The film’s sophistication is compromised by the rather dumb plot, but some of the numbers—especially “Think Pink” and “Bonjour Paris”—are standouts.

A significant influence on Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, this grueling pile driver of a movie will keep you on the edge of your seat, though it reeks of French 50s attitude, which includes misogyny, snobbishness, and borderline racism.

The twist of making Bronson a genuine working man adds interest to the action-revenge formula, but not enough to lift this out of the programmer category.

This packaged tour through the great man's career is unenlightening and obfuscating, despite an adept lead performance by Robert Downey Jr.

On the whole there's not a lot of flesh on these cynically haphazard bones.

This isn't a major Dante effort, but his ability to make a good-natured satire that allows an audience to read it several ways at once is as strong as ever, and many of the sidelong genre notations are especially funny.

The true schism here, however, is between the brainless fun of the action plot and Stone's cheap exploitation of the cartels' real-life sadism.

The supposedly cunning protagonist registers as a cipher, and the directors' tendency to shoot dialogue scenes in close-up blunts any understanding of the social milieu he's trying to conquer.

However gritty this indie comedy may look (cinematographer Steve Calitri seems to be aping William Eggleston's photographs of the American south), it isn't all that different from an Adam Sandler vehicle: writer-director Robbie Pickering spends much of the movie mocking his characters' stupidity, then pulls an about-face with a sentimental conclusion that feels unearned.

Director-cowriter Nathan Adloff displays real sensitivity toward the central characters, yet he hasn't crafted a story in which his observations might carry any weight.

Despite their assorted vulgarities and lack of polish, the films of Adam Sandler are remarkably consistent in their own particular way. This one's no different.

Where the narrative and characterization work, the visuals are lacking. Director Colin Trevorrow's digital cinematography occasionally resembles a YouTube video in mid-buffer, making the gorgeous and picturesque setting of the Pacific Northwest coastline appear bland and texture-less.

You may feel fussy asking for a coherent narrative, though, because director Ridley Scott delivers so many of the shocking set pieces that are the real hallmark of the series.

The CGI effects are so slick that they undercut the movie's shock value, and the action moves too quickly to instill a real sense of fear, but this is still visually impressive, with spectacular make-up, costumes, and cinematography.

A box office phenomenon in France, this crowd-pleasing drama is based on a true story but sticks closely to the template for a Hollywood buddy movie.

The comedy sci-fi franchise returns after a ten-year hiatus, with the same formula of respectably funny wisecracks and obsessively detailed space monsters.

An odd stylistic mash-up, the movie never quite coheres, in part because the characters are so thin that the style doesn't have much to cohere to.

Once the special effects take over, Berg has little room to assert his personality (or tell a story, for that matter), and the movie feels like a chore.

The movie is fairly entertaining, but the high production values and shticky humor invert the dynamic of the show, which was played totally straight despite the fact that the sets were always threatening to fall down.

As long as Efron's shirt comes off, he could play an accountant and no one in the target audience would care.

Writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are content to trot out the familiar gags and characters, and the murmurs of recognition I heard in the preview audience indicate that the series has become some kind of sad generational touchstone.

Inevitably, however, this oh-so-cosmopolitan setup gradually devolves into resentment, messy romance, and marital strife.

Director Gary Ross (Pleasantville) generally avoids the elaborate exterior shots and special effects that dominate high-concept blockbusters.

Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) seem to be after the gentle irreverence of David Gordon Green's buddy flick "Pineapple Express," but without his sensitivity and attention to character the movie quickly grows monotonous.

There are some funny scenes in which the two brothers spy on the wife, who may be having an affair, but the movie's climax is a badly contrived attempt to ratify Jeff's notion of personal destiny.

If the project was intended to enlarge the comedian's audience, it may be a wash: for every prospective Ferrell fan who can't understand English, there must be an existing one who can't understand subtitles.

Pederson has no smoking gun that connects Nashi to dirty tricks or violence, but there are plenty of both swirling around Moscow.

Unlike Stanton's memorable animation features, this is surprisingly devoid of humor or winning characterization, though the special effects are fantastic.