Todd McCarthy

If The Legend of Hercules were just a little more inept or over-the-top, it might have been ridiculous fun. As it is, unfortunately, Harlin embraces the mediocrity of the screenplay with a dour straight face, draining it of any enjoyably camp possibilities.

Blue Ruin is a talented but sophomoric low-budgeter that straddles the divide between genre thriller and art piece with mixed results.

Volume two gets down in ways the first half doesn't, although anything resembling real sensuality remains MIA.

It is never boring and does provoke and stimulate, although not as a turn-on, not remotely.

Nearly as extravagant as the characters it depicts, Martin Scorsese's comic, operatically-scaled film is, on a moment-by-moment basis, often madly entertaining due to its live-wire energy, exuberant performances and the irresistible appeal of watching naughty boys doing very naughty things.

Comedically, everyone's on the same page here, which means that, even when things flag, more fun isn't far off.

The film is rugged, skilled, relentless, determined, narrow-minded and focused, everything that a soldier must be when his life is on the line.

After exhibiting an almost craven fidelity to his source material the first time out, Jackson gets the drama in gear here from the outset with a sense of storytelling that possesses palpable energy and purpose.

Homefront is sufficiently silly and low-down to be entertaining on a certain marginal level, but it wouldn't appear that those involved, with the possible exception of Franco, approached this with the idea that they might be making good trash; it looks too elaborate and costly for that and the script exhibits no self-aware humor.

An admirable idea in theory proves to be a real slog to sit through in Everyday.

This is a safe, serviceable, carefully crafted action drama in which the subversive seeds planted in the first story take welcome root.

In the meaty bad guy role, Harrelson entertainingly goes all the way, putting him way out there on the ledge with any of your favorite loonies, psychos and unhinged nutjobs.

Energetic, humorous and not too cloying, as well as the first Hollywood film in many years to warn of global cooling rather than warming, this tuneful toon upgrades what has been a lackluster year for big studio animated fare.

The connection between art and technology is explored in an entertaining and accessible way in Tim's Vermeer, a documentary that demonstrates how a savvy and dedicated amateur with sufficient resources was able to create a remarkable likeness of a great 17th century painting.

Although formulaic in design and programmed to meet its quota of laughs, the film makes a point of going beyond basic expectations into some legitimate aspects of mature friendships without getting soggy about it.

There is much here of interest to aficionados of the great author as well as to those curious about the complicated relationship between sisters Mariel and the late Margaux.

Despite its scaldingly hot cast and formidable writer/director combination, The Counselor is simply not a very likable or gratifying film. In fact, it's a bummer.

They just don't make 'em like this anymore, and it's a good thing, too.

Our Day Will Come speeds along for a while on the fumes of its own audacity until it can no longer hide the lack of coherent ideas in the tank.

The Old West is portrayed as a venal loony bin in Sweetwater, a handsomely designed, occasionally funny but ultimately empty female vengeance yarn.

This is a probing, inquisitive work of a very high order, although it goes a bit slack in the final third and concludes rather conventionally compared to much that has come before.

The older the actors here the better they are, as pros like Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis have it all over low-voltage young leads Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld. Relativity will be lucky to milk anything more than a moderate take from this pretty but unexciting enactment.

What's actually up onscreen in this vaguely ambitious but tawdry melodrama falls into an in-between no-man's-land that endows it with no distinction whatsoever, a work lacking both style and insight into the netherworld it seeks to reveal.

An unsuccessful attempt to get inside the head, under the skin or through the looking glass of Bush administration Secretary of Defense and Iraq War proponent Donald Rumsfeld.

What starts as potentially interesting apocalyptic speculative fiction devolves into dreary sub-Hunger Games survivalism and banal teen romance.

More pictorially arresting than intellectually coherent.

The best feature film directed by someone named Coppola in a number of years.

A career high point for Ralph Fiennes as both an actor and director, this unfussy and emotionally penetrating work also provides lead actress Felicity Jones with the prime role in which she abundantly fulfills the promise suggested in some of her earlier small films.