It's a thriller, if the term can be applied to an inept, perfunctory movie with more laughs than thrills — and it only has a couple laughs. Let's call it an attempted thriller and an inadvertent comedy.

If the star does his utmost to make a one-dimensional character interesting, his director, Clint Eastwood, adapts Kyle's memoir — a life story rife with moral complexity — by hammering it flat.

Although its three-part structure plays out more like sketch comedy than a fully-cooked story, Lavie's debut is an impressive and entertaining one.

The camera tricks, the pacing, and the superbly choreographed set pieces are all there, in the right order, primed and timed like a string of fireworks. But what's holding Blackhat together is a dopey, ham-fisted script that plays like it's plucked from the bottom of the James Bond slush pile.

The problem with Inherent Vice, and what keeps it a step below "The Master" and "There Will Be Blood" and Anderson's best movies, is that all the Pynchon threads and dead ends come apart in the middle and aren't really pulled back together.

The screenplay, which Ceylan and his wife Ebru based on short stories by Anton Chekhov, is wordy but insightful. The widescreen cinematography, capturing the natural wonders that make Cappadocia a popular tourist destination, is crisp in exterior shots and delicately shaded indoors. And the performances are never less than totally convincing.

A film this heartfelt and intelligent about social justice will never be unimportant, but it feels especially relevant today.

Actor Jeroen Willems' portrayal is expressionless, coming across as more boring than stoic.

The story of Matt VanDyke, as told in the fascinating documentary Point and Shoot, is a vivid illustration of the ups and downs of reinvention.

Cumberbatch's scenes with Knightley are a model of how a buttoned-up character can open and reveal himself.

It's not a bad movie, but Big Eyes might have been better off if it had sold its audience the same bill of goods Walter Keane sold America.

The big star with the most unexpected chops, though, is Chris Pine, who runs with his Prince Charming role and, along with Billy Magnussen as Rapunzel's Prince, contributes the movie's best musical moment with the duet "Agony."

Those who watch Unbroken, Angelina Jolie's movie about Zamperini's life, only have to suffer for a little more than two hours, but it's a cruel and unusually harsh punishment.

Wahlberg's The Gambler is California Lite.

The exhibits in this Night at the Museum may still come to life nightly. But their latest movie stays stubbornly inert.

Even the show-stopper "Tomorrow" comes off as half-hearted and obligatory. The choreography looks like it was improvised by the young actors who play Wallis' fellow foster kids — all listless jumping and arm-folding, no inventiveness or energy.

Foxcatcher has a sober, chilly vibe that's completely at odds with the sport of wrestling and the men and women who love it.

If film's rapturous reception is due in part to the rarity of filmmaking this skillful within the horror genre, it's hard to begrudge this near-masterpiece of unease any of the praise it's gotten.

The "Hobbit" trilogy started slowly and ended with a rush, heroes and villians fighting it out over a mountain of gold. What kid of any age can resist that?

Life Partners may be a dispensable sitcom of a movie, but it's charming and cannily made.

An Italian import that isn't sure what it's supposed to be but knows it's not funny.

The dialogue has its moments of perception, and Long and Rossum deliver it with conviction and spark.

The best stuff in Wild is the simplest. The movie is at its strongest when it's just Strayed out in the wilderness, seeing what there is to see and finding the strength to keep going. Witherspoon is excellent in the lead, delivering a contemplative performance and appearing comfortable with just being by herself.

Rock – who also wrote and directed – is very good as Andre, and the filmmaking is fine.

As an action spectacular, Exodus is on par with Scott's other forays into ancient times, "Gladiator" and "Kingdom of Heaven." But as a believable human drama, much less a worthy exploration of Judaism's origins, it falls flat.

It's hard to say what's more fascinating: The engaging explication of various paintings by the remarkably articulate docents, the behind-the-scenes looks at the preservation and restoration processes, or the boardroom discussions about the appropriateness of marketing efforts. Actually, that third one probably isn't the most fascinating, but I still wanted more of it.

The Homesman is so stark and haunting to look at and listen to -- cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and composer Marco Beltrami support the story with career-best work -- that it's easy to miss the twists that blow across the screen.

Despite all the camaraderie, natural beauty and exotic weather, though, you couldn't pay me enough to live there, especially not when there's a movie like this to show me what I'm missing.

Maybe you can skip the movie and just watch the credits.

The only danger with a movie like this is the inevitably disappointing return to more humdrum reality once it ends.

This movie about a great woman and a great man ends up merely good.

The best part of "Mockingjay -- Part 1" is when Katniss sings "The Hanging Tree."

Ignorance is bliss, maybe. If you don't know (and the film doesn't tell you, though the press notes do) that Diplomacy plays fast and loose with the known facts, it's a thrilling, even moving drama. But learning the truth gives an unpleasant aftertaste to a movie that's otherwise a solid piece of work.

"Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove" is a line that could raise the spirit of any political prisoner, and Stewart's message -- that journalists risk their lives in pursuit of the truth every day around the world -- couldn't be timelier or more heartfelt.

Occasionally, particularly when it sticks to simple slapstick, the movie wins a laugh. But the majority of it isn't just dumb and dumber, or even crude and cruder. At nearly two hours, it's just dull — and duller.

It's similar to 2011's "The Loneliest Planet," which examined a similar dynamic between a couple backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains. But Force Majeure (which, as a legal term, refers to unforeseeable events or "acts of God") is sharper and smarter, combining precision-strike storytelling, directorial art, and impressive, often invisible visual effects, including that avalanche scene.

The people are pretty, the music scenes are well-staged (they're supposed to be crude and corny, right?) and we've needed a silly romance for a while now. But for all its hugs and kisses, the film refuses to embrace itself.

Laggies doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it puts an engaging spin on the old canard about high school being the best years of our lives.

The fascinating tale of master forger Mark Landis is especially bizarre, mostly because it doesn't involve the commission of a crime.

Poitras' footage of what happened in Hong Kong is at the heart of Citizenfour, her new movie, and it is enthralling, a rare look at a crucial historical event as it happened.

Nolan takes big chances with his actors, his action scenes, and his pacing -- you'll feel all 169 minutes in your backside -- and the payoffs come slowly and sometimes not at all. It's frustrating because there's so much to look at, so much money well spent in every frame, but Interstellar wears out its audience long before it ends.

An effective, low-budget horror movie is lurking at the edges of Horns but never gets a chance to reveal itself.

It's shallow, it's silly, it's pat.

A brilliantly flinty movie about writers angry at the world for failing to live up to their standards and recognize their genius.

The thrilling cinematic joyride that, among other improbable feats, puts Michael Keaton, as Thomson, smack in the middle of the Oscar race for best actor.

Because Whiplash is two characters in search of a plot, it ramps up the happenstance and improbability as it stumbles toward a final showdown between teacher and student that would be emotionally satisfying if it had the ring of truth.

Gyllenhaal is in almost every frame of writer-director Dan Gilroy's first feature, skinny and wide-eyed, running down a driveway with his camera or cutting across oncoming traffic in the Challenger. It's an intense performance, the flip side of Ryan Gosling's in "Drive," playing the angles and filling space with empty words instead of soulful silences.

Amalric plays up the ambiguity and brings it all home in a tight 75 minutes, a time that would have impressed Simenon, who wrote and revised novels in less than two weeks.

Binoche is her usual dependable self, bringing passion and fury to a familiar, but still compelling, character.

There are some attempts at a comic-bookish, film noir vibe, including a hotel where all the crooks and killers stay, forbidden by house rules from "doing business"on the premises. And everywhere Keanu turns, he bumps into a character from HBO.

At over two hours, it might test the patience of some younger viewers (and some impatient older ones as well), but for anyone willing to take the time, it's an utter treat.

The dose of reality is bracing and welcome after all the hothouse talk that preceeded it. Dear White People is a first feature, lively and intelligent and thought-provoking, by a writer-director whose best movies are yet to come.

The movie wobbles as it approaches the home stretch, but, thanks to its leading man, manages to stick the landing.

A funny and appealing film.

Talented, prolific, familiar with film, etc. Cave is a natural to push documentaries in a new direction, and 20,000 Days on Earth does it.

David Ayer's film is a gory, muddy, downbeat tale of war's hellishness and the fraternal bond between those stuck in the middle of it. It's also, like "Ryan," full of tense, grippingly staged action scenes that capture moments of pure adrenaline, and it's the tension between those two impulses that makes "Fury" fascinating and ultimately flawed.

There's potential here, as well as in Junn's touching relationship with a fellow resident at the home, for real intensity, but Khaou insists on sticking with a glacial pace and lip-trembling emotional repression when a little bit of melodrama might have gone a long way.

Pride should leave audiences smiling and inspired. But it would have been a much more groundbreaking film if it had been released 30 years ago.

If this Dracula can kill hundreds of enemies by himself — and he can, and does, in several dull and protracted battle scenes — then where's the suspense? If he's become a monster for noble reasons, then where's the dark conflict?

Thornton restrains himself (especially compared to Downey and Duvall) until his cross-examination of Duvall, when he throws off that "Fargo" menacing restraint and throws it down. You go, Billy Bob!

A pleasant entertainment, the term Graham Greene used for his thrillers, but slips away from memory as quickly as a summer evening.

Director John Curran is an American who has spent much of his career in Australia. I admired his movie "The Painted Veil" and think he captured the essence of Davidson's journey of discovery in Tracks.

Twisty pulp entertainment at its highest level.

The lunacy to which The Equalizer descends is especially disappointing because the movie starts out with some promise.

Wiig, following the big-screen breakthrough of "Bridesmaids," has dipped her toes into dramatic waters, but for Hader, The Skeleton Twins is a revelation.

The movie is well-crafted and finely acted (including by the non-actors László and András Gyémánt as the creepy, affectless twins), but it never comes up with a new way to communicate its sadly familiar themes.

The characters aren't clever or cool enough to command attention in the visually busy world the Laika animators have created, and the story starts abruptly and ends in a very familiar place. It's hard to believe so much talent went into making The Boxtrolls without a better script to support it.

Tusk is a step backward into an insular world. True, it will probably play well to gore fans, and that dedicated audience who already cheer everything Smith does.

Fonda gets some of the movie's best moments as the sexually frank, silicone-enhanced mom who got rich off a best-selling memoir that exposed her children's intimate habits.

Director Wes Ball doesn't have much experience with actors, but for once that's a plus; his background is in animation and art direction, and the design of the maze (brutal slabs of concrete and steel) and the attacks by the spiders ("Predator"-like clicks, then stabbing violence) make the movie gruesomely watchable.

Neeson used his newfound box-office clout to get A Walk Among the Tombstones made, and he's the best reason to see it.

The Drop reminded me of "Killing Them Softly," based on a novel by another Boston crime master, George V. Higgins.

The actual video footage of some of the incidents recreated in the film, which play with the end credits, makes it clear that sometimes reality can be as hokey as fiction.

The resulting documentary is a fascinating meditation on the different ways nature can be experienced, as well as a fatalistic take on the process of our planet's seemingly inevitable change in climate.

The period details are unconvincing, the cinematography is flat, and the performances are surprisingly one note considering the talent involved.

Everyone on screen looks like they'd rather be anywhere else than under the control of novice director Dustin Marcellino, whose first (and hopefully last) feature this is.

It's not a five star film, but it's no Motel 6 either.

As is, it's a pleasant but unremarkable retelling of a story as old as the Dead Sea itself.

There's nothing very serious to it, perhaps. But it takes its fun very seriously indeed and – after a long summer of big-budget extravaganzas -- ends up providing a small, end-of-season delight.

A second helping of a satisfying dish.

Makes good, unobtrusive use of its European locations, and has a couple of well-orchestrated urban chase scenes. But, even in these days of renewed U.S.-Russian tensions, its Cold War demeanor feels anachronistic, and its simple cynicism comes off as recycled and cheap.

Israeli director Ari Forman, whose 2009 "Waltz with Bashir" earned a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination, is a master at exploiting diverse animated styles, and draws a brave starring performance from a performer who, in her mid-40s, seems to be just hitting her stride.

The movie's biggest flaw, from a local perspective, is its unconvincing use of Vancouver, B.C., to represent Portland, Oregon.

William Shatner, it must be said, comes off as an insufferable, pompous jerk. Maybe he's jealous. After all, at age 75, Takei is an openly gay Asian American with an overwhelming social media fan base, making him the one who has really gone where no man has gone before.

First-time director Jeff Baena struggles with framing, editing, tone and casting, leading to an unimpressive entry in the ever-burgeoning zombie comedy genre.

There's an all-the-scenery-you-can-eat appearance by the deliciously mad Eva Green, too, who spends most of the movie even more naked (and nuttier) than she was in "300: Rise of an Empire." The ever-wry Joseph Gordon-Levitt also shows up as a cocky gambler, while a simian Josh Brolin takes over from Clive Owen as Dwight.

I liked The One I Love but if I had to choose between it and "Third Person," the Paul Haggis relationship movie that flirts with narrative in unconventional ways, I'd go back and watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Now that's how it's done.

It's well-acted and works as a cautionary tale for young dope dealers but beats any hint of subtlety into a bloody pulp.

Katz, who has been saddled with the deadly label "mumblecore" in the past, and Stephens ("Pilgrim Song") combine sensibilities of dry wit and warm earnestness in precise proportions. It's also further proof, if it were needed, that smart, funny, entertaining films are always around, even in the dog days of summer. You just have to know where to look.

The actions of both these vilified parties are so seemingly irrational that you're left feeling there must be some explanation, one that director Todd Douglas Miller either couldn't or wouldn't ferret out.

The Giver has taken a slow route to the screen, passed by newer, sleecker dystopian novels for young adults. "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent" owe much to Lowry's worldview and style while lacking her depth. What they have is strong female leads and plenty of action, elements absent in the spare parable of The Giver.

He's an engaging, profane interview subject, and a complex guy, self-described as both a "pervert" and a "romantic," sexually omnivorous, a Goldwater Republican before being drafted and sent to Vietnam, a McCarthyite peacenik afterward.

Tries to pretend that its premise isn't timeworn, and thanks to charming lead performances, it almost succeeds. But not quite.

The Hundred-Foot Journey fails to replicate the sensation of sharing a quality meal. Movies of this kind should leave you feeling hungry. Compare the Indian love story "The Lunchbox" from earlier this year. You'd swear you could smell the tandoori chicken while watching it.

A good test of a movie like this is whether it would be more or less stimulating to hang out with people you really know for 82 minutes. If Happy Christmas is the time better spent, it might be time to find a new crowd.

If the film had been trimmed to 45 minutes of crazed storm-chasing and storm-fleeing, it might've been worth a matinee ticket. But as is, it's the sort of lazy late-summer idiocy you'd be wise to huddle beneath an overpass to avoid.

Canadian director Richie Mehta ("Amal") based Siddharth on his own random encounter with a father searching for his missing son, and the film never feels less than utterly real in its depiction of both everyday Indian life and the hopelessness that comes so naturally in this sort of tragic situation.

Stage magicians often depend on sleight of hand to succeed at their art, but Woody Allen's new movie, Magic in the Moonlight, is just plain slight.