It’s perhaps surprising that there aren’t more Linklater documentaries out there, considering how substantial, influential, and plain f---ing brilliant his body of work is. In the meantime, 21 Years will have to do.

The movie's simplistic storyline does not match its stunning visual accomplishments: Pleasantville's story is drawn from a palette that's strictly limited to black-and-white.

For all its kiss kiss, bang bang, Haywire ends up feeling as hollow as the points on Mallory Kane's 9mm ammo.

Once you get past the admittedly breathtaking shots of our national landmarks being turned into kindling, the rest of the film is a tired and empty two hours of feel-good patriotism and oddly cast characters.

Once the film gets cooking, the questions never stop. For instance: When you find the dead body of someone you love, isn’t your first call to the cops?

Vaughn did a cracking good caper film with a pre-007 Daniel Craig called "Layer Cake" six years ago, but Kick-Ass has little of that film's heady panache and instead batters you about the face and neck with wildly over-the-top fountains of gore, bone-cracking slow-motion, and, yes, Cage, who dials his acting down a few notches from the kicky Herzogian mindf---ery of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans."

Meehl's documentary features plenty of interviews with cowboys and ranch hands who've had their lives – and their horses' lives – changed by Brannaman, but it lacks the literary or cinematic magic of either version of "The Horse Whisperer."

Some people might find Chunhyang a chore to sit through, including me. Despite all of its accumulated period gorgeousness, or perhaps because of it, the film moves at a snail's pace, telegraphing plot twists miles before we actually arrive at them.

Despite the sheer gorgeousness, it ends up feeling false and, towards the end, rushed.

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?

Lost River is a film whose reputation precedes it. Viewers have decried it as a mess or lauded it as an artistic achievement ever since it premiered at Cannes 11 months ago. Ultimately, the film is really neither. Yes, Gosling’s ambition exceeds his accomplishment, but what he’s delivered is hardly a disaster.

Cesar Chavez, though respectful and illuminating, never rises to the inspirational level of its titular subject.

Thanks to this relentlessly likable film's playful sexuality and utter lack of pretension it's surprisingly easy to let all of one's objections float away on a fragrant cloud of kitchen sweat, pheromones, and sweet lime zest.

Bits and pieces of the story will, on occasion, leave you scratching your head but it, nevertheless, moves rapidly enough to keep you scurrying to keep pace with the new business at hand.

Relax, sit tight, and enjoy the ride.

Without a doubt, the animation is vibrant and electrifying; it's only the story that lacks.

Regardless of one’s personal beliefs, it’s tough to respect a movie that ultimately invites viewers to question every case of propaganda except its own.

Moves with the stately speed of most Merchant/Ivory productions, which is to say too damn slow, but the film is snatched from the jaws of tedium by Doyle's resplendently lush camerawork and Fiennes and Richardson's spot-on performances.

The story's accumulation of scattered impressions is exactly what bedevils the film's overall impact. The story lacks focus, sustained development, and direction.

The real tension of the piece lies in the sound design, with its layering of heavy breaths, inexplicably compromised frequencies, and invasive thwackings of no known origin to the ship hull.

Outbreak has the feel of a movie written by a committee of writers -- it's totally lacking in personality.

Alice stitches together an intriguing premise, but ends up weaker than the sum of its parts.

This Godzilla is lacking both the awesome spirit of the original and the sublime silliness of the more recent Toho outings.

An actor most at home playing devilish, Keaton’s got the last-reel Machiavellian shrug down cold. But neither he nor the filmmakers do much to illuminate the neural pistons fired from brain to bodily shrug.

Yes Man proves utterly formulaic.

Ultimately, Tournament of Champions remains a welcome balance of YA and horror, featuring inventive puzzle sequences with enough talent on both sides of the camera to consistently entertain.

It’s like someone’s always turning the knob in one direction, and then in another in Mafia Mamma, rarely settling on any mood with clear reception. It can be a frustrating farrago.

The movie's storyline is not always perfectly clear, seemingly falling into the same murky “grey zone” as everything else.

As far as animated flicks go, Clifford's Really Big Movie is third-string Disney, but don't tell that to the kids.

A climactic speech on the lessons Western democracy might learn from Middle Eastern despotism offers a few moments of pure brilliance. I'd say that speech is worth the price of admission if it didn't also illustrate exactly what the film is missing: barbs that aim for the comedic bull's-eye.

Stunning camera shots by ace Michael Ballhaus are lovely to look at, and the performances are all excellent.

A middling urban thriller that's one part "Rear Window" and three parts "Seven."

For a film that's ostensibly about modern American society's love affair with addictive behavior – sex, drugs, rock & roll – its bark is much worse than its bite.

Often seen in his crummy underwear, and almost always with a cigarette and drink in hand, McConaughey brings a knowing fleshiness to the character. Yet the film’s uneven tone leaves us with lasting uncertainty about his character and the events we have witnessed.

In the end, Saltburn doesn’t have a lot to add to the conversation Fennell keeps wanting to have about the power of white men in this world. It’s a surface-level critique of the upper class and a style-over-substance poke at the out-of-touch aristocrats and the bitter have-nots.

Deli Man needs more meat on its rye.

With absolutely as little time devoted to character or plot development as possible, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie may not be Battleship Potemkin, but it does deliver the cheesy sci-fi goods for fans of the colorful television show, even if it's not likely to win any new converts.

On a certain level, Notes on a Scandal can be fun viewing, but, odds are, you'll find you won't respect yourself in the morning.

The cast is an impossibly beautiful bunch of actors who could hold your attention even if they spoke nothing but gibberish, which sometimes is the case in the pillow-talk dialogue provided by director/screenwriter Chick.

It's a comic book movie in the broadest sense of the term, and although it's neither as emotionally resonant as "The Crow" nor as surreally goofy as "Tank Girl," Barb Wire still manages to get you going, Anderson Lee fan or not.

This new movie is a trifle, a listless excursion into the luxurious problems of rich, white people.

Roland Emmerich hasn't bettered us as a culture with Stargate, but he hasn't corrupted us, either.

This movie has precious little satirical edge. What is needs is more emphasis on the "vanity" and less on the "fair."

Hopelessly old-fashioned then, but not the aggressively bad picture you might have anticipated.

Silent Hill's main attraction, for genre fans, certainly, lies not in its plot nor in its characters (you could place anyone in this particular township and whatever might happen, you could be sure it'd be unnerving), but in its relentlessly nightmarish imagery.

The most frustrating films are the ones that reach desperately for something great, but fall just short of capturing it. In his dark and twisted narrative debut, The King, British director James Marsh's reach extends so far we can hear his muscles strain, yet what he's reaching for is never quite clear.

Deschanel, as the token oddball of the gang, runs off with the movie.

Does it make any sense? Nope. Does this detract from the film? Not at all. It's classic Italian Grand Guignol at its most disturbing; a car crash, autopsy, and disembowelment all wrapped up in a nice, soggy package.

Taken as a whole, Thirst meanders too far from the crossroads of life and death; it gets outright dull in spots, although they are few and far between.

This is the kind of scrappy Seventies-throwback B-movie that fits the bill when you desperately need to see regular-seeming, occasionally inept people rise up against our corrupt criminal oppressors and cudgel them with pool cues and bits of blasted-off brick.

Neither Hopkins nor Baldwin can be faulted. Both explore and illuminate their half-realized characters as best they can, but creating any real power or suspense is just too big a bear to kill.

It is a harmless and occasionally hilarious pop comedy good for a few bargain yuks.

Emotional investment is what makes any film work, and Good Night Oppy’s main issue is that it’s too focused on accurately portraying the history of the project over bringing together the people who poured their lives into making it a success.

The first 15-20 minutes of this documentary are solid gold.

An article of faith for girls who just wanna have fun; only problem is that the movie doesn't go all the way.

True, this pair has more than the usual share of obstacles in their path, and watching them surmount the challenges is inspiring. I’m just not sure that Dina and Scott’s struggles with intimacy should be grist for my perusal.

Garner hasn't come across as amusing as she is here in quite some time. Despite many funny bits, Butter also, at times, seems to excoriate the blinkered Midwesterners in the flyover states.

Watchmen is worth seeing, fan or no, for Haley's squirmy presence alone, and all the other characters are also well-served.

Though remaining sweet and tasty, Efron, in his first non-singing and dancing feature film proves he has an agreeable and kinetic screen presence, although his ability to convince us he's truly a 37-year-old encased in a 17-year-old's body is dramatically dubious.

Palmetto follows the rules of film noir so slavishly that it's tough not to like it just on its own dopey, headstrong merit.

It's definitely not hard to understand what the little girls see in Bieber, and this film delivers the goods. This one's for the fans, not the movie buffs.

Despite its overly familiar ring and lack of genuine suspense, there are nice touches that can be found throughout The Infiltrator. Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer), however, hasn’t the stylistic chops to turn this from a routine movie into a memorable thriller.

Silk Road is not without its pleasures – Clarke especially is fun to watch as he gets increasingly cornered with his shakedown shenanigans – just don’t expect the kush; this is strictly schwag.

Even this sequel, released 20 years after the original, had to up the number of poop jokes from the first film’s doozies in order to keep up with public taste.

Who doesn't love an animated, anthropomorphized-chimpanzee-starring, sci-fi romantic comedy?

Gilroy zings the film with tantalizing bits of absurdity (one wonders, wistfully, what the Coen brothers would have done with this material), but too often he returns to his darker, more ponderous instincts.

The film seems overlong and drawn out, with variations on the same joke occurring throughout. Although the performances are good, the nostalgia for the past seems quaint in the new "have it your way" Burger King world.

It’s a frequently riveting gambit, and the actors give it their all. However, the mood and the stylized camerawork make the proceedings too arch to completely succeed.

Ultimately a creepy tale.

The film feels like a collection of sketches instead of a mad, three-day, drug-and-sex-infused whirl.

Red Snow does a surprisingly good job of manipulating, and then subverting, your sympathies for these particular devils.

The monster waves are truly awe-inspiring, and the language is never too technical, ensuring appeal to an audience larger than strictly hardcore surfer bros.

It's fun enough on its own relatively low-budget merits, but it's really nothing to die – or kill – for.

To its credit, the film doesn’t linger unnecessarily over the horrors, and quickly turns into a police procedural. As the FBI takes over the investigation from the local authorities and sets up a command center, the details of this process are fascinating to observe.

If the jingoism that permeates the latter half of The Kingdom does not sufficiently sour the experience of watching it, then the film's closing sentiments about the eternality of vengeance will surely do the trick.

Until Hollywood stops being a boys club, and America graduates beyond short pants and its embarrassingly pubescent attitudes toward sex, I suppose one can only hope that all male adolescent fantasies will play as goofily sweet as this one.

Luckily, Ne Zha II still retains the charm of the best parts of the original, with the young rapscallion Nezha still a hyperactive bundle of mischief, hand stuffed down his pants like Dennis the Menace, waddling through jade palaces as he defies his destiny. May he stay as chaotically endearing for the inevitable part III.

There's an amiability that permeates the movie and carries it through most of the rough patches and split ends.

The Song of Names evokes a certain kind of quality film that we associate with Holocaust dramas. Laudably, the movie fully escapes lugubrious wallowing, yet, perhaps as a partial result of this, The Song of Names lacks dramatic intensity and depth.

What Sayles gives us is a jumble of ideas and stunning performances that never coalesce into a satisfying movie.

It's an interesting film, with fine acting performances. Penn acquits himself in this project, his first as a behind-the-camera talent, though The Indian Runner never quite establishes an assured rhythm or fluidity.

Compared to other Hollywood blockbusters, Snake Eyes is better than fine — but there are hundreds of Asian and Southeast Asian action movies that run circles around the final product here.

It’s all in good fun, and critic-proof to boot, but Jurassic World doesn’t even come close to that most intimate and dearly coveted “Gosh, wow” sense-of-wonder that the original film mustered so easily. Roar more, bite less.

This is a guy who marched to the beat of his own drum, even one that’s got two spoked wheels and some handlebars.

Speaking in a barely audible rasp bordering on monotone, Kidman bravely submerges herself in a performance with some genuinely harrowing emotional moments, and yet the unswerving conviction she brings to the role is conspicuous.

I suppose when you make a movie, however tangentially, about Viagra, you're required to insert at least one scene of its side effects, but the broadness with which Zwick plays it out is like a stake to the heart of the film's hard-earned but fast-lost authenticity.

Taking its cue from the notion that American society is obsessed with covert political intrigues and machinations, Conspiracy Theory is an interesting but flawed thriller in which the wildly paranoiac is something really real.

It makes you wonder, ultimately, how the carbon footprint created by the film will stand up to the test of time.

You have a horror movie with two strong female leads – no small thing. The movie, however, has little else going for it.

All's fair in love and war, I know, but really now.

A refreshingly lighthearted look at day-to-day life in the inner city, Friday does suffer from a few problems in the scripting and directing departments, but entertains nonetheless, thanks mainly to the easygoing style of its talented cast.

Sequences like the silly montage of Charlie on Ritalin (which just looks like the precious doodles of a former editor), grievously underdeveloped characters, and heavy heapings of sap instead of snark keep Charlie Bartlett from making the dean’s list.

Herzog, ever the eccentric filmmaker on a mission, may have met his match in this man of the cloth.

Fletcher demonstrates, as with her second film, "27 Dresses," that she can put together a funny, able romantic comedy that is a cut above, but no more. Still, those leads are awfully likable, the Massachusetts-for-Alaska landscape rather picturesque, and if The Proposal doesn't reinvent the wheel, merrily we roll along nonetheless.

This one’s not going into the conspiracy thriller pantheon, but for the duration of its tense, terse 112 minutes, it scratches the itch.

A sumptuous yet unexceptional story.

Despite its narrative familiarity, the film is suffused with such contagious enthusiasm, distinctive performances, and local color that it stands out nevertheless.

Eden shows humanity at its worst, but without reflecting much on the why of it all – a Lord of the Flies analogue that concludes not with a gut punch but a tidy historical coda.