Randy Cordova

Director Eran Riklis starts the film off with a playful, whimsical tone that grows increasingly darker as things progress. It reflects the life of the movie's protagonist, which finds him facing challenges that would make most people bitter.

The club scenes, initially exciting, are ultimately wearying, and the movie meanders about much of the time.

Visually, the film is sumptuous and the costumes are suitably wow-inspiring, but the humans are a blah bunch.

It actually is quite funny. It is also warm and empathetic, though a viewer's reaction to the film might vary depending how they view the subject of assisted suicide.

Everything feels pat and oversimplified, with no gray areas. That's not uncommon in films of this nature, but Christensen is unable to make the movie feel like anything more than propaganda.

Ultimately, the whole affair is forgettable. The original film was promoted with the tagline "It knows what scares you." If there was a truth-in-advertising law regarding films, this movie's ad copy would read: "Poltergeist: Meh."

The movie is fascinating when it looks at the mechanics of Big Bird, which are physically challenging.

The movie, like Jackie, loosens up a bit, and her relationship with Ian adds a nice bit of warmth. Hunt directs the film, and at times its tonal shifts are a bit jarring.

It is clean, crisp and passionless. You almost wish for some Bravo sleaze to add a little edge to the proceedings.

If you like a little bit more in a movie — say, characters that are mildly interesting or a plot that's a wee bit logical — stay far away.

Above and Beyond is a straightforward, rah-rah documentary.

Supporting turns by Philip Rosenthal and David Alan Grier as two pals in the business are fun, but they can't prevent the movie's rather aimless nature or self-indulgent feel.

Written, produced and directed by Christopher Nolen, who gives himself a small role, the movie fails as both a comedy and morality tale.

The movie makes some observations about the worth of human life — the title refers to the monetary value put on the life of the injured waiter — and the economic class system, but they're not terribly interesting or surprising.

It's no surprise The Boy Next Door is junk. What is disappointing is that it's not fun junk. It doesn't even merit a good hate-watching, because the whole thing is so meh.

There are some poignant moments in the movie's latter half, as well as a couple of genuine laughs. If it never achieves the heft it wants, it at least manages a sitcommy kind of charm, like an extended episode of "The Golden Girls." Perhaps more importantly, it gives Rowlands a lead role, which is never a bad thing.

Olivier Megaton (he helmed "Taken 2") starts things off at a sluggish pace and never picks up speed. Even the action scenes, which often are filmed in jittery fashion, don't generate thrills.

Everything is lathered with a syrupy, string-laden musical score designed to gnaw at a viewer's tear ducts. It's about as subtle as having an off-screen narrator yell "Start crying!" before big scenes, and probably as effective.

This is a wonderful movie.

Freeland does a fine job, waiting for her characters to converge in a way that doesn't feel overly forced, though there is a bit of that "Crash" tidiness in how things fall together. Still, the film is moving and human.

First-time writer-director Peter Sattler keeps things glum and unsentimental, then tosses it all up in the air with a syrupy ending that derails everything. On another movie, the high-corn finale might have worked; here, it just feels patently false.

The movie is not uninteresting, but a viewer isn't breathlessly waiting to see how things will wrap up, either. By the third act, you even start to get impatient with the characters. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

The characters flutter about, argue and flirt, but they are simply too bland and vacuous to make much of an impression. It doesn't help that half of them serve no purpose other than to fill the camera frame.

Elvis Presley made some bad movies, but let's give the King his due: He never made anything as outright awful as The Identical.

Granted, all the fine elements don't add up to make the deepest or most compelling film. Instead, it's a series of self-contained scenes that don't always hang together as a whole. But like a good hotel, there are enough comforts to make the stay worthwhile.

Director Michael Dowse (from the underrated Topher Grace comedy "Take Me Home Tonight") fuels the story with atmosphere, with lots of nighttime activity and bustle. He keeps things grounded in reality, though little touches (Chantry imagines her drawings coming to life) add an extra — and, perhaps, excessive — sweetness.

There's comfort food and there are comfort movies. In Lasse Hallstrom's The Hundred-Foot Journey, you get a full helping of both. And guess what? It's all very comforting.

Writer-director Amat Escalante was named best director at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for this project, and although it obviously is made with some skill, it also is unrelentingly dire.