Wright is a brilliant director of turbocharged exposition, elegant but bruising action sequences, and graphically bold comedic overkill.

Cretton shows as much care and kindness with the minutiae of the daily routine — as he does with the larger issues that plague these lives in flux. He also infuses his story with unexpected humor as the kids hassle each other — and their supervisors — on the road to healing.

All this sounds eminently promising. But it would need a wordsmith as witty and wise as Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar for adapting the big-screen version of 1995's "Sense and Sensibility," to pull it off and do Austen herself justice.

Although presumably meant to be a modern-day version of the classic conspiracy thriller "The Conversation," Paranoia is so vapid that it plays like "Antitrust" sans the food allergies.

We the Parents, one-sided and promotional as it often feels, presents a possible solution, as well as the difficulties in achieving it.

Daniels delights in his actors, all of whom accept the challenge of bringing something true and vibrant to their various sketchily written characters with the enthusiasm of celebrity competition-show contestants.

One of the year's worst films.

Standing Up is mainly an exercise in personality development for Grace, raising her self-esteem, and giving her confidence.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints is a film that will reward you for seeking it out.

Save for a few references of being abandoned by his birth parents and adopted later, the source of Jobs's jerky behavior never is revealed.

The cast is terrific, and there are a couple of sequences that made me laugh out loud, but the movie as a whole is baffling.

Planes modestly succeeds. Very modestly.

At times, Blood, feels like a slightly-filled-out television police procedural with better cinematography, but the performances have an almost Shakespearean grandeur.

Whether it's the wealth of meta-cinematic references to both Shetty's and Khan's other work, or the evolving romance between Khan and Padukone, or the handsomely mounted action, or the occasionally excellent songs, Chennai Express always has something up its sleeve.

After all the thrills, chills, and jumped up machinery in both big and little films these days, there's not too much that can shake us up; show me something I can't get anywhere else, like Jug Face's rare joyful hillbilly dance sequence, with heels-tapping and spoons clanking.

This film is told in sympathy with the Linda Lovelace who reclaimed her real name, Linda Boreman, and became a feminist anti-porn activist years after her sole porn credit. Unfortunately, despite its passion and purpose, it's executed with so many wrong, false, stale and routine creative decisions that it runs aground by the time Muppet Babies Hef saunters in.

This is a very good movie and perfect summer counterprogramming.

In a summer of antiseptic effects spectacles, Elysium stands out for its grime and intensity, as well as the bluntness of its class allegory.

This "Percy Jackson" is a gentler-spirited, less flashy enterprise, though it still presents a natural world that can morph at the whim of a god. I like that.

Needless to say, the shapely Aniston pulls it off without a hitch — even if she never actually appears without a stitch. If this gutsy performance leads to better opportunities—a remake of Demi Moore's ill-conceived "Striptease," perhaps — I might sleep better at night.

Despairingly bland.

Brian De Palma is one of the great seducers of the cinema, and he proves it with Passion, a spellbinding thriller.

Maybe the joke’s on us, and all the pre-release hype suggesting that a micro-budget train wreck was barreling our way was merely part of the marketing strategy.

The beauty of Ecuadorian director Sebastian Cordero's film is the simplicity of its approach.

You've seen all this before, and many times. 2 Guns works because it's essentially several riffs on familiar material. Cliché is not a bad thing if it's done right.

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

What an affecting film this is. It respects its characters and doesn't use them for its own shabby purposes. How deeply we care about them.

The half-ingenious, half-ludicrous third act makes observations about class and legacy worth thinking about. It calls to mind Jeff Nichols's "Shotgun Stories."