This is a dark comedy; the tone is such that it benefits from Jack Black emphasizing the less appealing aspects of his personality.

There's hardly an area in which Hot Pursuit is not found lacking. The comedy is unfunny with joke after joke falling painfully flat.

There's nothing here to astound or surprise; the movie neither exceeds nor falls below expectations. Those who love Hardy and/or the less-filmy romances of his era will derive the most from Far from the Madding Crowd.

The best thing that can be said about Welcome to Me, as written by Eliot Laurence and directed by Shira Piven, is that it attempts to portray the real Borderline Personality Disorder as opposed to the Hollywood movie version of the disease. Unfortunately, that's about all it does.

Age of Ultron disappoints not because it's irredeemably bad but because it fails to achieve the level of its predecessor in nearly every facet.

The final production is so jammed with subplots and secondary characters that it often feels like the Cliffs Notes version of a complex novel.

Haphazardly plotted, it not only falls prey to absolute predictability but chooses to have nearly every important conversation (except one) occur off-screen. That sort of laziness is unacceptable and results in a strong sense of audience dissatisfaction.

In the end, there's a sense that director Olivier Assayas is more concerned about making a point than telling a story.

Child 44 is a victim of poor adaptation. It is beset by problems related to flow and coherence; the narrative is confusing, the characters are provided with inadequate time for development, and dead-end subplots abound.

Those looking for a clear-cut chronology of how the murders happened are destined for disappointment. Flashbacks of the crime are short and ambiguous.

In the final analysis, the movie doesn't offer much about the subject that hasn't been previously explored, but the soil is fertile and many ideas germinate.

If nothing else, Unfriended does an excellent job portraying the frenzy that is on-line teen interaction. This is the new equivalent of "hanging out."

Baumbach is 45 (roughly the same age as Josh) so he writes from personal experience. He knows what these characters are feeling which is the reason why the human elements resonate with authenticity - a quality that fades when While We're Young wanders off on the tangent about what constitutes a legitimate documentary.

As a romance, a drama, or even a sports movie, The Longest Ride never reaches a satisfying destination.

Woman in Gold is arguably of more interest for its historical perspective than for its drama. Although there is some suspense in the courtroom proceedings, no one would mistake this for the next "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "The Verdict."

Viewers who come for the spectacle will get their money's worth. Furious Seven is all about action, with some scenes being more inventive than others.

It Follows doesn't try to get viewers to jump out of their seats. Instead, employing the time-honored technique of the "slow build", it pressures fingernails to dig into arm rests.

A Girl Like Her offers an emotionally honest examination of an important and often overlooked societal problem.

Dumb, juvenile comedy has its place when it's funny. Unfortunately, too often in Get Hard, it's not.

The movie wallows in remorse. Not only is the main character paralyzed by it but the filmmakers seem to believe that every Caucasian member of the audience should face up to White Guilt for the way in which the Industrial World has encouraged unrest in Africa so resources could be strip-mined. How's that for an uplifting action movie premise?

Insurgent is more clumsy than bad, but it disappoints because it wastes the world-building of Divergent, which set the stage for something more momentous than what the sequel delivers.

The trailers make Run All Night look like a fast-paced shoot-'em-up and, although those elements are present, this is a darker and grimmer experience.

Cinderella is a wonderfully realized family feature that retains the strengths of its source material while at the same time updating it for today's audiences.

Unfinished Business is bad - not epically bad but bad enough. Little contained in this misfire of a film works and the few successful things are dragged out to the point where they die a lingering death.

Criminally underwritten characters result in actors like Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, and Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) having little to do.

The Lazarus Effect begins with an intriguing premise then proceeds to squander all the early goodwill through a slow, inexorable descent into cheap horror gimmicks.

Focus is uncommonly good for a February release (damning with faint praise?) but may not clear the bar of being worthy of a trip through snow and ice to reach the multiplex. Star power, actor chemistry, and caper movie twists make for a nice diversion… but not much more.

The DUFF would make John Hughes smile. With its mixture of wit, teen friendly situations, and heart, The DUFF feels like something that might have come out of Hughes' '80s playbook.