Instead of engaging what we get is a plodding, unfocused effort with few genuine thrills to speak of, the kind of movie that would play best on an airplane when you are eager to kill time.

Coalesces into a thoughtful, pointed, at times deceptively profound look at how the rich get richer and, well, you know what happens to the poor.

Superfly may be suffused with political fury, but it is also unapologetically awash in cheap, disreputable B-movie thrills.

Winter in the Blood is a difficult film to get a handle on, not least because it often feels like it should be easier to dismiss. But then it locks onto a moment that is unexpectedly arresting and little jabs of poetic meaning or hard-earned truths reel a viewer back in.

An earnest, well-acted, poignant drama that nevertheless runs afoul of sports movie clichés.

Windfall is, throughout, a top-notch actors’ showcase.

Brazilian Walter Salles, who previously directed the Oscar-nominated films "Central Station" and "The Motorcycle Diaries," guides this stylish remake through treacherous territory to create a distressing, subtly suspenseful film full of emotional resonance.

Not as much fun as it should be. Few of its numerous actors make a lasting impression and Burton's heart and soul is not in the humor but (remember the "Batman Returns" backlash) in deadpan postmodern horrors, of which this film has a few.

Bold, sneaky, brilliant Punchline works its change-ups unmercifully. I can't remember laughing this much with tears still streaming down my face, or beginning to weep while my sides still ached from laughing. The closest to it was "Terms of Endearment." [30 Sept 1988, p.C1]

The cast is a delight, but it's Willis who is the film's true "fifth element," giving it life, depth and humanity.

Your head might not be spinning as you exit the theater, but your senses will be deeply and thoroughly ravished.

Collecting the testimony of those who have been through the stress machine and those who have observed it firsthand, the documentary is a dire warning and solid piece of advocacy journalism, complete with an action checklist at film's end.

Admirably ambitious if conceptually muddled, it short-circuits a lot of those signature “Magic Mike” pleasures — including some of the lust, and a lot of the laughs — and signals its headier ambitions with a dramatic shift in scenery.

A movie you keep expecting to fizzle because of its punching-the-air gracelessness, but there's something weirdly effective about the artistic desperation, which includes inserts of chalkboard animation and to-the-camera testimonials.

Murphy, who created the creepy, funny, lunatic "Nip/Tuck," is a master of mordant and macabre camp. But here he loses his teeth, seeming to lack any ironic distance from material that practically begs for it.

Central Intelligence is dumb in all the right ways, and also a bit smarter than you might expect.

And though School Daze isn't as successful as the more modestly scaled "She's Gotta Have It," in the end, it may be even more rewarding and promising. The movie's seemingly twisted view of higher education suggests a straight eye, a cool mind, a steady heart--and a great aim.

Despite Segel and Weaver’s best efforts, they can’t make this bickering duo deliciously awful, the characters proving more grating than hilariously combustible.

The thin stereotypes in Silent Night are weirdly uninteresting to observe in this ultimate pressure situation.

Director Russo-Young, whose roots are in independent film, has brought a bit of a welcome indie sensibility to the proceedings.

The frustrating thing about the British heist flick Wasteland is how it creates two admirably entertaining storytelling strands — one a friendship saga, the other a robbery caper — yet can't merge the two successfully.

Alone in Berlin is ultimately hobbled by its own cinematic inertia, its inability to reimagine the past with the kind of intensity that would also speak to the present.

Kagan employs a purposeful, if at times distracting, use of split screen, along with subjective camera and mind’s-eye visuals to capture the story’s visceral and emotional tension. But it’s the fine acting and the film’s plea for sensible gun control that carry the day.

The unintended take-away is that you can grasp why the Securities and Exchange Commission - terribly negligent though it was in investigating Madoff - might dismiss the claims of someone so theatrically odd.

The film catches her long after she's left the public eye, and rather than an examination, or an assessment, of her politics, it instead offers up an affecting if not always satisfying portrait of the strong-willed leader humbled by age.

Fishburne excels in his triple-threat roles as actor, director and adapter of his own play, and his cast glows under his direction.

This stylish Disney production is an ideal family film.

[Barthes'] measured, distanced style brings a certain stiffness to the proceedings and makes us miss even more than usual the Emma Bovary interior monologue that makes the book so memorable.

The story, although intelligent, is not quite unique or essential enough to merit the film’s protracted running time.

Kingsley is certainly committed to the arc of tough guy stripped bare, but his gifts aren't served well by an artificially studious attempt at applying Understanding 101 logic to a perpetrator of atrocities.

He’s made a mystery with no curiosity, a cautionary tale with no good advice. It’s unclear if Guadagnino’s elites believe their moral arguments don’t apply to themselves or if they’re just stupid — or if the script makes them do stupid things to keep the audience off guard. Regardless, raise a glass of Pinot anytime someone says “This was a mistake.”

Under Siege 2 isn't going to convince anyone that Seagal is Brando, though he often sounds a bit like him. But, taken strictly as an action sequel, the film is a lively show. It's a formula follow-up with formula dialogue and formula action but the director, Geoff Murphy, does extremely well within the sequel's narrow limits.

Cube fills the bill as the shaggy, aimless Curtis, a veritable ghost of glories past. It's not a particularly layered performance, but it works.

The filmmakers sometimes fail to follow through on the more interesting parts of their story, but a novel approach to the material mostly compensates for the drier stretches.

As with the DeMille ventures, enjoyment here involves managing expectations and not taking things too seriously.

No Man’s Land is such a modest, low-key thriller that you’re caught up in it long before you realize it. A contemporary Faustian tale, it’s one of those nifty little movies that arrive without much notice but prove to be far more enjoyable than many more highly publicized pictures.

That's not to say Heleno, with its magnetic energy, sensual re-creation of 1940s and '50s Brazil and bold storytelling lacks punch; the movie is nothing if not watchable. But, by presenting more surface than depth to De Freitas' womanizing, arrogance and volatility (an implied closeness to his unseen mother is about as far as the film digs), it largely feels like an arm's length effort.

The Contractor is decidedly Pine’s film. His performance is as efficient as the script, which Saleh mirrors with a crisp, smooth aesthetic. There’s nothing particularly showy about the style, but it serves the story of this professional warrior working his way through an unfamiliar place.

What Ed Neumeier's script provides instead is a cheerfully lobotomized, always watchable experience that has the simple-mindedness of a live-action comic book, with no words spoken that wouldn't be right at home in a funny paper dialogue balloon. Not just one comic book either, but an improbable and delirious combination of "Weird Science," "Betty and Veronica" and "Sgt. Rock and His Howling Commandos."

Despite numerous pluses - Lee Tamahori's vigorous direction, handsome cinematography, outstanding production design, an impressive dual performance by Dominic Cooper as Uday and Latif - the film is more wearying than entertaining.

The Crimes of Grindelwald is somehow both hectic and leaden, a thing of exhausting, pummeling mediocrity. It offers up dazzling feats of sorcery and realms of wonderment (early 20th-century London and Paris among them) and manages to conjure the very opposite of magic.

Brotherhood isn't badly acted or without some skillfully tense moments, but it doesn't have much in the way of entertainment value either.

The dialogue remains spotty and sappy, the effects still haven't caught up to modern-day standards, but "Twilight's" popularity is such that even when it falls short, it doesn't seem to matter.

The comedy isn’t necessarily groundbreaking, and the story beats are almost painfully predictable, but the picture hangs together thanks to this group of legends and the loose, absurdist humor of the screenplay.

While director Matt Smukler and screenwriter Jana Savage deliver moments throughout the film that feel vividly real, too often they veer into the maudlin or cutesy, as though trying to soften this material for the broadest possible audience.

You don’t have to be into football to appreciate the high-stakes struggle in National Champions.

Barker just hammers home the human-interest angle with a stirring score that serves to instruct the appropriate emotional response to each scene. The tacked-on uplift in the end is beyond comprehension, given that some of its subjects remain in peril.

This is proficient, measured filmmaking from a director who has already peered more deeply, and persuasively, into colonialism’s heart of darkness.

Russell, he of the shaggy mane and those twinkly, crinkly eyes, digs into the classic role with a sleighful of energy, humor and gusto, deftly making the character his own with guidance from Matt Lieberman’s inventive, myth-bending script. His performance is a gas.

There are several uniquely impressive elements to the adventure drama Mia and the White Lion, but they’re undermined by a choppy, at times contrived and implausible script by Prune de Maistre (wife of director Gilles de Maistre) and William Davies.

A Working Man strikes an unsteady balance between solemn and ridiculous.

The best things about The Last Boy Scout are the editing, Bill Medley's singing, a few moments of Noble Willingham villainy and Willis--whose weary, exasperated style exactly suits this kind of material. But the worst things about Scout are its slickness and self-confidence. A story about lonely heroism in a sick age should be a little hipper to what's really heroic and what's really sick.

To say it’s all over the place, a frenzied collection of hits and misses, is to both capture its shortcomings and deliver a fairly cogent plot summary. But as directed by Susanna Fogel (“Life Partners”) from a script she wrote with David Iserson, the movie also has a playfully vicious screwball energy that consistently locates the violence in every joke, the humor in every kill.

There's a great story at the heart of Matej Minac's documentary Nicky's Family, if only it were allowed to be told unvarnished.

It's hard to imagine anyone enjoying it except for those seeking to see people up there on the screen unhappier than themselves.

Story line and characterization are decidedly old-fashioned, and a curious decision about production design gives this wide-screen cartoon some of the look and feel of a Saturday morning TV cartoon series

Overcomes some forced artiness to be a sweet, smart romance without being saccharine.

Something we want to like more than we can. It's a mild family film with an excellent cast that never develops traction.

Long on atmosphere and short on sense, The Tall Man becomes less gripping as it grows more ridiculous.

Often more distracting than diverting with its everything-goes aesthetic - there are strains of steampunk, manga and silent film comedy, with video-game touches.

A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet, adapted from the book by Philip Shabecoff, proves a worthy reminder of how much has been done to help heal our planet's ecological woes as well as how much remains to be achieved.

Despite the visual and cultural accuracy, Ping Pong Summer is missing an elemental magic and vibrancy; a kick factor that makes the picture's endless pop throwbacks (break dancing, cassette tapes, giant boom boxes) seem more tackily forgettable than sweetly nostalgic.

The film taps into some genuine, relatable truths lurking beneath all that try-too-hard quirkiness.

Strictly as a piece of filmmaking, Never Say Never is a bit of a mess.

Familiar stuff, but some major scares in the second half. [25 Oct 1991, p.F26]

Sweet-natured and likable as the movie is, it never really delivers on the promise of its ingenious premise, which hints at a subversive retelling of mainstream Hollywood movies but stops short at goofy homage.

For those who go along with it, it's a crafty piece of work nonetheless, ending with a pair of marvelous twists. [16 Jan 1998, p.F1]

Being big on improvisation doesn't necessarily mine nuggets of comic brilliance, and there are times you wish Argott and Joyce would have adhered more closely to the Matt Serword-penned script.

The drawback to Lynch's pile-it-on method is that it is reductive. One reason Wild at Heart, for all its amazements, isn't quite as stunning as "Blue Velvet" is because it seems less the working out of a single fixed obsession than an entire smear of obsessions. [12 Aug 1990, Calendar, p.29]

Adapted by Jesse Andrews, the movie speaks toward the truth that appearances — including one's race and gender — shouldn't matter in love and relationships. It's a thought-provoking concept that makes "Every Day" more ambitious than your average teen romance, which only makes it all the more disappointing that it simply remains an average teen romance.

The giddy laughs that ensue, though sometimes inspired, are too few and far between.

For very much like Peter, it has clearly gotten harder for this director to break free of the lure of material things and believe in simple magic. And whatever problems his Hook has, there are none that making the film on half of its budget wouldn't have cured.

300 is something to see, but unless you love violence as much as a Spartan, Quentin Tarantino or a video-game-playing teenage boy, you will not be endlessly fascinated.

A fast and furious (yes "fast and furious" in that way) wild ride of a movie in which the good guys are good (some of them really, really good), the bad guys are good (very scary good) and the car chases (around a thousand of them by my count, though it was hard to keep track with all the screeching tires and twisted metal) are pretty spectacular.

This energetic and diverting sports soap opera throws a few head fakes in the direction of an iconoclastic examination of the dark side of professional football.

Although The Mother of Tears teeters on the preposterous and awkward, it is diverting and reveals that the filmmaker's signature bravura flourishes and use of sinister settings are still intact.

Lavish production and wardrobe design, as well as beautiful cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe make Goya's Ghosts lovely to look at, but as a portrait of the artist, the movie is a letdown.

The pleasing Splendor is surely more likely to appeal to a wider audience than any of Araki's previous films.

Its greeting card look and feel aside, Little Secrets is an otherwise worthy family entertainment.

Stylish and gritty, The King Is Alive lacks the impact of revelation that might have made the journey worth taking.

His constant chatter may grate, but Noya does the wide-eyed wonderment thing very well.

The kills themselves are both bountiful and bloody, the movie references are brilliant and bloody, the funny is very frequent and very frequently bloody, but to say any more would ruin the boo.

If the circus is a hierarchical pyramid, August is at the very top. It's a part tailor-made for the accomplished Waltz, an Oscar winner for "Inglourious Basterds," and he eats it alive.

Miss Lovely does exude an air of authenticity... But much of the film remains underdeveloped.

Carrie Pilby is a studiously quirky affair, but only the natural charm of Powley salvages that tone. The film swings wildly from melancholy to wacky, never truly melding the two; it somehow also lacks verve and energy.

Disorganized but engaging, full of visual pyrotechnics and earnest emotion, it is diverting, if not necessarily convincing.

Despite a few chuckles, some capable voice work and plenty of splashy color, it proves a largely empty and exhausting ride.

Directed by Ido Fluk from a screenplay he wrote with Sharon Mashihi, the film is sensitively observed, its performances convincingly understated. But it rapidly devolves into a standard, and increasingly unfocused, story of materialism and greed.

No Man’s Land comes out of the blue to comment memorably on the immigration crisis by simply giving human life its due. It’s wise and empathetic and worth a watch.

It can't decide what kind of a film it wants to be and so ends up failing across a fairly wide spectrum.

Despite being structured in an intriguing way -- bits of confusing action are shown first and explained later -- The International never finds its footing.

The cast is fine; Alda’s casts invariably are, but this collection has only stick figures to play.

Whereas the original film is gleefully crass and energetically paced, the movie musical, weighing in at a robust two-plus hours, is bloated and self-satisfied. Whatever spectacle the stage musical possessed to make it such a box-office behemoth fails to transfer to the screen.

Working from a screenplay by Edgerton, rising Australian director Matthew Saville has expertly constructed a low-key, realistic drama in which the malleability of morality in an increasingly murky situation takes center stage.

Mostly, it’s a tightly constructed, unapologetically nasty little thriller, given depth and weight by Wallace’s interpretation of a sweet woman suffering for her past.

Critters is a dumb, but sometimes likable little movie: maybe an odd comment, since it contains savage killings, mutilations and general bloodshed and evisceration. [25 Apr 1986, p.8]

Even if some segments are invigoratingly thought-provoking in the same manner that a young student feels engaging with classical thinkers for the first time, the format’s lack of stimuli beyond cutting between speakers soon turns tedious. In scenes conceived as static frames, Puiu plays with depth of field for slightly more visually layered results.

With a story this well-trodden, exhausted even, the contributions that “On the Come Up” makes are too limited. It feels dated, both in scope and in form.