Not surprisingly, the best thing about The Boss Baby is Baldwin’s imperious vocalization as the authoritative rugrat with a head the size of a bowling ball, punctuated by Margaret Keane eyes.

This overly sentimental family Christmas drama, featuring a veritable checklist of prominent Hispanic actors, falls victim to the shortcoming so prevalent in similarly ethnic-themed movies with similar casts – everything and everyone is so damn serious.

In context, it's utterly, dismayingly typical.

Tasteful, chilly, and polite, it is foul play at its traditional best: Anglo-Saxon, urban, and upper class.

Cobweb's greatest achievement is in ambiguity, in leading the story to its inevitable ending without ever sacrificing that unnerving quality.

Like the Flying Dutchman, this third Pirates outing is an empty vessel haunted by the ghosts of its sabre-rattling betters.

I've been watching movies my entire life, and I can honestly say I've never been more confused in a theatre than I was while watching Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail.

Boundaries would be a lot more charming if it was anything remotely an organic story instead of being glued to a template.

A classic case of preaching to the choir, since it’s doubtful the film will reach many of the minds that need changing.

There's a clumsiness here, a succession of setups and awkward payoffs that are so on-the-nose, so cringe-inducingly earnest, that it's hard not to laugh. Even the story behind Grace's name is more likely to trigger guffaws than the kind of sentimental welling-up intended.

In Fatima, director Marco Pontecorvo and his team meld religious storytelling with the flourishes of a historical biopic, resulting in something both better and more frustrating than your average faith-based film.

An aquatic, animated, all-ages romp full of familiar lessons and a few too many peppy pop songs that plays things so down-the-middle as to become perfectly forgettable.

Fur dares the viewer to look into the eyes of Kidman and Downey Jr. and not see a whimpering housewife with a crush on Chewbacca.

This is an absurdly familiar story and there’s little it does to stand out.

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.

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.

Forbidden love! Terrible betrayals! Decades-old repressed truths! The plot elements are all there for something emotional wrecking, but Grandage and his cast approach it with such enormous restraint, the oxygen is cut off completely. This is bloodless filmmaking.

I guess if a generic, run-of-the-mill rom-com floats your boat, you’d probably enjoy this one. Ticket to Paradise did not, in fact, float my boat.

Newcomers should be advised that this is not an introductory course.

Is Gary Winick atoning for his sins? If “Bride Wars” was an acid spill -- and that’s putting it generously -- then Letters to Juliet is like the safety shower in your high school chemistry class, delivering an unsubtle blast of sanitized sentimentality.

Bosco and Coffman make a convincing argument that only Mary Flannery O'Connor could become Flannery O'Connor. Some of her works would probably be unpublishable now, but she isn't writing them now. If she'd survived past 39, maybe the next book after The Violent Bear It Away would have been very different. But, they posit, the Flannery O'Connor we have is the Flannery O'Connor we got, and maybe the one we deserved.

If you like "Maxim," you will love The Island. It is glossy. It is expensive. It has lots of slick ads for Aquafina and Cadillac.

Lottery Ticket is ultimately no "Friday," but that 15-year-old film's communal vibe is clearly the model Lottery Ticket is chasing.

It Lives Inside at least isn’t just another mainstream horror weepy about grief – there’s a lot more that it’s playing around with, which is so refreshing in a time where horror is either extremely insane for the purposes of camp or about extremely damaged people who should just go to therapy. It’s nice to see a spooky movie that is having fun with a new box of tools.

The Ten offers a brand of comedy for very particularized tastes, though everyone should appreciate the in-joke of featuring Ryder in the skit about the Eighth Commandment. For those of you less versed in the Bible, that’s the one that says thou shall not steal.

It was sweet, but it should have been better.

The conventional plot and absence of character dimension will most likely get the better of even the biggest Uma fans.

If we don’t stop these public dance-offs here and now, before too long we’re going to have an entire generation of kids seeking salvation as back-up dancers for Justin Timberlake

Terrific performances can't save this preposterous film from itself, but they do make it more bearable to watch.

The obnoxious enthusiasm of Rise of the Gamers (which literally calls the day traders “heroes”) misses the point that those day traders are playing the same game as the big hedge fund managers.

It’s a shame, with this much talent in front of and behind the camera, a more precise picture couldn’t emerge from material so obviously close to the heart.

Well-intentioned but hardly well-executed.

A good bet for family viewing. It's got a charming, simple plot, a smart Alan Menken score, and enough subversive humor to wring a chuckle or two out of Mom and Dad.

It's all so much blood and brine signifying nothing, not even a good time. Now somebody do us all a favor and cut that albatross from around Petersen's neck already.

Director Leterrier keeps the camera moving and swooping throughout the film as if the Steadicam were another device in the magicians’ tool belt. A clear sense of space and sleight-of-hand is rarely achieved.

There are lots of laughs in this picture, and though at one point he teeters perilously on the brink of mush and gush, Wilson manages to regain his gently caustic comic footing.

Works both as an engagingly sordid meditation on protofeminism and contemporized sisterhood set in a time and a place where either/or were grounds for, at the very least, defenestration.

By no means a great film, but it is an entertaining one, a nearly bloodless, family-friendly throwback of sorts to a cinematic age when Persian palace intrigue, winsome princesses, and ambitious princes ruled the back lots and Errol Flynn was in like, well, Errol Flynn.

More chilling than terrifying, this movie’s predatory aliens are creatures that mostly mess with people’s heads prior to abducting them.

Some kids may find the whole affair traumatic, particularly when the poor pooch finds herself dehydrated and chained to a corpse in the wilderness. Then again, that’s nothing compared to those same kids’ parents’ recollection of a Disney flick in which a tearful boy must shoot his rabies-inflicted yeller dog in the end. Bless the beasts and the children.

It comes across as yet another in a long line of poorly produced horror/paranoia bloodbaths, short on everything except cheesy effects.

Sugar Hill is arguably the most beautiful-looking crime drama since Coppola's Godfather, Part II. Forsaking the glitz and over-the-top grittiness of New Jack City and other recent NYC gangster films, director Ichaso instead opts for the lush, burnished earth-tones of the Corleone clan. It's a dark, rich film, and its lengthy running time of over two hours glides by with only a few annoying snags.

For better or worse (and I'd argue the latter), the aliens are as monolithically evil, unformed, and un-individuated as characters as Native Americans once were in the earliest of Westerns.

The story has a welcome sense of continuous momentum, and what’s more, DeMonaco has a better handle on both his skewering of the entitled upper class (not as pointed as Paul Verhoeven’s ultraviolent satire, but a start) and the righteous anger of the targeted lower class (personified by Michael K. Williams’ resistance leader, Carmelo).

Anodyne and asinine in equal measures, The Violent Heart is just brainless.

When de Armas’ performance is given the space to be quiet and chilling, Blonde suddenly hits, and what once felt hollow feels painfully visceral.

Ultimately a fluffy bit of caper-noir, the success of Where the Money Is rests heavily with Old Blue Eyes.

Offers too small a dose of the blood-and-sand adventure you expect from this sort of big-budget Hollywood remake. As it is, it borders on The English Patient's on again-off again heroics, minus Anthony Minghella's patient skill in eliciting romantic suspense.

Perhaps the more appropriate question to put to this remake would be "What the hell’s the point?"

You get the feeling the filmmakers didn't want to make anyone think too hard about what's going on here behind the scenes of the main storyline, and that's more than a little insulting.

Dragonheart is a disappointingly hit-and-miss affair.

Gory, spastic fun, Love & a .45 is a broken roller-coaster ride of Texas trouble. It's not anything you haven't seen before, but it might remind you why you liked those other movies in the first place.

Carla Gugino, however, energizes the film with every step of her self-assured stride. She genuinely manages to create a dimensional character who is fulsomely inspirational – and as I said at the outset, that's not too shabby an accomplishment when it comes to the world of women and sports movies.

For all its political positioning and explorations of institutional violence, the thing that makes Black Christmas most endearing is the strength of its sisterhood.

At this point, I guess we should just applaud Allen for his work ethic. Even at the ripe, old age of 72, he’s still making movies at the rate of one a year, come rain or come shine. The problem, of course, is that he doesn’t make good movies at the rate of one a year. In fact, by my count, he hasn’t made a good movie for almost a decade (1999’s "Sweet & Lowdown").

While Chloe may seem reminiscent of Egoyan’s outlandish thriller "Where the Truth Lies," it also calls to mind another would-be thriller about marital infidelity that starred Neeson and was utterly ludicrous: "The Other Man."

Harrelson is mostly game, channeling a more abrasive version of Harvey Pekar, but time and again, the film pulls its punches or becomes bogged down in cliches.

You could say it’s toothless most of the time.

It’s a fascinating ticking clock, and it works because Oyelowo leads the way as the brokenhearted survivor.

Humanoids features a number of strong female characters, including a lead scientist and another who defends her homestead from the marauding creatures.

The film is eventful and full of suspense, but also obvious and completely contrived.

Somewhat byzantine in execution and confusing in its logic, the film's second half never achieves the catharsis you'd expect.

A well-told tale that uses minimal dialogue, striking imagery, and vivid violence to weave a depressing portrait of obsessive love and a no-win battle of wills.

The makers of Guess Who appear to have given more thought to targeting an audience than building a believable movie.

It's not "Sixteen Candles," but it's not "Road Trip," either. Instead, this comedic car-trip riff on the teen-male libido and the lengths to which it will go to satisfy itself falls somewhere in between part endearing emo love story, part gross-out semen gag-fest, and, very occasionally, a smart, inspired, non-sequitur-laden hoot.

Unflinchingly addressing issues of class and race, Perry juggles multiple plot lines and the result emerges as (dare I say?) a surprising mix of Frank Capra and Douglas Sirk.

One of the most inventive romantic comedies to come around in some while.

Torpedoed by its own overarching idealism -- the film targets the new star system, the media, the studios, digital technology, and pretty much everything else you might care to think of -- and not enough script to back it all up.

What begins as a cute idea grows annoyingly sentimental before it is through.

By the end, there's nothing to admire except Range's technical virtuosity.

Lucky You is redeemed slightly by the presence of Duvall as Huck's father, poker legend L.C. Cheever, who clearly spent more time being Huck's teacher than his dad. Their inevitable face-off at the final table of the World Poker Championship has just enough Oedipal overtones to give the movie a little heft.

There is a richness to Far and Away that seems wasted on its simple love story straight out of "It Happened One Night."

Hamm is also the only interview subject who touches on what I found to be the film’s most egregious flaw: Considering most people barely make a living wage and food insecurity is on the rise, it seems rather tone-deaf to make a film about a hotel that charges $4,000 to $20,000 per night.

Neither a revelation nor a total wash, EDtv is instead solid comic filmmaking. I just can't help but think it could have been so much more.

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

At its best, which is when it's exploiting both its eye-popping special effects and delicious production design (the interior of the haunted mansion is truly awe-inspiring), Casper proves itself to be passable, if mindless, kiddie fare. At its worst, Casper continually resorts to desperate star cameos to get a rise out of the audience, lame and phony heart-tugging to get them emotionally involved (and there is more of this nonsense than you might expect), and ridiculous, coincidental plotting to make sure this thing runs at least 90 minutes.

The filmmakers insert their own bulldozer midway through the story, rendering the metaphoric literal and the literal absurd.

Comes close to overdosing on bone-pulverizing kickassery at the expense of a plot that ricochets from the nationalistically fatuous to the lovestruck, farcical before shutting down completely in favor of punch-drunk loveliness.

Where else are you going to get a chance to see the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy drift down the side of a mile-high tsunami and take out the White House? Big. Dumb. Fun.

I can happily report that the animated singing animals sequel is a hell of a lot better than the first one. Which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t saying that much.

The bottom line with the film is that there's just no damn mystery about it.

McGuigan's wonderfully ambitious but terribly melodramatic film is chock-full of symbolic references, subtext, and the sort of period detail that made Monty Python's historical comedies so gamely endearing.

Its doomed portrait of guileless dreamers may be found lacking in plot activity and empathetic characters. But for anyone interested in a movie that wipes clean the grungy patina of self-delusionment, Jackpot hits solid pay dirt.

This one misses the boat by several nautical miles.

I’d be hard-pressed to find a filmmaker who, in a general sense, I agree with but whose movies irritate me in the way that Adam McKay’s do.

Neither as adroitly funny as Franken's comic routines, nor as notable as his conversion to the fine art of politics, this is a 90-minute "What If?" with no discernible answer.

You won’t want to miss a word of the deliciously bad dialogue in this Hollywood tale of twisted sisters.

Amounts to little more than a big, wet kiss to the group’s worldwide legions of young, female fans.

Although Belushi's scruffy charm has its moments, it's the late Shakur's performance as the conscience-stricken half of the duo that draws the most attention. There's a gravity to his performance that is totally unexpected, a surprise that -- given the circumstances -- is as sad as it is welcome.

Never manages to be either very funny or very compelling.

Henson aside, the most memorable performance comes from musician Erykah Badu in the smallish role of a trippy, weed-dealing psychic seemingly from another planet.

There's absolutely no shortage of stunning eye candy in this spiffy, sexy, and frequently thrilling sequel to Disney's 1982 game-changer Tron. There is, however, a certain lack of connectivity between the digitally enhanced characters onscreen and the user – excuse me, "audience" – in the flesh.

Wispy, cosmopolitan slice-of-life.

It's mediocrity at its most unremarkable.

Unlike anything you've ever seen before, Final Fantasy is, finally, one for the history books, and tremendous fun to boot. It makes Lara Croft look like an old maid.

Heijningen's The Thing is tightly paced, has enough imaginative horror to satisfy even the most jaded gorehound, and never strays too far from its source, so why do you come away from it feeling like it was the runner-up in a daylight nightmare festival?

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

Ultimately, the story becomes one of personalities, which seems inevitable but narrows the accomplishments and ambitions of its focus.