The core problem with Girls Trip is its length. What might be a fun, frivolous affair at 90 minutes turns into an endurance contest as the clock ticks toward the two-hour mark.

The most interesting personality in Ed Wood is not the title character, but Bela Lugosi. So covered up with makeup that he's barely recognizable, Martin Landau gives a deeply-felt performance -- a eerie and stunning recreation of a man haunted by lost fame.

Moments of light comedy keeps the tone from becoming too heavy without sabotaging the movie's dramatic underpinning.

For something billed as a lightweight romantic comedy, What Happened Was... wades through some surprisingly deep waters.

An unremarkable bio-pic about a remarkable man.

This one is a creepy white-knuckle excursion into horror, where even the "boo!" moments are so well developed that they cause a jolt.

As biographical crime thrillers go, Killer Instinct is a worthy entry to the genre, although the incompleteness of the story makes it difficult to evaluate on its own. The movie needs to be seen in the context of a greater whole for it to be fully appreciated.

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’s the kind of movie one can watch and appreciate on both an emotional and intellectual level but without having to do much heavy lifting. It isn’t the director’s best work but nevertheless represents a worthy entry to his increasingly diverse filmography.

In Shazam!, the positives outweigh the negatives. The film’s fresh aspects are strong enough to keep the stale ones at bay.

The extreme nature of the gore isn't beside the point - it is the point. Raimi goes so far over the top in presenting these displays that they take on a campy, almost humorous appearance. It's impossible to take all this blood seriously. So, instead of being sickened, we're strangely amused - and this is all intentional.

As is often the case with pioneers, it is ragged around the edges, but the film's weaknesses are not enough to prevent it from being appreciated. Dracula is not scary; it's a little too campy and hokey to be so (especially by today's standards), but it is nevertheless an effective storytelling vehicle, and there are occasional moments of movie magic.

It offers a feel-good experience, but without the heavy dose of schmaltz that often accompanies such a production.

The basic storyline has been done to death over the years; this is still one of the most effective and successful applications of the formula.

Despite its problems, The Swan Princess is actually one of the better non- Disney animated productions to come along in a while. While the creators of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Pocahontas need not feel threatened, parents looking for something different to take their offspring to might find something worthwhile here.

The cast is remarkable. Five of the seven principal cast members own previous Oscar nominations.

The action scenes are, for the most part, kinetic and exciting - things that have rarely been true of fights and chases in the superhero's previous incarnations.

First time director Jonathan Frakes (who also plays Riker, the Enterprise's second-in-command) injects some badly-needed energy and inventiveness into a series that, prior to this effort, was sinking under its own weight and boldly going nowhere.

Despite the clever premise and several laugh-aloud moments, the film as a whole underwhelms.

For those who buy into the precept that "good things are worth waiting for," The Walk unquestionably delivers.

Although the specter of death hovers over the entire film, it is neither a grim nor a depressing experience. Arcand has injected a great deal of wit into the movie, and it meshes perfectly with the anticipated pathos.

Throughout the entire production, there’s an excellent sense of place with both the touristy and less friendly aspects of Acapulco contrasting with one another. These real-world contradictions are less compelling than those in Neil’s personality but they make for a fascinating backdrop to the unveiling of the truths about one man’s psychological dissolution.

It’s definitely not a pure thought-piece: there is a body count and quite a bit of blood (although this is by no means a gore-fest). But it seeks to do more with familiar tropes than merely create an unimaginative story around them.

A Complete Unknown isn’t shallow but the screenplay makes no attempt to psychoanalyze its subject. If there’s something to be learned, it’s how uncomfortable it could be to enter this man’s orbit. His music is iconic and speaks to many but, from the first scene to the last, he remains A Complete Unknown.

The Paper is a crowd pleaser, and, regardless of any viewer's experience (or lack thereof) with the behind-the-scenes wrangling that goes on in newspaper offices, the story is affable and entertaining. While there are no startling revelations, the film's atmosphere contains enough strength of realism that more than one viewer may momentarily think of the goings-on at The Sun as they sit down with their morning cup of coffee and look at the day's headlines.

Berg's picture is certainly an above average effort that provides a solid emotional punch.

The twists taken by the narrative, the quality of the performances, the superlative cinematography, and Berri's masterful direction make this one of the best motion pictures ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s a passable production with some interesting performances but the bumpy screenplay and uneven pacing keep the audience at arm’s-length and limit the effectiveness of the narrative.