If you’re looking for a poverty-porn fix, Donnybrook ought to hit the spot. If not, you’ll likely find this a pointless exercise in gratuitous violence that imagines itself deep because it’s got an opera-heavy score.

Most of the dialogue is in English, almost all of the story takes place in the U.S., and there is none of the kitschy fun that gives Bollywood flicks their charm.

The kind of sentimental, upbeat and inoffensive children's entertainment parents always hope their kids will like.

It too often looks and feels like a high-concept home movie, thanks to cinematography that's crude and ugly even by the standards of documentary video. But Group is also a remarkably believable piece of improvised theater.

The performances are more than serviceable and The Fluffer is well-paced and engaging until the flaccid climax.

Absurdity has a new name: Flightplan.

A sharp comedy as well as a punk-pulp spree. Don't go if you can't handle Brit slang. ("Grass" = informer.)

Slow and predictable, and the characters are so poorly written that its hard to react to them in any way.

If you think you've seen Imaginary Heroes before, you're right -- only it was called "The Ice Storm," or maybe "Ordinary People."

Completely lacking in imagination and purpose, this vanity project might suffice as a home movie, but it's hardly worth the expense and bother of seeing it in a theater.

A couple of heavyweight actors — Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy — get top billing, but this British drama belongs to young Eloise Laurence, memorable as Skunk, the diabetic daughter of Roth’s kindly solicitor.

Massoud and Scott make a live-action “Aladdin” succeed on a different level than a cartoon can — as a teary romance. “A Whole New World” is more moving than the original.

Dame Maggie is simply delightful (has she ever been less than wonderful?).

A supernatural horror-comedy that's frighteningly lacking in wit, John Dies at the End thinks it's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for dudes. But in its randomness, its vulgarity and its level of humor, it's more like the collected writings on the walls of a roadside men's room.

Allah made me funny - not.

That idea was fun once, maybe even twice, but by the fifth outing the formula has given way to preachiness and predictability.

Emancipation, which is an otherwise well-tread period drama about the horrors of slavery, features more of Smith’s rich emotionality and laser-focused intensity that he’s uncovered late in his career and that won him the Oscar for last year’s “King Richard.”

Ma is a much more enjoyable ride than the even more preposterous “Greta,” which got lost in undeserved self-seriousness.

Can't overcome the familiar, soapy script.

Perabo gives a fairly impressive and flashy performance, even when the script descends into melodrama.

Twinkles and glows, but all the surface razzle-dazzle fails to mask the emptiness at its core.

Nair makes Vanity Fair an elegant showcase for an unforgettable heroine.

Initially shows promise, but filmmaker Frank Cappello (the early Russell Crowe vehicle "No Way Back") gets bogged down when Slater becomes involved with Elisa Cuthbert, a paraplegic survivor of the shooting who wants him to kill her.

In this season of self-important filmmaking, it's nice to watch a movie that entertains while refusing to take itself too seriously.

An entertaining, well-made plea for tolerance told from the point of view of a 12-year-old.

For a film with the nuance of a nuke, Palmer’s by-the-numbers journey nods along like elevator music.

If you’re willing to overlook some monstrously big plot holes and logic gaps, this half-animated Chinese blockbuster is an agreeably bonkers, occasionally disturbing cinematic ride.

Solondz beats on abortion defenders, stomps on the pro-life crowd and finishes up by telling us there is no free will. If you want some easy laughs tonight you'd be better off curling up with some Kierkegaard.

Overlong and heavy-handed.

The film is one-sided and at times unfocused, but it makes a lot of sense politically.

What was great fun before is mostly mopey and depressing now. A hunk, a hunk of burning IP.

Après Vous arranges for a normal guy to get stuck with a blithering wreck. But whenever things threaten to get really silly, it pulls back.

If director Tanya Wexler occasionally wanders into excess cutesiness...she makes up for it with a surplus of eye-opening historical details and a refreshing warmth for all her characters, even the ones whose views are clearly on the way out.

Has the kind of soulful subject matter that will strike some as profoundly emotional, but it gets a flag for roughing the tear ducts. This isn't football - it's cornball.

Sam Rockwell's films are almost always worth watching be cause of this indie stalwart's taste in offbeat projects -- and his refusal to play to the audience's sympathy.

Earthwork is best left to TV.

The eye-popping and entertaining The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader offers a merry seafaring jaunt together with plenty of adventures led by magically empowered kids.

A lazy, noisy ADHD-addled collection of animated clichés guaranteed to give anyone older than 5 a headache, even if you don’t see it in optional 3-D.

Rendering the life of young Abraham Lincoln as a tone poem, The Better Angels sags under the weight of its own resolute earnestness.

The Amazing Spider-Man is more like an old Xerox copy: Greasy, paper-thin, slightly faded, and probably made unnecessarily, but in any case destined to get lost in a pile of things exactly like it.

Enemy at the Gates, is no "Saving Private Ryan" - but thrilling, bravura stretches make it consistently entertaining, if less than profound, filmmaking.

Obviously a labor of love for all involved, including GOP mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg, who bankrolled the production and receives full producer credit. He deserves it.

An engaging, bittersweet tale.

Predictable and uninspired romantic drama fizzles like a wet squib.

Toothless, unbelievable and not particularly funny, New Suit is no threat to "The Player," "Swimming With Sharks" or "The Big Picture," to name but three more interesting pictures in this inside-baseball genre.

A melodramatic import from Algeria, is so relevant in this age of global terrorism, it's a shame it isn't much better.

Shamelessly press viewers' emotional buttons. But the film is so well-made and the performances so accomplished that it doesn't matter.

The story doesn't break any new ground, but the movie has energy.

Men are pigs! Women are psychos! One-percenters have it coming! Pick your moral in this nasty, single-setting thriller that’s ultimately quite tame by the standards of torture-porn director Eli Roth (“The Green Inferno”).

Moves at a poky pace even by American indie standards. But it's worth checking out for the fine cast, which also includes Joanna Lumley as Rossellini's earthy pal, and scene-stealing Doreen Mantle as her tart-tongued but wise mother.

How cheap-looking is the modern-day romantic tragedy Private Romeo? Take a couple of friends to see it, and the amount you spend may exceed the amount the filmmakers did.

Beyond Outrage fails to live up to its title as Japanese superstar Takeshi Kitano can’t find much in the way of fresh ideas for the genre.

The screen version's Drama Club dorkiness is going to ruin the Rent brand of alleged downtown cool for everyone. If anything can re-shevel the disheveled multitudes of Alphabet City and chase the hipsters into pleated khakis and sweater sets, it's this film.

Cage is amusing though, and exemplifies the old stage wisdom “if you’re having fun, they’re having fun.” However, that’s the biggest problem for Renfield: Whenever Cage leaves the frame, which is often, we immediately stop having fun — as if Dracula commanded us to.

Free State of Jones is enticingly difficult to chart. It’s anti-war, anti-plutocracy and anti-racist, but it’s also pro-Bible, pro-gun, anti-tax and sympathetic to the poor whites who usually get tagged as racist. Its hero is an avowed Republican named Newt.

As Popper himself notices, his and the penguins' saga gets so endearing that it could have been narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Too bad nearly half the film is about DeLuca, who has an irritating Freddie Mercury wail and is both obnoxious ("We'll play downstairs after midnight or we won't play at all") and moronic.

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

Most of the interviews are as brief as they are obvious, and it doesn't help that none of those interviewees, including clergymen who served as technical advisers, are identified.

Disturbing but very watchable noir.

This familiar scenario works because of well-written and acted characters. The disciplined direction is by Peter Cattaneo, who tackled somewhat similar material in "The Full Monty" a decade ago.

Long-winded and often over-the-top Italian soap opera about a neurotic, middle-class Roman family.

Where "Bridesmaids" tackled the subject of weddings and wrestled it in Jell-O, Bachelorette just kicks it right in the crotch.

The single theme is “Isn’t this cool?” And if your response is, “Well, it’s certainly loud,” then On Any Sunday probably isn’t for you.

But on evidence of the likable but draggy and awfully thin Muppets from Space, Kermit & Co. are showing their age. Miss Piggy is about five years away from Norma Desmondhood, and Kermit is ready for his pipe and cardigan, Mr. DeMille. [14 July 1999, p.048]

The clever screenplay, co-written by director Kelly Asbury (who co-helmed "Shrek 2"), follows the DreamWorks template of combining pop culture references, sight gags and action for the kids, and more sophisticated humor for adults.

Devil, make a better movie.

The film as a whole goes from intriguing to irritating.

A raunchy, often hilarious satire from the Judd Apatow stable that lacks any real bite.

If you like Charli xcx’s songs and find her to be a unique and uncompromising presence in the often airbrushed world of pop, you’ll appreciate moments of “The Moment.” But that’s it. This is not a fully formed movie. At best, it’s a moderately intriguing pitch.

The Pretty One does find a handful of genuinely sweet moments in which Basel and Laurel bond on letting their respective freak flags fly. Like the film itself, Kazan is at her best when she’s not trying so hard to be cute.

The movie is smartly paced, and Sprouse (“Riverdale”) and Richardson make for one of the more adorable pairs in recent films. You not only want what’s best for them, but believe it can actually happen.

The film's leisurely pace and abstract format isn't meant for the multiplex crowd, but rather for adventurous moviegoers. It took guts to make Khadak and to give it a theatrical release. It might take even more guts to seek it out.

Proves, if anything, that sappy feel-good movies aren't restricted to Hollywood.

Being obvious nostalgia bait for children of the ’90s, director Rob Letterman’s film has no right to be as good or well-crafted as it is. The plot takes major twists that come as legitimate surprises, and seeing those old cartoon characters plopped into our world rendered in CGI is enormously satisfying.

O'Grady is very good, but she can't make the hard-to-watch Rid of Me dramatically credible.

Cheap, ignorant, tone-deaf and condescending, but what's strangest about it is that it actually thinks it's pro-soldier even as it portrays vets home on leave as foolish (Rachel McAdams), desperate (Tim Robbins) and dishonorable (Michael Pena) while playing all three situations for laughs.

The film’s cool-looking desaturated look (not unlike “The Road”), plentiful action and Washington’s charismatic gravitas as the taciturn hero make it relatively easy to overlook the pretensions and implausibilities in the script.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia has it all - unfortunately. With four major story lines and more endings than "The Return of the King," this ambitious 165-minute epic is the movie equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Basilone’s movie becomes an intriguing puzzle that frequently bugs you, but you’re nonetheless determined to make it to the end.

Though the performances are uniformly good -- Adams is a standout -- the movie plays like one long, meandering sketch inspired by the works of John Waters and Todd Solondz, rather than a fully developed story.

Exceptionally intelligent and powerful contemporary adaptation.

The spaniel-eyed Jean Reno ("Ronin") infuses Hubert with a mixture of deadpan cool, wry humor and just the measure of tenderness required to give this comic slugfest some heart.

So eyeball-gougingly awful that you're tempted to give up movies for Lent.

Every once in a while the old-fashioned costume drama comes alive, only to sink again into run-of-the-mill special effects and long periods of talkative tedium.

Ultimately has a somewhat unfinished quality that complements the movie's themes -- and Hall's haunting performance.

Beautifully shot and well-meant -- but fairly snoozy.

There's no way to put this gently: Watching people slam their heels and toes on the boards while drifting around the floor is about as fascinating as watching the carousel rotation in your favorite microwave oven.

The kind of movie that cries out for the fast-forward button.

Tommy Riley is a ten-cent "Baby."

The best drag movie since "Vegas in Space." That's hardly a huge recommendation.

A cut above what you'd expect from the spinoff of a sequel.

Even at a cramped and frenetic 82 minutes, the movie feels long. That’s what happens when the audience can guess everything that’s going to happen in advance.

One reason it rings true is because the script is based on Gaglia's real experiences.

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.

Big Game is goofy fun, whether Jackson is rolling down a hill in a freezer, the kid is trying to stop a bazooka with an arrow, or we’re witnessing other stunts that are just too preposterous to describe.

Washington and Zendaya, freed from lockdown, dig into the dialogue with zest, and they’ve got a palpable chemistry even in the midst of some horribly hurtful exchanges.

A sweet and endearing movie. Attention, kids: It's also packed with action!