There’s never any doubt that redemption is the end-game for Jones, but the claim for his saving is weak sauce; the case against him has been too emphatically, if unintentionally, argued.

Despite the unrelenting action and the terrific cast, Gangster Squad comes up more scattered than successful.

It's unclear where the buck stops in terms of creative authority – at one point, Clayman complains that "the only thing I feel in control of is the money" – which renders OC87 at once a remarkable achievement, and a fatally compromised film.

Green and screenwriter Peter Straughan never completely go as far as they might have, satirically speaking.

But even a rapper needs to punch things up a bit, and 8 Mile, for all its hip-hop braggadocio, is a pretty weak riff.

If Concussion had focused on Omalu’s tireless efforts to expose CTE to the world, it would have been a powerful film. As it stands, it’s just second-string.

As with his previous film "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," Dominik's ideas get the better of his creative handiwork as he throws off his pacing to follow points he has already made.

Amazingly, it all works up to a point, although at approaching two hours in length, it could’ve easily shaved its bifurcated mohawk down by a good 15 minutes.

All told, though, Thor suffers from "Iron Man 2" syndrome: too much backstory, too many subplots and character introductions, and not nearly enough full-frontal nudity from Natalie Portman, who frankly is given very little to work with here.

There's much to enjoy here – Ratner's pacing is fluid and fast and the film rushes along its busy, cluttered way with something approaching melodramatic snarkiness – but it's also terribly busy and cluttered.

It all comes off as too sketchy and too obvious, and after 90 minutes, we're bloated with incidents but still hungry for satisfying drama.

“Freely inspired by a true story.” That’s the filmmakers’ cunningly phrased hand-wave acknowledging the gap between actual history and the moony-eyed imagined romance proffered here. Still, it’s a curious deployment of the creative license: You’d think the construction of one of man’s greatest monuments would supply sufficient drama on its own.

As with all the films in the Universal Soldier series, this is mostly a catalog of increasingly brutal fights, which are the main attraction in and of themselves.

Marshall, like his characters, does not mess around: Good people do bad things to not-entirely bad people while the Man (in this case No. 10 Downing St.) seeks ways to screw everyone.

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.

Portals feels like a first pass at a bigger idea, and a framing mechanism that takes a wild series of closing turns sets up a much bigger – and darkly interesting – universe. In that way, Portals promises more in future than it delivers here.

Frustrations abound with this limited film, but Wild Horse, Wild Ride does one thing exceptionally well, and that is convey the emotional bond between trainer and horse.

Davies tells David's story in a striking series of tableaux and dioramas, all impeccably executed to the last detail. As in Martin Scorsese's work, there's a great deal of control in Davies' directorial style, to the point that it seems totally lacking in spontaneity. But unlike a Scorsese movie, The Neon Bible implodes rather than explodes.

Every once in a while, a movie is more than a movie, but it’s surprising when that becomes the case with a punk-ass comedy, one that’s more puerile than pointed yet not without some good laughs.

If I may presume: Thatcher probably would have preferred more action, less talk.

Often impeded by ham-fisted, inspirational dialogue, The Idol is not likely to earn Assaf more worldwide admirers, but for those who are already in his fan club, this film will be received like a bonus gift.

As it stands, there’s a healthy amount to admire and for some it may be enough to scratch a certain itch. But much of Old Henry feels a lot like its protagonist: worn-out, weathered, and old.

The film is being marketed to kids and their parents, and as such, it’s well worth mom and dad’s hard-earned sawbuck for the implicit lessons it stresses. Be kind, especially to the seemingly strange ones who might not look like you.

It is an unabashedly good-natured film that doesn’t ram its religious ideology down your throat.

D-FENS is a cut-out, a cartoon Everyman we're supposed to feel sorry for and can't. He's a bad parody in what will doubtless be an over-analyzed film about loss of control. It's just too bad nobody on the creative end seems to have had much control either.

The movie lumbers on some more, reiterating the obvious and relying on overfamiliar imagery. Audiences have a long year to wait for Part 2. Would it not have been better to leave them breathless than heaving a sigh?

Has little of the wit, surprise, or memorable characterizations of the original.

Apocalypse never rises from the sum of its parts, becoming another bloated summer spectacle that rides the rail between fan service and coherent story. You can probably guess which side it eventually crashes on.