Liberal Arts is not unlikable: There are some intelligent observations about how humans woo, and the film is so suffused with sincerity you want to give it a pat on the head just for trying so hard.

Chbosky surrounds his hurting characters with the cinematic equivalent of a hug circle – which is sweet, but rather antithetical to tension-building.

All told, Pitch Perfect isn't all that good – but it's an awfully good sport.

The rescuing of our public schools is a national necessity. I just don't know that we are aiding that cause by sending out oversimplified and dogmatic messages about not backing down.

As for Hotel Transylvania,, no need to put a stake in it, it's deadly dull already.

Looper makes a full-meal entertainment out of piecemealing genres: It boasts the kicky mental gymnastics that come with time-travel terrain, the relentless rapid heart rate of a crackerjack thriller, and the bursts of extreme violence, buttressed with black humor, of a modern actioner.

Absolutely, 100% kickass. Now would someone please get busy on the "Tank Girl" do-over, please?

Shue, to her credit, looks like she's trying to crawl out of her skin, but hey, anything to get away from this hell house, right? Right.

A manic, lithesome thing, 2 Days in New York flexes between broad comedy and a beautifully observed portrait of family life – especially life after death.

Fluctuating between the extraordinary and the dull, with sections of narrative explication and tangents, Chicken With Plums can be as frustrating as it is ambitious. It's more like Chicken With Plums – and the Kitchen Sink.

Adams is absolutely winning in this role, which requires her to be a tough-as-nails attorney, grownup tomboy, and psychologically scarred adult. And she makes a good foil for Eastwood, though it's often uncomfortable to see the actor going through melodramatic paces.

End of Watch is more than the sum of its parts, though; it ends on a downbeat note, but that's something I've come to expect from Ayer.

The film strives so much to have heart, it comes across as heartless and mean-spirited. Bah, humbug!

Jovovich's physicality and chilly mien (she was originally a "project" of the Umbrella Corp.) carry the series from start to … whenever it finishes, which might not be for quite a while yet.

Frustrations abound with this limited film, but Wild Horse, Wild Ride does one thing exceptionally well, and that is convey the emotional bond between trainer and horse.

It seems to me that since "Koyaanisqatsi" in 1982, for which Fricke served as the director of photography, every other film of this sort has been repetition.

It's unclear where the buck stops in terms of creative authority – at one point, Clayman complains that "the only thing I feel in control of is the money" – which renders OC87 at once a remarkable achievement, and a fatally compromised film.

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate isn't as much fun as the director's previous film – the wondrous "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame."

There's a touch of Hitchcockian flavor to the Arbitrage's cat-and-mouse thrills, yet the film clearly announces that there's now a third gifted Jarecki brother (in addition to Eugene and Andrew) to contend with in the moviemaking business.

The film is an ingenious, deranged, bloated, and just plain batshit crazy riff on advertising and the mad men and women it creates and/or consumes. Heady stuff, but it's no "How to Get Ahead in Advertising." This film is absolutely mental, and not in a good way, either.

Weaver and Willis look bored silly while essaying their paint-by-numbers roles, and this film does nothing to make me think Cavill is going to be Zack Snyder's Superman incarnate.

With a saga this sprawling and byzantine, it makes sense that the emphasis is not on Schiele, but rather on what the sorely wronged Bondi never stopped calling "my Schiele."

It's a small gem of a movie, disturbingly realistic and profoundly terrifying on a near-primal level.

While its heart is always in the right place, the humor – especially in the sludgy first act – is hit or miss.

There's little drama or sense of progression in the movie until the bombshell hits, and then it just whimpers along for another half-hour until the end.

It's not atrocious, but it borders on it, thanks to Dennis Quaid's annoying narration and his even more irritating portrait of the self-loathing writer whose presence bookends the two main storylines.

Is this the start of a new subgenre? Probably not – 2009's "The Unborn" traded in Jewish mysticism, too – but it's considerably creepier than it has any right to be and, to be sure, righteous rabbis can be pretty terrifying in and of themselves.

What a weird, winning little movie is Robot & Frank, which explores what happens to the essential self as the memory goes. Oh, and it's a heist picture. With robot butlers. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it.

We bear witness, via Brügger's film, to the slow-motion train wreck that high-echelon, African graft becomes.

You have to wonder – not too hard, though – what this gore-soaked auteur's bedtime dreams are like.

With a foretold ending and long stretches of pure driving, The Last Ride squanders its potential, much like its tragic subject.

Sleepwalk With Me is never anything less than awfully likable. But I so wanted it to be more.

Lawless never fully comes together as a whole but it is quite intriguing in spots.

Come to think of it, it's a lot like the departed shade of a better, longer movie, hovering in tatters before us, vanishing when we blink. When you look into this abyss, it yawns back at you.

Both the yuks and the yucks are plentiful, but by the time the film reaches a montage sequence of these two boneheads (well, one bonehead, one dope) laying waste to Los Angeles gang members and other wastrels in an attempt to satiate Bart's thirst for the red stuff, you're more than likely wishing you were watching Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in something else entirely. The similarities between the two horror comedy pairings are just too obvious to be ruled out as coincidence.

As a portrait of both man and society in exquisitely poised decline, it's harrowing, hilarious, and horrific in equal measure.

Why make a new mediocrity when the old ones are still so much more fun to watch?

Sparks, an acting novice, falters when her character must muster gumption or sexual heat. She saves her best for last in a barnburner singing performance, but it's too little, too late – especially with the memory of Houston's one song – a heart-stopping gospel number – still ringing in the ears.

A bizarre mélange of earnest and romantic road movie, high-octane chase picture reminiscent of everything the mustachioed version of Burt Reynolds ever did, and a slapsticky comedy that gives Tom Arnold considerably more screen time than actually necessary.

The action is neither cathartic nor supremely exhilarating. "Bullitt" on a bike this film is not.

The film can feel a touch overscripted, but Polley and her actors effect true-to-life rhythms of speech.

It's a "what if" story that's hopeful but doesn't ring true.

This documentary does boast some bowl-you-over reveals best experienced blind.

The crime is beyond bizarre, and the film is relentlessly suspenseful, but perhaps the most disturbing question of all is this: Whatever happened to Nicholas Barclay? To that, there remains no satisfactory answer.

Laika's stop-motion animation is every bit as inspired here as it was in their rightfully lauded "Coraline," and the storyline never wavers from its boneyard-deep message: Being different from others is a good – nay, great – thing, no matter how many villagers (or zombies) are after you.

Hedges has demonstrated his sensitivity to internecine family conflicts and the tenor of small-time life. However, The Odd Life of Timothy Green seems always to be straining for whimsy and wonder.

The documentary is as much a rallying cry for freedom of expression as it is a portrait in progress of an artist whose career is ongoing. Though we might wish for more insight or explanation, Klayman's film remains an incredible document of a courageous individual who the Chinese officials would prefer to make disappear.

If ever America needed Hollywood to crank out a comedic antidote to the toxic political madness that has engulfed our nation, now is the time. Unfortunately, this loopy, muddled, and ultimately insulting Campaign isn't it. It feels more like an extended Saturday Night Live-meets-FunnyOrDie.com castoff than an actual comedic commentary on American politics.

And yet, it works, so much so that after two and a quarter hours, I was startled – and not a little disappointed – when the closing credits kicked in.

In a media landscape that only has eyes for the sex lives of nubile young things, Hope Springs' sincere, considered, and unembarrassed exploration of mature sexuality marks a welcome exception.

It's ostensibly a Southern-fried comedy of terrors, but what little humor the film evinces almost immediately lodges in your windpipe like an errant bit of K-Fried-C gristle.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days is probably the most inoffensive kid's film you're likely to see this summer. And that's a good thing.

The Queen of Versailles encourages the very worst tendencies in the audience: to sneer at the Siegels, to marvel at their tackiness, to root for their fall from grace.

Ruby Sparks doesn't. Spark, that is. Oh, the film is sprightly and wholehearted, sweetly in thrall to its bold central conceit, and endearing as a puppy with boundless energy. You want to like it. And you do. It's just that it never, you know, it never sparks.

This Total Recall is fast, furious, and frequently confusing fun, but to be completely honest, it lacks the snappy, weirdo vibe of its predecessor.

In short, it's nothing you haven't seen countless times before and, while it's not offensively bad, it also adds zero to the same old routine. Meh.

The Watch is awfully lightweight, and while it earns its R rating via some comic gore and a whole lot of hyper-sexualized tomfoolery, it's hardly the best work of anyone involved.

Despite the filmmakers' efforts to humanize Wilson, however, Bill W. still dabbles in hagiography, valorizing the man while also painting him as a reluctant hero.

Farrow and Walken are terrifically semicomatose as Abe's mom and dad, and Murphy – as a co-worker who takes what appears to be pity on the eternally adolescent Abe – is equally memorable. Yet Dark Horse feels like a lesser Solondz film, despite its cavalcade of misanthropy.

Penis-obsessed, man-child film comedies can crown a new king: the Danish import Klown.

I said once before that every generation gets the superhero it deserves, and Nolan's darkest of dark knights is surely ours – and no more so than in this current incarnation. (Granted, this doesn't bode well for society, but hey, things are bleak all over.)

On the whole, Extraterrestrial is slight, filled with lots of bark but little bite.

It's a jaw-droppingly good performance from this pint-sized, first-time actor.

Amusing but never rousing, this fourth installment in the Ice Age cartoon franchise comes fretted with freezer burn.

There's so much that's so right in Oliver Stone's dizzying new crime thriller that its impediments stick out like speed bumps. You'll know you've hit one when your vertiginous sense of WTF screeches to a manageable – and much duller – pace.

Ambling, just-passable picture.

The film is slapdash entertainment not meant to be further contemplated after leaving the theatre.

If you have an 8- to 16-year-old underfoot in the house, there are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.

The problem, ultimately, is that little of this is of any real interest. The brothers' bickering can be amusing at times but even at 76 minutes, the movie feels repetitive and overly long.

In short, the character is a lot like the way Stan Lee first envisioned him, but the trilogy's screenwriter Steve Ditko would probably loathe this new, unsatisfying, and hollow-feeling entry into the new cinematic Marvel Universe.

So what's not to love? For starters, there's the inescapable fact that Ted is, no matter how you stuff it, yet another man-child buddy movie – and all that that implies.

For all its emotional and familial kerfuffles, People Like Us is an honorable misfire – good intentions and all.

Soderberg enhances the meager storyline with some creative camerawork (again shot by himself under the pseudonym Peter Andrews). The club scenes are always entertaining and some of the backstage imagery is unforgettable.

The film's conceits may be a bit too contrived and conventional, but nothing about these characters' interactions are forced. Your Sister's Sister is a welcome guest.

What's translated to film feels like a rough draft, with bullet points at beginning and end, demarcating Lola lost, Lola found. And in the middle? A vast, vague maw.

One of the great things Scarfaria brings to this project is her apparent ability to convince a slew of wonderful actors to perform in small roles that appear in only a single sequence. That describes most of the actors in this film apart from the two leads.

The core family relationships ring pleasingly true, and the rebellious Merida is, alongside Katniss Everdeen, an intelligent, capable, and empathetic proto-riot grrrl with stupifyingly kickass hair and even better aim.

If you expect That's My Boy to be the Bad Dad equivalent of Bad Santa, you'll be sorely disappointed. Sandler can't quite adopt that same cynical edge, instead favoring corny and sentimental resolutions to untenable predicaments.

Benjamin Walker, as Lincoln, may not have the gangly gravitas of Raymond Massey's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" – he looks like a young Liam Neeson doing a younger Bruce Campbell, frankly – but he does have a sly, self-effacing sense of humor that feels ever so Lincoln-esque

Rather born to wear a frock coat, Dancy shares the stammer-blush, winning-grin methodology of countryman Hugh Grant, only with more probity and better posture.

I found myself falling for it, hard. It's Trevorrow's feature debut and we'd like to see more, please.

Creating plot from lyrics, in this case, leads to heavy-handed literalism and limited creativity. The wall of music is amusing for a while, but grows into a loud, wearying assault long before the movie's two hours are up.

It's a promising epic that ends with what feels like a lie. In short, it's a glorious mess well worth seeing, but light-years away from what fans were expecting.

Take from the film's racial commingling what you want. Much of this may be old hat, even corny, and potentially offensive, but I haven't laughed out loud this often at a movie in ages.

As filmmaking debuts go, Panos Cosmatos' Beyond the Black Rainbow is as striking as it is nuts.

Anderson and his co-writer Roman Coppola have crafted an elegant and emphatic metaphor for adolescence, that tumultuous province of firsts and lasts.

The circus acts and the rehearsals, which are set to Katy Perry's "Fireworks," make the greatest use of the movie's 3-D capacities. Madagascar 3 may not rival the "greatest show on earth" but it's good enough to pack 'em in anyway.

The entire film wants to be the retort to an idle comment uttered by a prep school lacrosse mom in the stands: "When did the Indians starts playing lacrosse anyway?"

The set-up, and indeed the entire film, reeks of yawn-inducing boilerplate plotting.

Disappointingly, Piranha 3DD, the inevitable sequel to the remake, has none of Dante's wit, Aja's directorial skills, or Greg Nicotero's grotesqueries.

Although several great speeches and hilarious one-liners goose the film, God Bless America nevertheless peaks too early and becomes rather one-note.

Only Ruben Blades as President Calles and Bruce Greenwood as American Ambassador Dwight Morrow get out of this film with their acting dignity intact.

The film holds its twists too close to the chest, and there's little to chew on till the ambitiousness of its plotting is revealed late in the film.

Instead of putting the high in high school, this film is the kind of drug movie that gives pot smokers a bad name.

Ambitious, brutish, ruthlessly unromantic – has the right idea casting its heroine as a Joan of Arc-type crusader and its evil queen a dissertation (albeit first draft) on beauty as the most direct path to power for the disenfranchised female.

It's a wealth of material at odds with a scant running time and shallow focus.

Less extraordinary and considerably more banal, given the sci-fi/comedy subject matter, is Men in Black 3's story, which jumps the ectomorphic shark in high style but with a deficit of actual belly laughs.

Mansome is mostly miss, and pretty thin as well.