This Diary of a Wimpy kid is too often dull, unappealing and clumsy, hobbled by unnecessary changes and inventions that add no charm, energy or, truly, point.

Why would you watch a film about a creep like Greenberg? Well, aside from the fact that it’s well-done and intense and occasionally funny (in a dark, dark way, mind you), there’s the sneaking suspicion that there’s a little of this fellow in all of us, and self-knowledge of that sort is a gift that, often, only art can give.

Apparently it’s the second film of a trilogy Demme intends on Young -- and the middles are always the hardest parts to get right, yeah?

A movie that tells -- or rather, circles -- the story of the band's formation and abortive career.

To follow up his superb "The Host," director Joon-ho Bong has crafted a remarkable film about love, faith, determination, guilt, and honor, a full-blooded, constantly inventive movie that enthralls, entertains, horrifies and never lets go its grip.

Indeed, Green Zone plays a little bit like a video game version of the Oscar-winning film (The Hurt Locker)-- which should tell you right off whether it's for you or not.

Kazan has a gift for letting you see her think, even when she's perfectly still; the film's title refers to the ferocious trauma happening between Ivy's ears and her silent struggle to keep it in check.

Unfortunately, the movie is the worst sort of liar: an unfunny one. Its gormless, assertion-free protagonist offends as a role model for idio youths, and, even worse, offends as drama.

A strangely passive film, dutifully ladling out its bits of filmic wizardry and expanding Lewis Carroll’s fantastical mythos in a promising new direction without any palpable sense of glee or verve.

Fine moments, images and performances stand cheek-by-jowl with the clichéd, the on-the-nose and the slightly dopey.

Cop Out wouldn't be as disappointing if it hadn't been made by Smith, but for those who dig the vulgar wit of his early, funny films, it's not just stupid, it's sad. At least the worst film of the year also bears its most forgettable title.

Long and sometimes grueling, but it never feels indulgent or excessive. In order to be subtle about the horrifying transformation he records, Audiard needs to let it unfold slowly, so that only when we reach the end can we see Malik as a new man who has come unimaginably -- and terribly -- far.

Packed with more intrigue and excitement than one might expect.

Even if Prodigal Sons is ultimately more buildup than payoff, Reed is a nimble enough filmmaker to roll with unexpected developments and make poignant connections between her family's unremarkable past and its extraordinary, wrenching present.

Unfortunately, the precision and presence Hurt brings to the table aren't enough to carry this warmed-over Southern melodrama.

Atmospheric, absorbing and completely in the control of the man who made it -- unlike, especially, “Bringing Out the Dead,” which it sometimes resembles.

Ferrific fun and rousing proof that there’s still vital life in an aging master filmmaker.

If the plot unfolded in a less formulaic way, this could have been an impressive dark-tinged comedy. But in the end, it's more a case of talented actors trying to find something fresh in a fairly stale tale.

Deeply phony, strangely static, disengaged, flaccid and, quite often, silly, it’s a film that tries to bully you into emotions with flourishes of music, contorted camera angles, screams of special effects, smears of gore, and earnest close-ups of its woefully miscast star.

Manages to excavate enough universal pathos from the mundane to find something truly extraordinary in the ordinary.

Inventive, droll and sharp, the film is rich in comic darkness but quite humane and genuine as well.

The film is all the more remarkable because its actors are untrained and their lines are improvised. Clearly, they've lived this.

Feels like a movie that wants to bare its fangs, but only manages a mild gumming.

The movie's still quite affecting -- in part because of its simple, old-school earnestness, but mostly because Stolzl does white-knuckle work behind the camera to make you feel the height, pain and awe of the grueling ascent, and the bottomless terror and exhaustion after everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

fFat, dull drag.

It's a refreshingly human-scale saga.

A movie that, like its title character, is meandering, unstructured and only dimly aware of what it’s doing.

I am not qualified to refute every claim made in this movie, but I have seen enough topical documentaries to have a good idea when a filmmaker is not being entirely honest with viewers.