The directors complied and made some trims, which helps explain why the film works better as a thrilling but superficial celebration of two incredible athletes instead of a personal portrait of two world-famous women who continue to make sports history.

The movie fares less well when the plot and Simon’s neuroses come to the surface, but there is some tremendous suspense in the movie’s final scene.

Star Trek Into Darkness gives you an exhilarating, tingle-inducing rush — that rare feeling that comes when a gigantic entertainment is firing on all fronts, exceeding your expectations.

In the House seems to be building toward a cathartic and unexpected finale. Instead, you get a baffling fizzle — an inexcusably limp and unimaginative conclusion that doesn’t bring a single plot strand to a satisfying end.

Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a failure that should have at least been a magnificent mistake, a risky endeavor that showed a daring intent even if its brash vision didn’t quite succeed. Instead, the movie leaves you cold and weary and vaguely disgusted.

The movie is intentionally elusive, like a memory you can’t quite fully recall, but the result has all the depth and weight of a greeting card.

Marvel Studios will only be able to draw from this well only so many times, though, before fatigue sets in.

You come away from Mud fondly remembering those two boys, especially Ellis, who has taken his first steps toward adulthood and discovers it suits him just fine.

This is easily Bay’s best movie, the work of a filmmaker with a cracked sense of humor that he is able to share with the audience.

The film builds to a three-pronged tumultuous climax, shot in slow motion that could have been overwrought but somehow isn’t.

For its first hour or so, Oblivion is a visually mesmerizing, intriguing picture that doesn’t feel like the same-old: It engages your eyes and piques your curiosity. Then, gradually, the novelty wears off, the clichés start to pile up and we’re back to Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia 101.

Blancanieves is funny, inventive and daring enough to change the story’s ending, going out on a note of bittersweet, unexpected melancholy.

While the scope of the movie is bigger, its impact is smaller. "Blue Valentine" was a precise, heartrending portrait of a marriage coming apart at the seams. The theme of his new movie is a lot harder to discern.

Ascher treats all these insane theories seriously, but that doesn’t mean you have to.

And still 42 persists in entertaining you, even when you’re cringing, because the real story is so compelling.

This mostly upbeat crowd-pleaser soothes the audience with glistening harmonies and familiar songs and doesn’t always handle the ugly past simmering just below its surface gracefully.

Evil Dead is just a well-made gross-out, and it's kind of a bummer.

An invasion of the body snatchers is preferable to realizing that the true horror perpetrated here is not on the characters but on the audience.

No is an exploration of the power of the media to manipulate hearts and minds. The moral of the story: Always go positive.

Stoker is the sort of stylish, cerebral movie that engages your brain instead of your emotions, and yet you’re never less than intrigued by the breathtaking visual artistry of this slow-burn thriller.

The movie is wild, but not in the ways that you expect, and it’s also surprisingly chaste — you think you see a lot more than you actually do.

Despite its astronomical body count, John Dies at the End never takes itself seriously, and neither should you.

Oz the Great and Powerful is an oppressive, bloated bore.

A competent but utterly unnecessary retelling of the story.

The movie leaves you feeling angry and frustrated anyway. And justice for all? Hardly.

The film isn’t overlong. But it tries to fit so many themes into its brief running time — that it merely touches on most conflicts instead of exploring them in depth or with any delicacy.

There’s potential here, a decent story and a cast well-stocked with grownup cinematic luminaries. But this supernatural Gothic romance is a prisoner of its own demons, which include sketchy Southern accents, tacky and tired stereotypes and faux homespun dialogue in the wrong mouths.

A sentimental romantic thriller. But it’s a well-made sentimental romantic thriller, and that makes all the difference.