It is highly likely you’ll forget the movie by the time you go to bed.

Could have been a fun film, but instead merely displays the trappings of one.

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.

It isn’t just the bright colors and the costumes but every visual aspect of Byzantium that sings. Neil Jordan knows where to put the camera. It’s just a shame he wasn’t able to inject a little life inside that frame.

Even at thirty seconds a piece, 26 shorts would feel, fittingly, like overkill. The ABCs of Death has no shortage of inventive, ironic and gruesome sketches, but the novelty of its successes just barely outweighs its stillborn stuff.

For a film that reminds use over and over that this is a whole new world, this movie feels awfully familiar.

A directorial debut composed of many of the filmmaker’s trademarks (strong women, pop cultural-heavy dialogue, a difficult subject matter made light by way of wit) that still manages to disappoint when it comes to the final product.

Sprawling between plot lines and shifting between tones for longer than it ought to, but laden with enough pockets of truth to make you wish it had been better, more restrained, more disciplined, more trusting in its own emotional sensitivity to spare us all manner of dorky detours.

Backtracking dilutes the few simple jolts that actually work.

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

It’s all, quite strangely, boring.

Faithful to the superficial thrills and flaws of the original.

Taylor’s film so egregiously picks and chooses from Brown’s life that the result is a holey and unsatisfying document that fails to give due respect to much of the singer’s life (especially the more unsavory stuff).

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.

The fact that Johnny Depp alone gets top billing above the title, The Lone Ranger, despite not playing said character sums up the generally misguided approach taken by Depp and the creative crew behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise in bringing last century’s radio and TV hero back to the big screen in a big way.

The rare example of a film that had to have been a tonal mystery to everyone involved for the entire process of scripting, shooting, and editing. The lingering issue? They never managed to crack the case.

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.

It's darker, stranger and pushes more buttons.

Every double-cross and ticking clock is familiar in the worst ways.

The Canyons has all the elegance and depth of a daytime soap opera, peppered with flashes of name brand nudity for a tantalizing hook. It’s a slog.

Should satisfy the planet of b-boys and girls to whom it preaches.

Like the giallo films it pays tribute to, Berberian Sound Studio is more of a sensory experience than a dramatic 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.

If only all of Thor: The Dark World could capture the magic of its last act, the film wouldn’t feel like such a chink in Marvel’s otherwise solid armor.

It’s a sadistic comedy, both in bloodshed and groan-worthy gags.

It's all safe and sane and bland.

Trots out more flag-waving wartime cliches than any movie since John Wayne's "The Alamo."

Feels more like a backyard relaxation than a movie.

An odd, sweet and relatively innocuous little fairytale.

A difficult time rising above the level of a reasonably nice TV-movie.

Not quite Abbie.

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.

A too-familiar road.

A collection of movie situations, recognizable from the films of Coppola and Scorsese, with a less obvious debt to Kazan.

Shaft is a decent popcorn movie and Jackson rises to the responsibility of appearing bigger than life.

Doesn't seem to have anything to say.

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

Stripped of the pretension of the overrated "Trainspotting," but it's also void of the earlier film's ambition or glimmers of real cultural insight.

Sandler repeats his sweet-souled doofus routine, with nerdy Patricia Arquette as the object of his affections.

As executive producer of the film, he (Freeman) clearly sees something in Alex Cross, a man much more interesting than the cheesy plot surrounding him.

Doesn't know when to stop with the jokes about other horror movies and settle down to tell a coherent story.

A very competent film, but it barely pulls you in.

There is a point in the movie when this mayhem crosses the line from wildly imaginative to downright insufferable.

It can be treacly -- but in a crude way, it makes its point.

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

Then Bill Nighy shows up and is awesome and punches you in the heart. It ultimately feels like a cheat, and while there won’t be a dry eye in the house, it won’t be earned.

As a movie, quite frankly, it stinks. As an “entertainment object,” it will no doubt find its boosters.

The ride in this road movie isn't always as smooth as it could be, but even the bumps have some charm.

Crudup tends to take average parts in standard genre films and turn them into something special.

When the writing is good, Go is good, and when the writing is flat, things fall apart.

It's a painful sit from beginning to end.

The final scenes, which suggest an earnest science lesson presented by a weepy extraterrestrial in an alien planetarium, play like the work of an amateur filmmaker.

Coy, cutesy, sentimental, and shamelessly manipulative.

The Homesman certainly wins a few points for trying a different type of Western. There are no greedy land barons and no gunslingers drawin’ at high noon. But being unique isn’t enough if the story remains uneven and the characters don’t feel real.

While Bounce may mark a sophomore slump for Roos, it's hardly the worst date movie out there.

It does yield solidly comic performances.

For adults, the film will drag in spots, but it's filled with all those values you hope to instill in your children.

While the film's mood is dreamy, dark, and gentle, it's also very slow and seldom leads to much of a intellectual or emotional payoff.

This is a pretty leaden cinematic experience.

Everything about the movie is fine and dandy and dull.

Beginnings don't come much more lurid than this, and the rest of End of Days never quite reaches this level of flat-out wildness again.

The latest installment in the "Boys Life" series has just as many hits as misses -- more misses, actually -- but the high points easily stand alongside past triumphs.

A generally dumb movie with a smart, appealing, gutsy leading lady.

What's unfortunate is that Toothless is starring in a toothless story.

A rather flimsy but moderately charming British romance comedy.

An Almodovar-like blend of laughs, drama and uplift, filled with the kinds of pop-art colors and pop-out performances that Almodovar loves.

Soderbergh and [screenwriter] Frank like these sidekicks so much that they overwhelm the leads — a fairly easy task, since Lopez has all the police presence of a Revlon ad, while Clooney again tries to skate by on his good looks and smirking charm.

Cooties, while suitably gross and buoyed by game performances, doesn’t exploit its concept nearly as well as it should.

A film that strives to make you think, and even tug at your heart. But the central foundation of the entire enterprise is so shaky that the walls and plaster are falling down all around you, even as you’re trying to make sense of it all.

There’s no way to overstate the gorgeous look of this film, but the mannered dialogue and deliberateness of pace becomes less of an homage to Asian revenge films than a parody.

Comes across as a deceptively streamlined comic-drama; an unnervingly violent, gritty film noir with a wink.

This lightweight concoction can't justify a trip out to the multiplex, unless you're a girl between the ages of 12 and 17, but it does provide a launching pad for a group of attractive people.

Not quite good enough to leave more than a vaguely pleasant, vaguely disappointing aftertaste.

The human interest story that occupies fully two-thirds of this three hour plus epic is so flat and unconvincing that, for once, you find yourself longing for the disaster footage to start.

A cool movie and a must-see for anyone who wants to see the next stage in computer-generated animation. But it could have been so much more.

Too long, too predictable.

This is a band that deserves better.

An excellent coming-of-age story that is, for once, and very happily, focussed on a teenage girl.

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

Disappointingly dumb.

While it has its scary moments, and while its central conceit is refreshingly imaginative, there's ultimately not much there there.

This is still Ron Shelton in good -- not great, but good -- form here, and the rewards are plentiful.

The script is a minefield of ideas that need more work.

What the film doesn't have, ironically, is a soul.

Crass and depressing drama.

One way or the other, there really is something to be said for a movie which seems to revel in its own inherent comic-book silliness.

Hamlet, like its title character, is a mopey, dopey thing that you just want to scream at: Do something!

Its ultimate merits may be few, but if nothing else, it stands on its own sweaty terms.

Jackman and Judd are sweet together, so much so that you wish they were in a fresher movie than this.

A feel-good, heartwarming film that all but drowns in saccharine.

Hewitt's twin assets may be enough for a lot of moviegoers -- which may be the biggest con Heartbreakers pulls off.

Schreiber saves it to an extent with some unusual performance choices, but when you compare this ending to the emotional supernova of Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine” it comes way short.

The script seems flimsy and disposable when compared with such similar takes on the subject as "Analyze This,""The Sopranos" and the upcoming "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai."

There's nothing terribly wrong with the movie, but nothing terribly right about it either.

A mostly mundane single-father drama.

So wound up in its own bungee cords, it leaves itself hopelessly tied in knots.

Tragic and phony, and proof that a contrived sad ending can be as bad as a contrived happy ending.

A sweet, if slender, surprise.