Labor Day is an admittedly strange hybrid. Rarely have I seen such outrageous plot points executed with such lovely grace.

The Hunger is an agonizingly bad vampire movie, circling around an exquisitely effective sex scene.

A sweet, good-looking film about nice people in a beautiful place, and young John Bell is an appealing performer in the tradition of the Culkins. Quinn and Nielsen are pros who take their roles seriously, and Vic Sarin's direction gets the job done.

The Swedish director Mikael Håfström, whose best-known American film is the chilling 2007 Stephen King adaptation “1408,” employs jump scares and quick cuts to capture the looming sense of danger (or is it paranoia?) aboard the ship, while the screenplay by R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker takes the story back and forth between the present-day unraveling on Odyssey-1 and flashbacks on Earth.

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.

Director Jose Padilha (the “Elite Squad” movies) knows how to create slick, sometimes clever fast-moving battle sequences... But other than Keaton’s Sellars, the bad guys are mostly generic nitwits.

A wildly entertaining, over-the-top, blood-soaked, noir-Western from director/co-writer Scott Wiper that’s filled with stunning visuals of the breathtaking and sometimes foreboding countryside (with Morehead, Kentucky, standing in for West Virginia) and searing performances from the ensemble cast.

Beautiful Creatures springs to life whenever Irons, Thompson or Rossum is centerstage. The grown-ups get to wear all the coolest costumes and spout all the juiciest lines. Problem is, this isn't their story. It's first and foremost a semi-plodding teen romance with supernatural overtones.

It isn't a successful movie but is sometimes a very interesting one, and there is real charm and comic agility by the two leads.

With some genuinely insightful dialogue, a number of truly funny bits of physical business, and small scenes allowing us to get know and like a half-dozen supporting players, The Intern grows us on from scene to scene, from moment to moment.

A particularly nasty and mean-spirited action picture, with the dramatic depth of an arcade game.

Most movies are made by males and show women enthralled by men. This movie knows better.

A stunningly wrong-footed journey that begins with an attempt at bittersweet magic and ends on a series of sour and increasingly dopey notes.

Houston basically gets the “Bohemian Rhapsody” treatment in that the film glosses over some of the darkest moments in her life. (in fact, Anthony McCarten is the screenwriter of both films), but it works beautifully as a feature-film biography highlighting one of the most incredible voices and one of the most infectious star personalities of a generation.

Uncle Buck attempts to tell a heart-warming story through a series of uncomfortable and unpleasant scenes; it's a tug-of-war between its ambitions and its methods.

A darker, deeper fantasy epic than the "Rings" trilogy, "The Chronicles of Narnia" or the "Potter" films. It springs from the same British world of quasi-philosophical magic, but creates more complex villains and poses more intriguing questions. As a visual experience, it is superb. As an escapist fantasy, it is challenging.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is a murky, unfocused, violent and depressing version of the classic story, with little of the lightheartedness and romance we expect from Robin Hood.

A middling sitcom.

How bad is “Fallen Kingdom”? How terrible is a movie that pounds us with a pretentious, nearly operatic score while indulging in B-movie clichés and calling for the main characters to make idiotic decisions just to keep the story rolling? I have to dig deep into the Awful Sequel Playbook to draw parallels to this exercise in wretched excess.

Poetic Justice is not ["Boyz N the Hood's"] equal, but does not aspire to be; it is a softer, gentler film, more of a romance than a commentary on social conditions.

Boring, repetitive and maddening about a subject you'd think would be fairly interesting: snowboarding down a mountain.

Ferrell and Witherspoon play off each other with impeccable timing, and the supporting cast (which includes a couple of celebrity cameos) is universally terrific.

A lightweight charmer with a winning performance by Robin Tunney.

The sweetest and most openhearted love fable since "The Princess Bride."

The Navajo code talkers have waited a long time to have their story told. Too bad it appears here merely as a gimmick in an action picture.

Nastassja Kinski, in one of her most affecting performances, does much to convey the turmoil going in her soul.

Mammoth is a perfectly decent film. Too bad it isn't more thoughtful. It's easy to regret misfortune if all you do is regret it.

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