Mike Scott

As engrossing as The Young Victoria is, this isn't a movie that will stay with you very long. Mostly that's because Blunt's character does little by way of evolving.

Visually and tonally, Miss Sloane -- like Chastain's one-note performance, in which she does little but bark and glower -- is slick but soulless, a film that takes itself far too seriously and misjudges how smart it really is.

A well-conceived superhero romp in its own right, and one that stands nicely on its own six legs.

With no real beginning and no real ending, the unsatisfying "Mockingjay Part 1" is essentially all middle -- one big, stretched out, watered-down second act. The result is a handsome film, but also a talky one that takes a while to hit its storytelling stride and that, once there, repeatedly stalls to fill time.

It succeeds wonderfully, offering moviegoers a rare taste of rarified air -- and as compelling an argument as you can make for seeing a movie writ large on the oversized screen of an actual movie theater.

As pleasant as the Downton Abbey movie is, it’s hard not to wish for something more substantive, more memorable.

And so the real question isn't whether director Todd Phillips' third -- and, he insists, the final -- installment in the unabashedly crude, very R-rated comedy trilogy is funny. Of course, it is.

Thanks to Gere -- and occasional flashes of gaudy but well-deployed visual style from Cedar -- those contrivances never threaten to overtake the rest of the film.

It is an inspiring, well-assembled portrait of one man's love for his autistic 6-year-old son and the measures he's willing to go to help the boy -- and the family -- cope with his neurological challenges.

Vol. 1 functions reasonably well as a standalone film in its own right, playing out like a dose of mass therapy, an interesting, Von Trier-led sexploration of humankind's conflicted approach to sex: We love it, but we also fear it and are often thoroughly ashamed of it.

Writer-director Markus Schleinzer's exceedingly dark drama -- guaranteed to make audiences squirm in their seats -- is emotionally unsettling.

Niccol's film won't likely achieve the high-flying box-office success of "Top Gun," but it is similar to that 1986 film in that it will likely get people talking after the closing credits roll.

Early on in The Slammin' Salmon, a customer sends back a plate of undercooked fish. I can't imagine a better metaphor for a movie that is named after a fish and that is as half-baked as this one is.

It's a lovely bit of blood-pressure-lowering cinema that never betrays its simple conceit.

A solidly entertaining and largely engaging film that, even with its faults, functions as a singular -- albeit melancholy -- tribute to a tragic American icon.

That's no small thing: to leave viewers with unanswered questions but still make them satisfied they've gotten a full movie experience. But there it is.

While you're watching it, it is cozy and enjoyable, the same way a sleeping cat in your lap is cozy and enjoyable.