Richard Roeper

Poker Face has a lean, cool look, and there are some effective dramatic moments, mostly due to the weight-of-the-old weariness in Crowe’s powerful performance. Unfortunately, Paul Tassone’s over-the-top theatrics as the main villain border on the cartoonish, as the psychological gamesmanship gives way to standard action movie stuff, and the cards and the chips have long been forgotten.

More times than not, The Benefactor takes the less interesting fork in the road.

Beyond the product placement, Marry Me is a high-concept “elevator pitch” movie that is set in present day but feels like a relic of the mid-1990s.

Whenever Pacific Rim Uprising gives itself the chance to do something fresh or unique or original, it passes up that opportunity to embrace the cliché.

Admission has some sublime moments, most of them involving Fey and Rudd dancing around their inevitable romance. The problem is in the foundation.

This is a star-studded extravaganza light on character development and heavy on battle spectacle, resulting in an impressive-looking but dramatically underwhelming story.

It’s a morose and slow-paced and off-putting drama, in which even the joyous moments seem brittle and draped in melancholy.

This is one good-looking, occasionally titillating, mostly soapy and dull snooze-fest.

The satire becomes almost numbingly obvious over the far too long running time of 140 minutes, and with all due appreciation for the strong work by the leads, the horrifically impressive VFX and prosthetics, and a few moments of pitch-black humor, we exit the film feeling more pummeled than enlightened.

From the moment Rachael and Stefan look into each other’s eyes while we roll OUR eyes, The Aftermath is a runaway train of cornball cliches.

For a movie called The Marksman, we rarely Jim actually demonstrating his marksmanship, as we’re left with Neeson again doing extended, hand-to-hand combat with a much younger, cockier foe who has no idea what he’s up against.

Occasionally Winterbottom delivers a haunting, effective moment, giving a hint of a different, more compelling film. But then it’s back to the self-righteous, self-indulgent, muddled metaphors.

For all its obvious love of movies and of the shared experience of watching movies, Empire of Light is a decidedly downbeat effort that tries to say too much and ultimately winds up saying very little.

The action and the scale of the acting are often more befitting an elaborate stage play than a film.

[Harris and Franco] bring out the finest in each other as they punch and counter-punch vastly different memories of horrific incidents from the past. It’s great stuff. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the The Adderall Diaries is overwrought, convoluted and irritating.

I’m not going to spoil the epilogue in the slick but trashy and quite dumb Jennifer Lopez action movie The Mother, but I will say it’s so insanely off the rails, so bat-bleep crazy that I almost want you to watch The Mother just so you’ll know what I’m talking about. Almost.

Even though it is quite likely the longest romance in movie history in terms of the time period covered, the one-point premise is stretched washi paper-thin over the course of just 92 minutes.

Despite an intriguing premise, it ultimately falls apart as the gimmick wears thin and the plot veers into ludicrous territory, with the heroine making a series of increasingly rash and idiotic decisions.

While Mirren and McKellen are as wonderful as you’d expect, especially in the early going when their respective characters are just getting to know one another, even these two legendary talents can’t overcome a convoluted, unfocused and increasingly implausible storyline.

Sure, these guys now have a budget to work with and they can pull off some elaborate stunts, but we’ve seen so much viral, backyard Jackassery through the years, the shock value has dissipated and all that remains is the cringe factor and a growing feeling of restlessness as the gags become repetitive and tiresome.

While it’s wonderful to see Michelle Yeoh return as Yu Shu-Lien and there are a few moments of soaring majesty, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny is an unnecessary and underwhelming experience that plays like a B-movie knockoff/follow-up of the original.

There’s never a moment when the story lulls. Alas, it’s all just so … preposterous, due to that mistrial of a screenplay.

The talented director Billy Corben swings for the fences and takes a decidedly creative approach, but unfortunately, he devotes far too many at-bats to one particular stylistic choice. Either you’ll find it original and funny and suitably outlandish, or, like me, you’ll grow weary of the technique.

Despite some interesting performances and impressive art direction, director Luca Guadagnino’s take on the 1977, cult-favorite, supernatural horror film by Dario Argento is an arduous, overstuffed, convoluted and trashy piece — bloated and graphically blood-soaked, guaranteed to make you cringe at times, but not the least bit chilling or haunting.

Stiller is very good at playing this kind of character. The issue is whether we’re tired of him playing this kind of character.

The story fluctuates between the uninspired and the just plain weird — and then gets even weirder. It’s too basic and familiar to keep parents and older children consistently entertained, and too trippy and existential for the little ones.

Final Portrait has the feel of a work that might be quite effective on a modest stage in a small theater. As a film, it’s well-made and the performances are fine, but it feels slight and thin and inconsequential — quite the opposite of the work Alberto Giacometti left behind.

This is one of those comedies that could have been a brilliant short film on “Funny or Die” or “Saturday Night Live,” but wears out its welcome as a feature-length film.