In the end, Malena is an unlikable and foul farce, unworthy of Tornatore's previously gentle touch.

Glaringly indebted to several earlier works and the film overall remains beholden to one established brand above all others: Tom Cruise.

While Draft Day is a very agreeable and predictable movie, it is also very timely.

With its painfully plain-spoken conflicts and eventually oversold gestures of kindness, Camp X-Ray may offer frustratingly little insight into the hazy world of wartime morality, but if nothing else, it suggests that Stewart may escape her own “Twilight”-shaped prison yet.

Streep delivers another of her chameleon-like transformations in appearance, accent, and manner.

What ultimately holds the film back, I believe, is its tendency to err too far on the side of that sweetness — it indulges too often in the hallmarks of the mediocre indie, the stuff a press release might call quirk, to level its more substantial points with real seriousness.

Some Velvet Morning is a horror film with no blood, with words the only weapon for 98% of the picture.

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.

About two lives in which transformation is a constant, destabilizing threat to freedom and sanity. That's a very provocative premise, though halfway through the movie Doyle and Walsh abandon its potential to go for easy laughs.

Breaks virtually no new narrative ground, yet treads the familiar territory it does cover with grace, style, wit and fun.

An embarrassing gut-punch of unfiltered schmaltz, but its sympathy for the devil-style humanism is well-meaning.

Accomplished, ambitious, and great-looking.

It's "The Hustler with poker and without soul...For all its flash and occasional sizzle, "Rounders" is a disappointment.

Exemplifies the subpar state of movies today.

LL Cool J... is downright scary -- a mix of coiled charm and underlying menace.

John Dies at the End is easily funnier than it is scary, and much like the drug at the center of the story, it offers one hell of a trip.

An essential entry in the cinematic canon of Spider-Man, complete with new villains, new questions, and new heartaches.

Though issues of politics and philosophy are touched upon, this is a film about the people inside the uniforms -- a story of human beings under pressure, forced by circumstance to make choices both impulsive and, on occasion, heroic. It's also the new year's single most satisfying movie experience thus far.

Lengthy passages are unrelated to any discernible narrative, and seem to exist in that interzone your mind travels through just before it goes to sleep.

It’s not exceedingly original, it is well-made and a solid entry into the subgenre.

Does a lot of little stuff right, and it sparkles at times.

Alas, despite the timeless concerns of adolescent bullying and burgeoning sexuality, Carrie as a film fails to become its own satisfyingly whole interpretation of coming-of-age horrors both literal and figurative. Its bloodshed may be all dressed up, but it ultimately has nowhere to go.

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

This is a band that deserves better.

Something rare: a mess of a movie that is somehow infectious, and infectious not despite the mess, but because of it.

At best, White House Down is a sure-fire way to kill two hours, if not countless brain cells.

LUV is partly a story about drugs, guns and street crime, the legacies we pass on to our children despite our efforts to do otherwise. But it’s also about the things we pass on to our children with love: How to tie a necktie, hold a steering wheel, shake another person’s hand. And it’s about the hope that those things will win out in the end.

The surprising part is how, once you get over the crude humor that the teen-movie genre demands, Get Over It is a nice little movie.

Like the melancholy remininces of an old relative who lived through an exciting, even harrowing time, but no longer possesses the mental faculties to really flesh out the tale they're spinning.

A wonderfully witty homage to the very king of disco movies -- "Saturday Night Fever."

Enough pep in this picture to make it rise above teen-movie expectations.

A dopey but sweet-natured I-love-to-dance film, fits nicely into the downhill-since-"The-Red-Shoes" tradition of ballet movies.

Boasting a compelling cast of characters, Wasteland” is a very smooth feature film debut from director Rowan Athale, and one that invites repeat viewings.

Doesn't have a lot to offer that hasn't been done better -- and worse -- in hundreds of ghetto-sink shoot-em-ups.

A fireworks show with plenty of "oohs" but not a lot of "aah" -- the story is needlessly convoluted in places and storybook-simple in others, and the characters never make the leap from drawn figures to flesh-and-blood people.

We all have childhoods to remember. Art needs to do more than just remind us.

The kind of minor work that may very well speak greater volumes about (Stone's) thoughts and feelings right now than another masterpiece would.

Beautifully shot, full of lush, vibrant colors and expertly wrought sets...a club-kid's frothy date flick.

Monuments certainly isn’t unbearable to watch, but for all its quality pedigree and good intentions, the result is a frustratingly flat film that drifts from moment to moment with a curious lack of urgency and an overbearing sense of self-importance.

Naming aside, Epic could have been good, except that it wasn’t, it was stone cold terrible, something even a six-year-old might scoff at. I know, I’m just as sad as you are about the whole thing.

The gravity-defying harness maneuvers popularized in the U.S. with "The Matrix" -- ... look really cool, but seem out of place in a realistic gang-style action movie.

Funny, immediately and consistently engaging, and -- well done on almost every level.

Peeples saves itself from a complete belly flop, by the barest of margins, by leaning heavily on its initial strength of good-natured charm.

Jason Reitman’s adaptation of Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day is as consistently assured a piece of filmmaking as any we’ve seen from the filmmaker and very much in keeping with the decreasingly glib nature of his output.

RoboCop has sound and fury to spare and even an inspired idea or two lurking beneath that polished exterior, but much like its upgraded namesake, this watchable mess ultimately lacks a prime directive to call its own.

Bonello's decision to show rather than tell keeps the audience on its toes.

This film could have gone horribly wrong, but the characters and chemistry are strong, and as such Beautiful Creatures should be lauded for elegantly delivering a tale that at least feels fresh and vibrant.

his bleak and somewhat sadistic picture is the type of movie that unfolds like a slow car wreck. You know something bad is going to happen, you just aren’t sure what, or how, and when it eventually happens it is repulsive and yet you still can’t turn away.

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

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

Best of all are the supporting players. Everett (who played the Prince of Wales in "The Madness of King George") is smartly urbane, giving a polished refinement to the stereotypical "gay best buddy'' role.

Despite its apparent compromises to noble finger-wagging (initially) and requisite fist-pumping (eventually), Waugh has fashioned a sturdy character-first entertainment out of Snitch at a time of year when those are all too rare to behold.

I see Austin Powers as Myers' desperate cry for help -- a plea to stop him before he does schtick again.

A too-familiar road.

Loses touch with its characters.

Simplistic on one level, indecipherable on another, it's a most peculiar muddle.

There’s just too much good stuff to dismiss White Bird in a Blizzard out of hand, even if it does have a somewhat dull and desultory plot.

Story. Character. They used to mean something to George Lucas.

A constant video rental for a community that aches to see itself as banal and generic.

Since it took 28 years to get it to the big screen, the fact that the end result feels rushed and hasty probably qualifies as irony.

An active affront to logic, placing us in a world we firmly know doesn’t exist.

Parkland mines some interesting scenes, if not in an entirely coherent fashion, resolving as more of an interesting concept than a fully rendered and effective film.

Eventually fizzles out badly.

The beats and trappings are all standard-issue, but the gags are funny enough, often enough, to offset such routine proceedings.

A.C.O.D. proves to be both a solid debut for Zicherman and a worthy vehicle for Scott and company, one that provides plenty of awkward laughs and generally gives the American farce a good name again.

The whole picture is lifeless and without consequence.

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

Baena takes a well-tread road, leaving behind the guts of his promising story and never capitalizing on the charms of either romance or his leading lady.

Hughley and Jones have an explosively comic chemistry together; her kooky, open-faced looks are a counterpoint to his whipcrack improvisations.

Crass and depressing drama.

Afternoon Delight will both depress and engage an audience, usually just depending on the minute of the movie you find yourself watching.

Steadfastly conventional.

The film itself is sly and smug in kind, fleetingly enjoyable for all of its old-school showmanship and high-tech hokiness.

Dark Skies is about the fragility of family, a muted meditation on how precious it is...it does affirm that genre filmmakers who work with their eyes, their hearts and their brains still walk among us.

The Purge: Anarchy expands on its predecessor, but the excellent news is that the sequel isn’t just bigger and badder and bleaker; it’s also better, smarter, stranger and tougher.

A sort of "Pretty Woman" for the underworld.

Atrocious comedy.

Utterly lacks the spark that makes caper movies fun.

A Stallone / Schwarzenegger film that isn't completely beneath them.

Drama, swift action, and low-key, character-driven comedy.

Ti West’s pointless new film The Sacrament, an exercise in talking loud and saying nothing, isn’t just bad, it’s infuriating.

Another droning formulaic thriller.

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

If Broken City – the first film to be directed solo by Allen Hughes, one-half of the Hughes Brothers directing team – is a little flawed and cracked itself, it still squeaks by as a reasonably thoughtful piece of big-screen entertainment.

A tiny slice of bleak, black near-perfection.

The sound is great, the explosions are great, the look and feel could have been turned into something special. It’s the words and plot that are huge negatives here.

Here in the rotting depths of pulp horror/adventure territory, that's the entire point of the exercise.

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

S-VHS isn’t as pants-pooping scary as the first, but it is funnier, tighter and slicker.

Riddick is a fractured skeleton of a script, with each distinct installment scratching its own itch.

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

It pulls off the tricky feat of being both commanding and subtle, emerging with its dignity intact.

These film-making provocateurs are divided between sweet and sour, between the romance of classic screwball comedy and Mad magazine on acid.

In the tradition of "Sunrise" and "Eyes Wide Shut," crises set the characters on a kind of dreamy, nocturnal journey through chaos and fear.

A strange combination of mental exhaustion and boredom.

The premise is provoking and well-conceived, confidently moving things forward until the increasingly knotty rules of the film’s universe eventually come to overbear the experience a bit in the homestretch.

A slumming Spike Lee is still better than most directors at the top of their game, but Oldboy isn’t just Lee’s worst movie, it’s practically his “Wicker Man”.

Quite shameless in imitating its predecessors.

One of the best films of this year...unlike anything you've seen on the big screen.

“Expendables 3” has fewer nauseating clichés than The Judge.

We should expect more of summer fare than that it merely be a visual junk-food snack as we cool off in the chill of a darkened theater.

Simplistic and non-controversial, and thus is virtually guaranteed commercial success.

Not even Goldberg's near-flawless central performance can polish Kingdom Come beyond mere soap opera pap.

Over-plotty, convoluted, full of unanswered questions and unquestioned assumptions — is a big part of the problem here, but director Neil Burger (“Limitless”) pulls off a neat trick here, in that Divergent is a pretty diverting piece of moviemaking pulled from a not-especially-good story.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Douglas, De Niro, Freeman, and Kline are just plain fun to watch together. As predictable and occasionally uncomfortable as Last Vegas can be, it’s an assured crowd-pleaser.

A darkly tense drama that rarely hits anything resembling an emotional beat.

Mandy Nelson's sugar-high bright-'n'-cheerful script takes a series of easy ways out, avoiding completely the prospective pitfalls of having to see any of these characters as complicated, contradictory, not entirely nice or identifiable-with -- actual human beings, in other words.

Destined to be remembered not for its laugh-per-minute ratio, but for breaking a barrier of crudeness in mainstream movies.

Emperor may not be the most dazzling of history lessons, but it never treats the past as a dusty, deserted place.

Vertical Limit has its share of intrigue, but there ain't no mountain high enough to make O'Donnell look deep.

What makes Hit and Runway uniquely fun, however, is the unapologetic extent to which Livingston and Cohen turn it into an index of beloved Woody-isms.

It’s minor LaBute, but nonetheless short and bittersweet.

The empty violence and pointless style are only the biggest problems.

Unfortunately the bulk of the picture is cut together like a beer commercial on poorly lit cheap video without much panache. Unless primary colors with a gauzy halo is panache.

A sweet, if slender, surprise.

Actions do have their consequences, though, and Weitz doesn’t try to end things too tidily for their own good. Were only that he had succeeded in committing to one of those films over the other, then Admission might have been this year’s “Liberal Arts” rather than this year’s “Smart People.”

While the film certainly targets a particular audiences, those viewers who don’t fall squarely into that demographic should nevertheless find the film pleasant enough, its pastoral ambitions compensating for its lack of finesse.

A long portrait of someone who outstays his welcome fairly early on.

Mostly he's (Fraser) trapped in a sequel that's too wrapped up in a desire to top itself.

This is not a great comedy, but it has some honest laughs, a few touching moments.

Fails as a movie, it works OK as a long-form video.

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

A dark comedy that squanders its potential and never quite, as they say, suspends disbelief.

The brainchild of English director Ben Hopkins, who takes his time getting going. Too much time, really, as the first hour passes rather antsily, without quite achieving forward motion.

The sex we see in Lies does not feel in any way enticing; the protagonists are left seeming pathetic by the end of the film, and few viewers are likely to go scavenging for sticks after leaving the theater.

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

The result is fantasy that wafts away.

Stretched too thin, looks cheap, and can't quite go the distance.

A pulsing, wooshing, visceral experience that amounts to great fun and an entirely disposable movie.

When your characters are only skin deep, so is your message.

Maniac is a bit like watching an amputee play hopscotch: there’s no way that it’s polite to stare for this long, but you just have to see if this guy’s gonna make it to the end.

Burdge is left to do much of the heavy lifting in terms of inviting the audience into her protagonist’s shaky state, and her performance boasts a remarkable emotional precision throughout — if ever there’s a reason to seek this one out, it would be for her.

The screenplay is far too obsessed with the setup, and not at all concerned with making the villains even the least bit believable or scary.

Using current hand-held camera technology to ape the political and esthetic sensibility of the 1960s.

Script, setting, attitude, and especially casting add up to a smart exercise in dark comedy that's never over-the-top funny, but always engaging for its clever details.

A reminder of why Bullock became a movie star in the first place.

There's something about The Woman Chaser that isn't quite thought through, in a basic way.

It has a nose for what's cool, but is completely inept at execution.

Even the love story doesn’t work, because Moretz and Blackley exhibit zero romantic chemistry, and it’s never exactly clear why the pair love each other so much.

Has its - very - occasionally funny moments, so does a car crash.

If McCulloch can draw this much humanity out of his actors, and do it in comedies with a deceptively easygoing poignancy, he's definitely a director to watch.

The heart of this movie isn't two sizes too small; it's just slightly misplaced.

[Aja] has outfitted Horns with enough talent that the film is rather easy to admire aesthetically. The problems are more foundational, even conceptual—and they are thus harder to reconcile.

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.

Lawrence's style is purely will-it-stick-the-wall-or-not, and when it doesn't he looks pretty puny up there on the big screen.

Though the film is generally weak, treading very familiar ground, those dashes of insight and humor - along with Griffiths' performance - pull you into the film.

Appears to be several different movies spliced together, with unfortunate results.

Sometimes star power alone can keep you from walking out of a movie, and this is one of those times.

Flat and thoroughly predictable piece of filmmaking.

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

Both Tipton and Teller are better than this material.

A clumsy and tone-deaf comedy.

Has its clunky and wince-worthy moments, it does explore some new territory, and there are moments when it's quite fresh and moving.

It's solid, if ultimately uninspired, July entertainment.

The only thing moviegoers will hate more than the phony, faux-felt conversations of About Alex at its worst is the unfulfilled promise its high points suggest when it’s at its best.

It just doesn't work. Worse, it's downright offensive.

Silly in some parts, but sheer fun in most, Bootmen will get you wiggling in your seat with a big grin pasted on your face.

Like the back half of its namesake, Wonderstone isn’t terribly hip, edgy or new itself, just amusing enough to pass the time. While Scardino and friends do manage to end the film on an admirably nutty note, this gathering of comedic minds ultimately fails to produce any true movie magic.

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.

Raimi manages to keep things engaging, which is a very real act of wizardry in and of itself.

A relentlessly unfunny, charmless send-up of better films with better ideas.

Afailed attempt at a hipster screwball comedy. Very failed.

A nonsensical mishmash.

The audience for this film would be those people who like their cinematic fare pre-digested and painfully familiar.

Slick, polished to perfection, derivative and stripped of any of the real quirks or idiosyncrasies that make a romantic comedy fly.

Parts of this three-hour World War II epic are brilliant -- especially the 40-minute sequence in which the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor is stunningly re-created.

Vatel is really about production design, so if you're not absolutely passionate about 18th century table-settings, wigs and bodices, you might as well just stay at home and watch the Food Channel.

It's really too bad the film remains so resolutely flimsy, because the novice cast is so clearly delighted to be putting on a show, their glee is contagious enough to carry us along -- for a while.

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.

In this case, I have to say, the sense of boredom.

It does... apply Kitano's black-comic style to a different setting, and individual scenes sparkle with unexpected jokes, twists, and occasional cruelties.

It doesn't really hang together. And waaay too much style. Pity.

Some provocative filmmakers seem intent on irritating or turning off the audience. With Haneke, I get the feeling that once you understand what he’s up to, he’s glad to have you in on the joke. He certainly goes about executing it in a masterful way.

It’s half of a good movie, and another half that no one asked for or wanted.

It may have a good liberal conscience, and genuine sympathy for the rare perspective of a homeless person, but this movie is a fundamentally sentimental exercise.

In many ways the indie equivalent of your average multiplex action picture: fun and forgettable.

Tina Fey is in the film, for heaven’s sake, and I love her to pieces, but by now we know to expect something humdrum when she’s on a movie screen.

You just watch one carefully constructed but emotionally vacant image piled up on another - sometimes with regard to an overall effect, but often just for the sake of style over substance.

As flat as the brim of a Mountie hat.

It's a film in which nothing is at stake, that's safe and sentimental to the core.

A decent, smart, well-acted film.

It's just not funny.

Has even less directorial initiative than it has romantic spark.

Look to the cast as the best reason to see this film.

Obvious in its observations, predictable in its conclusions, and a little dull in the telling.

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.

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.

Despite the numerous patchy moments The Brass Teapot by and large squeaks by as an enjoyable entertainment.

So self-conscious that it alienates the viewer early and often.

Call it baseball interruptus, or just call it a missed opportunity.

A rather flimsy but moderately charming British romance comedy.

It all coalesces in a TV-level pleasantness, which isn't quite enough to fill a big screen.

For 8- to 12-year-olds and the grownups who love them, Recess is a pleasant Saturday-matinee diversion. The fact that it doesn't aim to be anything more is, in its own way, a blessed relief.

What were they thinking?

Doesn't go the distance in either story or style, unwilling to liberate itself from real or presumed expectations about what it takes to sell a movie featuring teenagers.

Unquestionably the work of both a newbie director and a green screenwriter.

In fact, The Internship rivals the aggressively bland “Larry Crowne” for sheer tepidness, if not worse due to the exhaustive product placement for a company whose real-life presence is unlikely to soon wane.

Gun Shy can't rise on wobbly legs, and its real potential is lost for good.

The film's light success really comes down to Shannon, though, the exuberant "SNL" star whose alter ego actually seems more real and sympathetic here than she does in brief TV skits.

With the possible exception of the action sequences and the occassionally imaginitive set design, it's awful.

The problem is, director Robert Lee King has a hard time sustaining the aimed-for camp tone, and while there are a few well-spaced giggles to be had, the movie sputters more than it soars for most of its 95 minutes.

Sometimes in life, simple pleasures can be rewarding, and that’s certainly the case here. Parker is not a particularly innovative film, but it’s no less effective for the blemish.

Despite a lead performance by the always welcome Julianne Moore it is rudderless in its presentation and outright stupid in its central conceits.

Captivating an audience from the get-go and drawing our attention and emotions ever deeper into the layered mysteries of a dreamy fable.

Austenland is as light and airy as a cream puff, and as entirely unfulfilling. Fans of the book may find it amusing, but those looking for heartier romantic comedy fare would do well to look elsewhere.

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

Ryan Gosling wanted to make an art film and, despite some dull patches, pretty much succeeded.

Rather than thrilling, the courtroom sequences seem only enervating, nudging us toward a quiet outrage.

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.

A weirdly stillborn experience.

Will eventually be remembered as a disposable farce, but one that leaves a happy memory.

Has its dull spots, and is unintentionally laugh-out-loud funny at times -- but isn't that what we expect?

A careful, intelligent, and seamless design that makes room for a couple of unexpected twists.

More focused and less preachy than its exploitation-riffing predecessor, the comparably shoddy Machete Kills nonetheless peters out in the homestretch (and, for some, surely sooner).

Struck by Lightning may appeal to fans of Colfer’s work on “Glee,” but as a film it’s utterly lacking in scope, depth or meaning beyond an immediate chuckle or two.

There’s gold in the premise of “The Purge” and its dismissal of subtlety. But like the residents of its world, when given the opportunity, it drops restraint and goes for blood.

(Ash and Russell) generate just enough tension to keep the audience interested.

Ride Along is a strong recommend when Hart is talking, but merely a mediocre attempt at a movie when he’s not.

The visual fireworks and catchy score just underline the extreme superficiality of the material.

Tired, overcomplicated mix of macho bullshit.

The action is the real star here, and it’s all good enough. It isn’t great – the aerial special effects are distractingly cheap – but at least there’s lots of it on display.

Faithful to the superficial thrills and flaws of the original.

Given Garant and Lennon’s background on “The State” and “Reno 911,” their scattershot approach as filmmakers isn’t especially surprising; for every oddly specific Shakespeare reference or detour to the local po-boy joint, there’s an ongoing parade of puke and an awful rubber suit with which to contend.

The first sixty minutes of Pompeii are awful, bordering on unwatchable... The final forty-five minutes of the movie however are, by sheer force of will, irrefutably entertaining. At least there’s raining death in the form of fireballs smashing up the place.

Let your children have their childhood while you have a rare, grown-up experience at the multi-plex for a change.

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