To put it in Austen terms: They will not have the pleasure of understanding what Steers is trying to do here.

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

Even with its flaws, the whole exercise makes for an affecting and effective film.

For better and for worse, it's neither better nor worse than the original "Ride Along." That's because it's essentially the same movie.

The Revenant is every bit as technically proficient as Inarritu's "Birdman," a film that made critics swoon with its masterful handling of the filmmaker's daring "one-take" conceit. It manages, however, to do it without the same gimmicky feel.

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.

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.

A highly enjoyable -- and, for better or for worse, a very Tarantino -- movie.

For a movie like this to last, you've got to have a certain amount of pathos to serve as connective tissue between those jokes. That's where Sisters is most lacking.

With Spotlight, we get a reminder of the vital importance of an independent, professional press to any community.

Trumbo isn't monotonous, but it falls short of genius.

This being a period drama, all the expected visual grandeur is present and accounted for, from Yves Belanger's vibrant cinematography to Odile Dicks-Mireaux's period-authentic costumes to Francois Seguin's production design.

An uneven R-rated Christmas comedy that's more enjoyable than, say, your Nana's fruitcake, but which at the same time doesn't feel quite like the dose of memorable holiday cheer it could have been.

In someone else's hands, Room easily could have become a horror movie. Instead, we get an emotional roller coaster ride -- at turns touching, harrowing, crushing and flat-out beautiful...Along the way, Abrahamson's Room becomes an immensely rewarding film, and the kind of movie that promises to stick with audiences long after the closing credits roll.

Granted, there's comfort to be found in the familiarity of Mendes' film, which makes an effort to look back while also advancing the series. But there's a fine line between paying homage to the past and merely repeating it.... Spectre often crosses that line.

An imperfectly executed but still perfectly enjoyable film.

Boyle, Sorkin and company might not have invented the iPhone or changed the way people viewed technology, but it does something the real Steve Jobs had trouble doing: It offers a genuine peek at the man behind the turtleneck, and in the process finds a way to connect with its viewers.

There's hardly a shred of cleverness to be found amid all the predictabilities.

Bridge of Spies, with its stop-and-go momentum, is also more merely interesting than it is full-on riveting. It's still quite good stuff, but despite its impressive pedigree... it doesn't feel as if it's quite the sum of all of its parts.

Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn, and their casting in the lead roles pays off in spades. In fact, they're the primary reasons Mississippi Grind works as well as it does.

Guggenheim's film makes it clear that she is funny. She is humble. And, beneath her extraordinary sense of purpose, she is an ordinary kid.

Still, none of that holds back Bahrani's film from becoming a thought-provoking treatise on the self-perpetuating and dehumanizing nature of greed, which more often than not spawns desperation in others, which in turn spawns greed, which spawns more desperation, which spawns greed ...

Its smattering of enjoyable moments aside, this is one of those horror films that will beg to be remade -- just smarter -- once this initial outing fades into the memories of moviegoers.

Where's a wooden stake when you need one?

Like the rest of the film, it's has its laughs and it has its emotion, just not enough of either.

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.

It succeeds wonderfully, offering moviegoers a rare taste of rarified air -- and as compelling an argument as you can make for seeing a movie writ large on the oversized screen of an actual movie theater.

Once Learning to Drive gets up to speed it hums along nicely.