What you get in this cop drama is NYPD Blue lite. That's not bad. In fact, it's compulsively watchable. But there are no leaps, just fits and starts.

Brosnan, in his fourth time up at the Bond bat, hits this one out of the park.

The 24th has its share of unevenness. It also has the blessing, and the curse, of necessity. It’s a story that has to be retold.

It’s clear that a verité, fly-on-the-wall record of these SNL livewires on vacation would have made a hilarious documentary. What we have instead follows the Sitcom 101 formula.

The humor is slight, but the actors make the blarney go down easy.

This tale of self-involved millennials, a mystery machine, and a whole mess of purposefully mistaken identities is the kind of mashup of high-concept horror and ham-fisted satire that mistakes complicated for complex and a pile-up of confusing plot twists for storytelling.

What keeps Adrift from feeling like just a travelogue tacked on to a tragi-sploitive star vehicle is, ironically enough, its star. Shailene Woodley has always been great when it comes to bringing the radiance – she's like a sunbeam made sentient – and even better when she can use that California Dreamin' glow semi-subversively a la "The Spectacular Now" or "The Descendents."

The movie is so soggy and anonymous, I had to remind myself that the Farrelly brothers, Peter and Bobby, directed it. It's sad to watch the kingpins of gross-out try to dial down to cute. Swung at and missed.

At times, Jolie rises to the pulpit when she should stay on the ground. Her theme is too complex for her scattered screenplay to encompass. It's as a director that Jolie shines.

As a movie, Tag is all over the place, with gags too hit-and-miss to cohere into anything truly memorable. But the partytime atmosphere – as if "Dodgeball" mated with "Game Night" – might be just what you're looking for on a hot summer night. With these actors, there’s no downside to watching them let it rip.

A potently acted, buoyantly funny film that trades on emotion without making you gag on it.

To call it trippy would be an understatement. Your head might explode. Just don't accuse Taymor of playing it safe.

Knoxville and his boys seem to be saying goodbye. To which I can't help thinking, fondly, it's time.

It's a dumb summer movie done with smarts.

Whether you regard Stella's getting her groove back as a feminist battle cry or as a silly wish-fulfillment fantasy, the movie delivers guilt-free escapism about pretty people having wicked-hot fun in pretty places.

A Dirty Shame is Waters unleashed, and wicked, kinky fun for anyone except the twits who rated it NC-17.

Towne doesn't weave all the elements as deftly as before, and his political observations seem secondhand.

Schumacher could have exploited those tabloid headlines about solid citizens going berserk. Instead, the timely, gripping Falling Down puts a human face on a cold statistic and then dares us to look away.

What if director Joseph Ruben didn't resort to B-movie suspense tricks? What if the fine cast wasn't saddled with a shamelessly contrived script by Wesley Strick and Bruce Robinson? Then Return to Paradise would be a better movie, that's what if.

As Van Peebles turns the western into an equal-opportunity genre, his voice occasionally fades in the din. But be assured: It’s a voice spoiling to be heard.

Hamm is first-rate, his nuanced portrayal lifting the movie to the winner's circle.

The result is an uncommon intimacy, the kind you find in a Judy Blume novel. Her grit and grace are all over this heartfelt adventure of a movie. She gives it a spirit that soars.

Maher can be a smartass, but his attempts to apply reason to religion are more a challenge than a threat.

Keaton, a sorceress at blending humor and heartbreak, honors the film with a grace that makes it stick in the memory.

Hollywood has a knack for sanitizing books that deserve better. In the case of The Glass Castle, it's a damn shame.

It didn't grab me. Not at first. A documentary that tracks the winner of a reality show -- in this case Bravo's Project Runway -- after his victory. Huh? But Eleven Minutes busts a few fresh moves.

First-time director Eli Roth turns this cheapie into a greatest-hits of horror. It's a blast of good gory fun that just won't quit.

Never mind the curveballs that Radioactive throws audiences on its defiantly unconventional journey into a defiantly unconventional life. Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie has been done proud.