Ang Lee is a great director whose last film, the Oscar-winning “Life of Pi,” made ingenious and very effective use of 3D technology. But that film had a much better story than Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.

It is well-intentioned, conscientious and competent in its filmmaking craft.

It is utterly predictable, but thanks to the charm of its charismatic stars, some of the world’s most spectacularly beautiful scenery, and that fairy-tale gloss, it is beguilingly watchable.

It’s the kind of movie that might not be as charming if you’ve seen 100 vampire movies, but if you’re also curious about bloodsucker tropes, and the real-life world that surrounds its lead character, it has just enough of a soul.

The Fallen Sun is a natural continuation for fans but also presents a way in for series newcomers, even sending the character off in a new direction that playfully acknowledges Elba’s Bond bona fides while asserting, not unconvincingly, that Luther’s world is quite enough.

The problem with “Deep Water” is not that it is a bad movie (which it is), but it’s a gratingly familiar one that doesn’t have a single point of interest to call its own. Instead, it prefers to spend two hours rehashing elements that even newbies to shark-based cinema will find devoid of any real inspiration.

Just good enough to make you wish that it were better.

It is an efficient thrill ride, running about 90 minutes, with every moment used as effectively as possible.

Ultimately, these shocking and violent sequences become repetitive and gratuitous, making Red Sparrow feel more like a cheap exercise in exploitation than a visceral tale of survival.

For all the psychological realism of Carrie and Margaret's relationship, however, this remake has a comic book feeling.

Though millions of Jewish people were imprisoned and killed in concentration camps during this time, this misguided drama, written by Ilya Tsofin, isn’t interested in the truth of their stories. Instead, it’s a contrived triumph of the human spirit-style narrative where the Jewish character at the center is rendered a cipher for suffering while his Nazi tormentors are unconsciously humanized.

Hubie Halloween is just generally entertaining enough to be harmless, while also being the kind of movie that people will have trouble remembering exists by the time he makes “Tommy Thanksgiving”.

The Artist and the Model is a simple, straightforward film about the wonder and awe that the natural world inspires in us.

Tonally messy and overlong, director Greg Berlanti’s film ultimately squanders the considerable charms of its A-list stars, Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, who are individually appealing but have zero chemistry with each other.

Though not without its entertaining moments—the cast, led by Sandra Bullock, is energetic, sharp and gets a fair number of juicy bits to rock out with. But as a whole, Our Brand is Crisis is a messy affair that sputters along when it should be humming with assured cynical momentum.

Eventually, the fact that the characters are all aware of the multiple clichés they’re uttering — an exchange between Brian and a young editor (Olivia Thirlby) is particularly excruciating in this respect — doesn’t redeem or excuse the clichés.

The film has merit as a sprawling and effective work that combines the expected action beats with quieter, character-driven moments, and elements of pure weirdness to surprisingly strong effect. Even when it doesn’t quite work, and it's undeniably uneven at times, it at least has the good taste to offer up flaws borne of ambition instead of laziness.

It’s an easy watch in a B-movie marathon but you’ll have forgotten it by the time you’re done with the Thanksgiving leftovers.

Luke and the other actors do their best, especially Zosia Mamet as June’s friend and Melissa Leo as Charlie’s mother, but the dialogue never creates vivid, specific, consistent characters.

Tucci is wonderful, but Timlin comes close to eating him up almost as thoroughly as her character does his.

White House Down is still too gun-happy, and too long, but however you feel about the Oval Office, our country, or some of the movie's jingoism, young Emily is worth rescuing.

Man of Tai Chi is hugely entertaining.

Berry’s Bruised is a familiar comeback tale relying on the inner-city motifs of 1990s hood films to deliver a melodramatic, barely coherent prestige vehicle with very little to say about MMA itself.

Based on a 2016 memoir by Tom Mitchell, “The Penguin Lessons” wants to be a thoughtful light entertainment about ideals and courage, but ends up seeming grotesquely misguided.

This is a safe, sometimes synthetic story of two people in pretty settings finding a way to overcome their history and connect to one another, the beats all scheduled as conventionally as in the interchangeable comfort food movies on the Hallmark Channel.

It may not be his worst film overall, but Stonehearst is Anderson’s flattest film, a disappointingly shallow affair that wastes an opportunity to breathe life into a timeless Edgar Allen Poe short story.

While it has a couple of appreciably goofy flourishes, the proudly crass horror-comedy Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is sadly more boring than offensive despite its superficially controversial high-concept premise.

One thing that’s notable about Front Cover — and that sets it apart from Ang Lee’s nominally similar “The Wedding Banquet” — is that, though set in New York, its perspective and espoused values are finally more Chinese than American.