The gags are stale, the characters uninvolving and bits meant to titillate don’t.

It is all very respectful, all very serious, all very important-feeling and often a little dull. As such, it’s a good start for Portman, with promise of better things to come.

It’s a compelling topic, even if directors Steve Brown and Jessie Deeter don’t dig deeply into the cultural and psychological significance of it.

Some of the comic bits are a little too broad and silly, but Derbez, in his feature debut, makes Instructions Not Included a balancing act more successful than it should be.

It's an interesting premise, if a bit far-fetched for anyone who has spent long nights washing sheets and pillowcases that kids have thrown up on.

If you like your summer-movie explosions huge, Man of Steel delivers. But it seems as if it might have delivered even more than a glorious noise.

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

Freeland does a fine job, waiting for her characters to converge in a way that doesn't feel overly forced, though there is a bit of that "Crash" tidiness in how things fall together. Still, the film is moving and human.

The filmmaking is gorgeous and unsettling, giving the Midwest of the early 1980s a Gothic feel. The acting is hit or miss — two performances stand head and shoulders above the rest — but it’s the story that never quite gels.

It's a somewhat formulaic romp, but it's an utterly winning one.

A funny, if slight, documentary.

The movie’s biggest strength is that it’s not too deep. It's visually stunning but is ultimately empty calories.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is everything you want in a movie: the fight scenes are bloody and exciting, the dialogue is tongue-in-cheek, every joke landed, and not one actor felt out of place.

Even with the revolving door of characters and plot developments, there are some laughs in Almost Christmas.

The many battle sequences, though carefully detailed, are lacking in energy and originality. There is some ambition here, but the results fall short.

Cloud Atlas is ambitious in nature, epic in scope and, ultimately, a big, overstuffed mess. [24 Oct 2012]

Hitchcock is, well, fun. More fun than good, really. It feels weird to call it a disappointment, because it is entertaining. But you can't help feeling a little shortchanged on the deep-thinking front.

It seems hollow, somehow false, even by its own campy standards.

The problems with the narrative begin early. [Review of re-release]

It is intended for an audience that is willing to take a journey without knowing the destination.

The film whirs along with such entertaining efficiency that you may not realize that, by the end, it has shifted its blame in a manner that does not exactly betray a lack of courage in its convictions, but a willingness to let some of the bad guys off the hook.

Patel does a masterful job of portraying the inner turmoil that comes with a musician having found the fame he thought he always wanted while knowing he's living a lie. And he's great in the musical numbers, which do their best to sound like someone capturing the spirit of those Beatles songs from memory.

There are some good ideas in there, even timely. But eventually, like everything else in the movie, they’re washed away in a sea of blood and a hail of bullets.

What the movie needs is a more coherent story. While keeping an audience off-kilter and disoriented is a worthy goal, particularly in a horror film, it’s got to add up to something. In this case it’s more like meandering.

Wendy is not glossy by any means but it feels like an escape from the soulless live-action Disney remakes audiences have become accustomed to.

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.

The interviews throughout are the best part of the movie - the least heavy-handed, yet most effective, element. There is a message here of the necessity for tolerance, but 8: The Mormon Proposition would have been better had its makers presented it in a more consistent, artful fashion.

Wahlberg and Washington are so good together, quips flying as fast as lead, that much is forgiven.