Marc Savlov

While very much a “hard R” movie, Rise of an Empire is, nevertheless, the perfect sort of film for rainy weekend afternoons. It’s a spectacle right down to its shattered ships and duplicitous warcraft, and this time out the story’s been leavened and enlivened with plenty of old-school girl power.

It speaks to both the head and the heart, and it is, in myriad ways, some of the best work the legendary animator has ever created.

Pompeii delivers the goods – well, at least during its final 20 minutes.

What Reggio’s ultimate point or conclusion might be is, as ever, left up to the viewer for interpretation. And while this is patently not a film that big-box cineplexers are going to rush to in droves, Visitors remains a wondrous work of artistic achievement.

For those who haven’t read the Mark Helprin novel on which Akiva Goldsman’s film is based, prepare to be confused, annoyed, bewildered, and yet more annoyed by the director’s inability to construct even the most basic of narrative fantasy romances.

It’s not a complete disaster, but even the appearance of Gabriel Byrne, as Lissa’s uncle Victor, fails to make much of a dent in the slapdash proceedings.

In many ways, A Field in England is a funhouse mirror of audience expectations and something of a filmic Rorschach test.

I, Frankenstein is nowhere near as garishly, ghoulishly awful as "Van Helsing," Universal’s last attempt to resurrect its classic monsters. It’s a grimly fiendish slog nonetheless, and hardly worth getting up out of the grave for.

Although a slow-burn approach to this sort of creepfest is generally a smart move, Devil’s Due peters out of outright suspense midway through and never fully recovers, despite (or possibly because of) a final reel that may shock some viewers but will leave die-hard genre fans gnashing their teeth and rending their clothes in dismay.

It’s really just a tortuous series of blackout sketches hung together with the flimsiest of threads.

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.