Neil Genzlinger

The whole film seems to have a vague heaviness to it. The best Muppet movies have been great because they had charm. There’s no charm here, really; just self-referential jokes, decent but not memorable songs, and lots and lots of cameos.

A lot of intriguing ideas are floated in Teenage... But the film takes a point of view that leaves all of them underdeveloped.

Matt Dillon and Kurt Russell may not make the most convincing half-brothers, but The Art of the Steal is a fairly amusing heist film with some sibling tension helping the story along.

Considering that the fate of humankind is at stake, War of the Worlds: Goliath is remarkably uninvolving.

It’s a stretch to call Mr. Everson’s film a documentary.

Ms. Riggs gives each actor a story arc of sorts, and all three are personable guides to this backstage world, explaining the process and terminology and talking openly about their lives and jobs.

Angels in Stardust ends up being too tidy to be a great coming-of-age movie, but it’s a decent one.

It’s all light as a feather, with Jeremy Leven, the writer and director, landing some good multinational jokes along the way.

There’s nothing sophisticated or groundbreaking here, but the movie is a moderately good entry in the bro-grows-up genre.

A terrible movie about a bland, morose young man’s search for love.

Nurse 3D isn’t nearly as fun as a movie about a homicidal, sex-obsessed, clothing-averse health care provider ought to be.

Allegories involving astronomy, baseball and sandwiches are hinted at but are no better developed than the characters.

Yes, it’s full of droll humor, but it’s also a bittersweet portrait of two people, who, in the process of helping their children choose a college, confront the emptiness of their respective marriages.

With a manic performance by Jean-Claude Van Damme and an improbable but intriguing plot variation, Enemies Closer is an improvement over most hunt-or-be-hunted fare. A small improvement, but still.

There are a lot of odious movies yet to come in 2014, no doubt, but they’ll have to work to beat Back in the Day for awfulness.

The plot twists are easily guessed, and the film goes on for one predicament too long, but there are some good laughs.

If you can stand to watch this movie — a big if — there is food for thought here about the subjugation and exploitation of women, the limits of psychological and physical endurance, and more.

A striking experiment in music and moviemaking.

The changes — goodbye, white suburbia; hello, gritty diversity — recharge the batteries somewhat. But there’s no escaping that the found-footage phenomenon has gone from fresh and original to just plain annoying.

The movie looks great, the writing is peppered with moments of wit, and there’s even an educational component built in as dinosaur facts are displayed on the screen.

Mr. Walker is convincing as a man battling grief, exhaustion and, occasionally, an intruding outside world where lawlessness has taken hold.

One of those who’s-the-murderer parlor games is a plot pillar of Merry Christmas, an experiment in filmmaking by Anna Condo that itself feels like a parlor game, and not a particularly entertaining one.

A slight movie that could have been significantly better with a little story doctoring.

It’s as thinly written and unoriginal as made-for-television seasonal filler, and why it isn’t on the Hallmark Channel or Lifetime is a mystery, but fans of the singers in it might get a kick out of seeing them.

The problems are clearly explained, though the film doesn’t have solutions any more than public officials do, since shoreline development is already a fact of life.

The purpose was no doubt more spiritual than the film conveys; if so, the execution doesn’t do the effort justice.

Cold Turkey has some fine actors who put effort into their roles, but it’s getting harder and harder to care about or laugh at adult characters who have botched up their affluent lives and are still obsessed with events from childhood.

Detroit Unleaded is about as gentle as comedies come these days, commendably so.