Given Russell’s involvement and a fairly solid cast that includes Jake Gyllenhaal and Catherine Keener, just how awful could it be? Really awful. Unwatchably awful. As in, “Give it the Razzie now and be done with it” awful.

If its account of Randi’s work as an exceptional entertainer and a zealous debunker were all that An Honest Liar gave us, it would be a tremendously fascinating film. But the movie also contains a third-act surprise – which won’t be revealed here – that makes it both unexpectedly revelatory and deeply moving.

First, and foremost: Zombeavers is exactly what it sounds like, a stoner-friendly horror-comedy about undead beavers. This needs over-stating since high-concept humor doesn't get higher than this.

The Gunman isn't the worst action film that you will see this year — you will be lucky if you even remember anything about it a couple of weeks after seeing it — it will probably go down as one of the more dispiriting ones.

The process of discovery that Evan goes through to get closer to Louise is what makes Spring special. But what Evan discovers about Louise feels like an after-thought that frustratingly overwhelms the film once it gets to where it's going.

An appealing comedy with an unabashed streak of melodrama, sharp dialogue, and a superb ensemble cast, anchored by a lead performance by Al Pacino in lovable scamp mode.

Easily the most astonishing and important movie to emerge from France in quite some time. While its style deserves to be called stunningly original and rapturously beautiful, the film is boldest in its artistic and philosophical implications, which pointedly go against many dominant trends of the last half-century.

Directed by action specialist Robert Schwentke (“Red,” “Flightplan”), Insurgent surges along with capable set pieces but less meaningful human interaction than in “Divergent.”

The movie doesn't quite hold together at times, and some of the darker elements (like what it feels like to be shamed and shunned at every moment of your life) are soft-pedaled. But it has a strange charm nonetheless.

A curious, ultimately unsatisfying romantic comedy about two sisters in love with the same man.

The scenic cinematography by Ben Nott is often beautiful, which distracts, at times, from the fact that the storyline is both convoluted in the most gratuitous way possible and that it’s enacted in the most unengaging way imaginable.

The number of important, enduring 1960s and early ‘70s songs that a group of studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew brought to life is staggering.

The fact that a woman has Crohn's disease is meant to be hilarious, in a nudge-nudge wink-wink "You know she's not giving her husband any sex" kind of way. It's wretched.

Champs is a documentary that wants to say something sociological about the sweet science of boxing. In this regard, it has an undeniable power.

Throughout the picture, Bernstein interacts with genteel folk who quietly deplore what they see as the American perception of art and art-making.

Gibney crams as much material as possible into a quick two hours (he really knows how to edit and pace a piece like this one as it feels much shorter) and yet, to be fair, there’s still an angle missing just by virtue of the fact that he couldn’t get anyone from the Church of Scientology today on camera.

No, what's most disquieting about It Follows is the way it presents sex as neither abnormal, nor beneficial.

The Cobbler is almost fascinatingly awful enough to recommend. If one subscribes to the theory that you can learn as much from a bad movie as from a good one, this one’s a master class in what not to do.

Most of the rest of the film surrounding it is a conceptually weak and dramatically muddled mess that has acquired a game and good cast and then given them precious little to do.

Run All Night is proof that quality action films don’t really need to reinvent the wheel each time out as long as they make it spin this smoothly.

Still, you can’t fault a family entertainment extravaganza too much if it actually goes out of its way to integrate the ensemble of a fairy tale in an Old World European setting with a diverse array of supporting players. Branagh deserves an extra bravo just for that. And we mean it sincerely.

While it does have a few things of interest going for it, this low-budget effort ends up arriving at its necessarily predictable conclusion in too many unnecessarily predictable ways.

The Champagne experience is a particular one, and even if you don’t imbibe this movie can give you an appreciation for what makes it special.

The filmmakers were able to pay his fee, and so Hopkins shows up for another rubbishy, misbegotten project and shames the whole enterprise with his open and volatile face, his incisive voice, his mere ultra-soulful presence.

Faults is a richly-textured movie that concerns the weird space between thinking you know what you're doing, and actually knowing what you're doing.

As exceptional as the acting in the picture is, and it is wonderful — Whitaker and Keitel are as inventive and surprising as they’ve been in years, and the supporting roles played by the likes of Ellen Burstyn and Stan Carp are well-sketched — it can’t entirely lift the movie from the rut it has all but plowed into by the end credits.

This is a huge, unwieldy topic. The filmmakers do an admirable job of condensing their information and making it comprehensible. They don't really succeed in unifying it, though, or in making the whole enterprise seem like more than a collection of talking points for people who are mad about climate change deniers, people paid to sow doubt about the damage caused by smoking, and their ilk.

The rare documentary that gets more and more interesting as it goes along, even ending with an update on this still-unfolding story that just took place.