A lavishly mounted blockbuster that has little personality of its own except on a purely visual level.

The result is no masterpiece, but neither is it a disaster. In its steady great-books way, the film is often truthful and moving.

In the skilled hands of Cusack - who recites quite a bit of Poe's poetry - and director John McTeigue ("V for Vendetta''), it's good pulpy fun.

It’s an intimate film that moves at the deliberate, careful pace of an excavation and, in so doing, uncovers a few gems along the way.

Though the film, based on a Ron Rash novel, doesn’t quite deliver on all its grim portents, debut director David Burris creates a neo-Faulknerian atmosphere of indelible sin in a story that rises above cliché. As Wyle’s character puts it, “The South was never one thing.”

Viewers are either going to walk out after 10 minutes or, like this tolerant critic, get caught up in the sordid lives of the three misfits and stick around for the ambiguous ending.

It’s a brief movie, and perhaps all that preamble is meant to justify the ticket price. The best advice is to walk in about 25 minutes after the lights go down. You’ll still get all the laughs, and you won’t have to hear about Hart’s YouTube hits.

Documents the Nixon administration's failed, almost comically inept attempt to deport the most political of The Beatles and his wife, Yoko Ono. Given the latter's cooperation with the filmmakers, it comes as no surprise the Lennons come off as saints.

Though it preserves the terrific lead performance of Richard Griffiths - best known to film audiences as Harry Potter's evil stepfather - The History Boys is essentially filmed theater, with minimal, and usually clumsy, attempts to take the action out of the classroom.

Here’s some perfectly mindless couch viewing.

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.

Director Roland Suso Richter maintains tension for 2 1/2 hours, even though the resolution is almost surreal.

The simple, highly effective gimmick of this straightforward shocker is a malevolent clawed spectre named Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey), who only appears in the dark.

Though dated and unsophisticated compared to the much cooler Bourne spy thrillers, M:i:III will probably hit the sweet spot at the box-office - and give Cruise a whole new reason to start jumping on couches.

Phoenix gives an electric performance as amoral Army supply clerk Ray Elwood.

Petty larceny - but Allen's fans won't want to miss this lowbrow caper.

Though both Tierney and Bomer’s characters also veer into stereotype — her uptight disapproval, his sassiness — writer-director Timothy McNeil still crafts a fairly moving tribute to the notion, as Lin-Manuel Miranda once put it, that “love is love is love.”

Adequately funny but predictable sitcom

Private Life gives us an intrusive and often funny look into a couple’s struggle to conceive. If only director Tamara Jenkins’ dramedy stayed as grounded as its relatable premise.

Isn't perfect, but it's light years ahead of "Ong-Bak."

Lacking quite the zip and zing of "Run Lola Run," this lively indie tale of a drug deal gone awry could be alternately titled "Walk Fast Bobby Walk Fast."

Contains all the clichés of the post-prison genre -- but it has some redeeming qualities.

A rare film that depicts a skinny male in a relationship with a plus-size woman. And, small wonder, Brittain's sweet charisma makes her the most lovable big woman on screen since Lynn Redgrave in "Georgy Girl."

Often charming and funny, though sometimes quite gross.

The filmmakers' smug Bay Area bigotry is all too obvious in gratuitous, mocking swipes at Heidi's Southern background.

An Aquaman sequel is reportedly in the works. The series already has a strong leading man and a feel for an epic. The filmmakers just need to find the heart of their ocean.

A Royal Affair is basically a good-looking set of historical Cliffs Notes. There, is however, one excellent reason to see it: Folsgaard, who by the end has made his betrayed and bereft Christian into a figure of genuine tragedy.

Mostly a routine love story elevated by one of the year’s most magnetic performances.

Tina Fey is adorable as a gulag guard who yearns to sing, but even better is Ty Burrell as a Clouseau-like Interpol inspector.

This only mildly bloated and convoluted action comedy has enough inspired moments to wipe out memories of the abysmal 2002 first sequel as surely as one of the black-suited heroes' neutralizer.

It busts the credibility meter early on, quickly becomes preposterous, and then really lets its imagination rip.

The kind of unsophisticated family entertainment they supposedly don't make anymore.

In a movie season - and a month - filled with so much gunfire, bloodshed and human despair, it's refreshing to sit back and bask in the sheer joy with which these brightly costumed, stunningly agile performers navigate fire, water and air.

The result is, alas, competent but unexceptional.

Buscemi is appealing as always, but the movie, is only sporadically funny.

The transition from the DreamWorks CGI version from 2010, one of the best family flicks in years, to real human actors is thankfully smoother and not as off-putting as most of Disney’s recent, pitiful princess efforts.

A relentlessly grim, rather heavy-handed drama of family dysfunction.

While some of this white guy's humor is juvenile and in questionable taste, Hoch, for the most part, is able to pull it off and supply a frequent number of laughs.

Twohy serves up a hard-to-swallow second-act twist and an unconvincing back story, but the slightly overlong A Perfect Getaway recovers with a pulse-pounding climax.

The conclusion feels too good-natured after nearly two hours of a minister who would need typed instructions to butter a baguette.

Far from perfect, but it holds your interest as a character study because of strong performances by Daniels and Stone.

Doesn't live up to the promise of its trailers.

As in Allen's films, the extensive shooting -- mostly at locations in and around Central Park -- takes place in a whitebread world where the only person of color is Rosemary's nanny.

There's nothing particularly startling or new in the script by Siegel and his co-writers Lisa Bazadona and Grace Woodard - except that it, refreshingly, draws its characters in real-life shades of gray.

Basically a PG-13 version of “After Hours,” with more than a bit of “The Out-of-Towners” thrown in.

It is engrossing, even funny at times, but it is a bit too jagged in execution to properly build to its tragic climax.

An appropriately respectful and dignified biopic.

The wry situational humor leaves less of an impression than the near-perfect sense of the heat-drenched wistfulness of summer.

Takes you on a fascinating and picturesque journey into a relatively unfamiliar culture.

It's a shame that, after nearly 40 years of writing about rock, Cameron Crowe is receptive to the clichés of the genre.

Jane's friendship with Sadie is the one thing that cuts through the numbness - though the film's so low-key, even emotional revelations feel pretty muted.

Well-meaning but flawed drama.

This promising premise is turned into basically an overgrown TV movie.

If you can overlook Andie MacDowell's Mitteleuropa accent as a Jewish Holocaust survivor (I know: big if), the cinematic roman a clef Mighty Fine has some quiet charms.

The sort of movie where all of the best jokes are in the trailer, but these days a romantic comedy with anything worth quoting at all is something of an accomplishment.

The battlefield sequences unfold with surreal horror, while the human bonding in the foxholes emerges tenderly. On the downside, Bauer - who makes no pretense about where his heart lies - tacks on a melodramatic coda that lessens the momentum of an otherwise praiseworthy film.

Its plot and political symbolism manage to be both over-familiar and confusingly muddled.

Elegantly photographed family saga that brims with period detail. Unfortunately, the underlying story is less than compelling,

The chief attraction in the overlong 20 Centimeters, besides ample soft-core sex, are the well-staged musical numbers.

Suffers from an air of frosty detachment and a disappointingly stiff performance from Jagger, who also provides an unnecessary voice-over narration.

A refreshingly unpretentious little thriller.

A reasonably entertaining cartoon feature.

If you're old enough to pluck gray hairs, you may find yourself rubbing away a few tears.

Although it has affecting moments, the film can't quite decide whether it's about aging or about the effects of war on the home front.

Without question, the follow-up isn’t as hilarious as the original. Who honestly expected it to be? And a good 20 minutes could have been trimmed. But “2” is warm and comfortable, features another untethered performance from Sandler that only he can give, and is less lazy than I feared.

The conclusion is that in this bare-chested band of brothers, what really matters is camaraderie. "Having friends," remembers one guy, "that was the best part." As he says this, the décor behind him features a pair of handcuffs.

Director Andy Goddard’s film is far too aware of its subject’s peculiarity, and every frame knows full well that something is a bit off.

Sometimes it’s refreshing when a movie is just an improper noun that delivers what it promises.

It goes down as smoothly as a milkshake thanks to an impressive cast.

It's the chemistry between the Arquettes (they met on the first film and married after the second) and their rapport with Campbell that sustains Scream 3 through its overly convoluted plot.

Slight but consistently entertaining.

The best scene centers on neither Latifah nor Martin. Rather, it's the venerable Plowright delivering an a capella rendition of the slave spiritual "Is Massa Gonna Sell Me Tomorrow?"

A witty and quietly charming road comedy.

Mumblecore founding father Joe Swanberg is back with this amiable off-season tale of Chicago millennials and their dissatisfactions. It offers his characteristic you-are-there visuals, rackety sound and meandering dialogue, often with appealing results.

The gleeful teen-horror spoof that proves that the Farrelly brothers have no monopoly on outrageous, politically incorrect comedy.

The element that really makes it work — when it does, which is not always — is Edward James Olmos, playing to perfection a weary retired police detective.

It examines other crises faced by JFK - Cuba, the Berlin Wall, civil war in Laos, the insurgency in Vietnam - and finds that in each case Kennedy chose talk over tanks. (Often, he went against advice of aides and generals.)

It may fall into some conventional paces as a triumph-over-adversity story, but Desert Dancer does manage to movingly convey the chilling, ultimately triumphant experience of Ghaffarian’s struggle for creative expression under a regime that tried to crush it.

The so-so story aside, like the previous three movies and most of DreamWorks’ catalog, this iteration of “Panda” appealingly wears its heart on its paw. And that’s sufficient reason for families to choose it over a lot of other animated schlock out there.

This film is best when arguing that drugs should be treated as a multibillion-dollar commodity business in need of regulation, and not as a moral failing.

The nearly two preceding hours often feel like three, as the patchwork script keeps introducing characters and subplots and dropping them, all while rushing characters through eye-popping environments.

Take "Thelma & Louise," throw in hot girl-girl sex and you have Gasoline, a flammable import from Italy directed by Monica Stambrini.

Quiet, sober and tense, the movie makes some interesting points -- contrasting the frenzied hookups of the two men with the butcher's rote, dismal lovemaking with his wife as their bodies are carefully hidden under sheets -- but it lacks the emotional firepower of "Brokeback Mountain."

Doesn't have as much behind-the-scenes juice as you'd hope.

An honorable, sober but completely unnecessary take on the Dickens novel, Great Expectations serves as a fine introduction to the story but won’t excite those familiar with previous versions.

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.

Bland, occasionally funny.

An odd, unexpectedly interesting little movie.

Fascinatingly, many of the interviewees disagree vehemently about Holmes' personality: some of his co-stars and colleagues found him repellently abusive and selfish.

Scott and Balinska are capable, but bland. The actress who gets most in the oversize spirit of the occasion is Stewart, showing more personality and comic chops than she has before.

As for Baron Cohen, he's a great comic but his acting can still use work - most of his funniest lines appear to have been dubbed over other actors' reaction shots in post-production.

While the Kassen brothers do an impressive job for newcomers -- the film looks great and performances are uniformly solid -- there's some overly blunt dialogue and dead-end subplots that would have been pruned by more experienced filmmakers.

It's not to say that the adolescent humor isn't funny; some of it is hilarious. It's just that this movie lacks the overarching comic sensibility that made "Mary" and even Adam Sandler comedies like "Happy Gilmore" and "The Waterboy" so satisfying.

Cusack shows that he can still play the sensitive-but-fun guy until the ladies sigh and the men take notes.

Lightweight but enjoyable entertainment.

But given the potentially gripping subject matter, the film is fatally underedited: Every scene feels too long.

A tightly drawn, propulsive thriller with some pleasingly unexpected kinks in the tale and a couple of believable performances from Charlize Theron and Kevin Bacon in the leads.

When it was first performed in theaters a couple of years after the L.A. riots took place, Twilight: Los Angeles must have been very powerful. Unfortunately, director Mark Levin's filmed version lacks that impact.