The Nut Job has an interesting anti-socialist subtext, with the seemingly benevolent raccoon revealing himself as a power-mad dictator. It’s the most political non-Pixar cartoon feature since the very left-leaning “The Ant Bully’’ eight years ago.

The cast includes Oscar winner Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched herself) and Henry Thomas of "E.T.," and the special effects look like they were executed on somebody's laptop.

This silly extraterrestrial-invasion epic somehow manages the feat of making the destruction of La La Land seem tedious.

Richard Jeffries' script tosses together bits of plot borrowed from such "bad things happen when you leave the city" classics as "Straw Dogs" and "Deliverance" without any awareness of how or why genre conventions work.

Too unfocused to make any point worth taking with us into the 2004 presidential campaign.

The clichéd and predictable Suspect Zero is the latest evidence that Hollywood has run the serial-killer thriller into the ground through overuse - the same way it earlier exhausted, say, buddy action-comedies.

Allegiance works better as a way of reminding us who does the fighting in this age of outsourcing than it does as a human drama.

Michael Brandt's soporific thriller is making a token stop in theaters before its January DVD debut. Miss it if you can.

The innovation of Refn’s latest is mostly just in the way it manages to merge gory and boring. At least it’s created a new movie adjective for me: goring.

Cusack and Cage — who don’t have any scenes together until halfway through — do their best work in years, while erstwhile “High School Musical’’ star Hudgens shows off acting chops missing in “Spring Breakers.’’

Two stars for adults -- 3 stars for kids. The under-5 set should take to The Country Bears like bears to honey - even if anyone much older will find this broad-as-a-barn-door Disney musical bear-ly tolerable.

There is nothing to like or admire in this groaner galaxy. The movie has the unconfident, powder-sugar tone of a Disney direct-to-video release, like “The Lion King 1½,” paired with the overeager advertising of an internet pop-up.

Doesn't live up to the promise of its trailers.

With heavy emphasis on cliché and stereotype, has at least four false endings -- and drags on for nearly two hours -- before it finally contrives to reunite its sitcomish pals for a last drink together.

It's just another discordant note in this tone-deaf movie -- a trashy, exploitative, thoroughly unpleasant experience.

Cliched, amateurish and feeble.

This adventurously awful film is awful in many ways at once.

This jagged blob of a movie features a solo dance in the 1930s scored to the Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant," several scenes of a rich Manhattan woman chatting with the ghost of Wallis Simpson and a Sotheby's auction that draws a crowd reaction of the kind associated with "Family Feud." Yet I found the movie fascinating. Except for the boring bits.

Preposterous romantic melodrama, which uses a fractured narrative to cloud an absurd plot that would probably be laughed off the screen if it were presented in a straightforward manner.

A cute, often very funny romantic comedy and an effective vehicle for Matthew Perry.

For all his skill with a cue, the charisma-challenged Callahan is no Nia Vardalos in the acting department -- let alone a Paul Newman or Tom Cruise.

Vincent D'Onofrio does capture Hoffman's charisma and nuttiness - and he's the only reason to resist the temptation to skip this exasperating movie.

Works because they really are the focus - and they're excellently voiced .

The jaw-droppingly nasty second act is intriguing, but it veers into territory so dark that it sucks the air out of the bouncy chick flick that surrounds it, making for one confused -- and confusing -- comedy.

There’s a good cinephile heart beating under this fluffy story. But Lellouche, in making her homage to Allen, left out one of his essential qualities: bite. Paris-Manhattan drifts by and never leaves a single toothmark.

Starts off bad, then tapers off.

I don't think we're expected to take After.Life any more seriously than Ricci's last extended (near) nude role in the immortal "Black Snake Moan." That one was more fun.

Charmless and underdeveloped knockoff of "The Santa Clause."