Director and writer Riley Stearns’ mediocre comedy aims to be a roundhouse kick at traditional masculinity, but doesn’t manage to take it down in any deep or insightful way.

An action comedy for suburban women that's as toothless as a newborn, and nearly as stupid. It tries so hard to be cute that it practically drools on your shoulder.

Misleadingly billed as a Fallujah documentary, Occupation: Dreamland covers a six-week period when not much was happening there.

This pastiche of sitcomy episodes never gels into a plot.

Don't confuse the 18th-century Vene tian setting in Casanova with sophisti cation. The film's one-dimensional characters and lame one-liners make it a sitcom with petticoats.

District B13 looks great, but don't let those subtitles fool you. At heart, it's every bit as proudly dumb as its American counterparts.

Pleasant enough, with funny moments.

Unbroken, is a cinematic scrapbook, a collection of well-composed scenes practically cut and pasted from “Memphis Belle,” “Chariots of Fire,” “Life of Pi” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” Unlike those other films, though, Angelina Jolie’s second effort as a director is more a series of similar events than a story, and lacks an underlying message except that torture hurts.

Was Alma a masochist? Repressed? Neurotic? A pre-feminist? Don't look for insight here.

Brabbee, artistic director of the Nantucket Film Festival, is to be commended for her dedication to this project, but the film isn't hefty enough for a theatrical release. Public TV would be a better showcase.

Amusing without being particularly biting.

To put it as positively as possible, there's never a dull moment in this flick - and that's not something you can take for granted at this time of the year. At the same time, though, there's rarely a believable moment in the script.

Darkly funny (par for the course with Miike), visually stunning and full of references to other films.

Things move so swiftly and confusingly that there's little time to explore any of the people in depth. Less style and more substance is definitely called for.

Sometimes painfully sincere male weepie.

It's always enjoyable watching Depardieu and Deneuve, but they deserve better material than they've been given by Techine.

Too much of the film is given over to the soap opera of Elmer's life.

Wraps a sari around the kind of suffering-housewife picture that became a cliché 30 years ago.

The stalker-enabling menace of Facebook is largely abandoned by midpoint, and Brief Reunion won't even prompt most people to change their privacy settings.

Sporadically entertaining, occasionally quite funny.

Not entirely bereft of chuckles, though it misses one comic opportunity after another (the best jokes are in the trailer).

James Van Der Beek plays the same suspect over a 50-year period, sporting some of the worst old-age makeup in memory in the present-day sequences.

Writer-director Patrick Hasson whips up a surprising amount of fun.

You can't get much more perverse than asking Julia Roberts to wear fright wigs, do her own frumpy makeup and costumes -- and then shoot her scenes in eyeball-gougingly ugly digital video.

Robin Williams’ last live-action film, Boulevard, is a frustrating ending to a stellar career, a cramped and melancholy film about a cramped and melancholy man.

Hugh Jackman appears briefly as Sophia's Aussie boyfriend, and gets to perform a lively song-and-dance number. But for some strange reason, his name isn't in the credits.

Besson is unable to weave the comic scenes together with the serious gory ones, so both seem increasingly jarring and unbelievable.

Writer-director Todd Robinson is the victim of his own noble intentions, turning each and every moment into an ice bucket of sentiment.

Delivers an important message, and its underwater photography is breathtaking. But Stewart lessens the impact by focusing much too much on himself. Did he really have to go into detail about his own health problems? This should be a movie about sharks, not Stewart.

Since this low-grade comedy doesn't really even attempt to be funny, the purpose of the movie is to establish (or reinforce) a feeling of luxurious old-timey melancholy.

The film achieves a mild uptick in the final act, with a surprise change of heart and a race to save a little girl, but up till then it's thickly earnest -- a conquista-bore.

Johansson never looked more beautiful, nor gave a lamer performance, than in A Good Woman.

The film isn't remotely scary. That's a shame, because it has top-notch performances by Peter Mullan and David Caruso.

Combines unpleasantness and stupidity to a degree that would be difficult to match unless you were stuck in bed with a case of the shingles while being forced to watch “The Ghost Whisperer."

Nothing Cooper does is organic or authentic, and his show-off performance is always stilted. He arduously thinks through every single choice — it’s time to scream into a pillow; cue the laugh; ready, set, cry. Nobody goes to a movie to watch actors ponder their next beat. We want to feel, and his overwrought turn does not allow us to.

Pugh, a sensational actress, keeps our interest as she grows increasingly suspicious and sees disturbing visions in mirrors and on windows. She brings class and gravitas to a movie that would otherwise be kinda trashy.

The movie is no more than a TV sitcom stretched to feature length. All that's missing is the laugh track.

An earnest, well-meaning film.

The film tends to be pretentious and melodramatic; and Grant, better suited to comic roles, gives a heavy-handed performance.

At 52, Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) still looks a treat and, more important, effortlessly wields her double entendres like a Romanian Mae West.

Driven is a lot like a DeLorean: Looks great, but moves slow — if it even moves at all.

A downer that too often resorts to melodrama.

It's hard to feel anything but disappointment and boredom by the time the picture grinds to a mystical ending.

If you're going to make a documentary about Leonard Cohen, the singer-songwriter, you should have him perform some of his better-known melodies, like "Suzanne."

It has cult item stamped all over it, and fans of (severely) experimental cinema might see it as a revelation. Most others will find that watching this movie is like having your senses beaten with a rake.

Shot on ugly digital video with Troma-grade special effects, campy humor and frighteningly bad acting, Zombie Strippers should provide many laughs for stoners watching it on video.

Despite being a She-Hulk who’s seemingly impervious to physical pain, Jolie turns in her best performance in a while — arguably in over a decade. She’s relaxed, determined and maternal here, and connects well with Little, who is a big talent.

Gunning for the near-annual Ugly Makeup Oscar, Aniston proves, as always, a modestly gifted actress, only this time with scars and weedy hair.

An old-fashioned soaper that will please or not, depending on a viewer's tolerance for schmaltz.

David Gordon Green’s Joe largely succeeds in immersing us in a rural world of cruelty, ugliness, decay, neglect and aggression, but if there is a point to it all, I couldn’t find it.

The director, Queens-born Adam Watstein, who also edited and co-produced, deserves credit for making a film with modest resources.

By far the best scenes are shared by Sneider and his struggling but devoted mother, played by the seldom-seen Amanda Plummer.

Overall it's got two left feet - and charm is in dangerously short supply.

Director-writer Abe Forsythe (“Down Under”) nails a handful of funny juxtapositions, but too often leans into mean-spirited and tired yuks. As far as red flags for lameness go, fat-kid and pooping your pants jokes are, well, dead giveaways.

Despite an empowered female protagonist, manages in its own way to be as misogynous as "In the Company of Men."

The first “John Wick” was taut and nasty, a potent slug of B-movie. This one is so enamored of its own extravagance that, on more than one occasion, I was reminded of “Zoolander 2.”

An affable comedy that, unfortunately, has too many characters and subplots for its own good. The film also could do without the stereotypical character of a gay wedding planner who is supposed to be funny -- but is just embarrassing and clichéd.

Has its moments, but overall the effect is uneven.

Despite some fancy editing, Forget Baghdad is forgettable.

PAGING Pedro Almodovar! We have a movie badly in need of your help.

Alas, the complications don't arrive nearly quickly enough for the overlong and slow-paced Lucky to really cook.

If you don’t think “All About Eve” was a documentary, you’ve never dated an actor. That classic show-business paranoia is the subtext that drives Gemini Man, an action flick with a twist.

A gorgeously shot endurance test that is impossible to get through on anything less than a full night's sleep and a double shot of espresso.

Robert Zemeckis’ film “Here” is an object lesson in how to take a touching idea and make an extremely annoying movie out of it.

There is a passable 85-minute comedy in here, caked in an additional 30 minutes of flab.

This slow-moving Swedish film offers not even a hint of joy, preferring to focus on the humiliation of Martin as he defecates in bed and urinates on the plants at his own birthday party.

A touching love story that gets sidelined by a tiresome intra-family African political dispute, A United Kingdom has a big heart that beats far too slowly.

The movie is well-acted, but it's as talky as if it were written for the stage, with fatally slow pacing. Strictly for hard-core Sayles fans and maybe for lovers of American roots music.

Sure, violence in movies isn't violence in real life. And when you combine it with intelligent dialogue and pointed social commentary (a la "Django Unchained"), it can be cathartic. But The Last Stand, absent either of these things, just seems to want to gin up a lot of high-fiving for a lot of shooting, and right now is the least palatable time I can think of for that.

Begins exceptionally well. Indeed, for at least its first half it's an unusually thoughtful, admirably underplayed piece of work of disorienting, rather harsh realism that builds its mysteries in pleasurably oblique and unpredictable ways.

Writer/director Andrew Levitas needlessly pads this captivating theme with over-used tropes.

Pretty dry stuff that verges on an infomercial, despite cameo appearances by Sarah Jessica Parker and Mizrahi himself.

Occasionally works and has a handful of great moments.

Sucker-punches you. It appears to be an engagingly sweet romance, but it's really just about other movies.

Filmmakers Sam Green and Bill Siegel tend to shy from tough questions, allowing their subjects to wax nostalgic about bomb-throwing as yet another youthful folly of the '70s. That's tougher to swallow than some boomers' claims they didn't inhale.

An overdone sex comedy.

Squanders its big ideas in record time.

Young Goethe looks great, and the cast is appealing. But the story is riddled with clichés and fabrications.

You can't quarrel with the lensing and acting, but the overabundance of coincidences keeps Vivere from reaching its full potential.

Overrun with malicious goblins, a vengeance-minded pig, a fast-moving troll and a giant horned ogre, but the true source of terror is scarier than all of these combined: New York real estate prices.

This well-intentioned drama — writer/director Paul Dalio has spoken publicly about his own struggles — veers into a common pitfall of films that portray mental illness: Romanticizing it.

A cheerfully dopey snobs vs. slobs teen comedy.

Roth goes to town with this juicy part, and seems to enjoy herself immensely in this merry farce, which runs out of gas toward the end due to an over-complicated plot.

Son of a Gun, from first-time feature director Julius Avery, begins with an enticingly dark first act in jail, but descends steadily downward into a mass of clichés.

The direction is never more than conventional, with a tear-inducing finale better suited to a TV soap opera.

Dangerously low on laughs and sex, not to mention believability.

Borderline clichéd, and it makes getting a US visa seem way too easy. But I can think of much worse ways to spend an hour and a half than watching this absurdist comedy.

Andy Goddard’s feature debut is shot stylishly in black and white, but deals in themes that feel equally retro.

For one thing, it goes on too long. But it looks good, the cast is perky.

No surprises here, though the stars make it surprisingly watchable.

Starts promisingly, but Jonas Pate directs his fine cast straight into a swamp of schmaltz as every loose thread of plot gets patly resolved.

Deserves high marks for political courage but barely gets by on its artistic merits.

What’s the difference between “21 Jump Street” and 22 Jump Street? Same as the difference between getting a 21 and a 22 at blackjack.

But even that talent (Freeman) isn't enough to distract you from the general predictability of Spider or the absurdity of its elaborate last-minute plot twists.

Watching it is like being in a restaurant where the waiter brings out a luscious platter of food, then keeps walking right past you. All night long.

Waffling Disney can’t decide if it wants this thing to be a quirky and fun but unsettling movie like “Beetlejuice,” with some real guts and creativity, or another schlocky ad for a Disney World FastPass. At times Simien’s film is surprisingly dark and emotionally honest, while at others it’s kitschier than “The Country Bear Jamboree.”

Anyone who regularly watches caper flicks will likely quickly figure out what's wrong with this picture, though the twist ending is likely to be a surprise for the less jaded.

The feel-good finale -- an ending even less in doubt than that of the most predictable Hollywood fare -- is as rousing as you'd hope and the fast-paced, on-ice action is satisfyingly authentic.