Even if some of its history and buckles are askew, the film is still an original take on a Christian redemption story.

You have a horror movie with two strong female leads – no small thing. The movie, however, has little else going for it.

It’s all in good fun, and critic-proof to boot, but Jurassic World doesn’t even come close to that most intimate and dearly coveted “Gosh, wow” sense-of-wonder that the original film mustered so easily. Roar more, bite less.

Ultimately, all involved are cast in the shadow of Dano’s wide-ranging performance, capturing Wilson at his most ecstatic and his most hopeless. Already a well-established talent with remarkable turns in "There Will Be Blood" and "Little Miss Sunshine," the young actor has never demonstrated such profound sensitivity as he does here. Some might even say he’s been touched by greatness, or at least does a damn good impression of it.

This is, disappointingly, a long way from being a Studio Ghibli classic. The essential plot may be archetypal, but it’s no "Kiki’s Delivery Service."

This is a different sort of comedy that more or less succeeds on its own terms, despite that fact that you find yourself rooting for the post-Snowden CIA.

It is all very fanciful and droll, a mildly subversive and ramshackle Scandinavian version of the "Grumpy Old Men" on-the-road formula.

Danner’s even better on her own, as she honestly, even angrily, wrangles with not a paradox, per se, just the raw rub of life: that it sucks to be alone, and it’s scary to try not being alone. She’s exquisite.

For better or worse, the film plays like an extended TV episode, jumping from each character’s story arc to the next, rarely lingering longer than the time it takes to land a few low-bro love jabs before moving on to the next scene.

The entire movie has a creepy aura of self-consciousness. In addition to the aforementioned definitions of aloha, the word also doubles as a coming-and-going greeting in the Hawaiian vernacular. Here, it regrettably signifies the possible goodbye to a once-promising career of a filmmaker who had us at hello.

Surely the most unconventional romantic comedy of the summer, Results isn't anti-plot; it just moves in weird ways.

San Andreas, by its very nature, begs, borrows, and outright steals from other, occasionally better, disaster epics.

Bad writing, shoddy effects work, and Laser’s nonstop shouting of every single line of dialogue do not add up to a transgressive statement about the American for-profit prison system, but instead achieve the dubious honor of being the most annoyingly in-your-face horror flick of the year thus far.

That’s the problem with this well-meaning but ultimately hollow film romance: You don’t see it; you don’t get it.

A two-hour-plus cat-and-mouse game between the two heavyweight actors unfolds, and is enthusiastically filmed against a to-die-for soundtrack, detailing the exhaustive efforts on both sides to take the other down.

Terribly slight but not unpleasant, 5 Flights Up is hardly worth the climb.

Makes largely cosmetic changes to the material without offering much in the way of distinctive frights.

A folksy fable defined equally by its whimsy and wistfulness.

Saint Laurent gets across how isolating celebrity can be, how exhausting it is to keep a toehold on top of a mountain that keeps shifting underfoot. But the film is allergic to insight: It’s as numbed-out as its hero addict.

Unfortunately, the film is as bloodless as its purported crime. In the Name of My Daughter is presented dispassionately, and the performances neither intrigue nor captivate.

There’s much to applaud and much to knock in this Disney action adventure. Tomorrowland breaks the mold and becomes something quite original, while at the same time it ballyhoos its inspirational message to an extent that deadens the narrative.

All told, it’s a likably misfit little movie, even if you can imagine it better suited as a lengthy short film or as a superior installment on one of those midcentury television playhouse series.

Unstoppable and righteous, it roars across the no-lane hardpan like the four-iron horseman of the kinetic apocalypse, amped up on bathtub crank and undiluted movie love. Oh, what a movie. What a lovely movie!

Chris Dowling’s second feature at first seems anodyne enough, but once the plot mechanics kick into high gear, the film becomes as unsurprising as a prix fixe menu.

Mostly succeeds in spite of the apparent strain to serve the agendas of both its loyal audience and its fledgling stars.

At times, it’s a bit like being cornered and regaled by actor Bill Nighy’s aging rocker Billy Mack from "Love Actually," but certainly more interesting, and a rewarding and informative document of some unlikely visionaries of maximum rock & roll.

The cult of Iris caught like grassfire, and the film catches this nonagenarian nonpareil, ever in her defining owl glasses and heavy jewelry, at peak heat.

Nothing in the film remotely resembles any location between San Antonio and Dallas, the beginning and end points of its labored trajectory. For someone in Fresno or Akron, this may not be a big deal, but for those of us in these here parts, it’s a damned distraction.