It's like Garai can never work out whether she wants this to be a modern Gothic fantasy, or a contemporary horror with deeper social meaning, then falls afoul of excessive coincidence. The parts of the spell are all there, but the conjuring is incomplete.

It’s a curiously inert, workmanlike production: a whole lot of pomp and incircumstance.

Franco brooks no quarter in New Order, and the businesslike tone and lean economy of the film make for an incredibly unsettling experience. He also layers the film with an ambiguity that keeps the viewer off balance.

Sisley has created an authentic and nuanced portrait of a family not just in crisis, but in transition: big transition, sparked by the accumulation of small moments where the heart is laid bare, where the frustration boils over, where the delusions must be faced. And where the truth is embraced.

That may be Beautiful Boy's biggest problem: That it's too emotional.

All this and not a glimmer of General Franco makes for a surreal – and sporadically inspired – comedy of Spanish mores back when naughty was nice.

Burton and his writing team waste the opportunity of a sequel to fix the errors of the past, and instead double down on the most problematic elements of the original.

This is Burton’s most mainstream film to date, which isn’t to say it’s not an eccentrically entertaining ride. It is, but minus the kooky occult élan you expect from the man who made "Edward Scissorhands." It’s a Lifetime movie, as directed by, well, you know who.

Peterson's film is a huge, loud beast of a film, filled with gunfire, explosions, and not a few tears. It's all grounded, however, in Ford's gritted-teeth performance as President Marshall.

A consistently entertaining parody that never once makes you feel like an idiot for laughing out loud at its idiocy.

So many logical questions go unasked in The Gift, which, ultimately, is the movie's downfall. Mark this package as Return to Sender.

Black Sea is cluttered and claustrophobic in all the right ways, and it doubles as a watery jeremiad against global corporate malfeasance. Still, you walk away from the film with the niggling sense that the story never quite holds your attention the way it should.

It is a sweet, simple movie with a sweet, simple message: that children see the world differently and have much to teach the people who love them.

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

Too strange for its own good, Careful is less interesting as a film than it is as a Canadian cinematic anomaly.

On the whole, though, Kong: Skull Island is great big dumb fun. It’s also shockingly beautiful to look at when you aren’t having creature guts flung into the camera.

Becker's tight, streamlined direction, along with Nicholas Pileggi's (GoodFellas) excellent script and Cusack's wonderful turn as Calhoun take City Hall far above the standard genre fare. Like real mayoral politics, it's a descent into a snakepit, with no easy answers in sight.

If you're a parent, you could do a heck of a lot worse than taking the spawn off to catch Rugrats in Paris and if you're a kid, well, you probably already knew that anyway.

The latest installment in the Austin Powers series has stopped making much sense at all, but it sure gets its giggle on, and good.

If treats like this are evidence of Washington's special gifts as a filmmaker, Antwone Fisher promises great things for the future.

A violent, sober cautionary tale, strictly middle-of-the-road when it comes to its much-ballyhooed politics and grimly obvious in its telling.

There is no question that Yuen Woo-ping is a master of his craft, but True Legend leaves doubt as to his mastery of the art of storytelling.

Marshmallow nation, you may now exhale: Rob Thomas did ya right.

Still, when The Yellow Handkerchief finally hooks into the meat of Hamill’s source story, the narrative tension puts enough wind in the film’s sails to arrive at its corny but sentimentally satisfying conclusion.

Even in the budget-laden slickness of this Amazon production, I can’t lose myself in a fantasy that these issues can be solved by a mere costume change, a pep talk, or a snappy comeback.

The Nightmare Before Christmas said that it’s all right to wrap a few scares up under the Christmas tree. Terrifier 3, the latest in the extreme gore franchise, sets fire to the decorations, cuts off your eyelids, and makes you watch the whole house burn.

With Seraphim Falls, Brosnan shows himself, finally, to be an actor of real skill – rather than just a pretty face, a great head of hair, and a buttery British accent – capable not only of playing a real human being but one with a tortured soul and a dodgy past as well.

Perfectly passable film.