When Garbus lets Simone show us why she's special What Happened, Miss Simone? is successful and vital.

Niccol is working in a very stripped down and direct mode, and I think overall, it works. Good Kill is unsettling, and the entire cast does spare, unsentimental work.

A documentary is about storytelling and Private Violence is structured very much like a law-and-order procedural, so an investigation and a build-up to a trial that can't be featured on-screen is anti-climactic storytelling.

When it comes to this particular story, I find myself unconvinced in the end. Unbroken looks like the real thing, but evaporates upon closer scrutiny.

In the broad strokes, I think The Bronze is okay. I laughed at some things, I sat stone-faced during some things that don't work, and at the end, I could tell what I was supposed to feel, but it was more like I'm being ordered to feel this way instead of the film actually earning it.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a film of modest pleasures, but what I liked about it, I liked a lot. I hope more filmmakers figure out how to write to Fey's strengths, because she's really engaging here.

The film's central conflict and Sangaile's arc's are, unfortunately, thin.

The Good Dinosaur is fine. I found myself moved by it on a very direct level. Technically speaking, it's a gorgeous film in many ways, but I'm still not a fan of the super-cartoony style of the characters over the photo-realistic world, which is genuinely jaw-dropping.

There's a great sense of rot to everything as shot by Bruce McCleery, and David Sardy's score is propulsive and appropriately caustic. What ultimately works about Sabotage is the way it so unabashedly plays rough.

It's obvious that they're aiming for something more fun than genuinely haunting, and it helps that there is a good deal of humor used to punctuate the horror. It doesn't all land, but there's a fair amount of wit in something as simple as watching what someone types, deletes, then retypes.

For sheer craftsmanship, As Above, So Below is the type of horror film you should see theatrically. It's really well-made, even if it ends up feeling a little familiar by the end.

By the end of this film, they've done a very good job of setting up the next three or four films in the series, but at the expense of this film telling any sort of cohesive story.

If you can't handle extremes in your horror, Wolf Creek 2 is not for you. It is definitely ugly in places, and it wallows in it a bit.

It is apparent that Ramaa Mosley has a voice, and that The Brass Teapot is a focused, controlled piece of storytelling that displays real control.

There is a glee to the filmmaking that is matched by a greater sense of control than I've seen from Smith before, and while I think the film is wildly uneven at times, I think that's also the point.

Despite Depp’s seemingly flawless efforts, less may have been more in conveying just how bloodthirsty Bulger was. Where “Mass” excels is with a stellar cast whose spot on performances keep your interest as the film moves along.

Like any comedy that throws 1000 jokes at you, some land and some don’t, but it’s the confident, cheerful energy of the humor that carries the day.

The film is frantic from start to finish, and I suspect it will wear some people down completely. I thought there was a point where it stopped being funny and started being exhausting, but my kids went positively ballistic for it.

The reason you go see San Andreas is to see what the state of the art looks like when you destroy an entire state, set piece after set piece, and Brad Peyton delivers on that.

If you can get past the witlessness of the world itself, there is some very good work in Equals, and fans of the cast will be no doubt pleased with the connection they have in some of the movie's best moments.

While I thought it was gently moving at times, it feels like Gondry is hoping for a much more powerful impact, and the film just doesn't swing hard enough to make that happen.

Central Intelligence manages to be a far more coherent comedy than I would have expected, and it’s a worthy representation of the genre.

The film's best moments are those focused on combat, and Ayer does a tremendous job of creating the details of daily life for a combat tank team in the waning days of WWII.

What makes “We Are” worth your time is Joseph’s skill in conveying the euphoria of dance music in the context of an actual movie.

I enjoyed the energy of the film, and the cast is pretty solid throughout, but there’s a big problem that is inherent to the idea that we have to make these films bigger and bigger to outdo things that have come before.

What is most impressive about the final film, adapted for the screen and directed by Burr Steers, is that it gets the Pride and Prejudice side of things right, and that's what matters most.

The problem is there is just too much going on here for Reitman to pull that off and after an auspicious start, it all just, sadly, falls flat.

If Mommy counts as a slight creative step back, and I would argue that it is, it's at least an elegant and purposeful one.

The Mind's Eye is straight-up sincere, earnestly played and honestly intentioned. This is exploitation fare without any wink attached. These guys aren't trying to elevate the genre… they just want to make a psychic wars horror film and blow up some heads.

Jodie Foster deserves credit for orchestrating things with a nimble wit and a relentless energy.

The way an Entourage story works is that they establish what it is that Vinnie and his friends want, they challenge them a little bit, and then they get what they want. And while that's something I find unsatisfying, it is the exact reason that fans watch the show and it's why they'll watch the film.

Age Of Extinction more than delivers on whatever promises Bay makes to an audience at this point. Giant robots. Giant mayhem. Destruction on a global scale. You know what you're in for if you buy a ticket, and Bay seems determined to wear you down with the biggest craziest Transformers movie yet.

It's a dark and grimy film, and while I think it's juggling a whole lot of cliches, there is something genuinely admirable about the way it tells this story and the way it handles the supernatural onscreen.

[Eubank] creates some remarkable images and moments in this movie, and his sensibility leans towards a sort of painterly love of quiet and sustained imagery. He juggles some pretty big shifts in tone here, and doesn't always pull it off, but it's really interesting to watch him try.

Meyers wants this to be all sort of amiable and charming and a big warm bath of a film, and it is.

It's precisely as bonkers as it sounds, and at two hours, both wearisome and claustrophobic... But flashes of fury and beauty remain.

Kat Candler has cobbled together an assortment of half-developed genre pieces that ultimately don't entirely gel. I think the elements work better as parts than Hellion does as a whole.

It is forgettable fluff, but well-delivered, and it suggests that they'll be able to keep making these as long as they can prop up the cast, and with the younger generation making a decent showing this time out, they may even be able to hand it off when the time comes.

Trier is far too talented for there not to be some good things here, but it just doesn’t add up to much.

The fact Tomlin is so good also highlights the film's biggest problem. Too much of what works in Grandma comes from the subtle touches Tomlin, Elliott and Harden bring to their characters, not Weitz’s script.

It's good stuff and, in a perfect world, will prompt Hollywood execs to take Winocour's directing skills very seriously.

It's like a supernatural version of "Gone Girl," and yet, there is some very, very dark comedy in the film as well, and by keeping it dark instead of letting the humor undercut the severity of the situation, Aja has made what has to be his most commercial film so far.

Earth To Echo is a little bit big and broad, but that's also part of its charm.

Poised between melodrama and chamber piece, then, Clouds of Sils Maria is either too silly or not silly enough.

There's not an ounce of fat on the film. It feels like it moves forward in every single scene, and while it's a little mechanical about how it follows three-act structure, it's almost charmingly old-fashioned about it.

There are a number of moments where Doughtery introduces something truly interesting and then never returns to it. Yes, the movie is perhaps overstuffed with interesting ideas, but that can be just as frustrating as a film with no good ideas at all.

There are gags that work, that pay off in a big way, and gags that fall flat, derailing entire sequences. Because the world around them is so absurd, the film's attempts at creating some genuine heart for Harry and Lloyd doesn't really work.

Lost River is a beautifully dressed minor effort, a movie in which all the muscle in the world can't transform the thin, thin script into something more.

While Longo's actions were horrifying and his connection to Finkel is unique, Goold somehow can't make this material as interesting as you'd expect it to be.

The best moments in this film are the moments where it feels like they're just throwing jokes at the screen. The moments that are toughest are the ones where they try to create some sort of emotional beat, because the moment we're supposed to invest in these guys at all, the movie crumbles.

This film says everything the first two films tried to say, but better and in a more coherent thematic way.

A Million Ways To Die In The West certainly has merits, and in some ways, it is a step forward for MacFarlane, but it is also deeply undisciplined, and it undercuts its own best instincts in ways I find almost unbearably frustrating.

The film plays with some funny ideas about time travel, and like any good time travel movie, it flirts with paradox and what happens when you violate the rules of time and space. It doesn't really go far enough with those ideas, though, and the end result is too often timid instead of brash and silly.

To the bitter end, the series manages to wring some fun, solid scares out of something other invading something utterly familiar.

While Bercot's intentions are admirable, she and co-screenwriter Marcia Romano have conjured up too many moments that play out like thousands of courtroom scenes you've seen before.

His characters may spout Kant and debate the ethics of different human interactions, but it's only sugar coating on top of what is effectively a simple and familiar story.

Cranston has his moments and you have to laud his attention to detain in channeling Trumbo’s unique voice and mannerisms. Unfortunately, he’s so committed that his character borders on being a caricature.

The film feels 30 minutes longer than its 109 minute run time mostly due to the fact that “Paper” seems distinctly like three different films.

While there are some very strong performances in the film, the movie is inert, dramatically speaking, and covers such familiar ground that I can't really recommend it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is about as predictable as movies get these days.

The movie wants to make a statement about the intersection of art and family, but it’s all too muddled to add up to anything that astute.

The Program works when it has you questioning how on earth this secret could be kept so quiet for so long when so many people knew exactly what was going on.

Where Imitation Game ultimately falters is in tackling Turing's later years and subsequent demise. In some ways, this period is meant to bookend the film, but instead just leaves unanswered questions while diminishing actual historical events.

Heli executes its shocks with sleek, gasp-inducing effectiveness, but neither its politics, nor its shifts in physical perspective, ever surprise or disorientate us.

The real problem for me is that every one of the films feels exactly the same, and this is where I think I'm at odds with what the studios want from these films.

While I can see how there is a version of this film that might be able to successfully grapple with its central metaphor, I'm not sure Stromberg is the guy to make that movie.

A Little Chaos earns one compliment, but it's unfortunately a backhanded one: it’s watchable.

Poltergeist is professional and slick and entirely fine. It's also unnecessary in every way.

Tomorrowland may be well-made, but whether you're talking about it thematically or dramatically, this is a profoundly mixed bag.

The film wants to be wild and dark and crazy, but it's also a big studio summer movie, and so it feels like it flirts with truly insane material, but without ever really committing to it.

Warcraft errs in how much it asks the audience to juggle, and as a result, the things that the film does well (and I think there are many) are muffled somewhat.

Watts co-wrote the screenplay with Christopher D. Ford (“Robot & Frank”) and, frankly, it’s not as clever or compelling as it wants to be.... The filmmaker does deserve credit, however, for conjuring up some nicely tense cinematic moments.

The film barely services the main characters and their arcs, so there's really no room for the sort of delicate etching needed to make supporting characters live and breathe. The film is at its best when it embraces the goofy nature of disaster films in general, and when it gives the audience the red meat it craves so desperately.

Demoustier is charismatic enough to almost help Donzelli pull it off, but Elkaïm is so stiff as Julien you never understand why Marguerite is willing to risk her life in the first place.

Whether it's past its pop-culture expiration date or not, Into The Woods deserved a more visually inventive director to help make it work, and instead, we get something that feels somehow reduced by its translation to the screen.

As a biopic for Fischer, Pawn Sacrifice can certainly encourage viewers to research more about him. It’s just unfortunate Zwick couldn’t bring a slightly more understated approach to the entire endeavor.

While [Lawrence] does robust, heartfelt work in the lead in his new film Joy, this is the most miscast she's been in a while, and it's such a strangely imagined film in the first place that it never really gets its bearings.

As a theatrical experience, I Am Michael is fairly forgettable, but it does manage to pierce in places, and it carries a cumulative charge that is bigger than any of the individual emotional pieces.

It helps that Gelb shoots this less like a horror film and more like a drama. When the film does finally kick into overt horror, it becomes more familiar and less overall effective.

Like most comedy sequels, it is too long and too indulgent in calling back to the original film.

There are moments of real wonder and even beauty amidst the slam and the bang and the big bada boom, and while Lucy is a mixed bag, it's been mixed by a master, and it is delightfully, happily insane.

It's a very slick film. But in the end, that slick becomes suffocating, and there's no real pulse here.

There's a slightly lurching quality to the way things play out here, like Cross knew what he wanted to do, but he wasn't committed enough to any of the characters to make them more than the joke.

Overall, it is false, both narratively and visually, in a way that just doesn't sit right with me, and it feels like a lesser effort from Howard, an itch he scratched but that hold little interest for anyone else.

The Purge: Anarchy improves upon the original, but it's still a long way from being the sort of smart, savage satire it would have to be to fully exploit such a socially charged hook.

From scene to scene, there are some beautiful images in the fantasy world where this is set, but frustratingly, it never adds up to something that comes to life. This feels like terrific production design and costuming in search of a story worth telling.

Neither the disaster the fanboy nation seems to be itching to attack nor a significant improvement over the Tim Story movies, Fantastic Four seems doomed to please no one.

The resulting film is yet another example of a Black List script that does not work on the screen. And, frankly, we're not sure an auteur other than Van Sant would have fared any better.

It's a film with one foot in the past, and that's not necessarily a criticism, but unless you're actually doing something interesting with your chosen nostalgic framework, it seems like a slightly artificial way to try to induce that Saturday matinee glow.

Rio 2 is a perfect example of franchise maintenance in place of storytelling.

Beyond the logistics of the screenplay, Beckwith makes some stylistic choices that hinder the story's cinematic opportunities.

There are scenes I dug and a few set-pieces that work, and there’s an overall level of intensity that I like from director Paul Greengrass. Taken as a whole, though, this is very familiar territory, and I just don’t care when the stakes are this low and the violence is this rough.

It's a completely average film that makes a few terrible choices.

Chappie feels like Blomkamp and his co-writer Terri Tatchell had three or four different films they wanted to make, and instead of figuring out which one actually worked, they just made them all at the same time.

Its admittedly interesting source material, but the movie’s tone is all over the place and not in a good way.

There's nothing particularly wrong with the ghost story itself. It makes sense, there's an internal logic to the way things happen, and Whannell does his best to keep a certain pace up so there are near-constant ghost attacks punctuated by scenes of the characters trying to figure out how to handle them. Quinn's just not a very interesting character.

All the actresses do their best with the material, but only Mulligan truly transcends its limitations.

An impressive cast and significant real-life events can’t trump the fact it’s a badly made movie.