A boring and violent French crime thriller, is the sort of routine potboiler that generally goes straight to video in this country, if it's seen at all.

The audience, if any, for Chaos Theory is going to be hit with a little puff of celluloid flatulence. The movie won't linger in the air, but that doesn't make it any less embarrassing.

The characters are so flat and the dialogue so dull you expect it to be one of those movies whose existence is justified by a big final twist. But it's three days after the screening, and still no twist. Maybe it's coming in the mail?

Wind power plus solar power equals hot air in the propaganda piece Carbon Nation, a documentary so disconnected from reality it could have been produced by President Obama's speechwriters.

Sobering and important.

New Moon is supposed to be an exciting love story plus monster action. So where’s the excitement? Where’s the action?

Tarzan does little to adapt to modern times. Perhaps most punishingly of all for Skarsgard’s “True Blood” fans, it fails to ever put our hero in a skimpy loincloth.

Silly enough for you? Did I mention that the immortal Ken Jeong of “The Hangover’’ plays God, who gets mighty pissed when hubby accidentally shoots Jesus out of the sky?

Unless you're already into this stuff, it'll be hard to stay awake through the documentary, which was made on a low budget with technical values that are decidedly amateurish.

As DJ, Columbus Short eases his way through the movie without trying to impress us too much, which is welcome, but he's also a little bland around the edges.

Although Vatel is trying to say something about freedom and gilded cages, it feels more like a behind-the-scenes look at the high-end catering business.

Makes a convincing argument that the decades-old Cuban blockade has outlived its usefulness.

Sappy and corny, but there are a few lovely moments.

Interesting but never compelling.

Netflix has padded its catalog of cinematic background noise some more with Murder Mystery 2, the instantly forgettable sequel to its rancid whodunit comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler as married crime solvers.

As a comedy, The Brothers Grimsby is weak and scattershot, but it’s useful as an unintended self-indictment of the chattering classes’ disgust and disdain for white working folk.

You know a low-budget indie has problems when it's less emotionally honest than a studio-backed project like "(500) Days."

When Mel Brooks checks in to play Dracula’s dad, harrumphing and looking exactly like Grandpa Munster, you realize Sandler and Co. aren’t trying any harder than they did in “Jack and Jill” or “Pixels.”

A low-key Field is the best thing about Two Weeks, which is set in a Wilmington, N.C., where everyone mysteriously sounds like he just got off a Los Angeles freeway.

Chlamydia, gonorrhea and Jason Sudeikis are three reasons to stay well clear of A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, but they're not the only ones.

For all its promise to be a wry commentary on the savagery of office politics, The Belko Experiment is more like an experiment in how many cracked-open skulls can be crammed into one movie.

An unrelenting assault on the brain and eardrums.

If it weren't for "Sideways," Second Best probably wouldn't have been released at all, but the earlier film made you root for a hapless schmo. This one doesn't, mainly because its protagonist is so obnoxious.

It's a cute idea that a better filmmaker than writer-director Michael Schroeder could have done a lot with.

Grows tiresome rather quickly.

Exciting stuff in its primitive, predictable way.

Writer-director Matthew Vaughn, who’s helmed all three, needs to either call it quits or hand over the reins to someone with some self-control. The formidable talent of Ralph Fiennes can lift his movie some, but the man’s not Hercules.

It turns out that constraint is really what the show is all about, or to put it another way, I'm disappointed that they turned my horny-teen comedy into a gross-out comedy.

How can it be that a movie as beautiful to look at as Saawariya is so . . . boring?

Delivery Man trades the abrasive comedian’s trademark snark for schmaltz — an experiment that actually works better than you’d guess.

Treading the same halls as “Kick-Ass” and “Kingsman,” Barely Lethal imagines an academy of teen assassins. Life there is deadly, but not as scary as high school.

Despite much effort, neither Johnson nor director George Tillman Jr. ("Notorious") can make this preposterous tale, live up to its title.

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

Beautiful camerawork, some interesting scenes, but extraordinarily slow.

A noisy, amateurish mess that doesn't work on any level - an extended, clich-ridden MTV video set to anachronistic bad music.

An exercise in drudgery... The whole thing is so patently uninteresting it's hard to see it as anything but a Douglas family vanity project.

Too bad the film around Brody is fairly by-the-numbers, with a mean-spirited kicker that doesn’t imbue much originality to its imperiled-female plotline.

A brutal shocker that is difficult to watch.

Burger’s half-assed attempt at an updated Lord of the Flies makes you long for a good old-fashioned school bus and a pig’s head on a stick.

The joke is on arthouse audiences who show up for Funny Games, which is basically torture porn every bit as manipulative and reprehensible as "Hostel," even if it's tricked out with intellectual pretension.

The movie doesn't do anything with these viney bastards. There's no back story, no satire, no allegory, no implications beyond what's happening on the pyramid.

Walking with the Enemy may not be another “Schindler’s List” (Ben Kingsley has a small but important role as Hungary’s deposed regent) but it’s handsomely photographed (A-list vet Dean Cundey) in Romania and a compelling addition to the Shoah canon.

Most of Mortal Engines is a wearying blast of CGI and genre-cribbing (most egregiously, director Christian Rivers hired composer Junkie XL to seemingly lift, wholesale, his soundtrack from “Mad Max: Fury Road”).

Beautifully photographed and fitfully amusing, Gaudi Afternoon would be an impressive film from a first-timer, but Seidelman is experienced enough to know she should have told the actors not to camp things up so excessively.

The sloppily shot, crudely edited Head of State fails as satire, for starters, because of its utter disconnect from any kind of reality.

The found-footage disaster flick Into the Storm is “Twister’’ for dummies, but by no means is that an insult. The new film is enormous fun if you’re in the right mood.

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.

The movie's one-star rating is solely for Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who provides eye candy as Morris' film-student granddaughter, Lisa.

The movie, directed by the formerly promising Rawson Marshall Thurber (the hilarious “Dodgeball” and the awful “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh”), thinks it’s subverting the conventions of the sitcom with a revolutionary new idea, which is: Do everything exactly the way a sitcom would, plus lots of swearing and dirty jokes.

Little more than a rehash of old news.

I found this more elaborate, play-it-safe sequel far less fresh or funny.

In Hot Summer Nights, Chalamet proves he’s learned Hollywood’s most important trick of all: consistency. His performance here is every bit as good as those past credits — more so, in some respects, thanks to his comedic chops — even if the film’s prestige is dampened by, well, tons of pot, cocaine and gnarly murders.

Apart from a heart-tugging plot twist, some lesson learning and more random football talk ("no more buttonhooks in the kitchen"), that's about it. Oh, except for the scene in which Kyra Sedgwick - who plays Joe's agent - farts. Be sure to update your résumé, Kyra.

Recycles gags from various, more successful gross-out and romantic comedies, but without any zest or imagination.

These characters, especially the uninteresting primary couple, can't sustain almost two hours of movie. Overall, BearCity 2 deals in mild amusement, not wit.

Here’s a movie that will test the limits of your ability to watch other people having a good time.

Borrowing liberally from the "Exorcist" and "Omen" movies, and with little regard for credibility, The Ring Two has a familiar ring to it.

Holds less water as a mystery because its plot holes - and choppy pacing - make it seem as disconnected from reality as its hero. But Jackson is so frighteningly effective, and affecting, as Romulus that you're sucked in anyway.

Much less a satisfying movie than an intermittently funny 90-minute acting audition.

The ineptly made Animal Cannibal isn't remotely convincing as reality, and worse, isn't remotely entertaining as fiction.

Far too childish to intrigue adults yet too slow and dull for kids.

The film is empty-headed good fun that’s blessedly under two hours and has just enough character development to make you kind of care when someone gets bitten.

To kill 80 minutes, the movie has to pad itself with several dull speeches and stagy moments. The worst? How about when the five men, who have ample reason to fear each other and are facing a life-or-death reckoning, whistle "Ode to Joy" together like a bunch of Whiffenpoofs?

The horror flick 13 Sins is passable enough when it comes to dialing up the suspense, but the “Saw” formula of a mysterious voice guiding our hero through a series of depravities has gone a bit stale.

While “300" maestro Snyder puts together some very striking scenes — which may be enough for many fanboys — they never really cohere into a whole. He literally throws in the kitchen sink in a film that frantically introduces characters and concepts while never clearly establishing the rules of the DC Comics universe.

The cheerfully inane comedy Connie and Carla all but suffocates beneath a high-stepping, show-stopping, ear-splitting deluge of musical theater staples, from "Cats" to "Oklahoma!," "Jesus Christ Superstar" to "Fiddler on the Roof."

Pours on creepy atmosphere, but this dud is too intent on delivering its liberal "message" to actually deliver the kinds of scares it promises in the terrific trailer.

Doesn't have nearly enough Hugh Grant and is a little short on laughs, but it gets by on Renée Zellweger's charms.

Fun but somewhat exhausting.

Brutally banal chitchat about life and love ensues.

Depravity and addiction can be dramatic and fascinating, or they can be as they are in this week's indie filthathon Cook County.

The result is like an hour and a half listening to someone bellyache about her landlord.

Using autism as a plot device walks a fine line between empathetic and exploitative, and The Night Clerk is wobbly in that respect.

The action film is as unpretentious as Charlie Sheen eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut at Six Flags. In short: blissfully dumb entertainment.

Lovable misanthropes can be a lot of fun, but someone forgot to put in the lovable.

A movie so bad it's not even worth watching on DVD.

Jobs amounts to, at best, a Cliffs Notes version of the man’s early life. If you want the real story, you’ll have to read Walter Isaacson’s fascinating 2011 biography, which would make a much better film than this one.

This film isn't pretty, but it has some kick: It is to "Shakespeare in Love" what wild pheasant is to Chicken McNuggets.

This movie -- G.I. Joke, The D-Team -- tries to do so little, and yet falls so short. A clue comes when the girl asks Clay, "How's your steak?" and he replies, "Meaty." Simple enough to achieve in theory, but this would-be treat for cinematic carnivores is a sawdust sandwich.

If a more incoherent and self-indulgent movie has been released so far this century, I'm not aware of it.

This movie's heart is in the right place, which is one way of saying it's terrible.

The only really believable character ends up being Bilson's chaste Laura, who snags herself a slot on the reality-show competition "America's Last Virgin."

Even a hardened voyeur would require the patience of Job to get through this interminable, shapeless documentary about the swinging subculture.

The performances are so solid - and newcomer Jon Dichter's direction (he also wrote the script) is so utterly assured - that the rather contrived ending barely seems to detract from the film's entertainment value.

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

The year's most beautiful movie -- and surely one of the dullest.

Surprisingly funny and sweet, despite some missed comic opportunities and curious casting choices.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's reformist two-term president, gets the once-over-lightly treatment in Lula, Son of Brazil.

A snarly Euro-thriller with crust under its fingernails and bad breath. It doesn't care if you like it, which is why I kind of do.

A kindler, gentler comedy that's perfect for children and parents to see together.

HUGELY tedious and mostly incomprehensible.

The landscape cinematography is often eye-pleasing, but the script is labored, filled with clichés and never allows for character development.

Slight but consistently entertaining.

There's too little dog and too much fire house in Firehouse Dog, a mild kid comedy that turns into a flaming arson mystery with some scenes that could be too scary for little ones.

It is hard to dislike such a wholesome, well-meaning movie, which has some very funny moments and a lovable cast.

A profound disappointment, given its cast and source material.

Has laugh-out-loud moments of inspired idiocy. The problem is that this one-joke skit (done first and better by Britain's Ali G) has been given the Hamburger Helper treatment and stretched to feature length.

It's muddled and shallow and obvious. Worse, it fails as entertainment, being so ineptly directed and written it often has the feel of a high school production by kids with more money and ambition than talent.