The film is repetitive and not as suspenseful at it tries to be. Often gorgeous, sometimes fascinating, it is ultimately unwieldy and unsurprising. It fails as a Smith-family project. Jaden Smith, who was fine in "The Karate Kid," is flat here.

Everybody’s tantalized by the store’s exclusivity because next to nobody makes the cut. Thus the title’s morbid connotation rears its ugly head: Having somebody sprinkle your mortal remains on the marble floor is the only way you’d ever fit in.

This is in fact the end – it is what is. We’ve had some good laughs. Let’s part amicably.

There is a plot – a pretty clunky one, jerry-rigged with character motivations that amount to one long “huh?” and dialogue that might as well have been chunked out of a cliche generator – but who needs plot when we can have mayhem?

Before Midnight surpasses the two previous films in this trilogy in terms of its intelligence, narrative design, and vivacity. It’s a grand accomplishment, and I feel greedy about wanting to see this film series continue.

Great voice work, stunning visuals, and a witty, full script make this entertaining for all ages.

Though well-researched and competently acted, At Any Price doesn’t risk much, having neither a thesis nor a resolution. Like an awkward hug between estranged relations, there’s a lack of confidence in the execution.

First-time feature director Adam Leon’s shots are precise and full of detail; it almost doesn’t even matter what’s being said (which is good, because the dialogue sounds stilted at times). What’s important is the art, and Leon and his leads have a palpable passion for it, but they also aren’t afraid to stop and smell the carnations along the way.

There is an enormous amount of effort put into this film which at its end just seems like noise, wind, and dust.

In the House, from the eclectic French filmmaker François Ozon (Under the Sand, 8 Women), is an almost perverse delight, an egghead thriller that slyly shell-games its truer purpose as an inquiry into the construction – and deconstruction – of fiction. Scratch deconstruction: Make that tear-the-house-down demolition.

The performances of these two leads are compelling and the Cheonggyecheon area can almost be seen as another character in Kim’s morality tale. And even if forgiveness is not always possible in the human condition, Pieta allows that expiation of one’s sins is within the realm of the possible.

Renoir is great at capturing some of the details of daily life within this unique household and conveying an Impressionist atmosphere on film, but as far as telling us a story, the film is a washout.

The all-around excellent cast swings with aplomb from silly to sweet.

Screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and fanboys’ favorite whipping boy, Damon Lindelof, keep the film moving at a quippy clip; there’s really no fat here until the film feints a climax only to lurch the coaster-car back up the hill again.

Arthur Newman is overwhelmed with arty ambitions and a heavy-handed acting style. Ultimately, all the weight prevents the film from taking off and soaring.

Luhrmann has always had a knack with the fever of passion, but here he only catches high fever’s empty gibberish.

In films by the likes of Michael Bay, Paul Verhoeven, and Guillermo del Toro, machines are shown to be the nightmarish enemies of human beings, so it’s refreshing to find the machines in Trash Dance working in harmony with their human operators.

I’m afraid there’s more than 2% evaporation going on in Loach’s latest.

Blancanieves never lags, per se, it’s just awfully in love with itself: with its gorgeous black and white chiaroscuros and whirling-dervish first-person camera perspectives, the Spanish-guitar-scored dance sequences (that include the undeniable dance of the matador in action), and battering winds of emotional extremes. By the end of this sumptuous and sincerely felt melodrama, I was rather in love with it, too.

Some chronicle is better than no chronicle, but the past exists only in the retelling; how history is written is as important as the story itself. Don’t these survivors deserve better?

The film provides more of the same and nothing startlingly innovative, but what's here is good.

I’m not saying there isn’t comic gold to be mined in the topic of cunnilingus and the senior set, but The Big Wedding couldn’t hit pay dirt even if it face-palmed the film first.

Graceland is terrific entertainment, but I can’t decide if it’s a cautionary tale, an exercise in moral relativism, or an exploitation film. There’s the final conundrum.

And come on, guys: There’s nothing cinematic about Googling.

This chase film combines elements of the thriller and newspaper procedural to create a contemporary saga about political idealism, stone-cold realities, and the repercussions of past deeds on future innocents.

Yes, the canon invoked for this film is that of the Three Stooges, but it’s still not as magnificently berserk as they can be. Set your expectations carefully for this one.

With American independent film teeming with so many shaky-cam snarksters, what an electric riposte to the status quo is Nichols, whose films are classically constructed and deadly serious. In his short but potent career, he’s mastered a wide-vistaed eye for the epic and the elemental.

Meticulous and abstruse, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is an idiosyncratic film that invites explication but defies total understanding.