Directed by Maria Schrader, the film that’s part of one of the most reliably galvanizing genres — newspaper reporters doggedly chasing down a tough story — is a disappointing, sleepy metronome with made-for-TV diminutiveness.

As an exploration of post-traumatic stress disorder in US war veterans, the psychological thriller Jacob’s Ladder was ripe for an update. As a piece of enjoyable ’90s shock schlock, it maybe should have just stayed where it was.

Terrific performances by Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth as a comic duo clearly modeled on Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin get swallowed up in Atom Egoyan's muddled murder mystery.

Graham Greene's guilt-and-gangsters tale "Brighton Rock" gets an even more melodramatic telling than in the 1947 film version courtesy of first-time director Rowan Joffe, whose histrionic adaptation screams "student film" with practically every frame.

The Batman is the first caped crusader adventure in a while to come off as completely purposeless. Christopher Nolan’s movies reframed the comics as realistic, psychologically complex tales of an urban blight, and Affleck’s Bruce was built to fit into a wider DC universe. The Batman is here just to ensure that Marvel has box office competition.

A ho-hummer of a "Speed" knockoff that will leave most audiences cold.

In their overly earnest attempt to flesh Sendak’s story out to 100 minutes, Jonze and his co-screenwriter, novelist Dave Eggers, have laboriously spelled out motivations (divorce is bad!), elaborated back stories -- and added reams of less-than-inspired dialogue.

Divergent is a clumsy, humorless and shamelessly derivative sci-fi thriller set in a generically dystopian future.

So strenuously inoffensive it makes Disney's "High School Musical" look almost racy by comparison.

Could have been written by a computer programmed to cannibalize previous sci-fi films.

It certainly has its moments (erotic and otherwise), but there just aren't enough of them.

First-time director Christopher Neil (a Coppola cousin) scores points for scenery: The treks in the Arizona desert are shot beautifully - as is Duchovny's chiseled, oft-naked bod.

Long on heart if short on surprises, Big Stone Gap is an easygoing visit to small-town America.

Although Scary Movie 3 boasts the same relaxed attitude to racial and sexual humor, some of the same eye for movieland ridiculousness, along with the usual cameos (Pamela Anderson and Simon Cowell), it lacks a single explosive, roll-on-the-floor gag, and too often repeats and belabors jokes that are merely OK.

The news footage, so powerful on its own, needs no enhancement. The dramatized scenes only slow the film's momentum.

Director Philip Martin’s film is not poorly made per se, but its efforts to make the behind-the-scenes scramble to get the Duke of York on TV exciting are for naught.

There are no women or straight men left in Taipei. At least that's the impression left by Formula 17, in which every single person (except for one child) is a gay cutie.

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.

There's a lot happening here, perhaps too much. At times, the movie threatens to implode under its own weight. At others, it's wickedly funny.

While the film has impressive 18th-century trappings and vivid battle scenes, the plotting and acting are rudimentary.

The two young actors are very engaging, but the chemistry between Pearce and Bonham Carter is less than zero and there's altogether too much heavy-handed, watery symbolism for comfort.

Staggers between flaccid satire and what is supposed to be madcap farce.

Despite James Wan’s capable direction and very game cast, the whole thing goes increasingly wobbly like a bad axle, until it’s just a tangle of metal and bullets and yelling.

Me and You takes a couple of neat swipes at the pretentiousness of the art scene, but as a commentary on the difficulty of connecting in contemporary society, it's too precious by half.

Amateurishly written and directed, and so predictable that it hurts.

It loses direction, turning contrived and sentimental. There's even a touch of Frank Capra.

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

Strictly a kids' movie, but parents may be relieved to sit back and enjoy the fact that for two full hours, they won't have to hear the kids asking them to buy any more Pokemon trading cards.

Many of the kids seem to be social outcasts of one kind or another, but Spellbound, which will show on cable later this year, doesn't dig deep enough to disturb the movie's relentless feel-good tone.

Ultimately, though, the lively whirl of debauched, drug-fueled parties and toffee-nosed exchanges between heiresses and aristocrats fails to mask the essential hollowness of the narrative.

The film never adds up to the sum of its parts, effectively a two-hour trailer for a movie I’d still be interested in seeing.

Well-intentioned, if ultimately underwhelming, ode to the ongoing fight for a cure.

Like its synthetic heroine (Scarlett Johansson), the live-action Ghost in the Shell is a feast for the eyes. With its killer-robot geishas, Godzilla-size hologram ads and nearly nude fighting gear, it’s a cyberpunk wonderland — but there isn’t much ghost left in this smokin’ hot shell.

Unfortunately for the film, it's clear from the outset this is a totally one-sided battle that well-connected developer Bruce Ratner is fated to win.

Freeman is Freeman, all homespun dignity. Surely it's time for him to play a saucy interior decorator or a crazed dictator.

Despite a remarkable performance by Suliman, who’s almost never off-camera, events become increasingly pat and implausible, with one explanatory scene played like a shadowy variation on Kevin Spacey’s monologue in “Se7en.”

Nancy Meyers is known for her obsession with kitchens — sun-drenched, timelessly chic architectural marvels that provide a safe haven for all the director’s characters. The Intern puts a new spin on this trope: Robert De Niro is the kitchen.

Clipped, controlled and composed, Jackie Kennedy was a woman of her times, but since composure doesn’t win you Oscar nominations, Natalie Portman opts to play the part with a sort of emotional incontinence.

Manages to build interest as it goes along, leading to a spectacular climactic battle with all those elephants.

The best parts of this awkwardly paced film are Bell’s scenes with Enrico Colantoni, who returns as her private investigator dad, concerned she’s throwing away a bright future by getting sucked back into her old life.

Earthwork is best left to TV.

Winter hits his stride detailing how the music bigwigs hung Napster out to dry, but couldn’t do a thing about their industry’s permanently altered business model. This exercise in recent nostalgia (the original Napster went bust in 2002) might have been better if the tart cynicism of that section had shown up earlier.

An overwrought Taiwanese soaper.

Black, who all but stole "High Fidelity," is disappointingly bland and one-note in his first starring role.

There’s a nice candor and sweetness about the players, especially Butterfield and Sally Hawkins as his mother.

Think you're depressed now? Wait till you see Aurora Borealis, which spends almost two hours watching Ronald Shorter, a suicidal old man, die.

Great fun for the first 20 minutes - which include Kubrickian tracking shots and music from "2001" and "A Clockwork Orange" - but seems long at 86.

Most of the best gags are in the early going and the film seems ever more stretched and thin as it goes on. It would have made a brilliant eight-minute sketch, though.

It would have been nice to learn as much about Sar the man as about Sar the dancer.

This long and overly genteel adaptation of Peter Cameron's 2002 novel never quite comes to a boil.

Has a secret weapon in Winger, whose part is small but crucial. Looking a bit older and with redder hair than previously, she brings an earthiness to a movie that could use a lot more of that quality.

The funniest and arguably most envelope-pushing episode stars Winona Ryder as a newlywed who falls in love on her honeymoon - and steals the object of her lust: a ventriloquist's dummy.

Basically Jaws, but, you know, on land. With a bear. [29 Jun 2014, p.20]

Good-natured, lightweight fun, although clichéd and more suited to DVD and cable than the big screen.

There’s little sense of urgency, or — oddly, given the film’s title — of scale. You never really think that the 47 are truly outnumbered, and the large action scenes are often just incomprehensible.

I only wish the Little laughs were bigger.

The two leads spend a lot of their time doing static interviews, in a format familiar from TV shows like “The Office.” This glorified narration gets old, fast.

The Sentinel is so bland that it wants only to be as good as TV. Not as good as good TV, like "24." It merely aspires to be the Regis Philbin of D.C. thrillers. It isn't trying to dazzle you with style, complexity or intelligence.

Since they seem like real people we want them to work out their differences. In the second half, their story is nearly lost in favor of lots of documentary footage of the actual protests. This stuff was pretty ho-hum to look at two years ago, and it hasn't gotten more interesting with age.

It’s well-executed but familiar territory, with a dearth of jarring moments. Those of us who aren’t friends and family of the crew could use a little wake-up shove here and there.

Director Tom Harper (“War Book”) defaults too often to gotcha scares, which is disappointing.

The Rock deserves better than The Rundown, a brisk, good- hearted but predictable and uninspired - not to mention bone-crunchingly violent - action comedy.

Isn't boring, but it is sanctimonious, relentlessly predictable and willfully ignorant of the period it's set in.

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.

Filled with nostalgia for old Chinese movies, respectable performances and lively kung-fu slapstick.

The movie, told from the killer’s point of view, is genuinely unsettling and propelled by a terrific, buzzing synth soundtrack straight out of the early ’80s. But the only suspense is in which woman will be the next victim.

May be the steamiest lesbian romp in recent memory.

Johnny can't read, but he sure can rumba - and that's just fine with Take the Lead.

Gyllenhaal and Mulligan are in fine form here, but too much of the screenplay, written by Dano and Zoe Kazan, doesn’t ring true.

The bulk of the movie consists of scene after scene coyly setting up the same ironic juxtaposition, in the exact same way, about innocence vs. Nazism.

Director Niki Caro, whose 2005 film “North Country” gave creative life to another true story, doesn’t allow this one enough narrative twists; it starts off at point A and heads straight for point B, much like one of its many racing scenes.

Whatever sophisticated point Decker and screenwriter Sarah Gubbins aim for here is undone by its pretentious academic characters, whose arrogant droning would make you switch seats if you were next to them at a coffee shop.

Though the movie has some engagingly quirky moments, everything falls into place far too easily for much suspense to build, and the romance between the two leads seems as contrived as everything else.

The film is generic and uninspired, better suited to public TV than the big screen.

Mostly it fails to score. Maybe that's why no one has attempted summer-camp comedy since the third "Meatballs" sequel a decade ago.

The two leads have strong singing voices, but they're not helped by songs with titles like "It's Time to Disco."

While absolutely nothing in Grand Piano makes the least bit of sense, it is admittedly gorgeous to look at and listen to. Give Mira a decent script, and he might be a director to be reckoned with.

Khouri seems never to have met a "chick flick" cliché she didn't like, from the ubiquity of emotional telephone conversations to the lachrymose (but entirely predictable and dramatically flabby) reconciliation at the end.

Seriously flawed - and choppily edited in the worst Harvey Scissorhands style - but there are enough good moments to anticipate a second film from writer-director Katrina Holden Bronson, whose parents were Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland.

If you can't be original, why not borrow from something no one has seen, like Ben Affleck's last five movies?

If Ruby were more of a person than a character, we might care more for her plight. But like Calvin, Kazan has written herself into a corner that can only lead to embracing the sappy romantic clichés that Ruby Sparks tries half-heartedly to mock.

No personal revelations surface in “This Is Us.” Also, no narrative, no conflict — no differentiation between band members, even, besides the designation of dark-eyed Zayn as “the mysterious one” (he likes to paint).

Seeing this great actress, age 84, draw real feeling and laughs from such mediocre material is worth the watch.

A lesson in the perils of trying to cram a hefty Canadian novel that spans decades into a movie running just under two hours.

There is also a fair amount of boy-on-boy sex, which would be the main reason for seeing No Regret, no matter what your sexual orientation might be.

Molly Shannon is dementedly charming as Eva.

It's a sobering slice of life that puts actual faces to local violent crime statistics.

After a promising start, writer-director Daniel M. Cohen pours on schmaltz straight out of the similarly themed "Diamonds," including the proverbial hookers -- with hearts of gold.

For a movie called Sparkle, the absolutely least interesting or central thing about it is Sparkle (and Sparks), although the "Idol" singer does bust out one impressive performance.

After sitting a while in front of my computer trying to come with the right word to describe the Argentine soaper Family Law, I've settled on "diverting." You will be entertained, but you won't tax your brain.

At age 76, Chabrol seems to be just going through the motions, but anyone who has helmed 70 films ("Les Bonnes Femmes" and "La Ceremonie," for example) is entitled to an off day. Look for him to dazzle us next time out.

Mirikitani is a colorful character and talented artist, and his story tugs at the heart. Problem is, Hattendorf insists on inserting herself in what seems like every other scene, a device that dilutes Jimmy's story.

The movie fails to add up to the sum of its laborious parts. There's no emotional investment in any of the characters, and you can see the writer-director's windup con coming a mile away.

Disappointing, curiously uninvolving.

Interesting but never compelling.

It's a testament to Goodwin's skill as an actress that we almost buy this.

While it certainly isn't good, Expecting isn't as charmless as you might have feared, largely due to a cast working furiously to sell every scene.

Idiocy can be funny, but let's not forget that for all of this movie's aspirations to be out-there, it relies on the staple of the sitcom mentality.