Although it’s not impossible to mix humor and violence, as “Midnight Run” proves, it isn’t easy — as 3 Days to Kill proves. Points for effort all the way around, and welcome back, Costner. Let’s hope things get better from here.

Though lacking in subtlety, Robert Zemeckis' Welcome to Marwen delivers a sentimental fantasy world worth wading in.

It’s a juicy story squandered by the poor telling. It’s got all the trappings of a good ol’-fashioned Merchant Ivory pic — lush locales, exotic period trappings — but none of the soul.

If it wasn’t for her, it would be near-unwatchable.

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

The laughs don’t add up. There’s no dramatic arc. Jackie doesn’t grow or learn from his downfall, so much as bumble his way out of it to an unsatisfying conclusion.

This fully animated reboot embraces the Smurfs Saturday-morning-cartoon roots and creates a sprightly, brightly colored, age-appropriate adventure for young children fresh to the little blue woodland creatures.

Crowe can be a great storyteller, a terrific director whose characters make us believe in them and in what they're doing. That doesn't happen in Aloha, which famously means hello and goodbye. Stick with the latter definition here.

Except where “The Conjuring” invigorated horror-movie tropes with inventive application and strong characters, Insidious only wallows in them.

The Wachowskis never lack for ambition. It's in the execution where they run into trouble.

Statham is always good as the silent butt-kicking type and is fine here. Franco, as is often the case, seems to be acting in his own private movie and having a grand old time doing so; results for the audience may vary. Bosworth is good, scary skinny and wired for trouble as a menacing mom.

Too bad. You sense that someone could have made a good movie with this material. Unfortunately, Leth didn't.

Along the way there is some really gory violence and some really cliched cop-drama dialogue, with acting to match. But as long as Rock is on the screen, which is almost constantly, it at least keeps your interest.

Butter is funny in spots, but it's so preoccupied with landing below-the-belt cultural jabs that it misses the opportunity for laying out biting social commentary.

There is one good thing you can say about Beastly: The title perfectly sums up what you'll see on screen.

A mix of solid action and an underused cast, with star Hugh Jackman left shouldering the burden of bad lines and forced emotion, it leaves you longing for more editing and a tighter story.

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.

While Leatherface, a prequel directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury (“Inside”), works OK as a gory horror film (necrophilia, beheading, partial defenestration and beating eaten alive by pigs are a few of the delights), it makes less sense as part of the surprisingly (and needlessly) expansive “Texas Chainsaw” universe, as it were.

Aside from Dance and some hazy views of impaled bodies, the film is low on shock and gore. It's aiming more for sweeping historical epic, but it doesn't work on either level.

It’s all joyous silliness, as a My Little Pony movie should be, packed with clean humor and pony puns.

It's hard not to be disappointed with The Change-Up, which in the end follows the basic conventions of the switched-identity genre, if more profanely, changing up not much at all.

What makes mythology so great is its sense of danger, the threat of real loss. This version of “Percy” has none of that.

Inexpert execution, lazy attention to detail and a lackluster lead performance conspire to render a juicy mystery rather boring.

About My Father isn’t horrible. It’s not great. It just sort of exists as a passion project for Maniscalco, an OK gig for most of the rest of the cast and another curious line on De Niro’s resume.

Charm, alas, is the one thing lost in all the banging and clanging of the remake.

The Green Hornet, which strives to be a different take on the superhero genre, is an interesting film - until it devolves into abject stupidity.

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.

Fans of fancy period costumes and supernatural effects both get plenty to gawk at, but the story offers no real surprises, and that includes the big plot twist.