Steven Rea

Like Liam Neeson's "Taken" series, Costner's 3 Days to Kill finds its absentee-dad action hero facing off against hordes of goons and gorillas - not to rescue his loved ones, but to prove himself to them, and maybe get a little extra quality time, too.

RoboCop is a solid near-future action pic that poses moral questions about artificial intelligence and remote-control combat systems without getting too preachy or ponderous about it.

Director Rob Meltzer, who made the kind-of-amusing meta short "I Am Stamos," directs things in shameless, let's-get-this-thing-over-with style, throwing in some gratuitous topless (female) nudity and allowing the usually amusing Kristen Schaal to let loose with a barrage of potty-mouthisms.

Alas, it's a throwback that's thrown its back out - limping along, trailed by battalions of stereotypes and ammo rounds of cliche.

Gloria, spare and keenly observed, plays like a short story - there is no sweeping narrative arc, no momentous triumph or calamity. But there is a bit of justice meted out, and the act of its meting brings a slow, small smile to Gloria's face.

It is a yarn. But it's so full of passion, poetry, and humor that it becomes, for the time, quite real.

Jones (Like Crazy) gives Nelly's tragic plight a palpable anguish. There is no doubt that Dickens - who was mad about theater, about acting, about inhabiting other lives onstage and in the pages of his books - was in love with Nelly.

Too much of the action in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit takes place on laptops, thumb drives, and video monitors.

The middle 40 minutes of Lone Survivor have to be some of the toughest battle scenes in Hollywood history - an epic, close-range firefight that finds the SEALs throwing themselves down rock faces like superheroes. Only they aren't superheroes - they bleed, they break.

August: Osage County is the movie equivalent of Denny's Lumberjack Slam breakfast. If eggs, bacon, and toast aren't enough, throw in some ham, some sausage, pancakes, and hash browns. And then throw in more ham.

Sad, funny, and quietly alarming romance.

The momentum Stiller has built up - his character's globe-trotting derring-do, the care and consideration on display in his directing - carries the movie a long way. Falling short of fantastic, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is still a fantasy to enjoy.

A conventional biopic made anything but conventional by the magnitude of its subject's life and accomplishments, and by Idris Elba's imposing performance in the title role.

Been there, done that. As thrilling a filmmaker as Martin Scorsese continues to be, and as wild a performance as Leonardo DiCaprio dishes up as its morally bankrupt master of the universe, The Wolf of Wall Street seems almost entirely unnecessary.

Big hair. Big mouths. Big scams. Everything about American Hustle, David O. Russell's wild and woolly take on the late-'70s FBI sting operation code-named Abscam, is big. And the biggest thing of all is the love story that beats at the heart of this rollicking disco-era ensemble piece.

Saving Mr. Banks, set in 1961, is smart, delightful.

Inside Llewyn Davis plays like some beautiful, foreboding, darkly funny dream.

No manner of bizarre distraction can keep Anchorman's hapless hero from his mission: "I'm going to do what God put Ron Burgundy on this earth to do," he declares. "Have salon-quality hair and read the news!"

Not only eight minutes shorter than its forebear, it's at least eight minutes better - less twee, less chatty, more action, more Elvish.

Cooper, who steered Jeff Bridges through his Oscar-winning turn in Crazy Heart, gets fiercely committed performances from just about everyone in Out of the Furnace.

The Catholic Church does not come off well in Philomena, but then, what else is new? And the film isn't so much an indictment of institutional unkindness as it is a story of resilience, resolution - and human kindness.

Black Nativity offers a whopping serving of Yuletide emotion. And it's a musical - with plenty of wailing and rapping on the side.

Luckily, Statham is up to the task. Which is a surprise, because he's never, ever done anything like this before.

Nebraska is not a breakneck, screwball farce - although it has its moments, like the comical heist of an air compressor from a farmer's barn. Payne's film is loping. It's deadpan, poignant, absurd.

Delivery Man, with its democratic band of half-siblings and its feel-good view of humankind, is what it is: a reproductive remake that will make you laugh. More than once or twice.

Catching Fire is bigger, better and broodier than the first film.

McConaughey's performance isn't just about the weight loss. It's about gaining compassion, even wisdom, and it's awesome.

Then Death feels the need to intrude again. And again. If his accent weren't so charming, his voice so resonant, it would be depressing, all this meddling and mortality.