A high school coming-of-age film that dares to push the envelope. It doesn't always succeed, but that's not for lack of trying.

Suffers from a lack of focus and a sitcom script.

If the poor really interested such filmmakers, these movies would have something to offer other than lugubriousness masquerading as seriousness, and clichés presented as hard truths.

Without an exceptionally skilled director of actors (such as Cameron Crowe), Cruise can’t dial up much emotion, so the two love interests for his character are two more than he can convincingly handle. He may be at home in the cockpit of a killing machine, but when it comes to displaying his humanity, he’s no Wall-E.

Moretz, meanwhile, acts like Little Red Riding Hood talking to her conspicuously hairy grandma — impossibly naive, and therefore dull and unbelievable. She’s a solid actress, but she shines best in indies or in parts with real edge. Greta is a camp-fest.

File this one in the same category of edgy Long Island comedies as the equally smart 2009 Alec Baldwin film "Lymelife."

It's ragged, and at times it scrapes your comedy ganglia like a cheese grater. But 15 minutes or half an hour is an ideal chunk of time to set aside for truly inspired absurdism.

Draft Day is lumbering and predictable, and its hero general manager is so dumb it should have been called “Dummyball.”

Stewart’s restrained performance is affecting, the film seems well-researched about what it’s like to try to deal with Gitmo detainees who throw their own feces, and it isn’t as tendentious as the average Hollywood take on the subject.

Amateurish in the extreme, the film is a feast of bohemian cliché, bad writing and worse acting.

Watching Meryl Streep act can be an exhausting experience - and never more so than during Music of the Heart.

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.

Impressively, however, director Elizabeth Banks keeps the powder gags fresh throughout, as the mammal maims her way through a Southern forest preserve. The movie about blow never blows.

Admirable for venturing into very dark places rarely glimpsed in big-studio comedies.

The film plays like one long commercial. The music's cool, but you're better off buying the CD.

Essentially amounts to an extended interview with a psycho, fleshed out with background material that, while suitably shocking, is not always illuminating or even frank. The film is curiously shy about calling Varg what he is: a Nazi.

Musician Bones is believable as the luckless tourist in lime-green shades, and the musical soundtrack, including songs by Bones, is infectious.

Katie Aselton has achieved the seemingly impossible. She's turned a movie about sex into a boring, talky snooze.

This entertaining and handsome-looking version of The Magnificent Seven is very much tailored to his star, right down to Washington’s real-life history as a preacher’s son.

Only sporadically amusing. (review of re-release)

Small Time has its heart in the right place, but its screenplay’s in serious need of a tuneup.

Corddry leads a game cast, but the film is rough around the edges...It would play better as a TV sketch.

Despite the lacking wrap-up, “Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is, like most of the “Hunger Games” films, a well-made dystopian yarn that’s better acted than it needs to be.

A couple of grand, intriguing ideas does not a movie make. Say it with me, folks: It’s the little things.

It may not have songs by ABBA, but Bran Nue Dae is roughly Australia's far less elaborate answer to "Mamma Mia!" -- a cheerful and proudly corny musical that's pretty hard to resist if you're in the right frame of mind.

Easily one of the most enjoyable big-budget Hollywood movies to come along in a while, Rock Star is an unexpected pleasure.

Dazzling fun. Jerry is master of a new domain.

An unsatisfying biopic.

Anne Coesens, wife of the film's director, Olivier Masset-Depasse, gives a strong performance as Tania.

Camp often means a lack of feeling and generalized disdain; not so in Spork, which has as much heart as "Sixteen Candles."

For those with a high tolerance for violence, Asssault on Precinct 13 is a thriller that actually thrills.

Its young director, however, has a considerable flair for surprise and visual gusto, and he even, on a shoestring, delivers sharp-looking special effects.

Only mildly diverting and way too long for a movie aimed at kids.

Subtlety is kicked to the curb in favor of volcanic drama, and nary a moment goes by without some screaming or an inspiring message.

The acting is solid, especially Whaley, whose nasty variation on Norman Bates is his showiest role since he memorably played Kevin Bacon's assistant in "Swimming With Sharks."

As blissfully simple as James Cameron’s original “Terminator” framework was, “Dark Fate” has a tendency to toss in unnecessary confusions.

Initially, this low-budget film writes a lot of checks on the First National Bank of Whimsy, but I was astonished when none of them bounced.

Minus its smirky twist ending, it’d make perfect material for New York’s new “That’s Abuse” domestic violence awareness campaign.

This unlikely micro-budgeted project is written and directed by Marianna Palka, who also plays the female lead. The guy is portrayed by her real-life boyfriend, Jason Ritter (son of the late John). Their performances are quite remarkable and their chemistry is palpable, even if Good Dick is primarily intended for more adventurous moviegoers.

Though it contains some very funny, cleverly written comic sketches, Human Traffic shares with other drug movies the problem that watching other people on drugs is not interesting.

Entertaining, if maddeningly superficial.

Nasty but compulsively watchable.

An alarmingly unfunny French comedy where the two main characters are constantly yakking on a cell phone at an airport.

Diva du jour Beyoncé Knowles may be the draw, but the real star of The Fighting Temptations is the sensational gospel soundtrack.

The Notebook is well worth the risk of diabetic shock for the sake of superb acting that transcends its teary milieu.

A superficial documentary based on a best-selling book by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons -- which is being released just before the ex-president's memoir hits the bookstores.

Even with a cast this lovable, The Dead Don’t Die falls short of the killer zom-com it could have been.

Infuriating, but not for the reason filmmakers want it to be.

The movie is as lumpy and misshapen as a giant booger.

The opening credits of Gangster's Paradise note that it was "inspired by real events." It would be more accurate to say that the film was inspired by Brian De Palma's "Scarface" and similar fare.

It must have sounded great on paper.

Here's the thing: Found footage is scary when - because - it leaves you to fill in a lot of the blanks yourself. But actually watching whole families have terrible things done to them - well, hard-core horror fans may dig it, I guess. I'd call it forced voyeurism of the worst sort.

More like Disney's "Sleeping Beauty," somber, slow and elegant instead of frantic and dazzling.

Depp's nonsense-spouting Mad Hatter, decked out in a red fright wig and possibly more makeup than Michael Jackson, is an unlikely resistance leader.

Too often content to smile beatifically instead of delivering the necessary thrills.

Yet despite the efforts of an excellent cast headed by three top comedy names -- Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black -- and tons of beautiful scenery (mostly British Columbia and the Canadian Yukon), this movie stubbornly refuses to take flight, or generate more than a few chuckles.

It Ends With Us is, despite its failings and indulgences, a highly emotional and absorbing couple of hours.

Beowulf & Grendel has its moments, as well as its debits. Among the later is the grating Canadian accent of Sarah Polley, who plays a witch named Selma.

The Artist’s Wife can, at times, come off as a collage of other, better movies.

Justin Timberlake shows that he can do more as an actor than just take his shirt off - though he does that a lot as well - in the irresponsible, uncommercial but surprisingly watchable Alpha Dog.

Ronan has a flair for visuals, no doubt about it. And I liked looking at them. The trouble is his slideshow of impressive landscapes and environments evokes nothing deeper and, actually, is a roadblock to character development and story momentum. Scenic detours.

Prisoners of the Ghostland is equal parts visual delight and narrative head-scratcher. Most of all, it’s a hefty dose of Nicolas Cage set to full-tilt gonzo.

Occasionally there is a striking image or a moment of wounded sweetness, but mainly the film provides ample proof that it's possible to be bizarre and boring at the same time.

Basically a feature-length rock video from Germany with appealing performers, decently written characters, a killer score, and an interesting premise.

A too-cute-by-half Irish romantic comedy that's overloaded with movie references that begin with the title.

Interestingly for an Israeli movie, the bombers are not Palestinians -- they're young, ultra-Orthodox fanatics.

Chop Suey is, in the end, as much a tease as Weber's photographs -- not much substance, but rather sweet and with style to burn.

Recycles every cliché of the genre to sleep-inducing effect.

An ugly-looking mismash of a fairytale.

What makes The Blind Side a Thanksgiving treat is director Hancock's subtle touch and admirable refusal to yield to sports movie clichés, something he did previously with "The Rookie" and "Remember the Titans."

It’s basically a narrative spin on Alex Gibney’s 2013 documentary “The Armstrong Lie,” only with less cycling footage. This is a plus for those of us easily bored by such things (so many interchangeable mountain passes and neon jerseys!), but there isn’t a ton of new material here.

You'd think it would be hard to make an uninteresting movie based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton... But the terminally bland Soul Surfer comes perilously close.

Pineda is lovely, but I stopped believin’ in this documentary long before it was over.

By the end of this derivative, heartless mess, you’ll conclude that a garbage dump is exactly where writer-producer James Cameron’s new project belongs.

Overall, it’s engaging and serves its young audience well — a rare Holocaust movie that doesn’t strain to become Oscar bait.

The movie is a pleasant way to spend time in the dark, especially for Francophiles, but it won't leave any lasting impression.

A well-written and in many ways pleasing update of a character who has endured in print for 78 years. Too bad it's sadly slow-paced.

Everything uniquely special and hilarious about the 1984 fish-out-of-water hit is gone, replaced by commodity streaming mush that looks like every other ho-hum action-comedy right now.

Chop up the film’s segments, replay them in any order, and things would make no more or less sense.

The movie approaches the final scene with a straight face, but it left the audience giggling spasmodically. This script probably should have gone all the way and thrown in a few quips: If your movie is a joke, at least be intentionally funny.

Irrational Man is so clumsily staged and lethargically paced that it makes such clunkers as “Small Time Crooks” and “Cassandra’s Dream” look like minor classics.

This new movie features stylishly filmed and choreographed battles. But in between the set pieces is a lot of sentimental blather that slows down the film. More action, less talk should be the order of the day, but it isn't.

Feels like it was written and directed by an audience focus group in Omaha?

Has an awful title, a bland hero and a predictable story - but it also has a nice blast of English atmosphere.

Would be solid family entertainment if it weren't for the funereal pacing, which may kill its appeal among young audiences.

Amenta draws from the diary that Rita kept in the nine months before her death in 1991, interviews with survivors and news footage to tell a riveting and inspiring story right out of "The Godfather."

A very elegant and fit-looking Omar Sharif appears as the on-screen narrator and Kate Maberly ("The Secret Garden") plays his granddaughter in a framing story.

The Promise employs laughable computer effects and second-rate martial-arts fighting to tell the hard-to-figure story of a princess and her three lovers.

Although director J.J. Abrams tries his darndest to finish the job, conjuring up nostalgia like a TV medium, “Rise” doesn’t feel like the last chapter of the biggest American movie franchise. It’s just another well-made “Star Wars” flick.

A thoroughly enjoyable caper that doesn’t outstay its welcome.

An impressive experimental movie, is practically a one-man show by Yasuaki Nakajima.

It's a sly, low-key comedy in which he casts himself as a neurotic, self-absorbed curmudgeon.

The real coup de grace for this would-be serious-minded drama is the sledgehammer-subtle direction of Paul Weitz (who is also the screenwriter), who enabled his star's paycheck mugging in the execrable "Little Fockers."

A smug, deliberately convoluted mix tape of Tarantino, the Coen brothers, Guy Ritchie and Hitchcock with (mostly) a cast to die for, Lucky Number Slevin is great fun for, say, 20 minutes.

Gil Kofman has an interesting and funny story to tell in his documentary Unmade in China. Too bad he spends more time talking about himself than detailing his misadventures in Xiamen, China, population 3.67 million.

The paranoia is as thick and luscious as that Reddi-wip, and it's served from both left and right.

If it’s possible to make a morally old-fashioned film about teen orgies, writer-director Eva Husson has done so with Bang Gang, a quietly chilling look at the sex lives of a group of bored high-school students.

Annabelle Comes Home is so low stakes it’s barely a movie — more like a very special “Brady Bunch” episode in hell.