It's no "Das Boot," but Battleship is a boatload of popcorny fun.

Concussion is at its best when it's digging into the science of Omalu's work, chronicling his discovery and his subsequent David-vs.-Goliath fight to get people to acknowledge that he was right. Less effective is the portrayal of the personal toll his fight cost him.

Drama is one thing. Resonance is another. Without digging deeply enough, "The Finest Hours" seems content to capture the former while ignoring the latter.

It's an uneven but fairly enjoyable ride, one that benefits from Statham's cool, capable presence.

It keeps you guessing, it keeps the tension ratcheted up, and it offers a dose of breathless -- if sometimes brainless -- suspense.

Few of the characters feel fully fleshed out. McKay's Big Short also lacks a certain nuance in its third act, when McKay's agenda becomes abundantly, ham-handedly clear. Still, it's hard not to be outraged by what is learned.

Flaws aside, the journey will be largely worth it for audiences, particularly for fans of the genre.

12 O'Clock Boys is reminiscent of the Ross brothers' far more lyrically shot 2012 film "Tchoupitoulas," which tagged along with three New Orleans boys for a night of exploration and boundary-testing in the French Quarter. The setting is different in Nathan's film, and Nathan doesn't commit as fully as the Rosses did to visual artistry. But there are thematic similarities, to be sure.

As with everything in which he appears, Schreiber is one of the best things about the movie.

Thanks to Gere -- and occasional flashes of gaudy but well-deployed visual style from Cedar -- those contrivances never threaten to overtake the rest of the film.

So here's what moviegoers can trust from the Russo's Captain America: Winter Solider: They can trust it to be a brisk ride. They can trust it to be entertaining. They can expect it to be suspenseful.

Even when it is at its most esoteric, The Dance of Reality is always brimming with passion and a daring originality. That helps smooth over the flaws, such as its general staginess and his self-indulgent tendencies.

There's a good reason why the true-crime film The Imposter is a documentary: If someone tried to pass off this bizarre Texas tale as fiction, nobody would believe it.

Here's the crazy thing, though. Against all odds, it works.

Does The Wind Rises represent Miyazaki at the top of his game? No, not really. But it could be Miyazaki at the end of the game, and that alone is reason enough to appreciate the film for the things it offers rather than hammer it too hard for the things it lacks.

Another feather in the cap of Saulnier, who -- now with two impressive features under his belt as director -- is emerging to become one of the more intriguing new voices in Hollywood.

That's no small thing: to leave viewers with unanswered questions but still make them satisfied they've gotten a full movie experience. But there it is.

Granted, "intelligent" might be too generous a word to describe Oblivion, which flirts with big questions, but never answers them. What's left is a story that doesn't quite go where no man has gone before.

Even if it doesn't provide all the answers, "The East" asks some pretty darn good questions.

Camp's handsomely shot new Benji manages to find that sweet spot between wholesome and enjoyable. It is cute without seeming desperate, nostalgic without feeling dated, values-based without being preachy, and sweet without being (too) cloying.

Although Epic isn't quite an animated masterpiece -- or as enchanting as the vastly underrated "Guardians" -- it's still a fun, sweet-hearted kid-pleaser that boasts some downright lovely animation.

John Wick: Chapter Two is still an exceedingly dumb guilty-pleasure film, with its high body count, shockingly bloody violence and creative comic-book carnage. But that hotel, known as The Continental, and the structure it provides the film, goes a long way to helping John Wick: Chapter 2 become its own distinct, ultraviolent thing.

As a modest bit of feel-good entertainment, Vaughn and Delivery Man mostly deliver the goods.

What we end up with is a sweet, feminist character study that shows off Weitz's deft hand as a writer while doubling as a perfect showcase for Tomlin.

A key strategic decision in the success of this 100-minute feature is Greengrass' determination to accentuate the humorousness of his salty-tongued heroine and valiantly resist the temptation to sentimentalize her plight. The upshot is a touchingly off-kilter, bravely platonic love story that -- wonder of wonders -- never turns sticky. [5 March 1999, p.L28]

While Lone Survivor is presented as a piece of hero-focused entertainment, it is a suitably sobering one in the end, and a film that is bound to stick to the ribs of audiences longer than, say, your average Superman movie.

An uplifting and colorful crowd-pleaser, it's built on a wealth of cinematic contrivances -- all designed to make sure things, indeed, turn out all right in the end -- but the result is just too good-natured to begrudge.

The good news: This is Goldthwait the writer-director, not Goldthwait the actor -- so there's no schticky voice to endure. But his exceedingly black comedy does speak loudly -- and it turns out he's actually got something worthwhile to say.