Branagh might as well have opened a can and dumped it on a plate, the ridges of a factory-line production still perfectly hatched on a gelatinous cylinder of crud.

Here's hoping that younger members of the audience will seek out Conan Doyle's original stories to further explore Holmes' official amanuensis, Dr. John Watson, whose brilliant case studies regarding his friend, roommate, and fellow rationalist are the stuff dreams are made of.

It’s deranged, but also at times curiously defanged. At least it’s still a fun, bloody watch, even if it frustrates along the way.

Despite an overlong running time and a punishing amount of violence and gore, it's a deeply ambitious picture, one of the most expensive and original to come out of France in many years.

If this movie does anything to rally crowds against cinema's mass distribution of mediocrity then it has served a noble purse.

White Christmas endures – despite not being a very good movie.

Ghosts of Mississippi isn’t a bad film by any means; it’s just not a very good film.

We have pretty much all the information we need within the first half-hour, which undercuts the supposedly climactic reveal of the contents of Maruge's letter and renders the torturous flashbacks unnecessary for narrative purposes. And not a little bit sadomasochistic, too – an ill fit for a PG-13 family film.

It's almost dreamlike in its weird little tone, a Manischewitz hangover of a nightmare that's giddy enough to usher chuckles and is thoroughly unique.

By trying to be about so little, telling a simple fragile romantic story, Dogfight is about so much -- war and peace, love and romance, sex roles and cultural myths. What it understands is that to be really anti-war, rather than glitzy moralizing, a film should just be full of life, its characters so richly nuanced and detailed that they resonate with energy.

Ultimately, the slow boil bleakness of the script, with its subtle ruminations of what it is to go on in a time of hopelessness, is what marks Settlers apart, even as it looks and feels like so many of the post-apocalyptic drought-plagued SF dramas of the last few years.

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.

The premise is ripe for potent melodrama, but director Jacquot (who gets co-screenwriting credit) ultimately doesn’t finesse the situation.

Hideously directed with all the comic subtlety of Oliver Stone on speed, A Very Brady Sequel misses almost every single mark it sets for itself, from the disastrously ill-conceived animation that marks Roy's hallucinogenic mushroom trip at the family dinner table to the persistent background hiss on the film's soundtrack. Even Sherwood Schwartz would've hated this dog.

Mufasa is a small triumph for Jenkins and a small tragedy for Miranda, which means it’s a fine movie in an ocean of fine movies.

Minions: The Rise of Gru might not be sophisticated storytelling, but not all animated films have to be. Sometimes they can just be about joy.

You’ve heard of guerrilla warfare? Buffalo Soldiers is all about guerilla capitalism.

But for a film like this to succeed it must be full of humanity, overflowing with characters. This one is but they are all two-dimensional: the exhibitionist manipulative performance artist girlfriend, the insensitive and driven husband. The correct moral course is always clear, ambiguities are not entertained. In all its choices the film offers no real options. This tone piled upon the overwhelming coincidences that are supposed to drive the plot, drown whatever charm the central characters manage to generate.

The imagery by cinematographer Michal Englert is stupendous, but the dialogue and plot by actor-turned-screenwriter Joshua Rollins, who also has a small role in the film, are a bit too minimal. Infinite Storm always shows the perils we face but never explains them.

Tykwer's camera can assault the audience with the rankest of imagery, but not even once does it come close to distilling the actual aroma of the abattoir that was 18th-century France. And for that, I suppose, we should all be thankful.

The current media discussion over whether or not this is a racist film misses how much this is a classic hard-boiled detective novel, the Japanese functioning as an almost faceless evil.

The Commuter is exactly the kind of post-"Taken" aging-action-star part that Neeson could do in his sleep, and while he’s not exactly dozing through the script, it lacks his normal grizzled fire and drive.

The lengthiest foot chase in film history.

The performances are uniformly good and Kelly’s effort to tell an unbiased story is admirable, but I Am Michael ultimately delivers more in the way of talking points than drama.

Though Foley is adept at handling the action, the film is a grim washout peppered with too many earnest, good-cop/bad-cop conundrums and not enough solid police work.

Just doesn't have it.

With 7 Chinese Brothers, Austin-based filmmaker Bob Byington has made his most accessible film yet. The humor is less arch than in his previous comedies (among them Somebody up There Likes Me, Harmony and Me, and RSO [Registered Sex Offender]), and it’s plentiful and less diffuse than in his earlier works.

The film is more of an old-school wartime yarn, crackling with the expected camaraderie among the hardscrabble volunteers.