Patton lightens the aggravation, for the most part, by combining a likable presence with a knack for physical comedy and a willingness to hop into dumpsters, etc., as needed, making the most of the script’s meager opportunities for comedy.

Reich is a more lively speaker than Al Gore, however, frequently working jokes about his sub-five-foot height (his growth having been disrupted by a genetic disorder) into his presentation, and many of the film’s statistical interludes have been entertainingly animated as insurance against eyeball-glazing.

In this film, Metallica elevates headbanging to matters of the head that will consume the viewer long after the fade to black.

Gandolfini is effortlessly, quietly great.

Unlike so many sequels, this fun-filled 3D adventure is sure to entertain younger kids but also charm the adults who will be accompanying them to the multiplexes.

Gordon-Levitt the writer-director delivers some great laugh lines and a couple of nifty plot pivots, and Gordon-Levitt the actor gives a winning performance.

Rush ranks among the best movies about auto racing ever made, featuring two great performances from the leads, who capture not only the physical look of the racing legends they’re playing, but the vastly different character traits that made their rivalry, well, made for the movies.

Too fawning to be consistently gifted, but it manages to be occasionally, perhaps accidentally, profound.

Al-Mansour has managed to embue Wadjda with a hopeful spirit, partially because she takes time to show women finding ways to be themselves in private moments. And partially because she suggests with a few subtle touches that the situation might be slowly improving.

[An] informing if not inflaming documentary.

Despite its considerable flaws, Salinger is a valuable and engrossing biography of the author.

It’s a tribute to the script by Stuart Blumberg and Matt Winston, the directorial aplomb of Blumberg and the genuine performances of the cast that most of the time, we care about these people, we believe their problems are real and we want them to get the help they so desperately need.

Even with the stretched-out running time, Prisoners is one of the most intense moviegoing experiences of the year. You’ll never forget it.

This is a deliberately off-kilter, cheerfully violent, hit-and-miss effort with just enough moments of inspiration to warrant a recommendation — especially if you know what you’re getting into.

It offers a good dose of non-gory scares, tells a story of supernatural time travel that recalls elements of “Inception,” and pays homage to the genre Wan and Whannell love.

It’s one of the best movies of the year and one of the truest portrayals I’ve ever seen about troubled teens and the people who dedicate their lives to trying to help them.

Populaire has no interest in rewriting the rules of romantic comedy, but it does run through the expected paces with admirable style.

Muslim comics are correct about not needing to defend their faith in post-9/11 America. Their patriotism is not the point. I just wish they told better jokes.

It’s nothing new for sure, but writer/director David Twohy...throws in enough entertaining touches to maintain interest — despite an overlong two-hour running time.

A serviceable if sometimes overwrought biography, with solid performances and the courage to spotlight not only the heroics but the appalling misdeeds committed by the iconic Ms. Mandela.

Rahimi simply made an inspired decision when he chose Farahani...who quietly but powerfully works her way through subtle shadings of emotion from fear to despair to anger to love to righteous vindication.

There’s nothing offensive in the relentlessly upbeat Tio Papi. It’s just all so polite and saccharine. Life lessons are learned every few minutes, and the ending is telegraphed from the beginning.

Things play out in predictable fashion, and we’re more than ready to bid farewell to these people and feel grateful they don’t live on our block.

The true strength of Spurlock’s documentary is how he showcases the behind-the-scenes, off-stage personalities of the One Direction boys.

The racing is spectacular, especially when you consider director Courtney Solomon’s claim that no CGI was used in the crash scenes... Solomon wanted to put the audience in the middle of events and inside the car; he certainly does pull that off. Believe me, your head will spin. After a while it all becomes mind-numbing.

The elegant style of the fighting sequences does more than display camera and kung fu technique — this style also shows fighters living with honor.

This is a well-made, topical thriller with a top-notch cast — but the script and the directorial/editing choices undercut nearly every pivotal scene, and every plot twist we can see coming two scenes in advance.

You’re Next benefits from skilled script-keepers.

Writer-director-editor Swanberg should actually get first billing, as it’s his touch that makes Drinking Buddies something special.

The cast is amazing, from the great duo of Frost and Pegg to the supporting players, many of whom are better known for taking on heavy dramatic fare. The editing, special effects and set design — a joy to experience.

It’s a romantic comedy with all sorts of possibilities that instead relies on heavy-handed sight gags and over-the-top performances.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is a tone poem that doesn’t quite live up to its luster. It is so shrewdly perfect and solemn that the strong emotions layered throughout Bob and Ruth and Patrick’s intertwined story become lost in the film’s one-note mood.

Everything chugs along briskly and reasonably entertainingly until running off the rails a bit with a wildly overcomplicated finale.

[A] stunning “documentary of the imagination."

Hannah Arendt takes seriously the life of the mind.

Kick-Ass 2 is an uninspired retread. All too often it plays like a Comic-Con gone insane, with costumed do-gooders taking on costumed criminals in gratuitously vicious battles.

The actors do their best. The problem here is simply a formulaic screenplay and less-than-inspired direction.

It’s a competently made, traditional biopic about a man who disdained those terms.

Before this movie, Lake Bell seemed to have a nice and comfortable career path ahead of her. She was an actress who always provided a spark, whether the vehicle was mundane or first-rate. Now, she’s a name that provokes keen anticipation. Can’t wait to see what Lake Bell the filmmaker does next.

The best acting in The Canyons is done by the porn star. That might be all you need to know about this film, which is the kind of vapid, self-consciously artsy, waste-of-time movie that might never have seen the light of day (or the dark of theater) and would have gone straight to VOD were it not for the triple-threat name-recognition trio of the actress Lindsay Lohan, the director Paul Schrader and the writer Bret Easton Ellis.

Prince Avalance is frequently funny in a subdued sort of way, but it’s primarily contemplative and eventually intimate.

This is an important film presented as mainstream entertainment. It’s a great American story.

Planes moves along quickly at a running time of 92 minutes, occasionally taking flight with some pretty nifty flight sequences. The animation is first-rate, and the Corningware colors are soothing eye candy.

Perfectly capturing the tenor of the times and the grimy underworld of the porn industry, Lovelace is the kind of movie you’ll appreciate and respect but never enjoy.

Here is the best American movie of the year so far.

Damon’s everyman workhorse is tragically sympathetic, plodding ahead against all odds. Copley is brilliant as the sadistic villain. Foster is … well, you gotta see it to believe it. In the meantime, you’ll be treated to one of the most entertaining action films of the year.

The big action set pieces fizzle. And that’s not good for a fantasy adventure movie, especially when the fantasy component is frequently undercut by sub-standard special effects.

We’re the Millers is just good enough to keep you entertained, but not good enough to keep your mind from wandering from time to time. This is an aggressively funny comedy that takes a lot of chances, and connects just often enough.

Woody is still capable of writing and directing one of the liveliest, funniest and sharpest movies of the year.

Vinterberg has created a modern horror story about a man’s descent into a Kafkaesque nightmare.

With a sharp and funny if sometimes convoluted script by Blake Masters and slick, pulpy direction from Baltasar Kormakur, and of course that first-rate cast, 2 Guns rises above standard action fare.

The Smurfs 2 probably isn’t any worse than you might expect. On the other hand, it’s almost certainly not any better. It’s just a matter of figuring out how much punishment you’re willing to endure for the sake of the small child you’re taking to the movies.

In a summer populated with comic-book superheroes, ersatz “Transformer” types and stupid buddy comedies, Still Mine lets viewers spend some quality time with real humans for a change.

The Attack is not just about an incident targeting Israelis. This is also the story of not knowing Palestinians.

Dispiriting as Blackfish is at times, it offers beautiful advocacy for orca freedom. Anecdotes and data indicate these mammals are highly sensitive and social. Treating them as we do for our entertainment and profit is unconscionable.

Writer/director Carey clearly has some talent, and she and Plaza deserve credit for never pulling their comedic punches. They’re all in. Problem is, it’s mostly a bluff.

The Wolverine is one of the better comic-book movies of 2013, thanks in large part to an electric performance by Hugh Jackman.

Chilean writer-director Sebastian Silva re-creates a youthful road trip with a head trip at the end in Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus, more character sketch than psychedelic sojourn.

This is one of the most shocking and one of the best movies of the year.

A forgettable movie with a forgettable title about forgettable characters I’d just as soon as forget.

The Conjuring manages to place individuals in one isolated situation after another, where the editing and music are perfectly timed to capitalize on the payoff scare moment. We also get a level of writing and acting rarely seen in this genre, particularly when the mothers bond over the fiercely protective love that a parent feels for a child.

The intimacy of debut writer-director Ryan Coogler’s approach to the film and the no-frills, believably real quality of the main performances combine to drive the senselessness of Oscar’s killing home with visceral impact.

Red 2 not only delivers the action, laughs and thrills of the original — in many ways it surpasses it.

The movie gets a bit slow, with too much time spent on the human characters, who are dreary and underwritten, compared to the big dreams of the little snail. But the film picks up when the racing snails come back onscreen, thanks to the adorable character design, with expressive use of those googly eyes, and especially to the voice talent.

[A] thoroughly detailed (though a bit long) doc that charts the band’s thwarted expectations.

In his press notes, Winterbottom adds: “We didn’t make the moral too obvious, or too heavy-handed.” And they don’t. But the bottom line is unmistakable.

The film is a consistently funny gem with moments of inspired lunacy.

From front to back stage, 20 Feet From Stardom is a compelling look at the spirit of these giving artists as they navigated the rapid musical and social change of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

An average Adam Sandler comedy, which, sadly, means it’s a below-average comedy — because whatever comedic fire and bursts of genuinely inspired humor Sandler once possessed have long ago burnt out.

It is a ridiculously entertaining (and often just plain ridiculous) monster-robot movie that plays like a gigantic version of that “Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em Robots” game from the 1960s, combined with the cheesy wonderfulness (or should it be wonderful cheesiness?) of black-and-white Japanese monster movies from the 1950s.

A sublime meditation on solitude.

There’s simply too much going on here — too many subplots, too many symbols, too many expendable characters — and certain interesting threads aren’t able to develop fully.

I’m So Excited! is random, episodic and essentially meaningless, but it’s also a hoot. And if that’s all you’re looking for, you might as well get it from the master.

Co-writers/directors Faxon and Rast have created a little gem of a film. Without question, The Way Way Back is the best coming-of-age movie of the summer and should be seen by audiences of all ages.

[A] remarkably tepid sequel to the surprise 2010 hit.

This is slick trash. A bloated, unfunny, sometimes downright bizarre train wreck featuring some of the loudest, longest and least entertaining actual train wrecks in recent memory.

Kleine could have used Gregory’s lifelong trajectory to tell a larger story of the international avant-garde theater scene. Instead there is overmuch fuss about his coterie of dear companions.

There’s not too much sentiment, but not too little, either. Just enough to make you feel misty-eyed in a way that doesn’t necessarily indicate incipient glaucoma.

It takes a while, but the old-fashioned pleasure of watching a well-told story unfold eventually becomes the chief satisfaction in Byzantium, though there are other things to enjoy as well.

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

[A] cartoonish, offensive, overblown, clanging, steaming piece of ... cinema.

An obliquely clinical love story.

Perhaps the whole business is too cerebral and circumspect to stir up emotional involvement, or perhaps there’s a tinge of wine snobbery that has a slightly distancing effect. Then again, maybe it’s wrong to expect much in the way of excitement from a quiet art best suited to the sedate setting of a fine restaurant.

[This] timely documentary is less persuasive about translating logic into political and economic reality.

A sympathetic, lay­­ered portrayal, rich with detail, that earns its more complex and resonant conclusion.

This is not an in-your-face thriller but rather a measured film ripe with suspense that never lets up.

Anyone interested in the appeal of cults and the psychological lure of a charismatic leader will appreciate The Source Family.

It is a story worth telling. But Bernstein cannot bring himself to apply the same brutal honesty to his subject as Ungerer does to his.

Joss Whedon’s take on Shakespeare’s classic tale is swanky, sexy and sophisticated, as bracing as a dry martini poured from a silver shaker on a summer night.

The Bling Ring is a sly, often hilarious and at times sobering look at the 21st century fascination with celebrities.

Though colorful and sweet-natured and occasionally capable of producing the mild chuckle, this is a safe, predictable, edge-free, nearly bland effort from a studio that rarely hedges its bets.

It’s entertaining as hell.

A mostly underwhelming film, with underdeveloped characters and supercharged fight scenes that drag on forever and offer nothing new in the way of special-effects creativity.

In its own sloppy, raunchy, sophomoric, occasionally self-pleased and consistently energetic way, This Is the End is just about perfect at executing its mission, which is to poke fun at its stars, exhaust every R-rated possibility to get a laugh, and even sneak in a few insights into Hollywood, the celebrity culture and the nature of faith.

Violet & Daisy won’t be everyone’s cup of tea... But view this as a modern comic book/fairy tale, and it’s easier to accept this saga of girls with guns and the life lessons they eventually confront.

Marling has crafted a nicely taut, suspenseful cinematic journey into the world of corporate espionage.

Wise, touching, and often wildly funny,

The Internship is the movie version of a goofy dog that knows only a few tricks but keeps on looking at you and wagging his tail, daring you not to like him. Down, boy. You win.