The girls bring a passion to the band that they can muster nowhere else in their lives. Not everyone gets what they're doing — well, no one, really — but that's the point. This is a knowing film, and a liberating one.

Thanks to its cast, The Grand Seduction turns out to be, if not exactly groundbreaking, at least agreeable, comfortable fun.

His first film, "Animal Kingdom," was a terrific examination of a low-grade crime family in Melbourne. The Rover is more ambitious but not as good. Michod's patience with scenes, while laudable, is at times too much.

Jersey Boys is a good movie, and the performances are first-rate. But Eastwood should have roughed things up a little more.

It's the PG-13 version of "The Hangover," and more than anything, that's just boring.

Vacth is good throughout. It's tough to make a disaffected character hold your interest, but she does.

Lucky Them isn't a great film, all told, but thanks to the good-natured performances and the general vibe, it's an immensely enjoyable one.

Acting (and story) take a back seat to the visual display. Eubank shows confidence with each shot, whether it takes place in a desert vista or a clinical government slab. What's it all mean? It's unclear, except meaning that Eubank is a talent to watch.

Gregg really reaches far, scattering in bits of magical realism and an art-house ending that is simultaneously wondrous and a trifle heavy-handed. The finale may be a bit much for some, but movie buffs will likely give Gregg the benefit of the doubt.

It's a well-written rom-com with rascally charm, a modest story of an awkward Brooklyn girl making a go of life. It's irreverent and rough around the edges with an imperfect protagonist, blue language, scatological humor and rambling confessional stand-up monologues, sometimes about bodily fluids. The laughs are frequent and ribald.

22 Jump Street is, ultimately, a celebration of the silly and the sweet, a combination that's welcome again and again.

The look of the film is amazing. The animation, particularly when the dragons take flight, is seamless.

The filmmaker's seeming lack of skepticism makes for rough going if you don't buy into Kenyon's vision.

The script feels structurally inept, building up scenes and characters then cutting them off, never to be revisited. The end result is a film that feels full of staircases that lead nowhere.

Taking the bad-cop genre to the extreme, Filth lives up to its title and then some, but a no-holds performance by James McAvoy is reason enough to watch.

Owen and Binoche both are quite good, rising above the material for the most part. But even they can't save the film from itself, or from an ending that's downright bizarre.

Edge of Tomorrow repeats itself without being repetitive, takes itself seriously while providing some laughs and offers plenty of action without short-changing us on the intelligence front.

The Fault in Our Stars is manipulative as can be, pulling out all the stops — kids with cancer — in its attempt to bring the tears. And you know what? It works.

It is the mythic resonance of her story that makes it a worthy subject a documentary. But it is the down-to-earth human touches that make Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq worth watching.

Steadman is great fodder for a documentary, as he has continued to produce his signature works. But if you're going to make a movie about Ralph Steadman, make it about Ralph Steadman.

For a Woman, Diane Kurys' semi-autobiographical film, benefits greatly from its intimate nature, in which a woman discovers secrets from her family's past.

The plain facts, presented without commentary, are an effective plea for a more compassionate immigration policy.

The story has something of a flow, but the film feels more like someone dropping in on the characters' lives. It's more about observation than connecting dots. This isn't a detriment, particularly with strong performances to carry things along.

It is a brutal, beautifully shot movie that starts out to be about revenge but then becomes something more, something even more primal and disturbing.

Jolie's performance so overshadows the rest of the cast (and the rest of the movie) that you sometimes feel as if the other characters are, like us, just standing around watching her. This is not, however, the fault of the other actors. It's the fault of screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who doesn't give them much to do that's challenging or interesting.

MacFarlane's film is too broad, too dumb, too offensive to justify the meager laughs it generates.

Spare, haunting and in its own way beautiful, Ida is an absorbing film about discovering the truth, and the attendant price we pay to learn it.

There's nothing particularly off-putting about the movie. It's all right. But neither is there anything especially compelling. In the context of this cast, another descriptive word comes to mind: disappointing.

The Hornet's Nest serves as a somewhat effective bonding exercise for father and son. But the best of what it has to offer moves beyond that, and puts us alongside the people fighting a daily battle and, sometimes, heartbreakingly, losing the fight.

The Immigrant is not exactly the feel-good hit of the summer, but it is a compelling tale of what, in the end, can only be called survival.

Blended is an Adam Sandler movie that isn't as bad as you feared it would be.

This is a smart movie, a treat for fans of the comics and the franchise. And it's a lot of fun.

The directors include interviews with descendants of the original settlers and with later arrivals — too much so, actually, as the lengthy scenes interrupt the flow of the mystery. But they don't derail it. The story is too lurid, too rich, too compelling.

Although it contains some interesting characters, God's Pocket, like the neighborhood it depicts, is the kind of place you can't wait to escape, even if its inhabitants cannot.

It's all very pleasant, very inspiring, just not very surprising.

How many times have we complained that summer blockbusters are all about the action, at the expense of niceties like character development? Well, Edwards has gone in another direction, one that's more intriguing in theory than on the screen.

Blue Ruin is a movie about revenge, but it reaches far past the bottom-shelf titillations of fantasy to tell a richer, character-driven story with a protagonist who's less avenging angel than ghost.

The premise wears thin after a while and the humor is hit-and-miss, but when it's on its game The Wedding Video can be laugh-out-loud funny.

Documented is obviously a bit of advocacy filmmaking, which is fine, but most of the time it's not compelling enough to reach beyond the converted.

Bright Days Ahead offers an interesting twist on the May-December romance.

Belle is a beautiful period piece, but it's also something more: a study of racism, classism and sexism in 18th-century England.

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return lacks any sense of magic.

Neighbors is not the classic raunchy comedy it wants to be, but it certainly isn't for lack of trying. And when it's funny, it's really funny. Just not as often as one might hope.

This is a film that finds horror not in the extreme, but in the mundane. That alone makes it a worthwhile entry in a genre that it both inhabits and rises above.

It is exceptional acting, and Locke is a tremendous piece of filmmaking.

Although the visuals are spectacular — a barren Colorado River looks like a landscape from a science-fiction epic — there's not much else here to grab on.

Because the film is unable to settle on a tone, it's hard to get invested in much of anything.

The acting is naturalistic, with a lived-in feel. These are familiar people, it seems like, made so by performances that never drift into lazy melodrama.

Morton is outstanding. The rest of the cast, which includes Rashida Jones and Bradley Whitford, is also good. Bernstein does a nice job moderating the tone of the film, which could have been depressing, but isn't.

There are too many explosions, too many blaring sonic effects, too many break-ups-and-make-ups, too many villains. And not enough heart.

It is indeed a beautiful film, but with each horizon tinged with sadness.

What's exciting about the film is the confidence Hittman brings to it, particularly with her visual choices. The dancing in particular is striking, with surprising cuts and edits. It Felt Like Love isn't a great movie, but it is a promising one, for everyone involved.

The movie boasts a tricky structure, but director Jonathan Teplitzky ("Burning Man") does an expert job of sewing together the World War II moments with sequences set in the '80s.

Dom Hemingway is a naughty good time while it lives up to the unpredictable bawdiness of its opening line.

If nothing else, it's consistent — consistently stupid, with things like character development and story advancement never getting in the way of another parkour stunt.

Oh, all right, some of The Other Woman is funny. The parts with Leslie Mann, mostly, who makes this hit-and-miss, problematic comedy directed by Nick Cassavetes far more entertaining than it has a right to be.

It just sort of chugs along in predictable fashion, bolstered by a couple of good performances here, thrown off-track every now and then by implausible or unearned developments there, but overall a decent effort.

The cuteness, of course, is just the lure. The real payoff is the unforgettable images of nature in its astonishing abundance and awesome austerity.

Through dogged research and interviews with the (now-grown) children Maier cared for, along with their parents (including Phil Donahue), a profile emerges, and it's fascinating.

Cage is getting down and dirty again in Joe, and it's pretty remarkable — the performance more so than the film, and the film's good.

Yes, Glazer asks a lot of his audience. At times the movie feels like something you've walked in to the middle of, so you're thrown off balance. Yet it's hypnotic — you want to stick around to see what happens, and maybe just to figure out what the hell is going on.

Despite its looks, talent and pedigree, Transcendence never becomes the movie it could have been.

Although it has some serious flaws, it rises above genre fare, thanks to Greg Kinnear's intriguing performance and the work of a good cast.

[Jodorowsky's] a hoot, and so is Jodorowsky's Dune. But it's something more, too, a look at twisted genius and missed opportunities, a sad but intriguing combination.

Chen captures with both humor and heartbreaking realism the complicated mechanics of the family dynamic and how outside forces work to shape it.

Costner works hard, and it shows. That's even more true of Leary. Garner's stuck in a thankless role. Only Langella seems to be having unencumbered fun.

There's just nothing magical about the story, nothing that lifts it above its status as an agreeable song-and-dance movie, a laugh here, a laugh there, pleasant but overly busy, for seemingly no real reason other than to throw a few more set pieces at the wall to see what sticks.

Ernest & Celestine draws on plenty of classics, animated and otherwise, for inspiration, but the film manages to be delightful on its own offbeat terms.

A Romanian political allegory — in Romanian — might sound like tough sledding, but thanks to a searing performance by Luminita Gheorghiu, Child's Pose is anything but.

This is a good movie, but it lacks the visual wonder of the first, along with the sense of play at which von Trier, even at his most controversial, is so good.

Count Captain America: The Winter Soldier as another success in the Marvel line. Thanks to the chemistry between Evans and Johansson and a willingness to shake things up, it's more than just a placeholder between "Avenger" films.

Director Roger Michell ("Notting Hill") has the good sense to step back and let Broadbent and Duncan work their magic on Hanif Kureishi's script. They don't disappoint.

In Bethlehem Adler tries to make some sense of that world, and to the extent that it's possible, succeeds.

It's not an easy ride, but it is ultimately a satisfying one.

Director David Ayer is using the blood and guts to make a point about the insane violence committed by drug cartels, yes, but the bloodshed is unrelenting and, ultimately, exhausting.

Taken strictly as a piece of filmmaking, Aranofsky's Noah is ambitious. And as theology, well, it may not hew exactly to the letter of the law, but the spirit survives intact.

It never quite takes off in a stirring, inspirational way, but moves steadily forward in solid fashion.

It's a maudlin, superficial exercise in obsession masquerading as a heartfelt romance and study of grief, and character development is sorely lacking. Although well-acted, particularly by Annette Bening, the story feels contrived.

Particle Fever does an excellent job of laying out what's at stake as it documents the creation and fine-tuning of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

Not just dark but dank, Denis Villeneuve's Enemy is a surpassingly creepy film about identity.

for those willing to go along with von Trier's typically in-your-face tactics, it's a good, if uncomfortable (and surprisingly funny), film. And the discomfort is part of what von Trier is after.

Where this falls on your personal line between funny and abusive may vary. Either way, what makes the comedy work is that Bateman doesn't relent. Guy is, simply, a loathsome person.

Woodley makes Tris easy to root for — only she and Winslet seem to be having any fun — but it's hard to become invested in the convoluted, rambling story. And at two hours and 19 minutes, it rambles for a while.

Although this movie has lots of laughs and a willingness to poke fun at itself, it doesn't quite recapture the magic of the last movie. Close, but not quite.

The project drips with sincerity, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. What doesn't work is the tin-eared dialogue and the utter lack of momentum, both in the script or the direction by Nikita Zubarev.

Although Pasikowski is heavy-handed in his filmmaking, sometimes in the extreme, Aftermath does show the danger inherent in this kind of groupthink.

It's a terrific movie.

For a film about art forgeries, The Art of the Steal is itself something of a forgery, a painstaking, brushstroke-by-brushstroke re-creation of masterworks dreamed up by better artists. And like a good forgery, it's enjoyable on the surface, but loses its charm a bit once you do some digging.

The mystery isn't the reason to watch the film. Bell is. She's the perfect vehicle for Thomas' sharp, sassy writing, able to deliver a pop-culture-infused put-down with ease. And yet she is also vulnerable, something her relationship with her father drives home.

If you like watching people drive really nice cars really fast, Need for Speed scratches that particular itch. But expect nothing more, because everything else about it is just running on empty.

In spite of the compelling raw material in the lives of its ostensible subjects, it strikes out as an act of storytelling.

Grovic knows all the tricks of the trade, such as keeping the lighting dark (often too dark), in an attempt to add atmosphere. But in the end it seems like a series of shortcuts.

The film is nakedly candid, but Stritch is also a ham who is almost always aware of the camera.

Rob Minkoff’s film has the generic feel of a kids’ movie that’s trying to please everyone. It’s not horrible. In fact, it’s agreeable enough. But nothing more.

The best thing about the movie, by far, is Green. Her Artemisia is a real nut case with a taste for blood, and Green is the only one in the cast who seems to be having any fun at all.

It’s fascinating and funny while forcing us to consider the line between technology and art.

Adult World is a happy surprise.

It's more thought experiment than film, and although it's laudable for its daring to be unlike any film you’re likely to have ever seen, it ultimately doesn't have more meaning to import than a well-photographed daily affirmations calendar.