For the most part, “William Tell” is stuck in multiple in-between phases, and filmmaking modes. It’s far too violent and disturbing for little kids, but feels a bit too popcorny to pass muster as a serious epic drama.

Rough Night starts out buoyantly, and it and features some wonderfully weird moments scattered throughout. But those scenes never truly gel with the movie’s eventual life-or-death stakes.

The issue of so-called “illegals” could not be more timely and, if Spare Parts does anything, it attempts to humanize the situation of those children who cope with this limbo-land existence without having had much choice in the matter.

Circus Maximus is a curiosity and a career footnote more than a substantial freestanding film achievement, which is too bad. It's more a notion for a work of art than a work of art, and you can't expect people to pay $25 (the cost of a special engagement ticket opening weekend) for a notion.

For the most part, it is a solid film that bolsters its innately compelling narrative with effectively low-key performances, some genuinely thrilling sequences and only a few moments here and there that lean towards hokeyness.

Lone Survivor burns with the fever of a passion project. Writer-director Peter Berg's gratitude to United States servicemen for all their sacrifice comes through viscerally, from first frame to last.

A documentary that wants to appear inventive but too often comes off as affected, directed by Jeffrey McHale.

Nobody Knows I’m Here wants to make a statement about the harsh price of fame and the awful, hurtful machinations that settle the bill. It just takes too long to get these ideas into the plot thanks to the clichéd handling of its protagonist’s dark past.

It is a well-intentioned film that buries its affectionate heart in disjointed, unnecessary, forced banter.

It goes very far south, with two plot reveals that are among the most ludicrous that I’ve experienced in quite some time.

Is this a satire of the American Dream? A horror movie about how it became a nightmare? Or a comedy about a buffoon who basically stumbled into the men’s room on the right day? It seems unwilling to really answer these questions, content to substitute easy shots for difficult conversations about capitalism, politics, family, and marriage.

Believer works best as a series of perpetually escalating confrontations.

The best thing I can say about it is that it’s not another retread of its predecessor.

Though the film’s lachrymose gist is conveyed with subtlety and insight into the rigors of loneliness and mortality, it is lachrymose nonetheless. Fans of “Eleanor Rigby,” in any case, should not miss it.

It's a disappointment when so much goes unexplored, when the film bows to the demands of a cliched plot driving the story forward.

Gruff and always on the cusp of irate, Gibson is fine as this twist on Santa, but his performance, like the whole of the movie, simply rides on a single, warped idea. The slightly clever gimmick and simple plot are the true stars of Fatman, a movie that misses out on a whole lot of what could have been.

There are alliances and betrayals aplenty, but writer/director Daniel Lee seems more concerned with establishing and maintaining an epic look and feel than in providing cohesion to the narrative.

A consistent—almost catalog-like, you might say—array of pictorial wonders, Medeas, the debut feature from the Italian-born director Andrea Pallaoro is also a work of considerable daring. This plain, almost minimalist narrative presents itself from a position that neither talks down to nor attempts to cozy up to its audience.

There is surely an audience for this kind of feel-good quote-un-quote feminism. But a book of such richness, with a heroine as complex as Birdy, deserves much more than this genial Renn Faire romp.

Instead of building upon the welcome openness of that potentially healing father-son encounter, Max stumbles through some iffy crime-thriller territory and ends up pushing its PG rating to its limit.

Just bloody eye and ear candy.

Dazzlingly impressive from a technical perspective but frustratingly dull from a narrative one, Medusa Deluxe is an ambitious but uneven experience.

At the very least, the makers of That Awkward Moment should get credit for savvy casting.

I like these actors. I just wish they were in a better movie.

There are so many themes that could be unpacked through the details of the true story of The Watcher, but Murphy and his team don’t trust the facts, adding more and more ridiculous twists with every episode, until the whole thing collapses under any suspension of disbelief.

Writer/director Tiller Russell doesn't directly ask us to take a side in Silk Road, a dramatization of the creation and downfall of the eponymous darknet website. But the implications of which side the filmmaker wants us to lean toward are strong—and feel a bit disingenuous.

The always-engaging Renate Reinsve delivers yet again (as does talented co-star Ellen Dorrit Petersen). However, “Armand” is a frustrating, over-long movie that starts with an intriguing premise and then starts fighting it almost immediately.

Along the way there’s a scene of a secret meeting in a parking garage that’s more realistic, maybe, than the shadowy one in “All The President’s Men,” but not nearly as gripping. This problem persists throughout.