Close's performance is a study in repression -- too much so, really.

Trachtenberg is patient building this world, and the actors do a good job inhabiting it. Winstead is a terrific actress, and she makes Michelle's desperation and inventiveness believable. Goodman is never better than when playing a nut, and while we aren't sure if that's what he's doing here, the possibility makes for an intriguing portrayal.

If Free Guy really was a video game, it’s not one you’d play over and over. But as a one-time lark, it’s entertaining enough to invest in.

It leads exactly where we think it will on a sometimes funny, ultimately predictable, journey.

It’s a variation on a theme that Solondz has been working through his whole filmography, and when he’s successful, he convinces you to believe the worst in people and laugh at it. But when he’s not, the film can feel like punishment.

Not at the top of the list, necessarily, but writer and director Kiah Roache-Turner’s film is a solid if unspectacular entry into the eww-gross-spiders category. It’s pretty good on that front. But when it tries to wedge in some version of Meaningful Family Drama, it loses its way a little bit.

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.

“Lightyear” is an OK movie. Chris Evans as the voice of this version of Buzz is a nice touch. But there’s just no magic here.

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

Riddick aims much lower than the stars and still doesn't quite hit its target. But when you consider a summer overstuffed with disappointing prestige pics that cost the GDP of several island nations to produce, Riddick's more modest (and less expensive) stumbling doesn't seem so bad in comparison.

This is the first time in ages some of the old stand-up Crystal shows through, flashes of quick wit instead of Borscht-belt antics. Not to the extent that it used to in such movies as "When Harry Met Sally ..." (which was, ahem, 23 years ago). But better than you'd expect...Just like the movie.

As far as acting, DeVito steals the show with characteristic energy a ringleader would be proud of. But Farrell's chemistry with the kids never takes off, costing the film a portion of emotion. And the writing doesn't help much, either. The family's relationship is supposed to be strained, but it never feels like they convincingly resolve insecure feelings around each other. Still, no matter how fans look at it, it's hard to deny how adorable Dumbo is.

It’s an admirable film, though not a particularly memorable one.

There’s far too little of MacArthur’s strutting on display. Granted, that’s not the movie Webber was making. But you kind of wish it was.

Unfortunately, stretching things out dilutes the charms of Segel and Blunt, which are considerable.

On the whole, Flamin’ Hot plays like a feel-good family flick. Nothing is too heavy, and some parts feel a bit overdone, but it’s fun for the most part.

There is nothing about Evil Dead as groundbreaking as Raimi’s films (particularly the first two). But it’s smarter and better done than a lot of what’s come since those movies were made, which is to say there is at least some thought behind the killings.

The story, based on the Michael Connelly novel, grows increasingly far-fetched - at times it plays like an expensive pilot for a TV series, maybe a "Young Barnaby Jones" or something.

The images are impressive. But the characters and their development leave something to be desired.

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 entertaining at face value, but they never let it be just that.

Spare Parts is the kind of feel-good underdog movie that almost can't help getting waylaid by cliches.

There’s a lot to be angry about. And though Rosebraugh shines a light on plenty of jaw-dropping corruption, it plays out like a shrill rallying cry without catharsis for the already initiated.

Director McG proves perfectly adept at blowing things up in interesting ways, but there's not so much acting here as there is yelling at different volumes.

It falls to Wright and Watts to shoulder the heavy lifting here, and they do so with as much grace as the plot will allow. Adore isn’t the feminist medication Fontaine probably means it to be, but it’s not the unintentional laugh riot it could have been in lesser hands, either.

Gosling and Evans are movie stars, no doubt about it. How far that charisma can take a film is a question “The Gray Man” asks and answers: pretty far, but not far enough.

In the end, How to Make a Killing is fine, fun, a nice diversion starring, if no longer the flavor of the month, then a good actor elevating the material around him.

One can forgive the trying-too-hard aphorisms -- "You don't choose a life ... you live one" -- but savvy cinephiles are sure to be annoyed by Tyler Bates' hypnotic ambient-folk soundtrack, studded with such despoiled musical gems as Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" and the Shins' "New Slang."