Jake Gyllenhaal is an A-lister for a reason, but he gives a one-note, screaming performance here and is less than convincing as an unhinged psychopath who seems to have a death wish.

Seven Years in Tibet is an ambitious and beautiful movie with much to interest the patient viewer, but it makes the common mistake of many films about travelers and explorers: It is more concerned with their adventures than with what they discover.

This is a family drama, all right - but not one of those neat docudramas in which every character comes attached to a fashionable problem, and all the problems are solved in the same happy ending. The family in Light of Day is more like your average, everyday, unhappy family in which the biggest problem is that some of the members quite simply hate each other.

Infused with a stylish and shadowy style courtesy of director Rob Savage (“Host,” “Dashcam”), with a sharp screenplay by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods and Mark Heyman, The Boogeyman is a familiar but still effectively unsettling variation on the time-honored story of the terrifying entity who’s in the closet or under the bed or maybe just down the hall, waiting to pounce on you and your loved ones, even as everyone around thinks you’re nutso for insisting there’s a Boogeyman living rent-free in your house.

The Frears version is cerebral and claustrophobic, an exercise in sexual mindplay.

Instead of cheap thrills, Schrader gives us a frightening vision of a good priest who fears goodness may not be enough.

I am not a golf fan but found The Greatest Game Ever Played absorbing all the same, partly because of the human element, partly because Paxton and his technicians have used every trick in the book to dramatize the flight and destination of the golf balls.

The leading men are successful. Alan Bates, in a change of pace, is the loyal shepherd. Terence Stamp is a suitably vile Sgt. Troy, and Peter Finch makes Boldwood strong and honorable in his love for Bathsheba. Miss Christie, however, is too sweet and superficial, and so is the film.

The movie’s failure is one of imagination. It tilts too far in the direction of horror and special effects, when it might have been more fun to make a satirical comedy about punk teenagers.

It's easy to pick holes in movies like this, to find the inconsistencies and the oversights and say the movie's no good because we're smarter than it is. But maybe that's exactly the point. Maybe the actual pleasure comes from the fun of being frustrated and full of free advice while the character marches to her doom.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not only about Germany during the war, although the story it tells is heartbreaking in more than one way. It is about a value system that survives like a virus.

The first hour of Protocol is so much fun, and the Goldie Hawn character is such an engaging original, that at first I couldn't believe they were going to throw away all that work by going for a standard Hollywood ending. But they did.

The plot is essentially a backdrop, as it was in "Charade," for Paris, suspense, romance and star power -- If it is true that there will never be another Audrey Hepburn, and it is, I submit it is also true that there will never be another Thandie Newton.

The movie is finally just a little too ungainly, too jumbled at the end, for me to recommend, but it has heart, and I feel a lot of affection for it.

Fascinating because it require us to see the younger character through two sets of eyes -- our own, which witness an attractive woman drawn to a younger male, and the women's, which see a lost love in a new container.

Cate Blanchett plays Guerin in a way that fascinated me for reasons the movie probably did not intend.

I felt the Kids were too busy being hip and ironic to connect at the simpler level where comedy lives. They were brought down by their own self-protective devices.

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 good news: Hardy creates two memorable characters, making some bold and always entertaining if not entirely successful choices. The bad news: Somehow, the fictionalized version of the terrifying, violent and twisted Krays manages to be pedestrian and derivative for long stretches.

There are scenes that don't even pretend to work. And others that have a sweetness and visual beauty that stops time and simply invites you to share.

Everyone involved is far too talented to mess this up too badly, but it soon becomes clear that Curtis intends to reduce us to quivering sobs mixed with heartfelt gratitude for every blessed day of life.

What makes the movie work is that Pitt and Jolie have fun together on the screen, and they're able to find a rhythm that allows them to be understated and amused even during the most alarming developments.

It’s a dopey, only mildly chilling, uneasy mix of horror and dark comedy, scoring few points in either category.

From the unconvincing CGI to the meandering and convoluted storyline to the preachy messaging to the unfortunately hammy performances, “Megalopolis” is a most foul and unpleasant journey.

Overall this is a solid, intelligent movie about the joys of expanding our horizons — in all directions.

I don’t see Aquaman ever reaching icon status, but I’ll say this: He’s a lot more fun on his own, when he’s not saddled with those overly serious stiffs Superman and Batman.

Now comes the gruesomely bloody, cheerfully tasteless, fantastically naughty and entertaining Christmas thriller Violent Night, which is basically “Die Hard” with candy canes in a mansion.

The stars are Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep -- arguably the two most distinguished American movie actors under fifty. They have a genuine chemistry together on the screen and undeniable charisma. And that's it in this movie, which gives them not one memorable line of dialogue, not one inventive situation, not one moment when we don't groan at the startling array of clichés they have to march through.