Matt Zoller Seitz

The whole movie feels oddly stranded and dramatically inert, despite the obvious passion that went into making it.

The ratio of humor and action and parent-child bonding is so formulaic, and the character design and molded-figurine-like animation so typical of the genre in the age of Pixar (and Pixar imitators), that Epic evaporates from the mind within minutes of leaving the theater.

Watson's memoir and the 2010 documentary about her achievement, "210 Days," are altogether more thorough and nuanced looks at this story, though of course that's nearly always true of documentaries that tell the same story as works of fiction.

Unfortunately, Lucy Walker's Buena Vista Social Club: Adios plays more like a well-intentioned but unsatisfying addendum to Wenders' movie and Cooder's recording.

The film's fuzzy mystical undertones are irksome as well. They seem less aligned with 19th century representations of Christian or Muslim spirituality than with fond childhood memories of "Star Wars."

You could build a suspension bridge over the gap between what Robin Hood could have been and what it is. Its hero is credible as a man who wants to rob from the rich and give to the poor, but the storytelling is so impoverished that the message can't stick.

War Dogs is a film about horrible people that refuses to own the horribleness.

It draws together a first-rank cast of character actresses and actors, most of them over 50, then mostly fails to invest the material with the invention and snappiness needed to invigorate it and make it memorable, as opposed to merely agreeable.

There's a good movie in Romano the feature filmmaker, but this isn't it.

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story is one of the most frustrating Martin Scorsese films as well as one of the most out-of-character.

Free Fire is neither the best nor the worst of the Tarantino wannabes; at its worst, it's tediously unoriginal, and at its best, it's funny and reasonably involving.

The film that Memphis most reminds me of is Bruce Weber's "Let's Get Lost," a meandering, ostentatiously gorgeous black-and-white documentary about Chet Baker.

God & Country is an illustration of that classic conundrum faced by so many political documentaries with an alarmist tone. Even when its concerns are justified, such a project tends to alienate rather than entice, and those who are inclined to agree with its points will come away feeling that their worldview has been reinforced, while the viewers who are arguably most in need of seeing it will remain unaware of it or dismiss it as propaganda.

Lean, sincere, impassioned filmmaking, yet it fails to leave as much of an impression as it clearly wants to.

The cast is filled with actors doing everything they can to make their characters as memorable as possible even when the script (credited to four people) isn't lending them the support they deserve.

It's anchored by committed performances and fascinating details, but it never quite figures out how to lock the audience into whatever odd groove the storytellers have obviously decided to settle into.

So preoccupied with giving its star's wish fulfillment fantasies that it forgets to make sure all the other major characters seem like characters, rather than underdeveloped notions.

Human Capital is so exquisitely cast, down to the smallest role, that it puts viewers in the unusual position of wishing a film were a TV series or a much longer movie, the better to take advantage of its best assets.

Full antihero equality will only be achieved when women are permitted to carry a crime drama by being so charismatic that viewers would consider following them into hell rather than give up the buzz they get from watching them be bad.

The devil figure is Federico (Riccardo Scamarcio, last seen in "John Wick: Chapter Two"). He's eloquent, charming, faintly sinister man who, as Bryan points out, seems to magically appear in their lives at moments of crisis.

It’s a disturbing, sometimes beautiful film that, by the end, is disquieting for all the wrong reasons.

It has a goofy grin on its face from frame one. But it never quite figures out how to pass its good vibrations to the audience.

This is a Sad Rich People movie, no more so than a lot of American films dating back to the dawn of cinema, but it's no "The Leopard" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" or "The Great Gatsby" or you-name-it.

Unfortunately, the film never finds a way into Berg's personality that explores his many facets without reducing him to a blank-slate character at the center of a traditionally-made period thriller.

There are compensatory pleasures. The supporting performances are above and beyond, and Glen is so likable and so believable as a decent man pushed too far that if this film does well, he might be in line to have a late-in-life career renaissance in another of the senior action flicks that have become ubiquitous.

The Odyssey is one of my favorite stories of all time, and I was looking forward to "The Return," but it never rises above the level of an honorable but misguided good try.

Only fitfully entertaining or illuminating.

This all sounds like it could make for a fascinating movie. But The Devil and Father Amorth feels at once bloated and slight, like a DVD supplement puffed up to feature length (an hour and eight minutes, just long enough to be exhibited in theaters as a stand-alone title).