Homefront is done in by uninspired action scenes in which Statham’s athletic prowess is rendered unwatchable by hyper-editing, a shameful reliance on child-in-peril cliches to move the story forward, and so many loose ends that you wonder if 20 minutes were accidentally cut out from the movie.

Gibney even convinced Armstrong to sit down for one final interview in May. In it, he comes off as somewhat contrite but also victimized, as if he were being single out for something everyone does.

Narco Cultura isn’t a documentary about runaway crime: Its actual subject is far stranger.

Catching Fire is a work of thoughtful, emotionally engaging sci-fi — everything that its predecessor The Hunger Games was not.

Sunlight Jr. is what is often described as a slice-of-life drama, but this one is more of a tiny sliver, and it doesn’t leave you with much to chew on.

This is a straight-up portrait of a man who figured out a way to cling to life longer than anyone expected and, in the process, learned to let the world in.

Kill Your Darlings is more coming-of-age story than murder mystery, but its characters are so well drawn and complex the emotional weight carries a suspense all its own.

Unlike most pictures about people living on the fringe, The Motel Life is never drab or depressing.

All is Lost is more fun to think about than it is to actually watch: It’s a testament to a great actor, an experimental piece of cinema and a bit of a bore.

The sexual content may be excessive (the movie could have gotten by with just one scene instead of three) and the running time a bit indulgent, but Blue is the Warmest Color grows in power and intensity.

There’s a fleet and funny comic-book movie nestled inside Thor: The Dark World. You catch glimpses of it here and there.

Paradise: Hope plays better if you’ve seen the previous two movies, so you can savor the reach and scope of Seidl’s trilogy. But the film stands alone as a tender portrait of adolescence at its most vulnerable and how we manage to survive it, even when surrounded by predators and wolves.

Curtis pulls off some amusing moments, and he has a secret weapon: Nighy, who is so jolly and funny you wish he’d had more screen time.

One of the best things about 12 Years a Slave is that McQueen renders all the characters with the same depth and complexity as his protagonist.

What you don’t expect is camp. The Counselor is more "Wild Things" than "No Country for Old Men", with which it shares a border town setting. But at least "Wild Things" knew what it was. The Counselor treats its material seriously and seems to have no idea it’s a joke that can’t even muster up a bit of smarty-pants Tarantino cleverness or energy.

Bad Milo! directly envokes a number of earlier pictures Vaughan clearly adores, including "Basket Case," "It’s Alive" and even the workplace satire "Office Space." But the movie fails to ground its promising (if preposterous) scenario in any kind of recognizable reality.

This Carrie becomes less involving as it goes along, ceding its emotional power to special effects and unconvincing gore, and culminating with a closing shot so lame and uninspired, it’s as if the filmmakers just gave up and called it a day.

Assange is a compelling figure that merited a better effort.

Escape from Tomorrow is more of an experimental film than a traditional narrative, but intrepid viewers — or anyone who has ever visited a Disney park — will enjoy getting lost in this dark house of happy horrors.

Carlei’s film is not particularly imaginative in terms of context, but it offers proof that this material never tarnishes, that with the right sort of movie magic, even a traditional telling can be thrilling.

In Captain Phillips, director Paul Greengrass pulls off the same remarkable feat he accomplished with "United 93": He takes a true story in which the outcome is already known and transforms it into a gripping, wrenching, devastating thriller.

The combination of youthful irreverence and military indoctrination is jarring.

Parkland is wildly uneven, although compulsively watchable.

In its early moments, the movie evokes everything from "The Social Network" to "Casino." By the end, the film has become as exciting as a game of Old Maid. R-rated thrillers are hardly ever this dull and listless, but this movie manages to eradicate all of Timberlake’s charisma and makes you flash back to Affleck’s "Paycheck"/"Gigli" era. How does this even happen?

Gravity is a celebration of the primal pleasure of movies: It shows you things you’ve never seen before, transports you out of the theater and out of your head, tricks you into believing what’s happening on the screen is happening to you.

Blue Caprice only spends a few minutes reenacting their crime — the movie shows us exactly how they did it in just a couple of scenes — because the facts of the case aren’t the movie’s focus. Instead, this lyrical, frightening film is a portrait of a man consumed by self-hatred who decided to take it out on the world.

This remarkable documentary argues that art can also be the glue that binds disparate souls.

If only more romantic comedies played out as charmingly and perceptively as this one.