This sequel tries to expand into tonier genre horizons and gin up a sort of Den-iverse mythology, yet simply ends up playing tourist in smaller, more previously colonized territory.

It's clear that Beatty, who has studied Hughes for decades, has an instinctive understanding of the man, from getting stuck on phrases he repeats endlessly to making deals he can't wait to run away from. No kids. No roots. Sex, movies and aviation are the only constants. Why? Beatty hints, but never tells us. But his performance, filled with comic bite and aching confusion, teases a much deeper portrait.

Imagine David Mamet rewriting his political satire "Wag the Dog" -- in which a president and his advisers declare war to distract the media from the prez's horn-dog activities -- as a joke-free kidnap drama.

It's Bettany's portrait of the monster as a young man that rivets attention. So remember the name, or don't. Just watch Bettany strut his stuff. You'll know a star when you see one.

Toothless satire relatively inoffensive and relentlessly mediocre.

Robert Wise's adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel about a deadly space pathogen trades in the genre's cosmic pulp and head-trippiness for a procedural-like seriousness. Germaphobes, proceed with extreme caution.

Watching De Niro take Paul through his first panic attack ("I'm crying like a woman") is an unalloyed joy.

Thanks to the comic tornado at its center, Isn’t It Romantic is still your best bet for a Valentine’s date at the movies. You could do worse.

Suffers from franchise fatigue. Its rote suspense is strictly a business proposition.

The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster from a script by fearless first-timer Kyle Killen, is operating on a plane far above multiplex formula. This flawed but heartfelt movie has the power to sneak up and floor you.

An uneven blend of mirth and malice.

The Aeronauts is hobbled time and again by the attempt to add the juice of fiction to a story that could and should have stood on its own. The truth, in Hollywood terms, is never enough.

Imagine "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" for the age of antidepressants — that’s Little Joe, the seventh feature (and first in English) from Austrian provocateur Jessica Hausner (Lourdes, Amour Fou).

Not even the haunting images and Garfield’s haggard intensity can disguise the gaping void where the film’s soul should be. There’s no there there.

Whatever this is, it’s not a movie — it’s a product more deserving of a road test than a review.

Like the best war movies, Lone Survivor laces action with moral questions that haunt and provoke.

What started as cute becomes cloying and bloated. Charm should never feel like it weighs a ton.

With House of Gucci, you get a jumble of stories jockeying for screen time, and then you get a supernova blazing at the center of all of it that burns everything superfluous away. If the film is remembered for anything, it’s for being Exhibit A as what a great actor she is. Forget Gucci. Long live the house that Gaga built.

Ribisi and Macht are sleaze incarnate. James Caan, as a conniving lawyer, and Rade Sherbedgia, as a Russian crime boss, are even more cootified. Best of all is Wilson, digging into his juiciest role in years and putting a human face on this mesmerizing morality tale, a journey into the toxic heart of the American dream.

As with his Trial of the Chicago 7 film, Sorkin seems to view history as the fodder for working with A-list stars and scoring ideological zingers. Mission accomplished, we guess. At a certain point, however, you really wish the film would stop ‘splaining its creator’s viewpoints and start actually being about its subjects.

The movie cops out by going soft in the end, but it's still hardcore hilarity for stressed moms looking for a girls night out. Guys should also check out Bad Moms — you just might learn something.

The last part of the movie, which brings the whole cast together on “Super Trouper,” is almost worth the price of admission. Millions will happily get drunk on the film’s infectious high spirits. For the rest of us, who can’t get with the program, Here We Go Again will go down as more of a threat than a promise.

The intensity of Leto and Hayek goes deeper than the script into revealing what makes these two sociopaths in heat impervious to bloody murder. When Hayek and Leto are onscreen, you do not look away.

The blistering confrontation scene between Hopper and Walken -- both in peak form -- will be talked about for years. It's pure Tarantino: a full-throttle blast of bloody action and verbal fireworks.

What really lifts Celeste and Jesse Forever above the rom-com herd, besides breakout star performances from Jones and Samberg, is the movie's willingness to replace clichés with painful truths. It's irresistible.

Of all the World War II movies about the plots to kill the architects of the Third Reich, Anthropoid is guilty of being the dullest.

We Live in Time is an actor’s movie, by necessity if not always by design. You know where the destination ends before the movie’s even begun. Pugh and Garfield make the endgame worth the journey, no matter where you place it.

One for the time capsule.