It wasn't until Gibney's film was already largely shot that the truth caught up to Armstrong.

Visually stunning.

Yes, there are higher-profile films out there this year, and there are films with more resonant messages. But there are few that include so many captivating performances in such an involving story.

The violence in Homefront is violence purely for entertainment's sake.

Most normal people will not see this as a "pleasant" film -- I hope that's the case, anyway -- but it certain makes you feel something.

The real highlight, though, is the music by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

Along the way, Krokidas' story becomes a touch schizophrenic, at times a coming-of-age story, a love story, a crime drama and a literary drama. It's hard to say which it functions as best, as none are given too much time to germinate before Krokidas moves on to the next.

McConaughey and Leto's performances are also the saviors of Vallee's film, which has a way of belaboring certain points and, in the process, robbing his film of no small amount of momentum.

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

To be fair, in its best moments, The Best Man Holiday is more enjoyable than even a well-wrapped steam iron, functioning as it does as passable light entertainment -- but only just.

In a word: Bibbidi-bobbidi-blah.

Maybe it's a touch twee, but Curtis' film is far too uplifting, too life-affirming and too good-natured to do anything but embrace.

None of that is to say that Thor: The Dark World is a bad movie, necessarily. I would never speak ill of a man with a giant, magical hammer. At the same time, hammer or no hammer, it doesn't quite nail it, either.

In the final analysis, that's the real endgame here: to get people into theaters and build a film franchise. For all of their film's flaws, Hood and company do that well, as Ender's Game shapes up as a decent franchise starter -- and a film that makes it hard not to be intrigued by what will come next.

There's something Shakespearean about it. From the case of mistaken identity (though willfully mistaken) to the formal, old-fashioned language to the tragic tone in which it is all swaddled, this is Shakespeare by way of the Deep South.

It won't stick to your ribs in the way, say, a shank will -- but it probably won't leave you looking for a way to escape the theater, either.

The surprise is that Captain Phillips is a surprise in the first place, pitching and rolling tirelessly like the sea on which it is set and, in the process, becoming one of the most enjoyable and well-made movies to hit theaters this year.

Gravity, it turns out, is a great film, a technical and storytelling masterpiece that is buoyed by stunning visuals and which functions both as a ripping, tension-filled yarn and as a profound and life-affirming work of art.

Enough Said isn't without the occasional minor formulaic element or the odd narrative contrivance here and there (starting, it must be said, with its very setup). It is, after all, a romantic comedy.

That's perhaps the best word to describe Baggage Claim: contrived. And predictable, as it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which tall, dark and handsome fellow she'll end up with.

Rush is just that -- a rush, and a film that is sure to get audiences' engines going.

It aims to entertain, to offer a few tame chuckles for parents and children to enjoy in a purely Saturday-morning way. And it accomplishes that.

It's that sort of singular imagery that ultimately rescues Lowery's film. Yes, it's a flawed movie, but it also is a downright lovely one.

While it's enjoyable enough to watch, there's no slam-dunk takeaway here.

This much is sure: Salinger would have hated this movie. But he would have hated it for the very reason that others will like it: because it takes an honest-to-goodness crack at unlocking that mystery of a man and at answering key questions the publishing world and the reading public have been asking ever since he forsook them. Nothing phony about that.

Thanks to Rochefort and Folch, as well as Trueba's delicate direction, it still manages to be an embraceable journey, one with its own quiet -- and artistic -- rewards.

What they're missing here is a story good enough to warrant visiting the same uncomfortably dark place and characters worth caring about. Instead, what we get is a film that boasts tons of atmosphere and flashes of Refn's visual style -- as well as an admirably unhinged performance from Kristen Scott Thomas -- but little else.

A crowd-pleaser, through and through.