. Yet Dark Horse feels like a lesser Solondz film, despite its cavalcade of misanthropy.

I said once before that every generation gets the superhero it deserves, and Nolan's darkest of dark knights is surely ours – and no more so than in this current incarnation. (Granted, this doesn't bode well for society, but hey, things are bleak all over.)

It's a jaw-droppingly good performance from this pint-sized, first-time actor.

If you have an 8- to 16-year-old underfoot in the house, there are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.

In short, the character is a lot like the way Stan Lee first envisioned him, but the trilogy's screenwriter Steve Ditko would probably loathe this new, unsatisfying, and hollow-feeling entry into the new cinematic Marvel Universe.

So what's not to love? For starters, there's the inescapable fact that Ted is, no matter how you stuff it, yet another man-child buddy movie – and all that that implies.

For all its emotional and familial kerfuffles, People Like Us is an honorable misfire – good intentions and all.

The core family relationships ring pleasingly true, and the rebellious Merida is, alongside Katniss Everdeen, an intelligent, capable, and empathetic proto-riot grrrl with stupifyingly kickass hair and even better aim.

Benjamin Walker, as Lincoln, may not have the gangly gravitas of Raymond Massey's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" – he looks like a young Liam Neeson doing a younger Bruce Campbell, frankly – but he does have a sly, self-effacing sense of humor that feels ever so Lincoln-esque

I found myself falling for it, hard. It's Trevorrow's feature debut and we'd like to see more, please.

It's a promising epic that ends with what feels like a lie. In short, it's a glorious mess well worth seeing, but light-years away from what fans were expecting.

Take from the film's racial commingling what you want. Much of this may be old hat, even corny, and potentially offensive, but I haven't laughed out loud this often at a movie in ages.

The set-up, and indeed the entire film, reeks of yawn-inducing boilerplate plotting.

Disappointingly, Piranha 3DD, the inevitable sequel to the remake, has none of Dante's wit, Aja's directorial skills, or Greg Nicotero's grotesqueries.

Less extraordinary and considerably more banal, given the sci-fi/comedy subject matter, is Men in Black 3's story, which jumps the ectomorphic shark in high style but with a deficit of actual belly laughs.

Mansome is mostly miss, and pretty thin as well.

This crass and hugely dumb aliens vs. multiple earthling navies should thrill the hyperactive 10-year-old inside you. Adults, on the other hand – and especially genre-fan adults – will be bored to tears and wishing Bay (or at least Jerry Bruckheimer) had something of their own on the marquee out front.

Girl in Progress is an old story about a young girl told in a smart way, and that's something you don't see every day, no matter how many times you think you've seen it before.

The most expensive South Korean film ever made is also one of the most realistic (read: gory) depictions of the horrors of war, specifically World War II, global cinema has ever produced.

Fans of all that has come before (excluding Roger Corman's premature-ejaculation version of "The Fantastic Four," natch) will weep tears of giddy joy at how crowd-pleasingly cohesive – and ridiculously fun – this film is.

It is, in a word or two, everything that Poe's tales and poems were not: interminable and picayune.

What Warriors of the Rainbow may have going for it most of all is Chin Ting-Chang's dreamy cinematography, which presents the native Seediq amid the sultry jungle greenery that brings to mind the absurdly lovely flora of James Cameron's Pandora.

Enough already with the pointless gun battles that litter Safe like spent syringes in a shooting gallery. No matter how spastically you edit them, you'll never top John Woo's early work, or, for that matter, Sam Peckinpah's. Aim higher, even if it means fewer hits.

Put on your best Southie accent and say it with me: This film is wicked fahwkin' retahded and I loved it.