Perhaps a little more successful when winking at genre expectations than when playing things straight, The Voices is funny, disturbing and whimsical.

Thanks to Margulies and Ponsoldt and thanks to Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg, End of the Tour mostly does right by David Foster Wallace, a not insignificant feat when you're dealing with a figure who generates such passion.

Eggers manages to create a sense of mood and dread that is so suffocating at times that it feels like we're watching something genuinely transgressive, something we should not be seeing.

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.

I don't think Strange Magic is terrible movie, but it is a very weird one in many ways, and perhaps the most bizarre thing about it is realizing that we finally have a fairy tale written expressly for the age of date rape drugs.

It's an excellent showcase for Paul King, for the tremendous character animation by Framestore, and for Ben Whishaw's delicate, inquisitive work as the title character, and it is one of those rare family films that actually seems to think of children as smart and full of empathy.

Blackhat is a staggering misfire by a whole bunch of talented people, terrible in a way that only a good filmmaker can accomplish, and it kicks off 2015 by setting the bar very, very low. Things can only get better from here.

Taken 3 is formula filmmaking at its most formulaic, a film that exists only because it makes sense financially.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kill Me Three Times is a confident smaller film, and if you enjoy this sort of chess game with bullets, you'll probably get a kick out of it, and for Pegg fans, it's pretty much continuous pleasure throughout.

Wallis, who is an appealing young performer, simply doesn't have the chops for what has traditionally been one of the more demanding leads in a musical for a young performer, and Gluck, along with co-writer Aline Brosh McKenna, has built a film around Wallis that is constantly undercutting the songs, the choreography, and the entire idea of musicals.

By far, the best part of the film is the last twenty minutes or so, and it's so good that it almost makes up for some of the missteps along the way.

The Interview is laugh out loud funny all the way through, and once again proves that Rogen and Goldberg will do anything, no matter how dark, for a big laugh, and that character is just as important as punchlines in their work.

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.

By focusing on a few key emotional arcs instead of making it about every shot being the BIGGEST THING OF ALL TIME, Jackson gives the battle a sense of urgency that builds and ebbs, builds and ebbs.

This is that rare case where it feels like every choice Scott made was off, and the cumulative impact of all of these choices is one of the most crushing disappointments of the year in terms of who made the film and how little of it works.

It is a perfect example of marketing driving the machine. It's also a profoundly silly movie that really isn't even trying to play by the conventional rules of family animation.

The film explores the way propaganda is used to set the stage for a conflict, and considering this is a mainstream franchise aimed primarily at young audiences, it's actually a pretty interesting take on how image matters as much as action in a media age.

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.

There are laughs in the movie, but they feel like they are isolated gags, not sustained runs, and in order for this to work as character comedy, they'd have to be playing better defined characters and not just heightened versions of themselves.

In a year of remarkable performances, Oyelowo is simply magnificent as Dr. King.

Overall, American Sniper is a solidly-staged but unexceptional picture, filled with overly familiar dramatic situations and a surprisingly blindered view of the world around its central character.

This is a film that is quietly confident. Everything's well-composed. Everything's put together right. There's a very sure hand on the wheel here, and at this point, I'm sold on Rupert Wyatt as a guy who can tell a story with a certain kind of intelligence, both towards his subject and towards his audience.

This is brutally strong filmmaking, aggressive and alive and impeccably accomplished.

J. C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year is a powerfully told story, a thrilling surprise, and both Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain do remarkable work.

A lushly conceived, exhaustively realized debut feature that'd be pretty formidable stuff coming from a more practised filmmaker -- and derided in some quarters as a self-impressed knock-off.

I was moved by Interstellar, and there are stretches where it is as good and as pure as anything Nolan's made. You can feel just how important all of it is to him in every frame of the thing. I don't love all of the film's dramatic choices, though.

As much as the action stuff works and would indicate that any other property Marvel entrusts to the animation side of things is in good hands, Big Hero 6 gets by more on the charms of its comedy.

It's a gentle, amiable, sincere little movie, and we could use about a hundred more Lynn Sheltons in this business, making movies that feel this lived in, this true.

CITIZENFOUR is an expertly crafted expose with unprecedented urgency.

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.

The Book Of Life may play by the rules when it comes to story, but it plays its own game when it comes to how it looks, and in the world of animated family films, that's what really counts.

Housebound is that rare film that manages to be funny without defusing any of its scares.

John Wick won't redefine action movies, but it perfectly exemplifies what I want from an action film when I go. Have fun with the world, shoot the action well, motivate it in a way that doesn't feel cheap.

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.

[Edet Belzberg] wants this to be a documentary that doesn't just prompt casual discussion, but rather raises the biggest issues imaginable. Her approach is analytical, poetic and, when one of the subject tells the story that gives the film its name, unexpectedly emotional.

This movie is so funny, so strange, so wonderfully charmingly deranged.

Things escalate nicely over the course of the film, and there is a creeping sense of dread that is carefully calibrated.

Leonetti doesn't seem to have any particular knack for the staging of suspense or fear.

Gone Girl is not Fincher's best film, nor is it the most conventionally satisfying of them, but it feels like this is a movie that represents the very best that Hollywood craft can offer at the moment.

Beautifully shot, impeccably paced, and with a voice cast that nails it in every role, large or small, "The Lego Movie" is a genuine delight.

Intermittently playful, consistently confounding, finally petrified, it's a film of fussy, cultivated austerity.

Gabe Polsky has made a smart and incisive film about an important moment in the history of a now-fallen empire, and he happened to make it wildly entertaining as well. No easy feat.

With the Outback desert a pretty indomitable (not to mention indomitably pretty) presence from the outset, Tracks seems a woman-versus-land story only until it emerges that the land is a reflection of the woman herself.

Wes Ball's background is in animation and effects, and he certainly has an eye for composition. Thankfully, he doesn't just lean on visual flash in his debut feature, the adaptation of the first of James Dashner's four books, and his skills allow him to build a convincing world around his appealing cast without losing them in it completely.

The film is at its best when it simply focuses on this strange dynamic between the two couples and the way they are each looking for something from the other that they don't dare articulate for fear of having to grapple with these weaknesses or flaws in themselves.

Top Five is, above everything else, really entertaining. It is a successful sophisticated spin on Hollywood formula, and it feels like Chris Rock finally finding a filmmaking voice that is just as limber and funny and sharply satirical and angry and even romantic as Rock's stand-up.

Many moviegoers may think they already know a good deal about Hawking’s achievements, but they would do themselves a disservice to miss out on Redmayne’s almost perfect performance.

The film lives and dies on Moore’s portrayal. She succeeds smashingly.

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.

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.

Ferrara is openly inviting comparison with Pasolini’s work in this ambitious but messy and flawed piece, where reality bends and stretches and sensation rules.

The film plays with tension beautifully, and there are a few set pieces that I think are all-timers.

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.

In essence, we get to study Brian's break with sanity and his eventual healing, but by keeping the focus tight on these two moments, the film becomes emotionally exhilarating.

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

Jackie & Ryan is, in the final analysis, perfectly serviceable cotton candy.

There isn't a sense in the film of this tragedy as a systematic, organized atrocity affecting millions.

Mostly thanks to Barnz's direction and Aniston's performance it all starts to gel.

Its sweet nature combined with its strong messages about responsibility and empathy make it feel like something family audiences in particular should enjoy.

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.

The film is often quite funny, and just real enough that we may recognize ourselves in some small way in this family.

Mbatha-Raw is shockingly good in creating both the "Noni" public persona and the real Noni.

It's a dull film.

This may not be his signature work, but it’s Murray at the top of his game in the type of role audiences want to see him in.

"Them" feels slightly longer than it needs to be and suffers from an unnecessarily busy third act. That being said, Benson's "final" ending is truly a unique choice and a wonderfully moving moment that haunts you as you walk out of the theater.

Pacino himself isn't exactly bad, but he's far from good, and it's difficult to see past the terrible role.

The Judge is risible Hollywood dreck, a star vehicle with nothing genuine driving it, and at 142 minutes, it is nearly impossible to defend.

Witherspoon does really uncompromising work here, playing Cheryl without any hesitancy or any fear or any ego. It's not a glamorous role, and she doesn't try to make Cheryl seem perfect, and she doesn't sand off this woman's rough edges.

Other than the unsubtle but vivid storytelling, the main joy of 99 Homes is seeing two excellent but very different actors spark off each other for almost the entire runtime, in a brace of performances both brilliant and brilliantly matched.

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.

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.

I can't remember the last time I saw a family animation so visually rich, tightly scripted and charmingly performed which was also built on a sound and progressive message.

Manglehorn is a lush, hazy drama that requires a certain open-mindedness, but there's no doubting the craft of its director, who continues to prove himself one of the less predictable and most skilled craftsmen around.

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.

Birdman dares to be ambiguous, but unlike most essays in ambiguity, it is also a hell of a lot of fun.

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

This entire film is like someone raised a kid in a room, cut off from all contact with the outside world, and all he had was a stack of Hustlers, a stack of Soldier of Fortunes, and a bunch of black-and-white stills from old detective movies, and at the age of 14, that kid gets turned loose and spends two hours screaming in your face about these stories he's been writing.

While I think If I Stay has to do a fair amount of juggling to get its premise to work, there is a cumulative power to it that I found undeniable and earned.

Frank rides a really strange tone, and director Lenny Abrahamson deserves credit for how he manages to make the strange and the sad and the funny all feel like it's part of the same film.

[Crudup] responds with a performance that's funny, heartbreaking and confidently musical, anchoring a film with a challenging and sometimes shaky premise that very much requires his steadying presence.

The script by Luke Greenfield and Nicholas Thomas makes too many easy choices, and it simply doesn't work in terms of maintaing credible audience sympathy.

There are some actual big ideas bubbling around somewhere below the surface of the film, but it's so ham-handed, so unable to grapple with the full implications of any of those ideas, that it actually becomes offensive.

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.

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.

The film is a mild pleasure at best. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, and it's well-crafted, but the screenplay by Steven Knight is so remarkably free of anything resembling actual drama that I'm almost mystified by it.

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

Guardians Of The Galaxy is the most charming Marvel movie so far. The primary ensemble (Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, and Vin Diesel) is perhaps the most winning group of characters they've introduced in any of these movies.

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.

There's plenty of potential there for really sharp comedy, but Allen's script just lobs softballs.

Everything is written to theme. Everything moves the film forward. When it comes down to the last half-hour, Braff manages a long sustained emotional crescendo packed with both laughs and tears, and it is accomplished work, carefully balanced, beautifully constructed.

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.

These self-actualization stories, while certainly well-intentioned, get exhausting after a while, and it also starts to make storytelling for kids feel like it's all wrapped in this language of affirmation, and it smothers the simple joy of creating good characters we want to spend time with.

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.

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.