All it takes is the majestic E-flat that opens "Das Rheingold" to make you realize that, despite what Wagner's Dream insists on showing, "the machine" really isn't the point.

A chilly, pretentious and talky drama.

There hasn’t been this bizarre mixture of hooah and death since John Wayne hung up his combat boots.

In The Kid With a Bike, Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne offer a sly but finally banal update of the Italian neorealist classic "The Bicycle Thief."

Not a bad idea — and one that already worked out pretty well for John Hughes’ “Weird Science” in 1985. But here it’s a single-joke skit that’s too self-aware to be distinctively funny, freaky or thrilling.

The tone and focus of David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn careens around so much it’s hard not to end up as irritable as its title character.

Truly every line of this gussied-up pile of trash is worthy of a yelled-out crowd response. It’s one schlocky horror picture show.

Everything plays out exactly as you'd expect in a cheerful, well-meaning movie in the style of something made for the Disney channel.

Either a ludicrously bad movie or a parody of same. Either way, it's pretty funny.

Yet another teen comedy that tries to have it both ways -- basically, "Mean Girls" with crucifixes instead of designer jewelry.

The talented quartet saves the movie, but making it great would take a rewrite.

The swooping shots and the way the lack of dialogue amplifies ambient sounds are stunning. Story-wise, The Tribe is yet another art-film wallow in cruelty, not nearly as unique as its looks and its world.

The romance between Winslet and Schoenaerts — billed as the film’s centerpiece — is, regrettably, never really allowed to bloom.

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

So s-l-o-w-l-y paced it seems twice as long as its two-hour running time.

Crowe — knowingly, I think — clowns around from start to finish. Even if the horror doesn’t have you screaming, his Italian accent will.

This stuff is strictly run of DeMille.

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

A soggy love story doesn't help this instance of style over substance.

Fox can't decide if Walk on Water is a terrorist thriller or a gay buddy story, and neither can the viewer.

It's perfectly entertaining (and well-executed) in its cute, undemanding way.

Ends up a nightmare of a star vehicle.

Hutcherson isn’t particularly adept at playing moral anguish, but the film maintains an electrifying tension for its first half as we wonder just how far his character will go. In the second half, though, the film degenerates into a desultory action movie as everybody starts creeping around trying to shoot one another.

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

Dynamite actually — sometimes cheesily — is a lot like 1990s and aughts disaster flicks, except there is not much suspense as to whether or not the nuclear bomb will land, even though Bigelow casually tries to create some.

Thanks to (Douglas), Diamonds is quite affecting -- even if it's not a particularly good movie.

More frustratingly, Brooks jumps back and forth in time between the couple’s past relationship and the current day, with nary a physical or emotive change evident in either party. It becomes a task just to figure out which timeline you’re in, and then convince yourself why you should care.

A determinedly raunchy holiday comedy about a libidinous, larcenous and perpetually soused St. Nick with a nonstop potty mouth.