Melissa Anderson

As subtle as a face-punch, La Mission nobly continues a necessary conversation about homophobia, but paves the way to hell with its own good intentions.

Too limp and scattershot to warrant anything stronger than indifference.

The Broken Tower is sincere, amateurish, and misguided.

"There's a midget in the oven!" is about as inspired as the dialogue and set pieces get in this queasy-making entertainment.

Hoping to distract us from the zero ideas found in his film, Levinson demands that his cast act loudly and unbearably, a task for which Demi Moore, as the second wife of Ellen's first husband, is perfectly suited.

Unconvincing, flawed matriarch Mendes and junior showboat Ramirez appear to be acting in entirely different movies.

Little music from the concert itself is heard. On display instead are inane, occasionally borderline offensive portrayals of Jews, performance artists, trannies, Vietnam vets, squares, and freaks.

An incompetently structured film that pits hippies against squares with the usual wearying results.

The noxious self-absorption of straight white women that Schumer has sent up so blisteringly on her Comedy Central show is extolled more than it is lampooned.

Speaking of camp, the diva battle teased in the trailer for Joyful Noise between its two stars, Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton, flatlines, as do most of the movie's jokes.

Tsukerman is not interested in disproving or discounting theories, but merely assembling them.

L!fe Happens is a blonde-brunette buddy comedy with a charmless cast (Rachel Bilson plays the third roomie, a Christian virgin) and banter as flat as Deena's favorite no-strings imperative, "Bone and bolt."

Forget "Son of Brazil": This syrupy origin story/biopic on the nation's beloved reformist president, whose second term ended in 2010, should be titled Mama's Boy.

The biggest surprise here is Tatum, whose butch reticence has never been put to better use: His saddest farewell isn’t to his lady, but to a man even more uncommunicative than he is.

Impersonally directed by cinéma du look pioneer Luc Besson, The Lady was written by first-timer Rebecca Frayn, whose script has all the elegance and nuance of Google Translate.

Awkwardly mixes blue material with sob stories.

Machine Gun Preacher is the umpteenth onscreen iteration of a white savior aiding the most desperate in Africa.

Spread becomes a sloggy, tepid comeuppance tale.

Straining for "teachable moments," the film has one noteworthy, unintentional function: to remind us that though LGBT rights are continually evolving, the laws of kitsch remain immutable.

As dull and impersonal as a sheaf of open-enrollment insurance forms, Office Christmas Party brings together — and underutilizes — several funny performers from TV shows (Silicon Valley, Veep, SNL) that pinpoint what this dim comedy does not: the specifics of workplace environments and their particular pathologies and joys.

In Davis's case, marveling at yet another fine performance doesn't stop you from wishing that her first leading role was in a worthier vehicle

The film is endurable owing solely to Johnson, a veteran of bad kids' movies whose sense of when to dial up the charm in such a generic, soulless entertainment remains impeccable.

In Luc Bondy’s largely inert False Confessions, the tedium is broken by the [Isabelle Huppert's] outfits, and by the way she moves in them.

A typically bombastic lives-of-the-artists production made even more stilted by having all the actors (including the Spanish ones) speak accented English.

Though these mismatched cops bounce well off each other, Tatum, in his first comedic lead role, is the better performer, both more riotous and affecting.

The handsome pooch is also the only appealing aspect of the latest tale of privileged boomer pulse-taking from Lawrence Kasdan.

Rohmer's 1986 masterpiece (being re-released with its original French title, which translates as "The Green Ray"), Le Rayon Vert centers on those themes, too, but delivers something much richer: an absorbing, empathic portrait of a complex woman caught between her own obstinacy and melancholy.

The Boss is a better film than Tammy, but it still flounders, almost capsizing in its sloppy final third.