Perhaps if 6 Underground had ended instead of opened with its most imaginative action sequence, much of what came before could have been regarded as a slow escalation of style and substance. As the film is currently constructed, however, 6 Underground feels twice as disappointing for its early success.

The action can be bloody, but is mostly routine. Ultimately, the film’s most eye-catching special effects are reserved for bikini waxes and implants.

Like a lot of sports movies, this biopic about boxing promoter Jackie Kallen is better than it has to be but not as good as it ought to be.

Somehow the film doesn't quite cohere; it's hobbled by its awkward exposition, with salient facts about the characters' lives.

Overstuffed and overextended, The Blazing World is buoyed by the soundtrack (especially the songs by Isom Innis and Sean Cimino in their project Peel), and the too brief appearance by the wonderful Soko. In the end, the film tries too hard.

The sketchy visual traits that differentiate the many characters in this avian universe will leave viewers crying, "Who, who" along with the owls.

One of the main pleasures of the TV series was how Cross and co. always had Luther caught in the crosscurrents of two conflicting agendas, and the tension of that juggling act provided much of the pleasure, especially when it all (mostly) worked out. Fallen Sun is a rote and simpleminded letdown by comparison.

James Gandolfini’s wintery silences and bitter outbursts are enough on their own to merit seeing this otherwise frustratingly vague slice of low-end Crooklyn crime life, but just barely.

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.

Although a slow-burn approach to this sort of creepfest is generally a smart move, Devil’s Due peters out of outright suspense midway through and never fully recovers, despite (or possibly because of) a final reel that may shock some viewers but will leave die-hard genre fans gnashing their teeth and rending their clothes in dismay.

Wish doesn’t evoke swelling feelings of nostalgia, but rather a longing for the pristine storytelling of the studio’s past.

He's a saint in the flesh, but not one who inspires great drama.

We Bury the Dead is already too slow and mournful to pass as popcorn entertainment, and it’s rarely quite thoughtful enough to bring its art house horror aspirations to life.

It’s all so quaint to the point of being anachronistic, and considering the dearth of truly family-friendly fare in the marketplace, it arrives just in time to hold wee ones and their parents over until "The Boxtrolls" arrives at month’s end.

Wan does manage to infuse his film with some of the subtle unsubtleties of classic Euro-horror outings, chief among them the palpable, dreamlike sense of dislocation and the abiding severance from reality that tends to make nongenre fans wonder if someone spiked their popcorn with LSD.

The film feels rote, an exercise of base and pedestrian concerns that never moves beyond anything resembling a statement. Of which there is none, except perhaps von Trier regarding his navel, which I suspect he wouldn’t have it any other way. For the rest of us? We suffer, which is most likely by the director’s design.

A lot of gunk: dance-offs, sing-alongs, awkward exes, and a dirty-talking White blasting through, I'm afraid, the last bits of her novelty. That again?

Watching two irksome characters fall into a new co-dependence (all at the expense of other characters) is scarcely the emotional victory that Eisenberg presents it as.

The problem with The Bling Ring is that it feels as soulless as its young protagonists, and of course there’s little sympathy to be found either for the story’s über-rich victims like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

Besson loves his violence almost as much as he loves his leading lady.

There’s nothing feel-good about this story – even moments that should be hopeful.

Henkin's vision of Mona Demarkov (Olin) as a remorseless, amoral, lethal, and sexually devastating (you should see what she can do with a prosthetic limb) arch-criminal is a nightmare come to life. But perhaps like dreams, the story works best when played out in the furtive dark spaces of the mind's eye.

Wouldn't it make more sense on basic cable? Plum screen incarnate (and film producer) Katherine Heigl got her start in TV, on Roswell and Grey's Anatomy, and her public persona – a combination of prickliness and adoration-seeking that has famously grated on viewers' and critics' nerves alike – has historically played better there.

Oh, the ennui. In Somewhere, it's so thick you could cut it with Stephen Dorff's chiseled cheekbones.

Scarlet Bond collapses into the hourlong, supposedly epic but ultimately low-stakes multifront battle de rigueur in too much anime right now. That leaves no room to explore the story's most interesting character: Rimiru himself.

Not as yummy as it sounds, true, but nowhere near as godawful as "Van Helsing," a small mercy but very much appreciated.

Pack the kids off to the multiplex with an easy conscience and forgiving critical sensibility.

This humdrum slice of forgettable studio fare about a tropical wedding hijacked by pirates has a simple pitch that could have been elevated with a clever script with a more consistent sense of humor and writing for its performers.