Perfect also shows that striking images alone aren’t always enough. Alcazar and cinematographer Matthias Koenigswieser have concocted some fine illustrations. Now all they need is some decent text.

There’s something special here, but it’s surrounded by drudgery.

These kind of indie neo-noirs can be little gems when done well. Here though, directors Kevin and Michael Goetz and screenwriter Michael Arkof have delivered something largely devoid of style or narrative tension.

A dispiritingly familiar story.

Short on cultural specificity or distinctive attributes, “Maria” is utterly universal in the most discouraging manner.

It’s not the clumsiness of the filmmaking that rankles so much as the hypocrisy.

Even with solid supporting performances by Morgan Freeman, Robert Patrick and Peter Stormare, this movie’s just … well, sad. Twenty-five years ago, this exact cast and creative team might have turned this material into something to rival “Harper” or “Body Heat.” Now, they all seem slower and lazier: as committed to making a taut mystery as they are to mastering a Texas drawl.

The cast is talented — and occasionally funny — but they run out of fertile material quickly.

The film is content to sluggishly go through its preordained paces without bothering to take any compelling detours.

This is another memorable Doleac effort, true — but it’s more painfully awkward than daring.

Watching Tank Girl is as disorienting as waking up in someone else's bad dream. You want to get out as fast as possible, but all the exits seem to be blocked.

Not even a winning lead performance by Andrew Lawrence can keep this film from feeling as dreary and programmatic as a PSA.

Often, trying too hard to be edgy sails right past offensive and just hits boring. Sherman, amazingly, manages to nail both.

It approaches everything from suicide to Socrates with a facile touch, dealing with serious issues with an almost startling lack of depth and intelligence.

A frenetically unfunny and charmless movie.

Switch witchcraft for werewolves, and the hackneyed plot of Teen Witch could easily be that of Teen Wolf or a dozen others like it.

As The Fourth Protocol begins at the outside and curls its way into the center of its wildly complex plot, it becomes almost a "Saturday Night Live" spy spoof. We're saturated with detail: Where will the nested Russian folk-art dolls, the visiting violinist's patent-leather shoes and the American Air Force officer's randy wife fit into the Greater Scheme of Things? Gradually, as our eyes glaze over, it becomes very hard to care--and even harder to suppress a giggle.

The whole film is a bizarre exercise in fantasy-building on a budget, from the computer-generated sets to the over-long, predictable story.

The most shamelessly manipulative movie since they shot the dog in "The Biscuit Eater."

Almost any movie with Molly Ringwald at its centerpiece has a built-in plus to it. The wonder about For Keeps is that not even Ringwald's customary glow and bedrock believability make a smidgen of difference. Muddled it is and muddled it remains.

Though Skin in the Game is earnest in its attempts to shed light on human trafficking, the good intentions are buried under a thick layer of grime from its trashy script.

A gutter ball of a sophomoric, white middle-age male sex farce fantasy that quickly wears out an already tenuous welcome.

The Hunt lacks the courage of its presumed convictions, displaying no more than a determination to make as much cash as possible by exploiting national divisions less covetous individuals are despairing of rather than monetizing.

A dull, routine action-adventure in which the suspense is mechanical at best. Although there are a couple of gory moments, those expecting the jolts director Sean Cunningham brought to the original "Friday the 13th" are sure to be disappointed.

The director has been able to do nothing with this wheezing script, one of the subplots of which involves Dempsey's dad believing that his son is gay. And the movie's moments of physical farce are mortifying...What makes "Loverboy"(rated PG-13 for sexual situations) such a pitiful waste is that Dempsey has so much potential charm.

Flay is, at its core, just an OK indie drama about a bickering brother and sister, with some blah supernatural hooey clumsily appended.

Repetitive lyrics, nonsensical camera angles and incomprehensible edits will leave viewers feeling anything but positive.

The movie was inspired by a real person but nearly everything that happens here plays as phony.