What begins as a lush, pulpy gothic laced with intrigue quickly spins into a convoluted web of over engineered and preposterous plot twists.

Surprisingly lifeless monster movie.

A better-quality sequel, but that wasn't really too difficult. The original was one of the worst movies of 2005, and while "Rise" won't win any awards, it's (mostly) less offensive than its predecessor. Faint praise, but I'll be damned if I go any further than that.

It's ironic that a film exploring the mysteries of how people succeed and fail to connect with each other then fails to really connect with its audience.

For an action film, Havoc feels aimless and lacks suspense.

There are pleasures to be had early on in Crush, but they get fewer and farther between. Nice while it lasts, the glow wears off all too quickly.

With The Haunted Mansion, Eddie Murphy continues in a long line of family film stinkers.

For a documentary about drama and all those who love it, director Alexandra Shiva's lukewarm study displays very little of it.

The convoluted movie feels like a bunch of grandiose ideas in search of a connecting thread. Perhaps Cahill needs to reconnect with his indie roots to get his creative bliss back.

Despite the inherently moving story and the respectable work of director John Lee Hancock and the cast, something remains absent throughout the entire film: a certain sense of verve and personality.

More inanimate than haunting, The Little Stranger is Abrahamson’s least interesting feature.

For you guys out there stuck with a lady-friend looking for that "Beaches" replacement, here it is.

Heavy-handed melodrama that rises above its manipulative trappings on the solid performances of the cast.

Longtime fans of John Woo, who have come to accept operatic, lead-slinging death dances as an integral part of the director’s powerful aesthetic, will probably be unsatisfied with this neutered variation on his earlier, superior works.

One cannot deny the historic importance of The Boys in the Band – for better or worse, this is the starting point of queer cinema. But, quite frankly, one wishes the genre had a more dignified and less bitchy way of launching – these are not the type of gay boys you want to take home to mother.

Will ultimately be remembered more for the trademark Anderson look than for any of its characters or any emotional impact.

Whatever distinguished "Riding in Cars with Boys" the book certainly doesn't show up in the movie.

Goodnight, Charlene is decently directed, beautifully lit, and most of the cast do well all things considered. However, two of the leads are quite dull, the script is trying too hard to be duplicitous, and winds up going nowhere all that compelling.

As a movie, I thought Jon M. Chu did an incredible job bringing In The Heights to cinematic life. There’s nothing wrong with the actual production or cast. It’s all great, but my issue is with the source material, specifically the songs.

It used to be that the main allure of features was that they could deliver what cable couldn't, but now it's the other way around and one of the biggest problems with Analyze That is that it doesn't show us anything new or really funny, certainly nothing that we can't get on HBO.

It's damn funny. It's also the best date film I've seen in a long time.

A bizarre flick. It moves a little apprehensively between comedy, drama and then, erotic romance, with the central players' excellent performances (especially newcomer Gyllenhaal) suffering because of the film’s indecisions.

Live Free or Die is a low-fi farce that technically works. But in the end it feels like a pale version of say "Raising Arizona" or even "After Hours."

The drama still does make for an interesting exploration into a deeply troubled main character and has an authentic backbone to reel back the story from absurdity.

For the most part, Fleck doesn't seem particularly intrigued on finding the banjo’s African heritage – the film offers little in the way of historic value in understanding the origin of the instrument.

It’s interesting to watch a movie where some aspects of the production are of such a higher quality than others. The script’s dialogue is wooden, character motivations are often unclear, and it’s hard to infer what we’re supposed to get from some exchanges.... Meanwhile, the acting is all-around excellent.

As it is, Flightplan is half of a pretty good movie. But to maintain that impression, I recommend you take a nap for the last 40 minutes.

I can't condemn it outright, but damned if I can remember anything (aside from Izzard's performance) that would make me recommend it.