There are shortcomings in this film, and most of them are Wenders’ responsibility. But there is also inspiration here, if you’re willing to look for it.

It looks great, Abbott is twitchy and terrific and you really want to like it. But it's never particularly involving, and it becomes even less so as it progresses. Ultimately, it's just a gorgeous, gruesomely wrapped package with little inside.

An unapologetic love letter to the popular board game. It's also almost - but not quite - something more.

No, Atomic Blonde isn’t lacking in sex appeal or swagger. But what it is in want of are stakes.

It's not that the artificiality doesn't work sometimes. It does, as some of the scenes are gorgeous to look at. But too often it serves as more of a distraction than an effective tool for telling the story.

The dialogue snaps with precision and cringe-worthy humor; at times, you feel like you're having one of those awkward moments in which you watch a couple bicker. The movie is delicately perched between low-key believability and telenovela melodramatics, yet never falls too far to one side.

Patricia Clarkson is kind of funny as Jamie's mom, an unreformed hippie. And Timberlake and Kunis get in a few good laughs before it's over. But with such a well-worn story, you can't shake the idea you've seen this kind of thing before.

The Last Exorcism is a good movie that could have been - SHOULD have been - a great one.

Gilchrist, Emma Roberts and, especially, Zach Galifianakis, give affecting performances, but they are ultimately let down by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's screenplay.

The movie makes some observations about the worth of human life — the title refers to the monetary value put on the life of the injured waiter — and the economic class system, but they're not terribly interesting or surprising.

This film is a wonderful act of imagination on its own.

If you like your musicals enormous, over the top and bang-on-the-head manipulative, Les Miserables is the movie for you.

It is a question that has vexed lovers of fine cinema for years: What if you made a teen sex comedy with grown-ups? And now, thanks to Hot Tub Time Machine, we have our answer: It would be pretty cool.

Simon Killer is a beautifully made look at ugliness and brutality, the kind of oxymoronic exercise that fascinates some and repels others.

Nick Ryan’s documentary looks at the disaster by using interviews, actual footage and re-enactments. The latter move undercuts some of the movie’s authenticity. Granted, there probably wasn’t another way to film it, but it muddies the film’s sense of truth.

Andrea Pallaoro’s frigid portrait of a woman in crisis is more a calculated exercise in formalism than an achievement in storytelling. His well-composed images of loneliness are cerebrally satisfying but lack emotional heft.

To pretend that the film doesn't make a political statement is silly. Of course it does. It wouldn't be effective at all if it didn't.

Metz does a really nice job of shooting the final match, of ratcheting up the tension. Then again, the five-set marathon does a nice job of that all by itself. Gudnason is good as Borg, but mostly he’s a portrait of tightly coiled silence, occasionally lashing out. LaBeouf is the best thing about the movie.

Foy is terrific, as is Pharoah.

What stays with you is Franco, one of the more enigmatic actors around, going way over the top yet grounding his performance in … something. Whatever it is, it’s more interesting than all the wet T-shirt contests in the world, and it makes Spring Breakers worth watching.

It’s a matter of pacing and choices, what Penna chooses to focus on and what he ignores. He’s got all the elements of a good movie right in front of him. He just never puts all the pieces together.

A sequence set during Carnival is equally engaging, with giant floats and throngs of people watching the parade. Several scenes are shown from the birds' points of view, which make for a dizzying, dazzling experience.

Ultimately, Revenge of the Electric Car is like meeting with an overeager salesman. In real life, that's not necessarily an unpleasant experience, but it also doesn't last 90 minutes.

It’s a throwback slow-burn thriller and an over-the-top scenery-chewing buffet — sometimes in the same scene. The back-and-forth tone prevents it from being the serious examination of human behavior (and misbehavior) it believes itself to be. It makes the experience of watching more strange than immersive.

Batkid Begins is a good movie about great intentions and a large group of people coming together to make a stranger most of them will never meet happy.

Even as big-budget blockbusters go, this is a hard movie to connect with.

Maria rounds out the trilogy of important women in the 20th century in consummate fashion. Lorraín sticks to his melodic style while highlighting an undeniable actress of our time, this time with Angelina Jolie.

Hello, My Name Is Doris is at times self-consciously quirky and precious and implausible — and Sally Field is so good in it that those complaints seem pointless.