Nick Pinkerton

That even the criminal class has gone sensitive and finicky eco-conscious has some potential for comedy-or drama, as in Oliver Stone's undervalued Savages-but there's no single detail that might convince a viewer that the characters played by Dax Shepard and Bradley Cooper might ever have been compelled to steal for a living, and this alienates the crime picture from any social context or sense of actual danger, making it essentially a celebrity goof-off.

It's clear that Hughes knows his Midnight Oil, but he's ignorant of the craft of economic action filmmaking. However arguably noble his film's intent to redress historical grievance, a poorly filmed shoot-out is never more than exactly that.

Scenes showing the tricky process of acclimatizing a child to new surroundings, and the patchwork of experiences that make up an education - both Asia's and Tairo's - are grounded by entirely affectless performances, not least that of little Asia Crippa.

The roaring popular success of Peter Chan's Wu xia in China - renamed Dragon for export - is no mystery: It's an adept genre exercise with rare primal depths.

The plot twists are about as venerable as the cast and predictably affecting when performed with such old-hand proficiency.

Delpy, of course, finds her father charming because he is her father, misses her mother for the same reason, and treasures her neuroses because they are her own. What viewers miss is anything inviting us to feel the same way.

As de-mythologizings go, Trollhunter has neither the wit, nor art, nor social insight to honor the legacy of George A. Romero's "Martin."

Eldard, with eyes projecting adolescent vulnerability and a body lost to awkward midlife chub, is enough to redeem Cuesta's indie commonplaces.

Greatest-generation stoicism meets gushing contemporary sentiment in Honor Flight.

There are moments when the tedium loosens you to melt into the landscape, and you swear you can hear the moss on the rocks start talking.

There is the impression, deadly to the sense of fun, that the talent here actually thought they were remaking a classic.

Never the same movie for five minutes straight, Septien can't sit still.

The language of ground-and-pound fighting remains untranslated for those not fluent in MMA, though ample space is given to the men's discussion of their individual warrior philosophies, illustrated with quotes from Nietzsche, P.T. Barnum, and Virgil.

An epic by Scandinavian standards, Manus's period re-creation is lavish-but the too-polished rental décor doesn't create a living past.

"Afterschool Special" stuff, but the ensemble rings quite true in their coping processes, as director David Schwimmer proves adept at tracking rogue emotions that no closing "Ordinary People" clench can satisfactorily resolve.

The production design is nice enough, but Bouchareb's four-country co-production isn't an epic-it's just long.

More than the marquee names, the second bananas keep the movie bobbing along: Broderick's pharmaceutically vague hangdog act is perfect ("If you need me, I'll be living in this box"), while Peña turns out to be a fine comedian, an enthusiastically yipping dumb puppy here.

The least one should hope for from another adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons is savory, salacious trash, but nothing in Hur Jin-ho's tony new version approaches the dizzying depths of Sarah Michelle Gellar spelling out the conditions of her sex bet with Ryan Phillippe ("You can put it anywhere . . .") in 1999's "Cruel Intentions."

Weixler is an alert, mobile comedienne who deserves better than this awkward pause, nervous stammer, social-anxiety comedy.

"We're all mixed bags" is the conclusion of unwieldy mixed bag Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

While Ironclad captures the casual cruelty and flesh-and-bone violence of the 13th century, it fails to do the same in the more intimate material set in the downtime between assaults.

Here is the irony: Trouble With the Curve embodies all of the values it espouses - it is an old-fashioned, proficient, amiable, and decent movie - but it has no instinct.

Graynor is a muddle of kooky indie girlfriend and materialistic fortune hunter; Hanks has neither threat nor pathos at his command.

Although the movie is overreliant on chintzy-looking and rather corny historical reenactments, these are counterbalanced by anecdote-rich interviews, including descendants of Huberman's first orchestra, human testament to the family tree of Israeli musicianship that he planted.

Despite such ubiquitous timidity, one can pluck out a few pleasing distractions here.

The same laxity given to the performers extends, unfortunately, to the film's structuring, a lazy Susan rotation between storylines and monotonous settings.

The narrative often seems at odds with the director's pictorialism, trudging when it should be striding toward the climax, isolating the performers on their marks when everything depends on taut blood-ties interconnection.

With erratic success, Heartless tries a number of different veins-urban fairy tale with "There was no magic, it was you all along" twist, supernatural family drama-but it's on firmest footing as a macabre comedy.