It packs in a few scary moments and offers a nicely ambiguous conclusion. In Silent Hill, atmosphere trumps storyline.

If you're a fan of James Brown's oeuvre, the film will keep you interested. If you're not, Get on Up will quickly become tedious and will wear out its welcome long before the end of its 133-minute run.

It wants to be funny, charming, scary, and dramatic. It ends up being a little of each but not successful as any one.

The bad news is that Silent House is 88 minutes long, and the final half hour represents a descent into an anticlimax that ends with a scene as dumb as it is disappointing.

Hicks has made a technically adept film, but one that, for all of its strong acting and vivid photography, left me less moved than I should have been.

Ultimately, however, the movie is so desperate for a conventional ending that it subverts everything it was willing to try earlier.

Looks great and has some raw, unsettling moments, but the overall impression is of a production that fails to achieve what it sets out to do.

A bleak, black satire that occasionally strays all the way into "Pulp Fiction" territory.

A tighter version of the same story might have captured and held my interest, but this one had the proceedings wandering like the riderless camels in the desert.

It is neither deep nor intelligent, but it's not intended to be either. The saving grace of the otherwise generic product is that Bell's vivacity and Duhamel's rakish charm allow the viewer to root for them.

Paced more like an action movie than a drama, and, when a pause finally occurs at the end credits, we realize that it hasn't been an altogether satisfying ride.

For all his passion to tell this story, Heckler doesn’t seem sure of the best way to conclude it.

The problem with The Soloist is that, while Wright shows admirable restraint in dramatizing the interaction between the two principals and does not fall into the trap of following a "movie of the week" formula about mental illness, there is little emotional resonance in the story.

The Witches feels like a throwaway feature rather than a fully-realized fantasy adventure.

Those yearning to make use of a small package of tissues may be willing to overlook the movie’s deficiencies but I can’t help but wonder whether a conventional telling of the same story might have been more effective in the long run.

The book tore at my heart; the movie left me strangely unmoved.

The movie voids a lot of good will with a cheesy ending. This is just the kind of denouement I was hoping Taking Lives wouldn't sink to, yet it does.

Despite its overly praiseworthy tone, there are areas of interest.

All the explosions and fights are filmed with consummate skill, and are thrilling in their own right. But that's where it stops. The pacing is erratic and the level of tension ebbs and flows.

Unfortunately, Picture Perfect uses embarrassing contrivances to sabotage what should have been a pleasant excursion down a familiar road.

Parodies are hard to do well, as is shown by the mediocrity of so many recent attempts. No matter how ripe a genre is for satirizing, unless you know how to do it, there are no guarantees. Fortunately for Men in Tights, Mel Brooks has been doing this kind of thing for decades.

One could argue that Crank works best as a comedy. It's occasionally funny, and some times VERY funny.

Rushmore is one of those films that's so inconsequential that its memory threatens to fade away before the end credits have finished rolling.

Director Roger Donaldson has a lot of fun with his premise. The top-notch special effects, which use a lot of seamless computer animation, make the climax look very nice. The rest of the film is essentially one long chase sequence with a couple of nude scenes and maulings added to liven up the proceedings. No matter what genre you identify Species as, it's not top of the line, but there's also quite a bit of room beneath it.

A degree of unevenness is expected and that’s what Barbie delivers: a delightful confection at its best, an unfocused jumble at its worst.

The venerable series is looking outmoded and outdated. Media saturation and age have taken their toll.

It's a perfect choice for a mother/daughter evening out...decently constructed, solidly performed, and not too naïve.

Too often, it simply makes no sense.