Mostly an unfunny, rather dull affair.

Grows on you like kudzu.

Contains impeccable performances, especially by the frightening Ifans.

The movie is overwhelmingly positive. It would have helped if Araki's critics had more of a say.

Fast, furious and often funny. But no blood is truly shed (except literally in a playground fight during the opening credits).

This exhilarating brain-twister is a nonstop visual, aural and intellectual delight, steeped in movie conventions and yet fizzing with freshness. It’s what happens when film noir goes out to a rave.

Lust, Caution could have done with a lot more lust and a lot less caution.

It's ultimately a shallow effort.

Deafeningly loud and proudly silly epic.

Yearning for an exciting African adventure? Oka! isn't it.

The impressive first feature by Sergio Machado, a one-time assistant to Walter Salles ("The Motorcycle Diaries"), is a trip through a grungy world of crime, sex and cockfights.

The performances by the attractive ensemble cast are uniformly solid.

Wirkola keeps the narrative taut, wasting not a frame; and he throws in funny moments.

McAleer is an expert practitioner of cinematic jujitsu.

A stunning display of a filmmaker adventuring on the far side of what's possible.

That’s the worst thing about these new Scream films — they couldn’t spook a kitten. They’re much more concerned with so-so jokes and overly geeky observations about the horror genre. Yes, Scream always commented on other scary movies, but never so obnoxiously and repetitively as now.

One of the best films released so far this year, At Any Price signals the arrival of Iranian-American Ramin Bahrani in the ranks of major US directors.

Chillingly realistic but deeply repellent, The War Within is a film that should not have been made.

Disappointingly, Bourne never resurfaces in this less-than-satisfying series reboot. The film is more a talky, convoluted, action-starved two-hour subplot.

For a 99 percenter movie, then, Elysium is kind of a head-scratcher. It throws away its best opportunity for drama. It’s as if Han and Leia parked on the Death Star and started asking, “How much is a two-bedroom around here?”

A lively and poignant comedy with lots of laughs and juicy roles for a roster of seasoned performers who should be seen more often.

The film is loving but shallow.

Anderson gives The Machinist a sickly noirish look that contributes to the creeping horror - but it's the emaciated Bale's spectral presence that leaves the imprint.

When The Last Gladiators treats brawls like greatest-hits clips for more than half the movie, then suggests fighting is behind Nilan's decline, it feels like trying to have it both ways.

I liked that The Wolverine (which saves a nifty twist for a surprise scene in the middle of the end credits) turns down the volume on the usual din of colliding mutant superpowers.

Without a humanizing element like Blunt’s character, this whole grim affair is just a race to the bottom in which everyone loses.

A popcorn picture that thinks it’s “The Last Emperor,” The Karate Kid is about as likely to grab your youngster’s attention as any other propaganda film made by the Chinese government.

Saltburn has a brain, no doubt about it, but it also has a script that’s written in jet fuel.

This second installment of Lucas Belvaux's acclaimed "Trilogy" is decidedly inferior to the first: a farce that simply isn't funny.

Ten percent of Ghana's 20 million people are disabled, yet the film makes little attempt to explain why.

Soldini is able to take the shopworn theme and keep it interesting and fresh despite its lack of new ideas. He's assisted by strong performances by his two leading actors.

The adequate Netflix film, which was supposed to have been released two years ago, is funny in spots, but it flatlines early and gets way too gross.

A postcard-pretty psychological drama that's too moody and enigmatic for its own good.

Footnotes isn’t perfect, but at least nobody lectured me about jazz.

Kingsman: The Secret Service borrows the tone, story, characters and humor of “Kick-Ass,” only this time in a 007 world instead of Batman’s. Nearly everything it does, it does poorly: This one is “Weak-Ass.”

A movie needs more than a smart idea and an impressively visualized concept of the future to run smoothly. Two-thirds of the way through, “The Pod Generation’s” battery is already at 1%.

Birds of Prey moves at a breakneck pace with a dry, totally unsentimental sense of humor, and it never gets caught up in cliched morals or weighty lessons.

Somehow, mostly through the impassioned performances of its young actors, the film finds its footing in the third act, as the narration goes quiet and tragedy unfolds with precision, even elegance.

Since the characters barely get a chance to catch their breath, let alone say their piece, we don’t learn much about them beyond familiar traits. However, Reitman’s aim isn’t to seriously illuminate that fateful night so much as to energetically add to showbiz mythology.

Turns out to be one of the most absorbing films of the year. Plus it has lots of wiener jokes.

An effective damsel-stalked-by-psycho horror tale, only more lush, as befitting any film produced by Ross Hunter. [15 Aug 1999, p.035]

Beautifully photographed and acted, with a somberly affecting tone, the film, by Derek Cianfrance, is nevertheless marred by severely contrived elements.

The final scenes, when Mancini meets Kim’s son, have the awkward feel of an “Oprah” episode, with the editing and music suggesting a catharsis that isn’t always backed up by what’s on-screen.

Bad Hair is about 10 minutes too long. You don’t salivate over Anna’s home life as much as you do her office from hell, and a few of those scenes could have been trimmed. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see horror let its hair down again.

Working from a 1982 novel set in Quebec City, director-writer Jacob Tierney provides enough thrills and surprises, even a little satire, to keep viewers' attention.

Pandaemonium plays like a bus-and-truck version of such Ken Russell's '60s classics as "The Music Lovers."

Most of Ultimate X is comprised of truly exhilarating footage of men -- and one woman -- pushing their bodies and their nerve to the edge.

Alan Taylor ("Palookaville"), an American, directs with a playful touch, and Denmark's Hjejle is far more assured acting in English here than she was in "High Fidelity."

Directors Aaron and Adam Nee’s movie sits frustratingly for two hours on the tarmac of comedy as we the angry passengers await takeoff.

If Swedish villains are this dumb, put me on the next plane to Stockholm. Just don't make me watch these idiotic movies on the flight.

The real mystery is this: Even if you find this guerrilla art project utterly fascinating, why would anyone bother to release an incomplete film about it?

Entertaining and informative, but it suffers from distracting voice-overs of what are supposed to be Madame Mao's thoughts. Too bad.

Slight but charming.

“A license to kill is also a license to not kill,” M lectures his new boss in the 24th James Bond film, Spectre. Well, it’s not a license to bore as much as this bloated drag manages to do.

De Palma fools around with split screens and slo-mo, but no amount of cinematic artifice can varnish over the fact that this is simply a bad film.

So lovingly and perceptively filmed that you can almost taste the desiccated air.

Has its moments, but overall it's depressing.

It would have been funnier at half that length.

Greenwald does nothing with the interviews, basically just posting them, one after the other, with the hope that viewers will do his job for him. The result is one-sided and bone-dry.

More than the story of a disillusioned old man, Lustre is a loving tribute to New York.

Kev Robertson's gritty camerawork and a musical soundtrack mixing hip-hop, punk and electronica add to the ambience of this impressive shoestring-budget indie.

As a one-time suburbanite now living happily in Manhattan, I can attest that Radiant City tells it like it is. The film ends with a surprise that you won't see coming and I won't spoil.

Overall, though, Paul Feig’s (“Spy”) reboot of the 1984 classic is a goofy, big-hearted romp.

A welcome change from horror movies like "Hostel' and "Saw" and their mind-numbing gore and violence.

Many diehards, in their slavish, zombie-like subservience to the MCU gods, will tell you that Sam Raimi (brilliant on the 2002 “Spider-Man”) has directed a horror movie. Lies! It’s as scary and visually arresting as “Van Helsing,” “Underworld” and “Hellboy 2.”

Lohan and Curtis are the main attractions, since “Freakier” functions mostly as a nostalgia trip for 30-something ticket-buyers who can now legally enjoy a margarita. But while massaging millennials, the movie also has a good time slinging mud at Gen Z.

An admirably realistic portrait of police life.

The film has all the incessant showiness that can make Greenaway irksome: split screens, CGI, deliberately alienating performances. But the man loves a beautiful shot and a witty line; those are the things that carry the film.

So this bourgeois-bohemian movie is, in a way, as serene in its obliviousness to the exterior world as its man-child subject. It's not essential, but it is endearing.

IF you ask me, Shane Acker's post-apocalyp tic animated film 9 is better than the live-ac tion flick "District 9." Beyond their similar titles, these sci-fi social commentaries are both expanded from shorts under the sponsorship of a world-class director.

It's a hodgepodge of subplots and wildly disparate tones that even Federico Fellini (to whose "Amarcord" Labaki also owes a debt) might have had trouble controlling.

A devastatingly straightforward chamber piece that goes straight to the heart of what this city was feeling in the days right after Sept. 11.

Commendably, Carrera steers clear of preachiness in his exploration of a timely and relevant issue, and Bernal's transformation from naive priest to tortured adulterer to hard-nosed careerist is riveting.

Seem to have spliced together two different concepts which, on paper, may have seemed complementary but wind up giving the film a schizophrenic feel.

Brutally funny documentary.

With so much junk cluttering movie houses, it is a shame that it took two years for this sweet, intelligent drama to get a release before heading for DVD.

Kill the Messenger tries to be the “JFK” of crack, but offers only shrill self-righteousness to answer the crazed energy of Oliver Stone’s masterpiece of deceit.

The sweet-faced Kelly is a lovely and humble storyteller, and her enduring affection for John, Paul, George and “Richie” is palpable.

A bit too shaggy to totally live up to the potential of its fine cast. But there are moments of comedy gold - especially as Segel, who went full-frontal for "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" endures endless humiliations as the title character.

Top performances by Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, though, make the film emotionally rich.

A labor of love, Young Rebels is essential viewing for anyone who wants to stay ahead of the hip-hop curve.

The psychobabble makes for dry filmmaking until Schreber starts going fem. From that point on, it's every man for himself.

A decent idea for an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond," The Do-Deca-Pentathlon falls short as a movie.

Wolfs, a so-called comedy written and directed by Jon Watts in which Clooney and Pitt play rival New York fixers tasked with discreetly disposing of a dead body, is a dreadful, laugh-free slog that tests the limits of what star power alone can salvage.

Dark, depressing drama.

Skarsgård is dangerous as ever here, but writer-director Dan Krauss’ drama offers very little insight into the minds of these men, and we’re left with no satisfying takeaway. It’s just one upsetting scene after another.

Bryan Cranston finally translates his critical acclaim for “Breaking Bad” into an Oscar-caliber performance in darkly comic Trumbo, playing an eloquent, witty screenwriter who bucked the Hollywood blacklist and triumphed.

A unique, priceless portrait of the now legendary leader, and of his beautiful country when it was in the grip of a disastrous civil war.

Smug, often tedious, and comically crude.

Light summer fun with a Flemish accent.

Wilde's masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, may be the best play of the 19th century. It's so good that its relentless, polished wit can withstand not only inept school productions, but even Oliver Parker's movie adaptation.

An extremely well- acted thriller that simply fails to thrill.

Uber-hip technique triumphs over substance in Reconstruction.

When you make a film out of the greatest TV show of all time, there’s bound to be a hint of disappointment. What you’re getting here is a very enjoyable mob movie that can be appreciated by anybody, but will undoubtedly be preferred by Sopranos fans. The Godfather IV it ain’t.

Making a true story of social injustice into a gripping narrative requires more imagination than is contained in this well-intentioned but uninspired effort.

Let us now praise Anna Kendrick, who is positively great in the small-scale The Last Five Years — so utterly wonderful that this adaptation of an off-Broadway musical deserves better than a token theatrical release to support its distribution via video-on-demand.

Things go awry in the last act, as the movie stops dead for more songs and a tragic coda that seems forced and trite, rather than the three-hankie finale we've all earned. Still, Cumming is wonderful.

It’s a royal chore.