Martin Tsai

Ngoc and Faunce certainly make fascinating subjects, and the film persuasively argues to give them the benefit of the doubt. But one can't help but think that in the hands of a shrewder filmmaker like Errol Morris, this stranger-than-fiction account would have been absolutely riveting.

Some instances of impiousness work better than others.

The filmmakers forget the fundamentals of B-movie 101: Skin-baring spring breakers make for the most qualified carnage.

A "Saw" knockoff without the torture porn.

Not unlike most of its Hollywood counterparts, though, this Hong Kong import can't resist the urge to dumb down a fascinating premise for the sake of mass consumption.

Bears has warmth and fuzziness in spades, especially when the lot of them snoozes on logs. Amid its heaping serving of cuddliness, though, the film doesn't sugarcoat the harsh reality and unforgiving elements with which the bears have to contend.

So instructional is the film, directed by Brook's son, Simon, that it feels like one of those P90X or Insanity home fitness programs: Try this at home. You too can perform on stage.

Even at a meager 40 minutes, the film feels padded... But so long as the jubilance brought about by lemurs can compel more protection for the near-extinct species, the film will have served its purpose.

Like a typical Hollywood action-thriller, though, the screenplay jeopardizes the film. The twists concocted by writers James Robert Johnston and Bennett Yellin are mostly predictable; and the ones you don't see coming are outlandish.

Throughout Rob the Mob, De Felitta maintains an unfailingly sympathetic stance toward the lovers and the mafiosi alike, while keeping enough distance from all to disapprove of their dirty deeds and deter any viewer identification with them.

The film hardly scratches Abu Ghraib's surface.

Familiar paternal regret gets ratcheted up here with an illogical and gratuitous investigative exercise.

Like many found-footage films before it, The Den never entirely suspends disbelief. It doesn't satisfyingly account for how the characters are producing all the footage.

The mash-up of the superhero and buddy-cop genres turns out fresh and vital, offering glimpses of a future where reality television and drones proliferate and where conglomerates with bottom lines underwrite crime fighters.

Andrew Douglas, who directed the 2005 "The Amityville Horror" remake, mishandles the standard noir as straightforward drama and gives it an unfortunate after-school-special vibe.

War of the Worlds: Goliath is just a few cereal commercials shy of a pointlessly cartoon marathon — violent, messily drawn and lifelessly dragging.

The lens work by "Crouching Tiger" cinematographer Peter Pau looks super slick; and the film's conformity to trends in regional commercial cinema yields respectable results. But Special ID truly comes alive when it busts out the good ol' fashioned Hong Kong daredevil stunt work.

Irrational camera work and editing render Southern Baptist Sissies more fitting for the theater merchandise stand than for theatrical distribution.

If "The Bible" was CliffsNotes for the Scriptures, Son of God is the cheat sheet. The two-hour film condenses about four hours of what already was hasty television, and it all winds up a little dramatically static.

While the cast and crew's competence well exceed what anyone would expect from this breed of B movies, they cannot compensate for the flawed internal logic in the screenplay.

Corrado Jay Boccia's directorial debut strikes as almost passable, with a relatively known cast and elaborate stunts. But his inexperience rears its ugly head as the film never musters real suspense and urgency.

Given the routineness of the chase itself, what jumps out here is the pervasive desperation shared by just about every character.

Knights of Badassdom actually delivers everything the 2011 Danny McBride-James Franco comedy "Your Highness" purported to be but fell short on. The film is "This Is the End" festooned with Middle Ages accouterments.

The screenplay by Lane Shadgett and director Trevor White relies far too much on telling rather than showing.

If you admire Kellan Lutz's chiseled body, The Legend of Hercules does offer plenty of that in 3-D glory.

With verbal jabs and sight gags in equal measure, the script proves serviceably funny. As the film progresses, though, the hilarity does not escalate along with the outrageousness.

When a director merely goes through the motions, even Chekhov can be reduced to daytime soap.

Little parallelism or consequence can be gleaned from Kwak's narrative that crosscuts points between 1963 and 2010. Seeing as his surrogate in the first film is absent in the sequel, the shared cultural memory has also given way to genre exercise.

Live at the Foxes Den comes off like some long-unproduced Broadway musical finally dusted off when someone raised enough money to mount it as a film production instead.

When it becomes apparent that the seemingly linear narrative is in fact woven with several parallel story lines, one might even be inclined to excuse the plot's too many convenient coincidences.

The Christmas Candle" seems destined to be a Hallmark movie of the week. But in spite of the hammy histrionics requisite for the genre, it is not at all a turkey.

Although this horror flick is somewhat absurd and seemingly forgettable when viewed in a vacuum, its coincidentally contemporaneous release with "Blue Is the Warmest Color" urges immediate reconsideration.

Its depiction of esoteric facets of immigrant life lends an air of credibility seldom seen in rom-coms.

It does have a point of view, but the intended conclusion ripens for the picking in a roundabout way.

Director Yoruba Richen has refreshingly avoided making this polemic into propaganda, a temptation many lesser documentarians could not resist.

Not Yet Begun to Fight is barely an hour long, but it justifies a theatrical release with a lyrical meditation on nature and war.

The fact that Child and Shaw share writing and producing credits here almost assures it will be a self-aggrandizing puff piece.

The home-movie vérité style of the early scenes pays dividends when inexplicable occurrences suddenly take us by surprise.

The film's colorblindness does not make up for its latent sexism.

It is a series of free-associating non sequiturs underscored by nonillustrative graphics and an intrusive soundtrack.