The scares don't stay with you. They're the horror-movie equivalent of junk food.

David Fincher's meticulous direction pays off in spades. From the way he expresses the book's construction — not quite he-said/she-said, but a version of that — to the way the film looks (cold and uncaring, like its characters) to his work with actors (go Tyler Perry!), Gone Girl delivers.

There are complex situations, well-acted characters and a central relationship that feels authentic and mature — and yet it's missing some element to bring it fully into focus.

Ultimately it's Wasikowska's performance that captivates. It's oddly compelling — she doesn't say much, and what she does say is usually off-putting. But there is a fierceness in her eyes as she walks, a determination that almost dares you to look away.

This is a film that deals with suicide, missed chances, depression, infidelity and more. Yet the movie itself isn't depressing, thanks to Hader, Wiig and director and co-writer Craig Johnson.

Hector and the Search for Happiness is more like "audiences and the search for a good movie," and despite the effort of Pegg and the other actors, you won't find that here.

The Zero Theorem feels like Gilliam's keen intellect chasing its own tail.

Sure, the hits would have been nice. But it says something about Jimi: All Is by My Side (and Benjamin's performance) that it is still a success without them.

Enchantment is an essential ingredient of an animated film, particularly one that skirts dark edges. The Boxtrolls doesn't have nearly enough of it.

Truly, you don't have to watch former secret agents relentlessly wipe out villains. But if you want to, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone better than Washington for the task.

The film begins with upbeat music and what appears to be a comedy-of-errors setup, but it becomes so much more, bringing us through dark territory with wit, anger and grace, becoming in the end a much fuller tale for it.

It's adorable. It's also very thin. There's a disconcerting literalism to the songs' dramatic representation that chokes the drama.

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.

Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett last worked together on You're Next, a ferocious film that is also intelligent. They're even more successful here.

It's ultimately Parks who carries Tusk, and carries it farther than it should have gone.

It all falls flat. Not completely — there is simply too much talent involved for the film to fail completely.

The reason to see it is the humanity the outstanding cast brings to the film. The emotions these people feel, the moments of grief, of anger, of love and of clarity they experience, feel both real and recognizable.

The look of the film is impressive enough, but the performances are merely OK. The same goes for the story.

Scott Frank's atmospheric thriller is a step up from Neeson's usual shoot-'em-ups. Not a giant leap, but a step up nonetheless.

At once hopeful and melancholy, it won't necessarily leave you with deep thoughts to think, but rather a feeling that you can't quite name but sticks in your head like a wistful tune in a minor key.

There are some compelling elements here, probably too many for one film, but they're too often presented in a cliched way. Connor and co-director Michael Worth go for the easy sentiment, the expected route, leading to middling results.

We get it, we get it: Capitalism is good, government is bad. But Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt? is worse.

It's almost as difficult to sit through Starred Up as it is satisfying to watch it.

The Drop could have been an ordinary crime drama, but it's elevated by extraordinary performances.

Life lessons are learned, children do some growing up, nothing too terribly upsetting happens, and the corniness is, mostly, kept to tolerable levels.

The film really pops to life only when it gets a little messy, and it's never messier than when it loses itself in family dynamics.

Innocence is a misguided little horror film, reminiscent of one of those cheesy '70s made-for-TV movies that kind of, sort of seem scary when you're 9 but are just dopey at any other age.

The intentions are solid here, but the execution is not... But the actors are compelling, and the issue is, of course, always worth discussion. It's not a great movie, but, if nothing else, Frontera is worthwhile on those fronts.

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

It takes effort to turn a movie with a cast as appealing as the one in The Longest Week into a grating exercise in narcissism, but writer and director Peter Glanz proves up to the task.

Kevin Kline makes a terrific Errol Flynn. He just picked the wrong movie to prove it.

Mostly, it's fine. The acting is fine. The writing is fine. The story is fine. There are a few laughs. And that should be fine enough. But with material as rich as Leonard's serving as the foundation, just fine is a disappointment.

Not a lot happens, other than eating between small bits of drama and large doses of humor. If you saw the first film, you know how good that can be.

In addition to the performances — truly, everyone is good — what stands out is Sachs' direction. It's measured, patient. The scenes play out as one imagines the characters' lives would.

Frank is a true original, a film that heads in one direction only to veer off in another, yet never loses sight of where it's going.

The One I Love is an odd, unsettling and ultimately satisfying movie.

Nothing fresh is being brought to the table, but it's a sufficient bit of fun for anyone who longs for the days of Brosnan's spy swagger.

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.

The brutally sparse documentary Rich Hill removes poverty from the realm of the abstract and makes it personal.

The Possession of Michael King is more scary than original.

There's a purity to the experience of watching a film so naturalistic, like living in someone else's life for two hours.

The film is choppy in parts, but it is George Takei's approachability, his constant big laughter, even his singing (he performs "Don't Fence Me In" after explaining how the internment camps made the lyrics poignant to him) that tie it together.

The problem is that almost everything in the film feels either forced or false, so the tears aren't earned.

Despite the best efforts of Plaza and the rest of the cast, Life After Beth never winds up being as scary or as funny as it ought to be.

There's no question that a soft-spoken person can be a great leader, but Caviezel underplays Ladouceur to the point that you wonder how the players could even hear him, much less be inspired by him.

To stay fresh, you have to evolve. Rodriguez and Miller have stayed the same.

The film is less effective, and less focused, when it switches into activism mode. Not that its heart isn't in the right place — we all know about the appalling state of institutionalized elder care. Which is the problem with those segments: We all know this already, and the filmmaking feels like perfunctory, necessary padding.

Vincent Grashaw's film, although well-meaning (as a postscript reminds us), tries too hard, both in content and form.

It's just a good yarn, well told. So don't be deterred by the title (it sounds like a lame horror movie) or the description.

There are some laughs here, but not many. Johnson and Wayans have a pleasant enough chemistry, but the best parts of the movie are when Johnson gives Ryan an unhinged quality.

This isn't a terrible movie. It just falls flat, in almost every way. It exists and not much else. It's all too predictable, and way too heavy-handed.

The charm of these movies — such as it is — comes from the notion of aging action stars slugging it out between wheezes. So when Stallone brings in a new cast of mostly generic warriors, the premise, like the movie, deflates.

The finale's energy level and actor buy-in makes it vastly more enjoyable than the rest of the film.

Of the bunch, Plaza, Minghella and Parker fare best, though Parker's Ben is weighed down with cliches. Alex ostensibly is the focal point of the film, but Ritter is relegated mostly to observer status, healing while watching the melodramas unfold around him. A few of them are interesting. But not enough, not in a story that seems familiar because, after all, it is.

The movie belongs to Gleeson, commanding in every scene, even when he's sitting silently, listening to another sinner go on about what's wrong with everyone else.

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.

It's just kind of a mess, as unfocused and immature as the four mutant turtles at its core. Stuff happens, stuff blows up and this is probably a good time to mention that Michael Bay produced the film.

Into the Storm plays like a special-effects demonstration in search of a movie, but you have to give it to the filmmakers: They take no half-measures.

One is left wishing a little more time were spent on the clothes and the creative process, but Yves Saint Laurent is still a lovely escape into an elegant, evolving world.

Representing the 78-year-old writer and director at his perfunctory worst, Magic in the Moonlight is an unfunny, unromantic comedy.

It's not always pretty, and it's not always exciting, but you genuinely don't know from one moment to the next how these characters will behave.

This is an incredibly creative film, but, unlike other Gondry films such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the documentary "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?" it doesn't add up to much.

It's easy to get carried away with movies like this, which lend themselves to fanboy hype. It's not a perfect movie. But it is one that is hugely enjoyable, bears repeated viewings and will be as funny in 10 years (or 50) as it is now. And that's pretty swell.

Get On Up... has some problems in the storytelling department, but Boseman tackles with gusto the unenviable task of capturing Brown.

There's a welcome lack of pretension to the proceedings. Stalwarts like Hurt and Ian McShane are on hand to class up the joint — everyone's got a British accent except for Johnson — while the predictable story bludgeons its way towards an inevitable conclusion.

The road-trip comedy is well-traveled territory, especially in indie films. But there's something unexpectedly refreshing about Land Ho!

There are a few scares in Come Back to Me. They would be a lot scarier if we either hadn't seen them coming, or hadn't seen them before.

The struggle between faith and reason somehow gets sidetracked, resulting in a sometimes silly, too-obvious journey.

There is very little on the screen to capture your attention.

Hoffman was a genius, a tremendously gifted actor who could shine in almost any role... A Most Wanted Man may not be the best example of this, but it certainly adds to the evidence.

Lucy is insane, makes very little sense, doesn't stand up to scrutiny and is an absolute blast.

There's nothing surprising or fresh about these people, their problems or their pairing, each character fitting snugly into his or her familiar archetype.

It's a noble attempt at meaningful comedy-drama, but Braff struggles with shifting tones while mismanaging his own character. It's easier to appreciate the effort than it is to enjoy the film.

Not that inarticulate characters can't be compelling if they are written with subtlety, acted with insight and, most of all, framed by a directorial vision, but Hellion, despite a promising debut from Wiggins, falls short in at least two of the above.

For a movie filled with amateur porn, sex toys, cocaine and Cameron Diaz's butt, "Sex Tape" is awfully tame. You're in greater danger of taking a nap than needing a safe word.

Boyhood is not just a great movie, it's a landmark achievement in film.

You'd expect the sequel to be an improvement based on production values alone, and you would be right, but not by much.

Half of a Yellow Sun winds up being one of those movies in which a pesky event of great historical import keeps getting in the way of a soap-opera romance.

"Whitey" paints an ugly picture, but a compelling one nonetheless, and one that will put every Boston crime movie you see in a different light.

It's wider than it is deep, but Andrew Rossi's documentary is a good primer on an issue that, in varying degrees, affects almost everyone.

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.

The performances are certainly compelling.

Eschewing a tidy wrap-up, Reeves doesn't leave us feeling manipulated, as so often happens in films like this. Instead, we want to know where the story goes from here, and that's no small accomplishment.

Everything is overwrought, every circumstance a potential tragedy. Humor is largely absent.

Life Itself is a joy for people who love movies or who love anything with an unwavering passion.

In The Internet's Own Boy, writer-director Brian Knappenberger ("We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists") paints a portrait of Swartz as a martyr for the information age, but ultimately the story falls short of such mythic ambition.

Although everything here works for the most part, there is also a definite lack of oomph as the movie pushes toward the inevitable climax.

Dinesh D'Souza's America: Imagine a World Without Her paints a genuinely troublesome portrait of the country — just not at all in the way he intends.

It's easy to get sucked into Begin Again, to enjoy the friendly performances and the goes-down-easy songs, and to not even notice until it's over that the film is more a feel-good fairy tale than anything else. We might not have seen much that was truly meaningful in the end, but it was warm and fuzzy while it lasted.

There are surprises and plenty of action. What's good about Snowpiercer is how they all blend together; each element informs the other.

The found-footage approach loses its shine quickly.

The film ricochets between Tammy being an oblivious cartoon goblin and a textured, sympathetic human being who just wants to be loved. Perhaps if the film had catered a little less to McCarthy's comedic gifts — the curse-word fugue states, the slapstick humor, the non sequiturs — the end result would have felt more balanced and rewarding.

If it is not as urgent as the first film, this is still an excellent companion piece. Together, the movies paint a complete picture of the physicality and mentality of war, and it is riveting.

Violette doesn't abandon that playbook, but it does a better job than most of putting the viewer in its artist's headspace.

Under the Electric Sky is a bedazzled (if not quite dazzling) 3D documentary.

Night Moves is an unexpected pleasure, offering more than what we expect and taking its time to deliver.

It's big, it's loud and it's all over the place, never really making a lick of sense. To his credit, sort of, director Michael Bay tries to insert a little story into the film early on, even a little humor, but that's overrun at some point by explosions and plot digressions.