The laughs are proportionate to the stakes, which are middle-of-the-road.

Scott excels in maintaining a low, persistent hum of eroticism whose purpose is not titillation or camp.

No surprises or major laughs here, but as far as Sandler family fare goes, it's inoffensive enough.

The film engages sporadically but mostly fails to take advantage of its under-documented milieu.

Leon Gast's profile of the photographer is not devoid of entertainment value or unhelpful in understanding the history of photojournalism, however, the movie is as ephemeral as one of Galella's snapshots of a coked out, B-list celeb exiting Studio 54 circa 1975.

Audience appeal will be limited to people who see nothing silly about saying the man who invented the five-point haircut was one of the primary architects of the '60s.

It's in the moments Abrams attempts to combine emotional payoffs with popcorn-style thrills that the film rings most false.

The positives have an edge over the negatives, but it probably doesn't matter either way. It is an Adam Sandler movie.

Warm, broad and uneven, City Island almost thrives in the lite entertainment zone where ethnic family dramedy meets mildly raucous farce.

The Sleeping Beauty lacks either the dramatic intensity or the sexual frankness that drew attention to her previous films "Fat Girl" and "The Last Mistress."

It doesn't surpass the performance he gave in "JCVD," but if you're a fan of "the muscles from Brussels," it's worth watching if only because it suggests that whether he's drop-kicking enemies or delivering emotional dialogue, the best is yet to come.

Some audience members will come out for What's Your Number? for Faris' appeal and likability, but they'll leave disappointed because this film is more interested in showing her physical assets than her comedic ones.

While it matches "Pygmalion" and "Educating Rita" in topic and pedigree, Queen to Play merely hints at plot points and character development, which leaves it to coasts on the reputations of its stars.

There is so much wrong with the political system at this point that gerrymandering, in which politicians shamelessly redraw electoral boundaries to rig the outcome of elections, seems almost quaint.

With high production values and a glossily enjoyable mise-en-scene, the film is watchable.

Sitting through The Winning Season you marvel at how it obsessively duplicates all such films that came before but still consistently thwarts your impulse to dismiss it out of hand.

Compact if not cohesive, this is an Age of Aquarius-meets-"Mamma Mia"! distillation of The Tempest.

It's pithy and funny in that continuous smile kind of way that you don't notice until you're half way through it.

Funnier, sharper and sweeter than expected.

This is a soap opera that stands at a distance from its characters (that distance being the length of a lawyer's briefcase) and, though handsome and capable, feels as inert as mannequins in a shop window.

An historical drama so swamped by its soap opera crescendos, no resonant story can survive the wet.

This movie believes that true love isn't supposed to be hard. A fine ideal, but it feels as flat as a pizza.

The price for an invite to Stu's (Ed Helms) Thai nuptials is fewer laughs and an air of menace and mystery that won't endear Part II to escapist-hungry audiences.

Where the actress succeeds, all but disappearing into the role of Thatcher, the rest of the film is a bizarre amalgamation of archival footage, half-baked montages, hallucinations that push the bounds of poetic license straight into the gray area of bad taste, and plain old tedium.

The doc has won a host of awards at film festivals and it is a policy wonk's dream of a movie, but it is dry, statistic-laden viewing that is unlikely to attract much attention beyond education circles.

This story of a hit man who wants out after performing this one last job is so threadbare, trite and predictable that not the star's formidable charisma nor the considerable talent of director Anton Corbijn can come close to erasing its deficiencies.

Easygoing effort at times feels over-baked and too full of Perry’s now-trademarked melodramatics, but nevertheless should hit squarely at the target audience of the older African-American women that can’t seem to get enough of what this director dishes out.

The movie was written and directed by Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Crash) and when stripped to its logline, it's pretty ridiculous.