There’s charm and delight here, to be sure, but it is occasionally obscured by attempts to make it somehow darker, deeper, and more dramatic.

This is design work of the highest caliber and it is impossible to not enjoy simply watching these little buggers run around. It is unfortunate, however, that the creativity, originality and propulsive storytelling found in the original “Monsters Inc.” just didn’t matriculate with them.

I'm not sure how elaborately I could defend Pola X, but I loved watching it.

Starting small and building steadily, the movie reaps some fall-down funny laughs.

A fascinating combination of dare, stunt and genuine artistic risk -- often disorganized, but never less than entertaining.

I spent the bulk of Paradise Love mimicking Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a disturbing film.

An imaginative and disturbing work; well worth a look.

It is thrilling to look at, and that's more than one can say for the majority of pictures out there.

It is one of the better dumbass sci-fi action movies to come down the pike in quite some time.

A dark, dreary and dull “Mad Max in Neutral” from director David Michôd (“Animal Kingdom”) that tries to pass off its blunt narrative and repetitiveness as some sort of style.

Altman is just as nastily misogynistic as ever.

Kate Hudson's accent is spot-on, and she brings her megawattage to good use on the Gershwin standard, "The Man I Love."

Director Gary Winick ("Sweet Nothing") ingeniously complements Draper's layered approach by modulating the film's energy in fascinating ways.

An occasionally powerful, always heartfelt drama.

A masterfully queasy blend of dark humor and darker humanity.

Lots of movies deal with friends and lovers of a certain age growing apart. But few can hear, as Thraves does, the sound of death chains rattling in the background.

The boy (Osment) has an uncanny ability to suggest Cole's secretive, haunted soul, and he seems to have inspired Willis to give perhaps his most self-effacing performance.

At its core is a feminine realm (the beauty parlor) through which modern issues of alienation and casual-sex-as-a-drug are coupled with timeless questions about the natures of love and desire.

(Herron) just doesn't make the case that this book was worth filming.

Gorris has beefed up the role of Natalia (Watson), with the end result that the film's emphasis is appropriately divided between the two characters in an emotionally satisfying way.

Abittersweet fable about the raw joys of human revival.

Grass is often closer to the sobering tone of the PBS show than it is to the silly "Weed," with its stoned, barely literate potheads discussing the quality of their dope.

Thoroughly artificial and overly schematic, to the point of caricature even, but often lively and witty nonetheless.

Nearly the perfect balance between straight-faced pulp action and amused wonder at the outlandish world of comic books.

Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 is the worst thing Lars Von Trier has ever associated himself with.

This is a film like no other this year, and on that grounds alone you should see it.

As he explains the male-male relationships and the absence of stigma or judgment, the film soars.

Gibson's performance is robbed of his customary humor, and he flounders around in search of the character's core.

Out of the Furnace is no disaster, but it doesn’t achieve what it hopes to achieve, and it has no one to blame but itself.

The first half of “The Congress,” while still fascinating, does suffer a bit from keeping its focus on the gripes and accusations between Hollywood actors and producers...Once the Philip K. Dick-meets-”Inception” second half kicks in, the implications grow more universal.

The remarkable storytelling that eventually emerges in Eden is something you should see, providing you feel that you can stomach it.

It’s shallow, it’s boring, it’s poignant, it’s clever, it’s poorly acted, it’s intentionally poorly acted, it has no story, it has marvelous scenes, it is artful, it is hallucinatory, it is shoddily put together. All response is valid.

An efficient and effectively exciting globe-spanning zombie thriller.

Superbly written, handsomely made and full of terrific performances, Laggies is Shelton’s best film to date.

Directors Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews create a great framework for the epic nemesis battle, but also know when to pull back to keep the movie grounded in reality.

Mostly this film skims by on the surface, its conflict and climax visible from the opening five minutes.

A wry, rambling, smart comedy.

What makes the film ultimately successful, though, is the outstanding comic talents that inhabit it, especially Zahn and Macy.

Downey, Jr. remains a rightfully cherished smartass figure, having as much a ball with Black’s one-liners as he had in “KKBB,” and he sells Tony’s newfound post-traumatic vulnerability more credibly than the film does.

So campy that it almost plays like a sendup of the series. It is to Alien what "The Bride of Frankenstein" was to other 1930s Frankenstein movies, and it even shares some of the same themes.

A surprisingly adult exploration of religion refracted, as always, through (Smith's) insistently pop-culture kaleidoscope.

A kind and decent film, but doesn't add to Robinson's legacy.

Entertaining as it often is, Outside Providence feels as if it were a collection of installments from an unusually raunchy television series.

The best thing about this new Godzilla is that it spares no expense or effort to deliver big, burly IMAX-ified action... The worst thing about this new Godzilla is how that’s the best thing about it.

A film that inserts banal plot devices and endless cutesiness in place of where the “good parts” should be.

Coy, cutesy, sentimental, and shamelessly manipulative.

It's the hardships that led to Atlanta -- and that he faced after -- that make his story so compelling.

Blanchett projects a wounded dignity that anchors her character even when the film slips into silly hokum; she's never less than fantastic, and as such manages to keep the film on course.

Has a soundtrack crammed with infectious music gleaned from fairly surprising sources.

Despite a cheap, Hollywood ending and despite Kaye's kooky campaign, X is a killer.

The winks and nods to fans are deliciously satisfying.

This director's (Winterbottom) reach is impressive, but this time it doesn't quite grasp.

One of those hybrid projects: a major studio film, big star, homely storyline, but tempered by an indie director working in his own idiosyncratic style.

Where The Banshee Chapter thrives is the overwhelming claustrophobia of the film.

Despicable Me 2 is fun, especially near the culmination. Structural issues aside, it’s impossible not to like these characters, all of them, rendered with love, always entertaining even when the story around them doesn’t make much sense.

Were the casting stronger, the film -- would have had a better chance of transcending its lack of subtlety.

One sour note is Richard Marvin's derivative score. It's just awful and often pulls the movie down.

It’s funnier than it has any right to be, really.

It's witty, entertaining, often funny as hell and even, at times, surprisingly wise about the human condition.

Every bit as reverent as "Schindler's List," and no less successful.

A big disappointment.

Wish You Were Here goes to a dramatically gripping place of guilt and doubt; if only its grip had held just a bit tighter.

It's hard to think of a single memorable line from Restaurant, even a memorably bad one.

Even Besson’s most bold choices – and this is a film that goes weird, and then just keeps getting weirder – don’t seem so revolutionary when packaged in such well-tread trappings and increasingly shoddy writing.

Wood’s energetic, tightly wound performance carries the movie; his ability to juggle all the different information coming at him — keeping time on the piano while speaking and hitting his cues — is admirable and probably exhausting.

The Boxtrolls is a swing-and-miss for Laika; when you move forward with revolutionary techniques while standing still in terms of your themes, stories and settings, no amount of technical trickery or animation genius can bring the boring to vivid life.

Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy might have the scariest ending of any film ever made.

It’s clean, lean and smart.

[The Kings of Summer] is a wonderful mix of innocence, laughter and beauty that is enjoyable in the moment, yet it’s almost entirely forgettable. With too many odd asides and complications, what should have been a straightforward journey into self-discovery and the difficulties of growing up is waylaid by unnecessary moments and slightly self-indulgent filmmaking.

Mildly amusing, both charming and diverting, it plays like a La La Land home movie.

Much like Brandy, “List” tries and tries and tries to get the job done, but frankly, the satisfaction only ever comes in spurts.

The single best thing about Stuart Little is Nathan Lane.

Worth a look, even if it doesn't quite find the internal logic it seems to be searching for.

The adherence to specific facts and actual events hampers the film, as it often does biographical movies.

A movie that keeps you wondering about its characters' true feelings and motives long after you've left the theater.

It's darker, stranger and pushes more buttons.

This is a franchise entirely comfortable with what it is, what it’s not, and what it has to offer. It has a whole mess of “Fast” for us all, and woe be the souls who enter this film hoping to go slow.

With Muppets Most Wanted, the vaudevillian pandaemonium is alive and well.

Xiaoshuai isn't really interested in glamorizing or even exploring the gangster lifestyle; nor is he interested in conventional dramatic arcs.

While writer-director Frank Darabont often fails to make King's story plausible, that's no fault of the actors. The performances are the movie's strong suit.

More aggravating than endearing, although there’s an interesting idea buried beneath all the cutesy plot details.

Wargnier is also a lousy storyteller who seems not to understand how to shape a narrative.

But it's the boy and the dog who make My Dog Skip resonate. The formula may be an old one, but it's still a good one.

A shapelessly propulsive mess of pop psychology and poor drama.

A class act, from top to bottom.

Subtlety is hardly at home here, with Quaid’s especially earnest performance a well-suited mask for Henry’s desperation that nonetheless amplifies the phoniness of the entire enterprise.

Frankly, Elysium is a bit of a liberal’s wet dream: the good guys want accessible healthcare, while the bad guys want to do away with undocumented immigrants.

The Wolverine reveals itself to be a film in desperate need of a point, in dire need of consequences and in a wandering search of any semblance of emotional weight.

Has moments of terrific lucidity, even brilliance.

Less would have been more, and this film is sabotaged by its maker's unchecked pretension.

Levine – whose last picture was the intriguing, if only partly effective, cancer comedy “50/50” — is going for something more here, exploring what makes us human by contrasting it with a character who has lost all the basics and is desperate to get them back.

Too long, too predictable.

A bawdy and belligerent comedy, meant mostly for folks looking for nothing more than to enjoy a few laughs.

I'll be damned if I can figure out how its various ingredients are supposed to blend together.

Irresistibly entertaining and beautiful to look at it, the film is pleasant at worst, and – at best – wisely defies its slapped-on American title, a warm reminder that love isn’t a solution so much as it’s a brilliant way of embracing life’s problems.

He spent 28 years in prison and this is what he gets?

Barrymore's sunny energy pushes the movie along, but halfway through you realize there just isn't that much to push.

As the movie plods on, the jokes start to fall flat...Worst of all is a centerpiece scene, when Ben has to pretend to be a mafioso (but sounds more like a cross between Martin and Lewis), when Crystal is so unfunny that you almost feel sorry for him.