Peter Hartlaub

The biggest strength of the movie is the chemistry between Cumming and Isaac Leyva, a first-time feature film actor with Down syndrome, who does as much to make these scenes work as the experienced actors he's sharing scenes with.

Succeeds in its modest goals of building tension slowly and generating a handful of legitimate scares. A few people in the audience were laughing during the first half of the film. No one was laughing during the long walk out of the theater.

This has to be the first children's film to weave a Grand Theft Auto joke into the script -- and like most things in the movie, it's pretty amusing.

Always watchable, and occasionally great. And that’s probably more than even the most forgiving former Shyamalan fan ever thought they’d see again.

Beyond some network television-quality production values, the sequel to the 2015 film is completely satisfactory family entertainment. It's hard to imagine anyone putting "Goosebumps 2" on their end-of-year worst movie list. And not just because it's hard to imagine anyone even remembering this film beyond next Tuesday.

Perhaps anticipating an older audience, most of the lessons are one-sided, with the old-timers seemingly harming the children while actually saving them.

It's a stoner movie all the way, with much deep thought but little active conflict.

A victory lap of a comedy film taken by a star whose talent continues to propel his career, but doesn’t seem particularly hungry.

There's little illumination.

There are some nice moments and beautiful scenery, but the film is often slow and the dialogue is overwrought.

The filmmaking is unremarkable, but the obsessiveness of the lead character is infectious enough to make this drama passable entertainment.

If you like gore, this is the movie for you.

As the camera follows four campers in a Portland, Ore., rock school for girls, the result is less a journey than a collage of random thoughts, circumstances and events. There's plenty of telling, but not enough showing.

Lego Ninjago is still nowhere near bad “Alvin and the Chipmunks” sequel territory. But at this rate, we may be only one or two movies away.

The sexual tension is thick between the woodland creatures in Alpha and Omega, an animated children's film with a plot that has more in common with "The Blue Lagoon" than "Bambi."

The Providence Effect" is flawed, but it's still a moving film.

Basically, this is a really good movie until the last part, where director and co-writer Darren Lynn Bousman ruins so much so fast that you'll wonder if his actions are deliberate -- or if the studio interfered.

The result is an interesting but often frustrating effort by the director of "The Sea Inside," who proves that ambition and talent aren't enough to ensure a compelling drama.

If you can get past a few swear words, the film's simplicity makes Glory Road a good starting point to get young kids to talk about racism.

Even if it means blowing more than half the budget on animal wranglers, any movie that profiles Saddam Hussein's eldest son and Iraqi psychopath Uday Hussein is incomplete without the presence of his personal zoo. It's like filming a Michael Jackson biopic and leaving out the chimp, Ferris wheel and kid who played "Webster."

Has beautiful scenery and some enjoyable moments but leaves the viewer feeling the need to find the book to get the rest of the story.

Although intriguing to look at, Renaissance -- the latest animated film geared to adult audiences -- is undone by a plot that is ridiculously hard to follow and hackneyed.

Unfortunately, the writing has become so bad that it becomes impossible to keep your head in the game - even as your toes continue to tap to the beat.

Most audience members will probably want more.

A movie for people who value heart and earnestness over technical filmmaking skill, and consider unpredictable plot turns a betrayal.

The picture eventually collapses under the weight of its own gimmickry, but it's still an entertaining distraction for cerebral horror fans who want an appetizer before the B-horror feast that is "Diary of the Dead."

Despite the fact that the movie covers some new cinematic territory, much of the humor feels recycled, mostly from the "Seinfeld" episodes "The Boyfriend" (the one where Jerry has a man crush on Keith Hernandez) and "The Outing."

It's a pleasant and well-intentioned end of summer diversion that doesn't possess the imagination-stoking qualities of a premier children's movie.