Steve Davis

The result is a visually fantastic but sometimes exasperating entertainment that (once again) gets lost in its own chaos. It’s one funned-up spectacle of a movie.

With more than a passing nod to the far classier "Panic Room," this derivative seat-squirmer has a few good moments in spite of Johnny Klimick’s annoying score, its energy powered by the raw determination of its Mother Courage.

Bigelow stages the film's action sequences with a brutal efficiency (they almost redeem the movie), but she can't keep the increasingly silly script in check.

A bittersweet experience. It leaves you asking for more, even knowing that nothing more is forthcoming.

There’s some gorgeous animation and impeccable camerawork on display here. But as George Lucas’ 2015 fiasco "Strange Magic" demonstrated, beautifully executed visuals will get you only so far. There’s no emotional core to Abominable, which mostly proceeds at a glacial pace as the travelers’ journey across China.

Whatever the reason for its disappointments, Mission: Impossible is a mission gone awry, prompting you to hope that reruns of its television incarnation will pop up on cable soon.

Does the world need another movie about a bunch of miniature, blue-skinned humanoids with bulbous noses and perky bobtails; gnomelike creatures who wear floppy caps, live in mushrooms, and use the word “smurf” in every other sentence? Someone apparently thinks so.

The movie remains patchy as it continues to jump somewhat arbitrarily from day to day without fully realizing its subject matter. The one dependable constant in all of this is Christo himself. Smiling ecstatically one minute, despondently hangdog the next, he exhibits a genius lunacy on par with his life’s work.

If Tuff Turf had used a little more of Downey's relaxed intelligence and amiability, and a little less teenage angst and sense of violence as retribution, it might have been tough stuff. As it is, it's a lightweight in a genre populated with featherweights.

It feels like a veiled apology for Babs Johnson and other exercises in bad taste. In my book, the filthiest person alive will always win the prize.

This is a movie tailor-made for cheering on the not-so-little guy to find his self-esteem, dazzle the judges, and win the girl.

By the end of Bug, you may find yourself scratching yourself as well -- your head, that is -- wondering what the hell this is all about.

Strives to depict its love-hate relationship in emotionally neutral terms, but the sympathies are ultimately lopsided.

There's much to enjoy here as long as your expectations aren't too high.

Though Take Me to the River also offers up some civil rights history lessons between recordings, it feels like a mishmash effort overall, more a home movie than a theatrical release. That’s fine. If you approach it on those terms, you can’t help but feel the love, too.

What’s missing here is the full adrenaline rush associated with this dangerous but exhilarating sport and pastime. The documentary’s start/stop narrative structure never allows anything to accelerate full throttle.

That’s the central problem with The Way, Way Back – it’s more manipulative than truthful.

It's an occasionally entertaining ride, although one fraught with numerous logical holes.

The saving quality here is Thompson’s performance as the prickly Travers.

Unfortunately, there's not much of a story to go with Hunter's engaging performance and LaGravenese's words.

As Christy, Garner gives an earnest performance, her perpetually worried expression put to good use here as the Beams grapple with the unimaginable possibility of losing Anna.

May not be best chick flick around, but it's the flick with the best chick by far.

It honors this extraordinary couple’s defiant and unwavering love for each other, but it doesn’t celebrate it much beyond a cliched falling-in-love montage and a chaste wedding-night scene. You can look, but you better not touch.

While occasionally engaging, The Comedian isn’t very funny.

Renaissance man extraordinaire Michelangelo Buonarroti is frequently accused of greed in the incohesive historical drama Sin, but the only real transgression is his pride, whether it’s nurturing his own divine genius or badmouthing the mediocrity of contemporaries like Leonardo and Raphael.

There’s also something to be said for wanting a little bit more.

The Aviary, a modest mindf*ck of a thriller about two young women fleeing a cult in the New Mexican desert, goes round and round and round in a circle like a snake swallowing itself. A beguiling metaphor, but by the end, you’re left with a self-cannibalized movie.

There’s little juicy about his life, except for maybe when he briefly left his stalwart, long-time male lover and business associate, André Oliver, for the sultry French actress, Jeanne Moreau. While House of Cardin devotes a few more than a glancing minute to this intriguing episode, perhaps it’s a worthy topic for another documentary at another time.

40 Years in the Making is a cliquey undertaking that leaves you mostly on the outside looking in, but after witnessing the joy of its participants at the end, there’s little to begrudge.

The fun in Norbit is watching Murphy at work – the guy has a knack for bringing the physicality of his comic characters to life.

Given the outlandish premise, you'll wish the film twinkled with a more savvy sense of humor and adventure, like the chapters of the "Toy Story" series, for example.

For those who adore McCourt's work, Angela's Ashes will most likely disappoint; for those unfamiliar with this inspiring chronicle of a survivor, it will neither impress nor dishearten to any degree.

Still, The Ex is more appealing and less dumb than most movies that pass as comedy today, so any criticisms of its shortcomings need to account for that big-picture perspective. Indeed, there are worse ways to spend an hour-and-a-half.

Davies tells David's story in a striking series of tableaux and dioramas, all impeccably executed to the last detail. As in Martin Scorsese's work, there's a great deal of control in Davies' directorial style, to the point that it seems totally lacking in spontaneity. But unlike a Scorsese movie, The Neon Bible implodes rather than explodes.

For those enamored with Wells' books, however, this film version will likely meet their expectations, and it undoubtedly will spawn more Ya-Ya chapters throughout the country.

Director/screenwriter Giarratana occasionally summons up a lovely moment, although the overall tone is inconsistent.

The movie works best as a whodunit with a pointed twist.

It’s all veddy stiff-upper-lip -– this is romance from a masochist’s point of view -– and the intimacy of the emotions often feels cramped.

Call it humanism, call it advocacy, call it old-fashioned entertainment – there’s little difference in the end. Whatever you call it, Spare Parts stands and delivers on its own intriguing merits.

Always an intriguing (though sometimes unpolished) actress, Basinger has softened the rough edges over the years to become an extremely watchable performer who deserves better roles than those in which she appears onscreen.

The two leads are watchable enough, but the script keeps their characters emotionally separated, so you never see anything remotely like chemistry between them.

No wonder the movie feels something like a retread: It gets you there, but the ride is neither nowhere as smooth, nor nearly as compelling.

It never really rollicks like a good political satire.

For most of the film, Bateman, the director, manages to bring out the two principals’ anguish without resorting to sentimentality, until the unsatisfying last quarter of the film.

Never fully taps your empathy or your fears; it plays like a movie that's always about someone else.

If the movie isn’t so fabulous, should die-hard fans who can quote the show by heart see it? Absolutely. (The gays are sure to love it.)

Outbreak has the feel of a movie written by a committee of writers -- it's totally lacking in personality.

It’s like someone’s always turning the knob in one direction, and then in another in Mafia Mamma, rarely settling on any mood with clear reception. It can be a frustrating farrago.

As far as animated flicks go, Clifford's Really Big Movie is third-string Disney, but don't tell that to the kids.

The cast is an impossibly beautiful bunch of actors who could hold your attention even if they spoke nothing but gibberish, which sometimes is the case in the pillow-talk dialogue provided by director/screenwriter Chick.

This is a guy who marched to the beat of his own drum, even one that’s got two spoked wheels and some handlebars.

Speaking in a barely audible rasp bordering on monotone, Kidman bravely submerges herself in a performance with some genuinely harrowing emotional moments, and yet the unswerving conviction she brings to the role is conspicuous.

Taking its cue from the notion that American society is obsessed with covert political intrigues and machinations, Conspiracy Theory is an interesting but flawed thriller in which the wildly paranoiac is something really real.

Perhaps the film’s most telling moments, however, are wordless ones in which no actor appears. They’re the bird’s-eye views of American tableaux – suburban tract houses, elementary schools, interstate highways – that mimic similar sky-high perspectives just before a drone fires its missile.

In the movies, black comedy is a difficult proposition: it's a genre more suited to a ten-minute sketch than a two-hour film. For every brilliant black comedy like Dr. Strangelove, there are a hundred duds. Unfortunately, the $50-million-plus Death Becomes Her doesn't quite make the grade either, although its wicked take on modern vanity is often hysterically on-target.

While the documentary offers a few delicate glimpses of a self the writer did not openly share during her 74-year lifetime – she lived as a lesbian, albeit privately – it falls short of conveying the vital essence of this modern and enigmatic woman of her time.

A nagging question persists throughout Darkest Hour: Is Oldman’s compulsively meticulous turn here anything more than a brilliant impersonation? The answer is yes, but it’s a performance that always stands apart from the rest of the film.

This is an action flick for those who like form over substance in their popcorn movies which explode onscreen every summer.

Regardless of whether Cry Macho merits a rating of good, bad, or ugly, Eastwood’s mere presence, despite any perceived physical frailties, can’t help but dwarf this slenderest of movies.

Animated films have trended toward a perceptive intelligence in the past few years, but Storks wades in shallow waters most of the time.

An example of how good intentions don’t necessarily make for a good movie.

A welcome antidote to most of the crap that for passes today for horror and other supernaturally themed movies.

The metaphoric title about the danger in beautiful things sounds like something from Byron or Keats, but this compressed film adaptation of an Oprah-endorsed bestseller plays like the Dickens.

Any adult attending this film with a pre-K offspring may need to reassure the child afterward that little Tigger back home won’t devour him in his sleep. No kidding. They’re that scary. The Wild Life is an ailurophobe’s nightmare.

Some kids may find the whole affair traumatic, particularly when the poor pooch finds herself dehydrated and chained to a corpse in the wilderness. Then again, that’s nothing compared to those same kids’ parents’ recollection of a Disney flick in which a tearful boy must shoot his rabies-inflicted yeller dog in the end. Bless the beasts and the children.

Given his lackluster performance, even Martin, who is no stranger to sardonic humor, seems unsure about the film's tone.

It’s the subtext of 19th century gender politics that keeps this footnote in Dickens’ life mildly interesting, but it’s a not much upon which to rest an entire movie.

The temporal jumps between the present and varying points in the past deprive the film of a sense of completeness; the transitions from scene to scene are largely disorienting, leaving you struggling to find your bearings.

By the end, however, the movie’s predictable wind-down and ho-hum twist at the end make this Life hardly worth living. In space, no one can hear you yawn.

One can't help but wonder how much better this film would have played straight, without its characters in seemingly constant song. God help us if there's a film version of "Cats" in the works.

Honestly, both Sex and the City and Seinfeld tackled the romantic pitfalls of youngish single life in NYC more adeptly in their relatively truncated formats than this 91-minute movie, and with a helluva lot more verve and wit.

Though the movie’s raison d’être is unmistakable from the outset, the most compelling moments come not when God’s name is being invoked out loud and with great frequency, but rather when the loving symbiosis between two young people facing adversity and caring for each other is tenderly communicated without uttering any words, conveyed in something as simple as the direct gaze between two pairs of locked eyes. Now that’s the notion of a higher power in which we can all believe.

The premise is ripe for potent melodrama, but director Jacquot (who gets co-screenwriting credit) ultimately doesn’t finesse the situation.

It’s a frustrating thing to unsnarl. Straddling the thorny fence of dramedy, Love the Coopers is a sometimes too serious, often not funny entry in this year’s tra-la-la movie sweepstakes.

There’s an intriguing story to be told here, but there’s a better way to tell it. To borrow from the Bard, the spots in Lady Macbeth simply won’t wash away.

This empty-headed comedy about a Playmate who finds herself a house mother to a group of misfit sorority sisters is little more than a recycled version of "Legally Blonde" with bunny ears.

As the whimsical setup in Yesterday deteriorates until its unimaginative conclusion, the familiar Lennon/McCartney collaborations (along with a couple written by Harrison) provide the only solace, timeless songs that make it better. Viva Los Beatles!

It's bigger, but it ain't necessarily better.

No matter whether the cast is male, female, or somewhere in between, the absence of a well-constructed story, particularly when the humor goes south (literally), will doom any movie to quick obscurity, no matter how many d**k or p***y jokes get told.

Mighty Aphrodite may take its thematic and structural cues from Greek tragedy, but it's second-rate Borscht Belt all the way.

The next time he (Baumbach) attempts something similar, he might take care to lessen the bile and amplify the heart.

Unlike "Manhattan," this perfunctorily conceived film about an unhappy woman starved for romantic and personal fulfillment never lives up to its brilliant production values.

The characterizations are sincere, but overly familiar.

Director Miner (Friday the 13th, House) executes some of the scary scenes competently (one in which Sands gives his male host the ultimate French kiss is grossly memorable), but he never takes the material beyond its rather limited parameters.

This oddly dispassionate film about a young man dying of cancer is the French antidote to those Hollywood weepies in which the heroine courageously faces her own mortality with every hair in place.

Ladybugs is a clapboard of a movie, but it's a genial, harmless one. The misfit antics of the soccer games are good for a few laughs, although Michael Ritchie's 1976 film The Bad News Bears is far superior in that area of comedy. Regardless, when you find yourself ashamedly laughing at Ladybugs, remember that comedy was never meant to be politically correct.

With the exception of the handful of scenes in which the Flubber does its stuff, however, the youngsters will no doubt be bored by it all.

Admittedly, the original had its unruly moments, but there’s little to no discipline here. The storyline goes in six different directions, and the actors are unleashed in an apparent free-for-all as they vie for center stage at the Parthenon.

This overly sentimental family Christmas drama, featuring a veritable checklist of prominent Hispanic actors, falls victim to the shortcoming so prevalent in similarly ethnic-themed movies with similar casts – everything and everyone is so damn serious.

When Bardem is onscreen, the emotional stakes are high, engaging you in a way the principal storyline fails to do. It’s a masterful turn by a masterful actor, one that’s blissfully on-target in The Gunman.

While the first film was nothing special – it often felt like a packaged product, in the worst Nancy Meyers sort of way – it still had some snap-crackle-and-pop energy now and then. This sequel, however, plays like soggy cereal.

To its credit, this third GND installment earnestly attempts to give some degree of lip service to diverging perspectives on the socio-religious-political scale without too much proselytizing, although there’s never any question about who’s side it’s on.

The central conceit in 3 Days to Kill – the family man moonlighting as a gun-for-hire – is hardly a fresh one. It worked in films released 10 or 20 years ago (see True Lies or Mr. and Mrs. Smith), but here it feels played out, clichéd.

You could say it’s toothless most of the time.

Neither a badly miscast Cage nor an oddly dispassionate Cruz remotely suggest the ardor of love's passion.

It’s a tale full of sound and fury, signifying something that’s nothing less than appalling.

Of course, the selling point of this movie is the boy wonder Culkin, making his first screen appearance since the inexplicable megahit Home Alone. Relegated to a supporting role, Culkin is natural and appealing, a picture of blue-eyed innocence. What a more interesting movie you'd have if it were entitled My Guy.

Movies shouldn’t have to meet a PC checklist so they won’t offend – who wants that kind of cinema? – but when they poke you in the eye one too many times, it’s fair game to poke back.