Anderson's repeated hurling of flaming volcanic projectiles directly at the screen — the dominant feature of the latter third of Pompeii — is firmly in the lovably trashy spirit of the '50s drive-in.

The result isn't fresh and realistic, though; it's clumsy and stilted. Improvised dialogue can work wonderfully if the actors have a solid feel for their characters, but everyone here seems rushed and uncomfortable.

There's a stiffness to the actors' performances that reinforces the film's ambiguous tone. And Chen's use of jump cuts is jarring and arbitrary, their ubiquity upping the ante on the film's already tiring hyperactivity.

This is a movie for those who watched Liam Neeson in "Taken" and thought, "Hey, this is fun, but can we do it without having to wait 15 minutes for the action to start?" Solomon has 90 minutes at his disposal, and doesn't want to waste time with setup.

Judging from the lack of care that went into making this one, I'm not so sure how much Schrader cares about the movies anymore either.

This movie, like all of Sandler's, insists on its star's likability.

A disastrous father-son endeavor about a calamitous father-son expedition, After Earth doesn't play to the strengths of any of its major participants.

What's the difference between an action figure and an action star? Very little in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which features no performances of note, even from such combat-tested thespians as Bruce Willis, Jonathan Pryce and Dwayne Johnson.

Feels from start to finish like a throwback to the action cinema and military thrillers of decades past.

With 26 films, one for each letter of the alphabet, one might expect enough gems in the mix to make up for any stinkers. That's sadly not the case.

Between the loaded conversations and metaphors, and the phony overlay of a children's fairy tale, The Playroom can't stop telegraphing themes and interpreting itself. There's nothing left for the audience to do.

The movie maintains its sense of style throughout, but that hardly matters as the story just gets stupider and stupider.

Stevens wants to honor the living legends who have miraculously agreed to appear in his movie, but after spending a full hour treating their characters like cartoons, the about-face into heartfelt slop lacks the necessary gravitas.

Style can be a risky thing in a movie like this, which aspires above all to inoffensiveness. Originally titled "Playing the Field," which was deemed too racy, this rom-com would have been more aptly renamed "Running Out the Clock."

The new Red Dawn's body count is as high as its predecessor's. But the fatalism in all of Milius' projects - even the silliest ones - has weight. That's not the case with the remake, whose portrayal of violence derives more from video games than from history.

Tragically unfunny, Frankie is occasionally elevated by some of its gifted and game cast, but the film's nasty, comedically incoherent script limits its potential.

The words "florid" and "inert" are not quite antonyms, but it would nonetheless seem impossible for those two adjectives to apply to the same thing. And yet here comes The Paperboy, a swamp noir so spectacularly incompetent that even the ripest pulp attractions are left to rot in the sun, flies buzzing lazily around them.

For all its strenuous feints at fair play, though, Won't Back Down is something less honorable - a propaganda piece with blame on its mind.

Jesse's nobility is one of the primary reasons Liberal Arts is so hard to take.

Olek never decides what his film should be, and the result takes wild stabs at slasher gore, supernatural horror, black comedy and even social commentary, thanks to a zero-hour attempt to tie things up with a morality tale about the damaging effects of organized religion.

What is watchable here is made possible by the sheer will of the gifted Moretz, who's in every scene as the precocious Luli.

The movie uses the mutt's disappearance as a frame on which to hang a well-worn package of fatally mild domestic disorder, then resolve it in what feels like real time. Let's just say that the dog gets the best lines.

Without much actual character to latch on to, most of the actors seem lost and awkward, even the usually dependable Hall.

Project X strives to appall, and it would be similarly self-deluded to pretend this jumble of ecstasy and crotch shots is anything other than repulsive.

With the material they're given, they mostly just seem foolish for showing up to the movie to begin with. Audiences would do well to avoid the same mistake.

As the loosely aligned band of survivors turns into a pack of sociopathic loners, the only reasonable conclusion is that they were all pretty rotten to begin with.

Whichever side of the aisle you inhabit, you will leave The Iron Lady feeling disgusted; you will also feel cheated - of information, insight or even an identifiable point of view.

None of it is inherently funny - as evidenced by how many scenes depend for a punchline on Hill swearing at one child or another.