A crowd-pleasing import that would leave only the most steadfast curmudgeon unmoved.

It's a clear and moving story, although the messier edges of the man have been smoothed out, and some of the victories may have been exaggerated to provide a happier ending.

The film is best when it isn't trying to be an action epic, but is simply being a character study. Here stands a man, asked to prepare for an unspeakable thing by an unknowable presence.

While Burger, Daughtery and Taylor skimp on the characters’ interior lives, they do make some surprising improvements on the book.

In a movie that strives to offend with every spat profanity and cruel insult, the most shocking thing about Bad Words is that it expects us to care about its main character at all.

Blood Ties not only convincingly recreates its era, it seems like it could have been made then.

Once the story proper begins, it too feels slightly out of time.

Credit to Aaron Paul for fully committing to this ridiculousness. There isn’t a scene he doesn’t play with the utmost seriousness.

The Grand Budapest Hotel shows Anderson engaging with the world outside his meticulously composed frames like never before.

Sobol, directing his second feature, should have been able to prod this story to life, especially considering the cast he was provided. But everything proceeds in such an orderly fashion, right through the ostensibly 'twist' ending, that maintaining interest is a serious challenge.

If the behavior of the characters had been more recognizably human in its venality, and the film's perspective more ruthless, this custom-made compound might have worked.

With more discipline and a keener sense of family dysfunction, these ingredients could have gelled into something impressive. As it is, Awful Nice is closer to the former than the latter.

The film also has the original show's spirit and some of its old-fashioned charm.

Both a prequel and a sequel to the original tale, only with more bloodspilling and slow-motion, and even less wit or truth.

While In Bloom offers an authentic slice of life from a particular time and place, it never gets close enough to its characters, physically or emotionally, to really hit home.

Chow's specialty is over-the-top slapstick action in the Hong Kong style, and the new film doesn't disappoint on either count.

Adult World is amusing, if a bit by the numbers.

From the evidence presented here, this film's three screenwriters have not only never taken a commercial flight, they've never met any actual human beings. The details of air travel and human behavior are equally foreign to the film.

If Like Father, Like Son had set up a genuine conflict here, this could have been a fascinating, even gut-wrenching, melodrama. Instead, writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda stacks the deck by making Ryota such a highfalutin jerk and Yudai such an exemplar of cozy, loving family life.

It's a spectacle, all right -- but mostly just of a lot of people, some of whom should know better, making an utter ash of themselves.

It's a movie that's races from no place to get nowhere.

Despite the fact that its pace turns somnolent at times, and some of its themes feel somewhat clichéd nearly a half-century on, this revival offers a fantastic entry-point opportunity to one of cinema's singular figures.

A volatile film. But it's not a specifically political one. With only superficial alteration, it could be set in Cold War Berlin, or colonial Boston, or any time and place where the dynamics of power conspire to create an atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust.

The only thing Stratton, a former television actor making his first feature, has going for him is the casting of Jessica Lange.

The result is both a captivating history lesson and a tense intellectual thriller that dares to ask big questions about creativity and technology.

This is supposed to be a movie about obsession. Instead it's just cupcake meets beefcake, with a big glass of milk on the side. And that's one Valentine's Day dinner you can easily pass up.

Overall, The Pretty One suffers from excessive, unfocused quirk and a predictable sitcom resolution.

The process of Farrell figuring out his divine purpose finally gets so convoluted and schmaltzy, it feels less like "destiny" and more like "cruel cosmic joke."