Whether one thinks Only God Forgives is laughably awful — like, for instance, “Showgirls,” “The Color of Night” or “Battlefield: Earth” — or just plain terrible awful depends, appropriately, on how much you’re willing to forgive it.

Better to stick with his slightly weird, ultra-focused nerds, who toil away on something strange and special, simply for the beauty of it.

If The Conjuring were less of a con job, horror fans would not feel equally as trapped.

It’s never laugh-out-loud funny or inside-track smart, but in a summer full of bombastic failures, a lack of pretense is enough.

Families who have already raced to “Monsters University” and “Despicable Me 2” will find Turbo an acceptable third-place finisher. A sort-of escargot-meets-“Cars” adventure, it has some sharp vocal turns and remains fun even when its inventiveness runs out of gas.

One of the most extraordinary films you’ll see this year.

Travolta, who was more believable as a middle-aged housewife in “Hairspray” than he is as a former Serbian commando, has the accent down pat. But his Boris-and-Natasha-style syntax seems to represent Killing Season best. Just imagine that voice saying: Dees ees very seelly movie. Catch on cable TV, please.

This sequel to last year’s surprise buzz-maker takes the same appreciative approach to scare-flick tradition: Take hipsters, mix into classic genre riff, goose until ludicrous; repeat. Not every try is successful, but as with any anthology, if you don’t like one, sit back and wait for the next.

You know what you’re going to get, and that is, indeed, what Sandler delivers. It’s juvenile, it’s obvious and it’s crass. But with Sandler at the helm, at least it’s as easy to like as it is to forget.

Laudable as its world-building is, the film drags not just in its interminable middle hour, but also during the redundant monster-on-mechawarrior smackdowns.

The filmmakers' motivation couldn't be clearer: They needed to capture a way of life that may soon exist only on film and in memory.

It’s still compelling entertainment, as any biopic about Paul Raymond ought to be. Though nearly unknown in the U.S., Raymond was a famous figure in his native Britain, a flashy combination of Donald Trump and Hugh Hefner.

Fans will want to replay the extensive archival footage over and over. Newcomers are more likely to pause halfway through, search out the superlative soundtrack, and immerse themselves in the music that inspired this rare, fall-and-rise story in the first place.

Director Cathryne Czubek’s well-researched, incredibly lively chronicle of the way guns are marketed to, coveted by, and portrayed with women is a vital glimpse into a cultural phenomenon.

What starts as a creepy, original conceit — mysterious Caesarean-section abductions during hospital stays — devolves quickly into standard talk-to-the-camera, jump-at-the-sounds, found-footage banality.

All those cliched literary trappings come together in Stuck in Love, but the final product feels more like a footnote than a finished work.

Just like its meaningless title, Rachid Bouchareb’s disappointing drama evokes better works without developing any distinct identity of its own.

Some of Hart’s set — including jokes about his security team and an inspired recounting of a disastrous trip to a dude ranch — is hilarious. And his profane outrage is often funny enough to sell the weaker writing.

Guaranteed to charm anyone who’s out of school and already bored.

This smart-looking but empty adventure — with a hero that looks more Tom Ford than John Ford — suffers from a shambling script, shifting tones and a surplus of villains. Clunky and drawn out, “Ranger” shoots blanks, even with the star power of Johnny Depp behind it.

With his rapid-fire delivery and big heart, Rockwell makes Owen his version of “M*A*S*H”’s Hawkeye Pierce, but the film’s layers of well-observed truths go deeper than that.

Bell’s skepticism feels real, and Brody, still best known as “The OC’s” insecure Seth Cohen, is perfect as the sort of arrogantly self-deluded player we’ve all met.

Some may still be surprised at this fun, well-informed chronicle of what was happening in the U.S. as lighted floors, boogie shoes and Saturday night fevers were the rage.

Even in shabbily put together dramedies, such as this one, there can be a glimmer of light. Here it’s Christine Lahti’s anguished, nuanced turn as a wife and mother excited to begin a new phase with her husband.

Every foul-mouthed joke [McCarthy] cracks, every unexpected physical gag she underplays, is so funny you forget how often we’ve seen this setup. Or, when it comes to women, how rarely.

Perhaps afraid that watching a symbol of liberty repeatedly go boom isn’t enough, Emmerich and screenwriter James Vanderbilt add family drama, an attack on Congress, a plane crash and the possible nuking of the Middle East. What isn’t tonally jarring ends up shatteringly inept.

The movie is not up to the company’s highest standards, but it’s certainly better than most other kid flicks you’ll see this year.

This poor man’s Norman Bates, though, doesn’t make us wonder what makes him tick; he makes us want to shut our eyes.

A gripping, personal examination of a seemingly unresolvable conflict.

A fascinating, alternate-universe look at the dawn of the music-sharing phenom — once a cause of concern in the industry, yet now a footnote to our all-digital music marketplace.

It is no summer thriller. It’s an anemic actioner that fosters excitement like dead limbs as it lumbers toward a conclusion.

Fans of Dario Argento and Mario Bava will appreciate the references. Even for newcomers, there are minor chords to enjoy. If only there were less screaming.

The crowd that likes these things will certainly be psyched. Everyone else, not so much.

At first, Elie Wajeman’s moody French drama looks like so many other stories to come before it.

The real star, though, is the ocean itself, which is so stunning in its furious majesty that we fully understand every risk they’re willing to take. Finally, a 3-D ticket worth paying for.

The very best — and, alas, the very worst — of human nature is captured in this heartbreaking and inspiring documentary.

Narratively static and morally banal. That may be par for the course, however, when half the movie is spent watching shallow kids try on other people’s clothes.

It's no minor accomplishment to make one of the most indulgent projects in Hollywood history. But with This Is the End, Seth Rogen and his pals have indeed achieved this dubious goal.

The serious-minded result has many super-cool moments. But when it gets clunky, it’s super-meh.

Who let an unfunny, irritatingly acted two-hour commercial for Google onto multiplex screens?

Skip the movie and go buy yourself a drink instead.

Simplistic plotting, pedestrian visuals and poorly-handled melodrama do lend the project a cheap, made-for-TV feel, which is underscored by the fact that Danes and Marsden don’t seem obliged to turn in their best work.

The script unfurls too many obvious setups, but director Eric Valette is smart enough to rely on his most authentic effect — Dupontel’s natural intensity.

There are no surprises among the characters — depressed mom (Amy Jo Johnson), controlling aunt (Cynthia Stevenson), new boyfriend (Tatanka Means) — but the cast is strong enough to build on familiar elements.

Weixler is a delight, and director Tom Gammill captures the right level of deadpan to pull this off.

This dark lark is like walking around Times Square looking at the flashy logos and lights and thinking you see the message behind the medium.

Though much of the film is overcooked and overwrought, it’s well-played, and writer-director Kieran Darcy-Smith keeps us guessing, and watching.

As a look at how we got from there to here, “Evocateur” is one for the time capsule.

Gandolfini scoops up another chance to show off the gentleness he left at home during six seasons of “The Sopranos.”

An absolute delight, as merry as the day is long.

The movie even makes night-vision-goggle scares more irksome, a rare feat.

Riseborough once again transforms herself dramatically, expanding her role as best she can. But neither the hesitant script — adapted by Tom Bradby from his own novel — nor the sluggish tempo give her enough support.

Built on dry one-liners, off-kilter timing and self-conscious nostalgia, The Kings of Summer seems expressly designed to delight quirk-loving Sundance audiences.

As the cracklingly cool The East shows, they’re the real deal. It’s not easy to make a thriller where brains and guts are so clearly in cahoots.

For a while, Leterrier does manage to conjure up a little bit of magic between all these charming actors. And then, presto: Just like that, it’s gone.

Summer 2013 has its first bomb, and sadly, it’s landed right on Will Smith.

There probably is an interesting story in Van’s rags-to-riches tale. But all we get in this extended publicity stunt is clichéd filmmaking, stilted performances and a self-aggrandizing hero.

Plimpton recorded many of these adventures in books that are well worth seeking out. But if you don’t have enough time to do so, Bean and Poling have assembled a delightful cheat sheet.

The vastly divergent paths of Assange and Manning make up the most fascinating aspects of this relentlessly compelling film.

Even young would-be botanists will find this charmless animated adventure as exciting as watching grass grow.

Delpy and Hawke, who’ve invested this trilogy with the fine shadings of life lived, do extraordinary things with small moments.

“Let’s go for a little ride,” teases Vin Diesel as Dom Toretto at the start of Fast & Furious 6, an amusingly mild suggestion that’s also the only moment of understatement in two dizzyingly high-octane hours.

Galifianakis, though, is the key here. Able to smash a scene to smithereens with the simplest of lines, the hirsute comic is as unpredictable as ever, yet takes director Todd Phillips’ bait to up the stakes.

Aiming for lightness but landing with a thud, Frances Ha is a well-meaning blunder. Director Noah Baumbach’s ode to Brooklyn twentysomething life is a flibbertigibbet fable that, like a self-absorbed flirt you meet at a party, grates on the nerves despite being easy on the eyes.

There’s no explaining the presence of Guy Pearce in Pauline Chan’s sappy, atonal family drama. But it’s easy enough to understand why he looks so uncomfortable throughout.

Sokolinski, a French pop singer better known at home as Soko, is fully in tune with Winocour’s sharp vision. Her intense, almost accusatory turn feels like the opposing image of Keira Knightley’s intellectual neurosis in 2011’s similarly themed “A Dangerous Method.” Where that film found some lightness within the dark, this one drags an historic darkness into the light.

Most people can only watch the same movie so many times. But Philipp Stölzl is clearly hopeful that when you’re done with “Taken” (and “Taken 2”), you’ll want more of the same. Should that be the case, this undistinguished but decent knockoff is ready to satisfy.

Black Rock is as dingy and dirty as the genre thrillers it appears to want to one-up. All it does, though, is bring everyone down.

The result is a stunningly nervy sequel that vaporizes any worries that Abrams’ terrific 2009 reboot was a fluke.

It would be nice to say that Rourke, at least, offers a reason to see this junky thriller, about an American agent who gets involved in an Indonesian terrorist plot. But as entertaining as it is to watch him adopt a strange accent and swan around in sarongs as an eccentric jewel thief, it’s also a little depressing. The paycheck cannot possibly be worth it.

Directors Maiken Baird and Michelle Major may have begun this documentary with the intention of profiling two of the most successful siblings in sports. But any reality TV viewer knows that bad behavior is always more compelling than likability. So this movie’s title becomes, perhaps to the filmmakers’ own surprise, a little misleading.

Luke Evans, whose higher-profile work includes “Clash of the Titans,” this summer’s “Fast & Furious 6” and the next installments of “The Hobbit,” smolders embarrassingly. But he shouldn’t be embarrassed. In the shadows, that could be anyone.

A lot of Aftershock predictably involves screaming or shock cuts, and the movie features a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo from Selena Gomez.

Feiffer sometimes gets snagged on the look-at-me nature of her meta-performance, veering from pathological to pathetic, and not always in the best way.

This would-be satire earns an E for Effort for wanting to be to the advertising world what “Being There” was to television.

Director Tina Gordon Chism, who also wrote the screenplay, seems to have relied pretty strongly on Perry for guidance. In particular, she rejects any notions of subtlety, either in the comedy or the weirdly heavy-handed messages about masculinity.

The film is a mystery uncovered like a detective story, wrapped in a love letter.

Luhrmann piles on one shiny distraction after another. But amid all the seductively gaudy excess, DiCaprio finds both the heart and hurt buried within one of literature’s everlasting enigmas.

It’s a mystery as to how so much talent combined to create such a cynically superficial product.

Cathy Moriarty and other Scorsese alums pop up, but these mean streets feel too derivative to thrill.

“Um” winds up as empty as its mean streets are phony.

Assayas may have been inspired by biographical memories, but “Air” is so sensitively observed that it simultaneously evokes a universal, and eternal, state of adolescence as well.

As Richard Kuklinski, the Garden State guy who sleepwalks into an infamously deadly life he was born for, Shannon hits a whole other level.

For all the star’s efforts, the movie itself ends up little more than an exploitation item, a sad place-holder until the real thing comes along.

The ending of Carlos Reygadas’ drama is set in a wooded Mexican landscape. That’s where Regadas (“Silent Light”) overdoes everything in a self-indulgent presentation of trite fantasies masked as memories.

Despite visual nods to dozens of classic Westerns, the film cannot break through with its own vision.

It sharply fuses the humor and heart of the earlier films with a satisfyingly heavy-metal strength — and a darkness that’s more than earned.

Though Nair leaves us guessing as to Changez’s motivations, she also uses a pretty heavy hand in laying out the movie’s themes. The changes between the novel and the screenplay are equally unsubtle, especially in regards to the ill-conceived romance.

There’s never a moment when we forget that Mike and Wallace are just vacant personalities that two talented actors decided to try on for fun.

To be sure, there are many reasons to see the film. The cinematography is memorably vibrant, and the performances are solid, even if they pass by too swiftly. Most of all, of course, the subject matter remains fascinating.

Wahlberg and Johnson are the saving graces of an in-your-face movie.

Most notably, Bahrani offers an emotional depiction of American farming that will leave viewers troubled, as it should. But he loses his footing when it comes to the story itself.

Stripped of his former pretty-boy image, the Texas-born actor is snarly and gnarled, and understands what Nichols is aiming for. That’s crucial, as Mud needs something to stick to.

As a wry, knowing narrator guides us in and out of their symphonic affair, there’s no doubt the trip is worth it.

This terrific film certainly contains the spark of discovery.

The Big Wedding lets them all down with bottom-rung sitcom shtick and an undercurrent of squareness masquerading as absurdity.

Neither Claude nor Ozon comes up with a satisfying finish to this intriguing setup. But because they’re both so committed to seducing their audience, it’s a lot of fun watching them try.

Atmosphere is three-fourths of the game in a horror film, and The Lords of Salem has it in spades. It’s not too much to say that until this culty-witchy throwback chiller turns too bloody, it shows how far a little style can go.