Zoolander 2 sweats its silly ass off to please. The results are scattershot. But when it works — oh, baby. There's a bit with Justin Bieber and a selfie that, well, no spoilers.

Spends too much time covering ground well known from the headlines. But the scenes of the couple at home with their children and friends are uniquely fascinating, if not, in Wilson's words, "very 007-ish."

The pleasures of Dark Shadows are frustratingly hit-and-miss. In the end, it all collapses into a spectacularly gorgeous heap.

It's watching Cecil open his eyes, in Whitaker's reflective, powerfully understated performance, that fills this flawed film with potency and purpose. Striving really does bring its own glory.

The final confrontation between the Hulk and Blonsky, now the roaring Abomination, is like the clash of Downey and Bridges in "Iron Man," only not as exciting.

The tricky thing about parody movies is that the jokes get old fast and they're hit-and-miss. Walk Hard, a spoof of every musical biopic from "Ray" to "Walk the Line," is guilty on both counts. How lucky that when the jokes do hit, they kick major ass.

Stumbles and sometimes falls on its top-heavy ambitions. But there are also flashes of visual brilliance and performances, especially from Haley and Crudup, that drill deep into the novel's haunted soul.

Does the script by William Nicholson sometimes hit the sentiment pedal too hard? It does. But look at the tale it's telling.

Clooney is too talented and committed a filmmaker not to get in his licks. But with Suburbicon, he's made a movie that is tonally at war with itself.

Forrest Gump lives in spirit in this overbearing tear-jerker that takes two and a half hours to cover three baby-boom decades in an effort to prove that nice guys finish first, at least in the hearts of academy voters.

It's easy to overlook the failings in The Last Five Years. Let it in and it knocks you back on your heels. Just like love.

Spacey's deft directing can't offset a script that wants to be Chinatown and ends up as indigestible chop suey.

I don't know if 3-D could improve all movies (nothing could make "The Love Guru" funny) but it sure works here.

When Hollywood decides to remake French farce by Francis Veber, the result can be a champagne cocktail (La Cage Aux Folles spawning The Birdcage) or pâté de merde (Les Compères degenerating into Father's Day). Dinner for Schmucks, adapted from Veber's Le Dîner De Cons, falls somewhere in the middle.

Bummer. The vampires have no fangs. The humans are humdrum. The special effects and makeup define cheeseball. And the movie crowds in so many characters from Stephenie Meyer’s book that Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) is less a director than a traffic cop. But there’s a reason that Twilight has already become the movie equivalent of a bestseller: The love story has teeth.

Fleischer isn't much on details. It's all about the zigzagging rush of the ride. Fair trade.

Call this cowpoke comedy "Blazing Saddles" for millennials. Or just call it icky.

In the case of Una, the play's the thing, with the stage production coming at you in a rush that doesn't allow the characters or the audience to take a breath. In this personal hell of Harrower's creation, there is no exit. The movie, however, keeps opening the door and letting the air in.

Junkies for dark humor should prep for going cold turkey, despite the efforts of director Andrew Adamson to spice things up with combat and a rivalry between Caspian and Peter (good on Moseley for showing some backbone) that Lewis never imagined.

Director Peter Segal ups the ante on the action, aiming for Bourne more than Bond, but the stunts grow frenzied and increasingly flat.

Kendrick is terrific, taking a role that could have slid by on snide and building it into something uniquely funny and touching.

I'm OK with Entourage onscreen because it's really a victory lap for a cast that once earned our DVR-ready affection. To echo Perry Farrell: "Yeah! Oh, yeah!" As for the haters? Hug it out, bitches.

The film's most pleasing surprise is the beautifully nuanced portrait of Capote's confidante, "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee, by Sandra Bullock. You heard me. Bullock gives the film what it otherwise lacks: the ring of truth.

Suspended over a deep gully of disbelief, where logic takes more bullets than the bad guys, Shooter still makes the grade as hard-ass action escapism.

Luckily, Non-Stop has a way-above-average cast for this kind of nonsense.

It’s kickass trash that never pretends to be more. Bonus points for that.

Purists may object to the cuts the filmmakers have made to Chekhov's text in the name of pacing. (And nuts to that tricked-up ending!) But The Seagull still flies on the wings of humor and heartbreak that made it a Chekhov classic in the first place.

The laughs that do achieve liftoff are killer. But the real kick is seeing the old gang back and ready to party.

The lack of`cheeseball overload is refreshing. I could tell the good lie and say the movie is perfect. It's not. It's often earnest to a fault and fearful of its deeper, darker implications. Still, you won't leave The Good Lie unmoved. Its heart really is in the right place.

It delivers the popcorn goods, but it ignores the poison eating at Bond's insides. Killer mistake.

Premium Rush features fearless stunt work that shames most computer trickery. Too bad I didn't believe a minute of it.

A decent thriller that should have been dazzling, is nothing if not topical.

Don't worry. It just sounds like another bad Sharon Stone movie. Kinky Boots trips on its contrived plot, but this blend of trash and sass is a comfy fit.

The 25-year-old supernova (Lawrence) again proves she can do anything, moving from comic to tragic without missing a beat.

Is there anything less shocking than a movie that thinks it's shocking? See White Girl and discuss — and you should see it, if only for the all-stops-out performance of Morgan Saylor.

Too much manic energy runs the movie off the rails.

A rowdy blast because the spiky young cast treats the played-out script like virgin territory. That's acting!

What holds us are the actors, including Terrence Howard as a cop who grew up with the brothers.

Justice League is a decent crowdpleaser, preferable in every way to the candy-assed cynicism of Suicide Squad. But sometimes shadows need to fall to show us what to be scared of. In the end, this all-star team-up is too afraid of the dark to work its way into our dreams.

Gets the action job done and you better believe that Bruce is still the man.

The film goes slack when its screws most need to tighten. Luckily, Smith — flawless in accent and commitment to Omalu's worthy cause — grips you from first to last.

What saves the day is the spidery, schizoid Gollum, again performed by the great Andy Serkis through the craft of motion capture.

In the doldrums of January, the movie pulls out every trick in the suspense-thriller book to keep us grinning at each new absurdity. Silly? You bet. Irresistible? Totally.

The heart of the movie is really in Jasira's moments with her father, a mass of contradictions that Macdissi plays with comic ferocity and genuine feeling.

At moments, especially in the conflicted intimacy between Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern as Bliss' parents, Barrymore shows real directing chops. But in Whip It she's painting inside the box.

"GoodFellas" Oscar winner Pesci, who hasn't appeared onscreen in a major role since 1998's "Lethal Weapon 4," is a dynamo of conflicting emotions. And Mirren, bawdy in ways that erase all memory of her award-winning role as Elizabeth II in "The Queen," is magnificent.

Rango is like nothing you've ever seen.

The complex movie that might have been is still on the drawing board, teasing us with a deeper story that's disappointingly out of reach.

The Woman in Black doesn't break new ground, but in its suggestions of fine film ghost stories, from "The Innocents" to "The Others" and "The Orphanage," it works you over with riveting restraint.

This is a breakthrough star performance from a terrific actor getting a chance to let it rip.

Flaws aside, Kill the Messenger inspires a moral outrage that feels disconcertingly timely.

Given the assault of devilishly clever plot twists that buzz-bomb your brain like a two-hour binge of quad-shot lattes, Duplicity goes down as too smart for its own good.

Murder on the Orient Express offers audiences a deluxe journey to the past, but this pokey train goes off the rails about the time all the characters, except for Poirot, cease to matter.

Luckily, Trumbo has a powerhouse Bryan Cranston to light a fire under the moldier clichés in John McNamara's script.

Even when the film fails her, Field never loses her focus.

Tomb Raider may be a less camp, more cunning take on the arts and Crofts that have made the brand a hit, but to call this a better-than average videogame movie is to damn it with faint praise. Don't hate the players. Hate the genre.

It's a heavy thematic load for a single movie to handle — especially this one, which nearly collapses from its burden. But it's hard to fault director David Yates, who captained the last four Harry Potter movies, for having ambition.

Best of all, Jason Mewes is out of rehab to play Jay and spar with Smith as Silent Bob, his dope-dealing partner.

The film swings from melodrama to sermonizing, both blunting the human drama that needs to come to the fore.

An almost-there comedy with diverting compensations.

Hart is a comic fireball. Don't leave till after the final credits when he and Hall bust a few more hilarious improv moves.

The boat nearly sinks from character overload, and Curtis brakes when you most want him to gun it. But there’s no denying the comic energy of the cast.

Director Tom McGrath keeps the action spinning and trips lightly over the bummer spectacle of watching a bad boy go good.

But the bad boys achieve something a budget can't buy: an easy, natural rapport that makes you root for them. For comedy and thrills, Lawrence and Smith are a dream team.

It also doesn't grapple deeply enough with the core questions it raises, settling for telling a sob story that will go down easy at the box office. Still, you can't blame audiences too much for being seduced by two shining young stars in a movie romance that hits the spot, bitter and sweet.

Niccol is too good a screenwriter (The Truman Show, Gattaca) not to know that Hollywood cliches are hell on a film's political bite. They muzzle it.

Anderson packs the film with atmosphere spiked with intrigue. And Hamm gives his role a James Bond-meets-Don Draper appeal, tossing off one-liners with a weary insouciance. His scenes with Pike give the movie a resonant power it wouldn't otherwise have.

The Green Hornet doesn't suck. But don't expect it to hang together either, what with the clashing tones and melting logic.

To call the animation crude would be high praise. But they succeed enough of the time to make a perversely entertaining movie.

Kramer takes on a hot, unwieldy topic in Crossing Over -- the dream that immigrants have of U.S. citizenship and the nightmare of achieving it, especially with shortcuts. I'm sure Kramer will be picked to pieces for trying something while Hollywood crap climbs the box office ladder. There are all kinds of nightmares.

Writer-director Michael Patrick King, the creative force behind the show's later seasons, can't disguise the fact that the movie is basically five TV episodes strung together (only three hit the mark). But his script is more honest about aging than anything in "Indy 4."

Some actors don't need top-shelf material. Just the pleasure of their company is enough. And so Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin turn the insubstantial Stand Up Guys into solid entertainment.

Luckily, Ferrell is at his funniest being serious. Casa de Mi Padre, shot in 24 days for $6 million, is really an SNL-ish sketch stretched to feature length. But Ferrell is an hombre loco. Mi gusta.

Rosamund Pike is perfection as Barney's true love, and Dustin Hoffman makes magic as Barney's randy dad. It's acting heaven.

The film feels overstuffed and way too familiar, with Burton repeating tricks from his greatest hits (think Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands). And the fun runs out much before the film ends. But stick with it just for those times when Burton flies high on his own peculiar genius.

Wasikowska, from "Alice in Wonderland" to "Jane Eyre," is an actress of translucent expressiveness. And Hopper has his father's brooding intensity and a quicksilver humor all his own. They are both so good, I suggest you dive into the story unfolding in their eyes rather than the banal one in the script.

As a movie, Gold is slim pickings. But McConaughey keeps you riveted.

McCarthy is a force of comic nature. And she and Bullock mix it up like pros. In this dead-battery of a movie, these live-wires miraculously ignite sparks.

Bale even cedes the juiciest part to Aussie newcomer Sam Worthington, who is star material as a machine with a conscience. T4 is a mixed bag, but it's not f***ing amateur.

"WALL-E" had more charm, more soul, more everything. But there's enough merry mischief here to satisfy, even if you’re way past puberty.

The Siege is not a documentary but a glossy Hollywood entertainment that is prey to all the exaggerations, simplifications and acting histrionics that come with the genre.

By showing signs of intelligent life in a universe of diseased, digital drivel, Assassin's Creed stands above the herd of movies based on video games by default.

As Alien, a gun-crazy Florida drug dealer with tats, beaded cornrows and a grill any rapper would envy, Franco is a bug-f--k blast. Too bad the movie itself is rarely as outrageous as he is.

Stay for the outtakes – they’re improv delights, suggesting the movie that might have been if they had just left it all to Carell and Fey.

It's not much of a movie. But raging bull Robert De Niro, suited up to play for humor and heart, proves he can be a world-class charmer.

Leave it to Hilary Swank. Even when her film's pace lags behind its cliches, she sparks this true story, about a California teacher who sparks her students, with the passion the subject demands.

It's a bummer that the jokes don't land often enough, especially in the final third when the tone takes a turn for the tame. WTF!?!

The scenery is glorious; you can almost feel the sunshine and smell the wine. But Crowe and Scott are bulls in Mayle's china shop. Like an assertive Burgundy served with a delicate fish, they're a classic wrong pairing.

Before it goes off the rails in the final stretch, 99 Homes is a riveting rabble-rouser that thinks it can make a difference. In these days when Hollywood typically dulls our wits, Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes has a fire in its belly. It's spoiling to be heard.

Sadly, Furman keeps shoving the movie into the box of clichés he thinks the audience wants. We don't, and you can tell that Cranston doesn't want it either.

Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a mesmerizing portrait of the artist as a young, old and middle-aged man.

It's a shallow, melodramatic device that would sink most actors. But Lewis is not most actors. In fact, despite age and illness, he remains a mesmerizing star in front of the camera, compelling to watch even (and especially) when sitting perfectly still.

For all the spectacular settings and visionary designs, Cloud Atlas left me feeling disconnected. Sad. But that's the true true.

Until the end, when Robinson allows the lunacy to run into rant, the provocative Advertising adds up to frightful good fun. That is, if you’re not put off by accepting a preening pocket of pus as a leading man.

What's missing in Prince of Persia is a sense that all the running, jumping, climbing and fighting is leading to something. The best video games challenge you to reach the next level. Prince of Persia is content to skim the surface.

Webb never loses touch with the film's emotional through line. And he allows time and space for Garfield and Stone, both stellar, to turn a high-flying adventure into something impassioned and moving. A Spider-Man that touches the heart. Now that really is amazing.

Sing doesn't have the grit or the grace notes of Zootopia, which it resembles only in its concept of an animal kingdom.

Radnor and Olsen are so funny and touching you want to say happythankyoumoreplease. What you get is frustratingly less. Still, to the movie's refreshingly uncynical credit, you feel for them.