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.