Grim but worthwhile.

Alas, “sad case” is not how we want to see McCarthy; it’s frustrating to see her spend more than half the movie being the pathetic target of jokes rather than the dominating figure she was in “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat,” both of which are far funnier than this one.

Worth seeing just for the dramatization of the making of “Good Vibrations” alone. But there’s much more to savor in this biopic — a rare high note in the drone of so much summer dreck.

The Entourage formula feels warmed-over, played-out, spent.

The film alternates between shoving its confusing plot forward and dropping dialogue bombs that fizzle.

The wry situational humor leaves less of an impression than the near-perfect sense of the heat-drenched wistfulness of summer.

Laden with witty ironies, the film by Anne Fontaine suggests men may not play exactly the roles they think they do in women’s lives.

The movie can be mildly amusing. But I couldn’t figure out which of the three principals I least wanted to know.

The awkwardly titled Unfreedom clearly waves the flag for acceptance and nonviolence — but it would be more effective if it invested as much in some cinematic nuance.

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.

Oblivious to both narrative logic and the laws of physics, the cliché-filled San Andreas doesn’t nearly have the star power of earlier, better disaster movies it borrows from like “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Earthquake” and “The Towering Inferno.”

The exhilarating documentary Sunshine Superman, which melds gorgeous aerial photography of Boenish’s jumps with sublime musical cues, finds in Boenish a kind of poet-adventurer, equal parts pixie and desperado.

This serviceable remake sticks fairly closely and smartly to the same plot, with the same scary objects and even the line, “They’re here.”

Aloft is less like a story than a dream, populated with gorgeous people and symbolism you can interpret any way you like.

Agreeable this film certainly is, but the shagginess never seems to take shape.

A sort of grown-up version of “Moonrise Kingdom,” France’s Love at First Fight has some youthful free-range charm but not nearly as much as its predecessor.

Subtle, sometimes really sad and honest about the struggles of adolescence, Marnie is a worthy last entry from Ghibli before the studio reportedly goes on hiatus.

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.

Not as aca-mazing as “Pitch Perfect” (which made my 10-best list for 2012), the follow-up should have been cut by 10 or 15 minutes. First-time director Elizabeth Banks (who returns as a snarky announcer) doesn’t have the zippy comic timing of the first film’s helmer, Jason Moore.

Niccol’s film may not be perfect, but it shines a light on a subject many viewers will know vaguely by name — and not much more.

The film fails to represent how singular and influential the late Giger is in popular culture.

The trope of horror-suffused female friendships is a fertile one, but despite a screenwriting credit from the very capable Nicole Holofcener (director of “Enough Said,” among others), Every Secret Thing comes up short.

Slow West certainly lives up to its title: It’s one poky Western, plodding and perambulating and moseying across the 1870 frontier on a grim march to a pointless ending.

Playing a slightly autobiographical role — reinforced by a karaoke sequence that gently nods to “Duets,” the final film directed by Danner’s late real-life husband, Bruce Paltrow, and starring their daughter Gwyneth — Danner shines in scene after scene.

The on-camera experts make intelligent, earnest points, but the Web means there’s no such thing as a real ban. Indeed the movies have always been available, as two former neo-Nazis point out.

A passable French homage to the American crime epic, The Connection has plenty of visual style to go with stock characters.

This spectacularly great reboot is surprisingly owned not by Hardy, who is fine, but by Charlize Theron.

Witherspoon’s charge, Sofía Vergara as a recalcitrant witness in need of police protection, is an adept slapstick comic likewise hamstrung by director Anne Fletcher’s sluggish pacing, which reliably stays with a scene for three beats beyond the punch line.