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.

Mostly, Fifty Shades of Black is exactly what you expect it will be. It hits all the notes of its source material, only it amps them up, and it seems to get the inherent absurdity of this premise even more than Sam Taylor-Johnson’s movie did.

In spite of its abundant action — and for all the interspecies mashups, this is as much an action-adventure animated movie as it is a funny-animal animated movie — is a pretty relaxing experience for the adult viewer.

It’s more rote than revelatory, and the possibility of a sequel in the final shot plays more like a threat than a promise.

Some viewers may find all the walking and talking tedious, evidence of a film spinning its wheels. But these are the best sections of Naz & Maalik.

To his credit, the writer-director maintains a pretty decent balance between his disgust with this Business We Call Show and the movie’s thriller mechanics, which are not entirely well-engineered but do chug along to a not-unsatisfying climax.

It's executed with such passion that it holds together better than you might expect.

Depressingly universal and even more depressingly contemporary more than two centuries down the line.

Chinese blockbuster Monster Hunt is a sappy, crowd-pleasing, tonally wonky fantasy-adventure/comedy that pits dorky-looking monsters against over-acting cornball comedians/monster-hunters.

Having such a small number of characters, like the limitations caused by budgetary constraints, might sound like a recipe for creative claustrophobia, but Gentry turns these givens to his advantage, almost as if using Synchronicity to articulate a less-is-more filmmaking philosophy.

Both the French and U.S. iterations of Martyrs are transparently voyeuristic cheaply ginned-up Guignol peep shows with intellectual pretensions.

Ip Man 3 also sneaks in welcome moments of mushy romantic sweetness between Master Ip and his wife, Cheung Wing-sing (Lynn Hung).

The 5th Wave is Dystopia-Lite.

The movie is so incredibly consistent in failing to land an honest laugh that about an hour into it, its not being funny becomes laughable.

Ripstein, who began his long career working with the maestro Luis Buñuel, has his one-time mentor’s post-idealistic anger but doesn’t adopt an insouciantly ironic mode to filter it through; his perspective is determined but never detached.

This movie is one big, unsatisfying tease.

The characters in A Perfect Day don’t get to indulge in much eccentricity because they’re too busy banging their wills against bureaucratic idiocy.

The result is a promising film that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, like a meal well-presented on the plate that just doesn’t fill you up.

Band of Robbers just plain doesn’t work, to the extent that I’m almost regretful that the attempted schoolroom bans on Twain’s work weren’t more effective over the years, as they might have spared me watching it.

This is a bland, nearly incompetent animated movie.

Garrel judges none of these people for their bad choices, but rather acknowledges that these things happen all time. It’s a sentiment as timeless as the look of the picture, a French New Wave throwback shot on 35mm film which could take place decades ago or in the current day. C’est la vie.

One of the loudest laughs arrives when we get to enjoy a scowling James re-imagined as a game character. Points for greater diversity in the cast as well, but, if there is a second sequel in the offing, please allow the women to be more than the sum of their body parts.

As an action movie and as a historical document, it is a bombastic and wholly inauthentic mess that displays precious little interest in the men whose actions and sacrifices it purports to honor.

I want to recommend Nelson's film in spite of how misconceived it is simply because it asks interesting questions, albeit in some of the most banal ways imaginable.

All goodwill from that first hour is dead and buried by the last scene, abandoned by a screenwriter and director who had no idea where to take this story.

Its plot is an unholy blending of “Taken," “The Searchers” and "Angel Heart." As befitting a January release, it’s also an early candidate for the 2016 worst movies list.

The film’s final scene is both charming and hilarious and puts a delightful ribbon on top of what the film’s opening so sneakily established.

Although nowhere near as obnoxious as such recent faith-based offerings as “God’s Not Dead” and “Do You Believe?,” The Masked Saint is still kind of a chore to sit through, even for those predisposed to like anything that brings together Christian faith and sleeper holds.