The phrase “casting is everything” has never felt truer than it does with 2 Guns, an unremarkable, standard-issue shoot-em-up that rests entirely on the charisma of its two stars.

The post-conversion 3D is more distracting than anything else, but the rest of this surprisingly fun entertainment is as sharp as the hero’s claws.

The movie shouldn’t be dismissed outright, either. It’s a creepy experiment that stays with you.

The To Do List is a funny movie, but only if you’re not easily offended.

Coogler occasionally overplays his hand: The scene in which Oscar says goodbye to his daughter for what we know will be the last time is prolonged to the point of overkill.

The coming-of-age tale The Way, Way Back is sweet, heartfelt and utterly trite and predictable from beginning to end.

The movie does miraculously end up making good use of a couple of running jokes, and the cast soldiers on, though the laughs are meager. But mostly, Girl Most Likely is a case of good actors in serious need of worthwhile material.

The times have caught up with Almodóvar, who is now 63: He thinks he’s still pushing the envelope, but he comes off as old-fashioned and outdated.

The movie contains little in terms of traditional action, and Refn never uses it in a rousing or exciting manner, either. That would break the nightmarish spell this strange, beautiful film casts on the viewer. A mother’s love has never been this ruinous.

An uncommonly intense and frightening experience, The Conjuring is the first genuinely scary release in ages by a major studio that features practically no violence and spills only a bit of blood.

It’s bad enough to make you look askance at Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Maya Rudolph, all of whom deserve a chance to do something funny other than pose as wives exuding various degrees of sexiness.

It’s the cinematic equivalent of a kid playing with his toys and smashing action figures together, except del Toro does it with more grace and imagination than most. There are long sequences in this movie that merit that most overused of terms, “awesome.”

Unfinished Song is full of predictably poignant moments; you’d be lucky to survive the film dry-eyed.

There’s a rollicking Wild West adventure buried deep inside The Lone Ranger, a bloated, mega-budget revival of the story of the iconic gunslinger and his Native American sidekick Tonto.

A Hijacking is not quite as exciting as it should be, but its realistic examination of grit and folly are still more intriguing than swaggering action movie heroics.

This is getting old.

The movie has a profound understanding of the back-and-forth nature of the bond between boys, and it ends on a silent note of forgiving looks and instant reconciliation that is the privilege of the young, whose lives aren’t yet complicated enough to put resentment before friendship

Monsters University feels half-hearted and lazy, like they weren’t even trying. At least show a little effort, guys.

Although there are some initial feints at using zombies as a metaphor for third-world issues and cultural differences, the picture forgets all that stuff by the final reel. World War Z opens with an undeniable bang. But if this is the way the world ends, we’re going out with a whimper.

What went wrong with Man of Steel? The early teasers promised Terrence Malick. The finished film is more Michael Bay.

This Is the End is a marvelously sustained, high-wire goof – a movie so nutty and daring, so crazy and out-there, that it feels like a low-budget independent except with big stars and a sizable budget.

The film is far from a downer. If anything, more than any of the films in the trilogy, this one may be the most hopeful - and the most affecting.

The Purge isn’t just stupid; it’s also pretentious and often makes no sense.

A decent thriller made better by good performances and an intriguing setting.

The picture is perfectly watchable but rarely compelling, because the filmmakers are too timid to take any chances.

Love Is All You Need works despite its occasional preposterous developments.

There’s nothing more to this movie than the set-up. Even though Cypher is slowly bleeding to death, and Kitai is running out of oxygen capsules that allow him to breathe in the toxic air, there’s no sense of urgency, either. At least Shyamalan, sensing the thinness of the material, doesn’t stretch things out.

Playful, effervescent comedy.