For those looking for non-stop action, pretty dazzling special effects and solid acting by the young protagonists, Insurgent will not disappoint.

The problem is, the plot wavers from nearly indecipherable to semi-ridiculous to … I stopped caring.

Frame by frame, ’71 is one of those intense war thrillers where you know it’s fiction, you know it’s not a documentary, and yet every performance and every conflict feels true to the history and the events of the time.

The Cobbler goes from bad to you-have-to-be-kidding in that final act, when we’re given a big reveal that makes no sense, even in the context of a bat-bleep crazy fable.

Even though it feels as if we’ve seen this movie before, Run All Night is a stylish and kinetic thriller, with Neeson at his gritty, world-weary best, some of the coolest camera moves in recent memory and a Hall of Fame villain in the great Ed Harris.

The world didn’t need yet another Cinderella story, but the one we got is one of the best versions ever put on film.

Is it a hard-R road trip comedy that makes no apologies for politically incorrect humor — or a sweet family film with a message about tolerance and acceptance? It’s both, I suppose. And neither element is particularly convincing or particularly funny.

This is a well-meaning film with a good idea that unfortunately stumbles on its way to its less-than-satisfying end.

I found Road Hard to be a low-key gem, a consistently funny albeit conventional story about a guy who’s almost always the funniest person in the room, and is almost always his own worst enemy.

It’s well-made and well-acted, but it’s also a grotesque, self-indulgent and ultimately tiresome satire that leaves behind an unpleasant stench.

The true story of Freddy Heineken’s kidnapping is fascinating, but Kidnapping Mr. Heineken is a disappointingly superficial film in which neither the kidnappers nor their captives are particularly interesting.

Edmands avoids the in-your-face emotional punch that most filmmakers would employ (police, lawsuits, confrontation) and instead opts for a more delicate, observational pacing, creating a set of vignettes that give a stark glimpse into these disrupted lives.

If everyone behaved the way the characters in Wild Tales behave, civilization would crumble. But the real take-away lesson here is how easy it might be for any of us, swept up in a moment of bloodlust, to consider pure raging hostility a fair trade.

The Lazarus Effect is nothing but a cheap horror film cloaked in scientific mumbo-jumbo.

What We Do in the Shadows is a bracing reminder of how the right burst of energy and style breathes fresh ideas into a genre threatened with creative exhaustion.

This is just sheer, escapist entertainment from start to finish.

While both have Broadway-level pipes, neither has a particularly distinctive, knock-it-out-of-the park voice. It doesn’t help that the songs, while solid, become repetitive in melody. And there’s not a home run in the bunch. I walked out humming … nothing from this movie.

This is a well-intentioned and sometimes quite sharp high school movie that falls just short of the mark due to a few way-off-the-mark scenes and too much heavy-handed preaching.

Hogtown is the most original film made in Chicago about Chicago to date.

A surprisingly touching ending brings to fruition the idea that “all of us are connected.” Moore manages this life-affirming touch without being preachy and by simply melding unusual old folktales into a new story filled with visually stunning images sure to captivate children of all ages.

Hardly the sporting-movie equivalent of a Hail Mary touchdown pass or a homer in the bottom of the ninth, yet McFarland, USA still has plenty of moments where you find yourself rooting hard for these kids, even though you know you’re watching a re-creation of events from the mid-1980s

Given the considerable comedic talents of Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Adam Scott et al., and the ragged, what-the-hell charms of the original “Hot Tub Time Machine,” it’s surprising how rotten this movie is from start to finish.

The Rewrite is hardly shattering new ground, but the familiar path is strewn with a steady stream of smile-inducing moments, two terrific performances from the leads and a first-rate supporting cast.

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus is a bold but wildly uneven, bloody mess of a film, sunk in large part by the subpar performances by nearly every major character in nearly every major role.

Firth is brilliant. He’s playing a veteran super spy in a very violent but very silly movie, but even when Harry is explaining why there’s a dead stuffed dog in his bathroom, Firth gives a disciplined, serious performance.

The long-awaited, highly anticipated, much-discussed film adaptation of the first segment of E L James’ inexplicably popular "Fifty Shades" trilogy is a tedious exercise in dramatic wheel-spinning that doesn’t have the courage to explore the darkest elements of the characters and doesn’t have the originality to stand on its own merits.

In Gabe Polsky’s Red Army, the Iron Curtain surrounding the Soviet dynasty is pulled back to reveal an immensely effective but dehumanizing machine in which hockey served as an important propaganda tool, resulting in some of the most impressive teams ever to take the ice.

The Voices is a deeply warped, darkly funny and thoroughly depraved horror comedy... and whether you find this sort of thing walk-out-of-the-theater distasteful or wickedly subversive, I’m fairly confident we won’t see another movie like it for quite some time.

Seventh Son moves at a fairly quick pace and has a sense of humor about itself. That doesn’t mean it’s thrilling, or funny. Just that it’s a quickly forgotten pile of junk.

There’s no defending Jupiter Ascending. There’s no explaining Jupiter Ascending. There’s no way Jupiter Ascending isn’t making an appearance on my list of the Worst Films of 2015.

There’s some first-rate camerawork aboard the sub, that strong lead performance from Law and one nifty plot twist. It’s a shame the script gives us one of the most incompetent and ridiculous submarine crews this side of “Down Periscope.”

It’s no secret that Jason Statham demonstrates remarkable flair when it comes to bone-crunching action-movie mayhem, but he deserves special props for making some of the more outrageous flights of macho fantasy in Wild Card seem credible.

Costner’s performance is filled with memorable moments.

True, Aniston does maybe her best film work to date in Cake. But it’s definitely not her best film.

This small film (virtually all of it filmed in Tobi’s New York apartment) is a real gem. Stewart is the main draw and he doesn’t disappoint one bit. Gugino delivers a richly layered performance, tricky as the part calls for supreme subtlety. Lillard is a major revelation here.

The Humbling is a jumbled collection of scenes in which fantasy and reality intertwine in a manner I found more maddening than intriguing.

Everyone in The Boy Next Door has to behave like an idiot at least once or twice, just so the movie can keep going. It’s an act of mercy when it finally grinds to a halt.

A loud, dopey chase film filled with substandard shootouts.

Resisting screen rules is Godard’s forte.

Moore delivers a performance that should win awards. We believe every inch of the performance, every movement of Moore’s eyes when she gets the news of her condition, every scene in which she experiences another level of deterioration. It’s beautiful work.

Nearly every scene in A Most Violent Year is pitch perfect. Chandor the writer comes across as a big fan of David Mamet’s, and Chandor the director invokes stylistic touches reminiscent of Sidney Lumet, among others, but Chandor is no cover artist.

The filmmakers behind Paddington successfully bring the lovable bear into the future and strike a balance between honoring the spirit of the original books and updating the story for today’s young audiences. This is a charming film whose underlying message of tolerance and acceptance strikes a palpable chord in today’s world — both for children and adults.

Despite the considerable charisma of Kevin Hart and Josh Gad and a strong supporting cast, The Wedding Ringer has only one or two genuinely inspired bits of comedy, a few dopey moments when you laugh in spite of yourself — and long, long stretches of pointless montages, loud and unfunny physical shtick and far too much reliance on gay “humor."

American Sniper isn’t some flag-waving political movie. It’s a powerful, intense portrayal of a man who was hardly the blueprint candidate to become the most prolific sniper in American military history. And yet that’s what happened.

​I’ll tell you what got Taken. A hundred and twelve minutes of my life got Taken.

A moody, brooding and sl-o-o-o-o-owly meandering tale that works its way, almost reluctantly, toward the violent finale — which also manages to be remarkably passive and anti-climactic.

A meticulously crafted, sparse but beautifully photographed full-length feature film with strong work from a reliable veteran and a breakout performance from an actor you might not have heard of before.

The masterful script deals with telling words.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is gorgeous to behold and up to its jugular vein in quirky/spooky atmosphere.

Servillo charms in his dual turn, then takes it up a notch when one brother shows off his childhood knack for impersonating his look-alike.

Working from a script by Paul Webb and aided by stark, beautiful, sometimes startlingly realistic cinematography by Bradford Young, DuVernay has delivered a powerful and moving portrait of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Interview sticks to the anything-for-a-laugh plan for nearly the entire journey, with far too many jokes about things going in and coming out of rear ends.

Mr. Turner is far more than merely an explosion of color and toned nuance for the eye. The real reason to make this a must-see of this holiday season is to wallow in the Oscar-worthy acting talent of Leigh’s veteran player Timothy Spall.

Wahlberg has grown so much as an actor we can pretty much buy him as a college professor/author. There’s just not enough depth to the character of Jim, and not much of a story arc.

As eccentric as his subjects are, Burton plays things relatively straightforward. This is one of the most mainstream movies he’s ever done. It’s also one of the more entertaining movies of the year.

Into the Woods rumbles on for too long and has some dry patches here and there — but just when we’re growing fidgety, we get another rousing musical number or another dark plot twist, and we’re back in business.

Unbroken is an ambitious, sometimes moving film that suffers from a little too much self-conscious nobility, and far too many scenes of sadistic brutality.

This is the scariest movie of the year.

The dialogue is schmaltzy and often painfully unfunny. The special effects are often so 1980s-bad... Time and again, terrific actors sink in the equivalent of cinematic quicksand, helpless against the sucking sound of this movie.

Musical theater versions often seem dated, so moving the story into the 21st century does make sense (as does the multicultural casting), but in the process Gluck and his all-star cast create a chaotic film that tries too hard and fails to capture the charm and heart of the musical.

Fighting — presented with Jackson’s usual double helpings of visual splendor, emotional oomph and low-key comedy — is what Battle of the Five Armies is all about.

A paean to creative impulses, this work channels the vision of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi.

The film works as well as it does due to the genius of Benedict Cumberbatch and the way he has inhabited Alan Turing’s persona.

This is a smart, savvy film with sabre-sharp one-liners, a half-dozen terrific supporting turns, one of the best scores of the year, a winning romance and a heartfelt and authentic performance from Rock.

As a fictional, big-budget, 3-D, epic interpretation of Moses’ journey, Exodus: Gods and Kings is spectacular.

The point of the exercise, it seems, is to trap four seemingly decent people, all more or less friends, in a dark, claustrophobic, pressure-cooker environment to see how they respond to the threat of imminent death — or worse. Spoiler alert: human nature doesn’t get a thumbs-up in this one.

It’s the beautiful and breathtaking animation that gives The Tale of the Princess Kaguya a luster that is both simple and sophisticated. Once again the visionary Takahata and Studio Ghibli prove that great animation is not just for kids, but can be universal in its reach.

As for Witherspoon, there’s not a shred of her America’s Sweetheart persona in this work. She strips naked, literally and otherwise, in a raw, brave performance.

While Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain, an earnest account of the world’s worst industrial accident, certainly has its heart in the right place, it’s not good that the closing titles about the cold, brutal facts of the aftermath stir more outrage than the preceding docudrama.

Every once in a while there’s an inspired montage, or a one-liner that made me laugh out loud. But how can you have the great Christoph Waltz playing a villain in a comedy, and you get almost nothing out of it?

From the opening frame right up to the whirlwind finale, you will be treated to non-stop action, clever dialogue and quite a bit of zany energy. If I’d fault anything about this fun romp, it’s that the filmmakers tried to jam-pack too much into one movie.

This whole movie is crazy, with all sorts of well-known folks stumbling and bumbling about in search of a character. At times Reach Me is undeniably intriguing, mostly because it’s just so weird and disconnected. Eventually, though, it just becomes tiresome.

This is one of the most irritating movies of the year.

The Homesman is not an easy, comfortable viewing experience. That’s part of what makes it unique.

Foxcatcher is a disturbing and memorable film.

Ultimately, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 serves as solid if unspectacular first lap around the track of a two-lap race.

Volker Schlondorff’s talky drama...is less than persuasive.

If the stream-of-consciousness, imagery-trumps-everything films of Terrence Malick tend to try your patience, this beautifully, beatifically boring imitation by a Malick protégé might be more than the better angels of your nature can endure.

This may be one of the least artful holiday films ever made. Even devout born-again Christians will find this hard to stomach.

With Rosewater, Stewart proves he can pull back from the satirical comedy and become a thoughtful, incisive and questioning filmmaker.

This is a well-made, well-acted but unexceptional film about one of the most exceptional figures of the last half-century.

Carrey and Daniels throw themselves into the characters they inhabited 20 years ago, whether it means allowing their crotches to be doused, using their rear ends as comedic weapons, or just saying really stupid things. Sometimes it’s pretty damn funny. Almost always, it feels just a little bit desperate.

The gray, drab monotony of the setting seeps into the marrow of the prison drama Camp X-Ray, though it’s invigorated, somewhat, by strong central performances from actors on opposite sides of a locked steel door.

Binoche does an excellent job showing her character’s conflict, though it is not until later in the movie that we learn why she so eagerly runs into danger.

A perfectly cast film that depicts a moody world of jazz musicians, drugs and self-destruction.

Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me is a poignant, stark, lovely and sometimes devastating film — a tribute to one of the great crossover stars of his time, and an unblinking look at how Alzheimer’s relentlessly chips away at one’s memories and thought process, brick by brick. It is worthy of an Academy Award nomination.

Plummer and MacLaine are, of course, consummate talents, but they’re left coasting in a film that provides each with the barest of character sketches.

What a beautiful and epic film is Interstellar, filled with great performances, tingling our senses with masterful special effects, daring to be openly sentimental, asking gigantic questions about the meaning of life and leaving us drained and grateful for the experience.

For those curious about the brains behind the sitcom’s pop-culture savvy and the heart it wears on its sleeve, “Harmontown” makes for an eye-opening extra.

This thoughtful film is designed with taste. Music is minimal. Cuing a little Nine Inch Nails at the end, Poitras enables “citizenfour” to commit an act of reverse surveillance on the NSA.

Hellaware doesn’t really have anything new to say about its art world subject... But Bilandic does perfectly capture the laid-back style of the twentysomethings (the lead actors all do fine work) and manages to present a fresh story of callow youth caught up in their own American odyssey.

This is one of the worst movies of the year.

It’s a brilliant performance by Gyllenhaal in a film that veers from dark satire to tense crime thriller before the tires come off near the end, leaving the entire vehicle just short of worth recommending.

[A] slightly diverting documentary.

Despite its cast and convincing backdrop, Stonehearst Asylum is a tame entry in today’s roster of horror films.

The message of inspiration is strong and certainly qualifies as solid family entertainment. I only wish there were fewer trite truisms scattered throughout the script and less predictable dialogue for the solid troupe of actors to deliver.

Philip is one of the most unlikable but also one of the most fascinating characters of the year.

Although there are moments when the characters in Dear White People sound as if they’re reciting different sections of a thesis, overall Simien’s screenplay is tight, funny, smart and insightful, and his direction has just enough indie feel without becoming too self-conscious or preachy.