If you (or your kids) loved Toy Story, you'll like Toy Story 2 as well. Just don't expect any big surprises.

Life Is Sweet observes this constellation of people without ever really commenting on their lots. Very little occurs and thus, if you don't find yourself drawn to these characters, you will find yourself wondering when it will all be over.

Relax, sit tight, and enjoy the ride.

There's no doubt of the ingenuity, imagination, and extraordinary craft on display. Yet, even at a concise 73 minutes, there's a question of, to what end?

Like most of Apatow's work, Knocked Up walks a perilous line between sarcasm and sentimentality, and though it's extremely funny in bursts, the movie flirts once too often with schmaltz before toppling into melodrama in its third act. The fault lies as much with Apatow's casting as his writing.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so confusing if what passed as the film’s “resolution” involved something more than the antics of bratty anarchy. It’s impossible to support the girls on such shaky ground.

It's all a little too polished, a little too smug to be ranked up there as one of the great journalism films.

The only thing here that feels truly, utterly alive is Ledger's maniacal, muttery Joker. The last laugh is his and his alone. It's enough to make you cry.

The story Surgal tells is ultimately fascinating but dry, deep but limited, and a lesson more than an experience.

That's the film's problem: Leigh's creation is fixed and unchangeable, admirably optimistic as a person but completely unengaging as a movie character.

Interesting to watch like well-performed gymnastics but it never really connects.

If you grew up in the 1990s post-hippie Massachusetts performance arts scene (as Baker did), Janet Planet may tug on your nostalgia, but you may not feel otherwise drawn to its ethereal qualities.

Misericordia feels like a big metaphysical shrug, sluggish to the point of lethargy.

Scorsese’s outsized presence in the documentary – its very framework built around his relationship to Powell and Pressburger – ends up jamming an immovable object between viewer and subject.

Burton's gorgeously grim film (his sixth with Depp) is loyal to Sondheim's original, both in spirit and structure; it's dark and gothic and drenched in blood, and it forgoes excessive dialogue in the name of getting quickly to the next murky, malevolent, yet strangely forgettable tune.

Once you've seen it all once I bet you'll wish you were watching "Groundhog Day" -- again.

Sugar is a curiosity – too somber for a picaresque, too arm's-length for much emotional effect – and while it's interesting, it's never truly absorbing.

Unfortunately, what should have naturalistic depth seems oddly superficial, and an attempt to dispose of traditional structure becomes episodic. As with many failed experiments, there are still, at least, some interesting takeaways.

I Am Everything is most fascinating when it goes deep into his formative years and the influences of truly obscure figures like Esquerita and Billy Wright (both Black queer musicians). Yet the further into his life the documentary goes, the less insightful it becomes.

Whatever the case, Foxcatcher provides little insight. Art can shape the truth in ways that resonate beyond the obvious. Regrettably, the truth-shaping here grapples for significance, without any apparent aim. Catch as catch can.

She Dies Tomorrow often feels more like an experiment than a film – which would be fine, but Siemetz doesn't do much to define her metrics for success or failure.

Cinematographer Paul Guilhaume paints dreamy scenes of happiness, too, playing in the backyard with siblings, trying on a pink bikini – in these moments we see the most of Sasha’s personality.

Good Time demonstrates an admirable daring in its technique and willingness to go against the grain, but its payoff isn’t equal to its challenges.

Ad Astra lacks the quiet, understated contemplation of "First Man," or the heartfelt ruminations of Steven Soderbergh's unfairly overlooked version of "Solaris." Instead, it's got about as much to say about family, attachment, and belonging as a Fast and Furious flick.

I have to report that I, personally, just don't get it. I intellectually understand what occurs in the movie; I just can't make the leap into calling it a humanistic treasure about life's big questions. Slow and monotonous, the film moves at a deliberate pace and culminates in a meta-fictional moment that is either infuriatingly trite or enigmatic.

One wishes Beatty would stay out of the epic business, but in that poor man's defense, he's become too large, too much of an icon on the screen to do much else. Perhaps he's doomed to play cartoon characters as he did last time out in Dick Tracy. His Bugsy is not anything close to a fully realized character. Bening, as his starlet/moll, does a better job, but her role doesn't give her much to work with.

What I learned from Monrovia, Indiana is that I – personally – am bored by mattress shopping, City Council arguments over fire hydrants, and high school band concerts I am not obligated by shared DNA to attend.

It’s not frustrating, but then, it’s not quite that engaging. It may spark a little light self-recognition among filmmakers, and that’s all Hansen-Løve seems to aim for.