Whatever allure The Son has lies in its very remoteness, in its resolute refusal to show us all but the most delicate emotional vibrations. It also moves very sluggishly.

Sleeping With Other People is one of the best and funniest recent attempts to update the rom-com – but the container feels too antiquated for the world it captures, which is so furiously alive.

Marshall delivers old-fashioned swashbuckling action-movie thrills more than computer-engineered grotesquerie.

Stupid, crude and hilarious, Step Brothers works by sneaking past our better judgment.

Assayas' triumph here is in making sense of confusion and emotional drift -- bringing his characters gently forward into life, and making the film feel full and rounded while still resisting easy resolution.

Like a truffle in a fluted paper cup, a small delight made with care and attention to detail.

It needs to seem cool enough that we want to watch it despite its obvious silliness, and viewed through that prism of canny analysis, the craftsmanship of “Winter Soldier” is first rate.

With its intelligence, compassion, human terror and sheer loveliness, Candy is a winner despite the well-worn path it treads.

It's thrilling to see something this profane, mythic and, most of all, not bored with life, love and the possibilities of cinema.

If there were any justice in the world, The Cat's Meow would be the beginning of the rehabilitation of Davies' image.

Donald Rumsfeld, then, is almost the perfect foil or adversary to Morris, and part of the absurd magic of Morris’ extended interviews with Rumsfeld is that they almost never feel adversarial.

Rock of Ages is an effulgent celebration of fakeness. It isn't trying to be real; it's trying to be faker than any fake thing has ever been before.

You feel you've been both a little creeped out and vigorously entertained. Its showmanship comes through in the clutch.

For me the breakthrough in At Any Price comes from 59-year-old Dennis Quaid, cementing his character-actor renaissance with what may be the nastiest role of his career.

Every minute he's on screen, Whitaker makes Ghost Dog worth watching.

Much of the picture is exciting and terrifying.

Utterly delightful.

There's way too much plot here getting in the way of the story, which makes it tough for Alfredson and cinematographer Peter Mokrosinski to focus on the series' strongest elements. Of course it's the character of Lisbeth that has made these books and movies into a worldwide phenomenon.

An entertainment as billowy as a Shakespearean nurse's sail-shaped hat.

The good-natured silliness of it all kept me laughing.

The story of how La Sierra moves from a seemingly pointless war to an unexpected peace is a thrilling one, although the impact of seeing what becomes of these three kids is devastating.

A mildly rousing and reasonably satisfying picture about one man's efforts to mend the rifts among his countrymen.

Although the character of Aladeen seems awfully predictable by Baron Cohen standards, the movie itself veers from one hilarious, absurd and patently offensive setup to the next.

If Thalbach's fiery performance is the heart of Strike, her costar is the vast and impressive Gdansk shipyard itself.

It's a relief to go to the movies and see teenage girls acting like teenage girls, as opposed to grown women acting like teenage girls.

A surprisingly refreshing experience, especially in a season of infernal cinematic busyness.

Kentis and Lau succeed in doing what all filmmakers worth their salt strive to do: They make us care about their characters.

Past the first third, Planet of the Apes is entertaining enough, but it stops far too short of being completely seductive.

Cretton did fictionalize parts of the story, adding dramatic embellishments and narrative tissue. But his greatest feat may have been telling the story in such a way that viewer doesn’t leave the theater going, “Oh, some of these stories are so extreme, they might be slight fictionalization.” They’re too consumed by the ride.

The film's strange blend of tragedy and surreal gore, à la Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, is surprisingly effective. For the right person, and you know who you are, this one's a must-see.

In some ways it's not a very good movie... tries to mix comedy and tragedy...but the movie has an exciting subject -- a true story.

A luminous picture, beautifully made, loaded with symbolism and mystical-religious imagery, about an artist's self-destructive quest for an unreachable grail. It's also a deliberately prurient spectacle designed to be arousing and troubling -- most viewers, I imagine, will have both reactions at various times (and maybe at the same time).

Pathos isn't a cheap gimmick when it comes from the soul, and Li knows how to channel it, through his brain, his limbs and his heart.

A moving and profoundly upsetting portrait of life near the bottom of the global power pyramid.

Ricci's Wendy captures the volatile combination of aggressiveness and uncertainty in a young woman trying to come to terms with her sexuality like no performance since Emily Lloyd's in "Wish You Were Here." It's a very different performance, quieter, harder and yet more vulnerable.

Not only is War Dogs a surprisingly well-told tale in the classic American rags-to-riches-to-rags mode. It’s also a mordant morality fable with a genuine heart of darkness. (Plus, it has one hell of a soundtrack, matching its moods to an array of classic rock and hip-hop tunes in the Martin Scorsese vein.)

There are a number of terrific production numbers in Lucy, basically violent action scenes that border on slapstick, and as long as we agree in advance that the “science” in this movie goes beyond pseudo into total B.S., I believe you will leave satisfied.

A subtle and often surprising study of the relationship between damaged adult siblings, full of mordant humor and dramatic invention.

There are some indignities that Drew Barrymore should never be made to suffer.

Witty and intelligently made. It's also utterly baffling.

Year of the Dog is an enjoyable, patchy, rambling affair, a series of bittersweet comic sketches strung together with thin wire.

Quiet, sensitive, resolutely unsensational documentary about virtually the most sensational subject you can imagine.

May frustrate as many viewers as it delights (if not more) and it is almost relentlessly depressing, but it's also a principled, sharply realistic film that captures a highly convincing vision of Middle America.

Beneath its movie star clowning, its awful-but-relatable heroine and its lightweight gags, Burn After Reading poses an implicit challenge to its viewers: Can you figure out why this comedy isn't very funny? Could that be because its central proposition is that the people in the theater are just as stupid, just as gullible, just as eager to be deceived as the people on the screen?

Feig’s Ghostbusters is a goofy, free-floating romp with an anarchic spirit of its own, a fresh set of scares and laffs and a moderate dose of girl power that is unlikely to seem confrontational to anyone beyond the most confirmed basement-dwelling Gamergate troll.

Isn't a great movie; I'd say it's barely a good one. But it's a war movie that at least acknowledges the distinction between macho and masculinity, always putting the dignity of the latter over the bluster of the former.

It's Thornton's rough and nuanced performance as Karl, not his modest filmmaking skills, that sucks you so quickly into Sling Blade's vortex.

There's a vivid comedy to this family's emotional state of siege, an easy confidence to Honoré's camerawork, and plenty of beautiful bodies.

An oddly graceful combination of fairy tale and romantic comedy, set in a forgotten corner of the world.

These people can behave well or poorly, but they were already bugs on the windshield of life before their unhappy collision.

It’s a highly enjoyable picture.

One of the better multiplex options of this legendarily dismal summer.

This isn't Sheridan's most complex or richest picture, but there's lots of life to it: This is an unapologetically glossy pop product, powered by a strong, old-fashioned sense of B-movie melodrama.

An affable entertainment, both a celebration and a satire of lowbrow pleasures.

There's plenty to like here, especially for connoisseurs of the action genre, and there's also plenty to make you wonder whether Besson and co-writer Robert Mark Kamen scribbled their screenplay on a batch of Marseilles cocktail napkins and then lost one or two.

The look of Burton's Gothic dream landscape, both lulling and energizing, is vested with so much power that it could almost substitute for narrative drive.

Lynn Hershman hasn't reached much of an audience, which makes the modest national rollout of her fascinating Strange Culture a noteworthy event.

McCarthy has much more to discover about herself as an actor and an avatar and a cultural signifier, and I hope she doesn’t get trapped by one role, one genre or one franchise. But her campaign of conquest is going well.

As a visual symphony, The Canyons is often masterful, and while it may be pornographic in places, it’s never campy. At the center of its cold, beautiful and half-dead world is the almost incandescent Lindsay Lohan, burning like a flawed diamond.

On one level, this is an altogether obvious lesson about market capitalism.

If you're willing to suspend not just disbelief but also all considerations of logic and intelligence and narrative coherence, it's also a rip-roaring, fun adventure, fatefully balanced between high camp and boyish seriousness at almost every second.

Faithful to Sagan's brand of popularized science, the film never reaches beyond Hollywood spectacle and sentimentality.

In its own strange way, the tiny, mysterious and occasionally terrifying indie film Felt captures the confusion of this moment in gender relations, and especially the confusion around the term “rape culture.”

The problem with Seitzman's script is how predictable almost all of it feels.

This is a gangly, confusing sprawl, and yet there are enough patches of beauty scattered throughout that it's impossible to reject it wholesale.

This is a brash, lightweight backstage comedy that looks lovely, doesn't insult its audience and uses its stars, both young and old, to terrific effect.

I'm not really sure how strong this material is on its own: I kept trying to imagine what The Oh in Ohio would have been like with other actors in the leading roles, and I couldn't -- Rudd, DeVito and especially Posey seem integral to it.

A romance for the deeply romantic, which means that some people will certainly view it as cynical.

Until Gran Torino starts rumbling headlong toward its tone-deaf, self-serious ending -- the script is by Nick Schenk -- it's often enjoyable, satisfying and funny.

Entertaining in a glossy, mindless way.

The universe of The Dead Girl is an almost uniformly dreary one, whose women are all either dowdy or whorish.

I wish one-tenth of the films I saw were made with this much craft and integrity, this much intuitive understanding of where to put the camera, how much of the story to explain in words (not much) and how much to trust his outstanding cast to carry the film with their voices, faces and bodies.

Has a lot of integrity, both in visual and conceptual terms, and seamlessly blends entertainment and education.

Jolly good fun.

Charles Nelson Reilly is still alive, dammit, and boy does he have a story to tell.

The seventh and last volume in J.K. Rowling's series of best-selling fantasy novels has been split in half for Hollywood purposes, making this long, dour, impressive and handsome motion picture the penultimate chapter, largely designed to build up the heavy-duty suspense before the climax is delivered next year.

After the fundamental problem of Coherence has become clear, or clear-ish – there’s another dinner party, at that other house, that looks an awful lot like this one – the movie becomes slightly too much like an unfolding mathematical puzzle, although an ingenious one that reaches a chilling conclusion.

Investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre's film is fairly standard British TV product, closer to a glorified "60 Minutes" segment then to cinematic art. But never mind -- its subject is, as he might say, feckin' amazing.

I'm being completely sincere - and entirely complimentary! - when I say that The Muppets represents a career high point for Segel, the comedian who reveals himself to be a whimsical writer, capable singer and dancer and appealing straight man.

The Orphanage is a careful, elegant work that looks a little rough around the edges; it was shot largely with natural light and employs minimal special effects.

The picture is sharp, in a warm, fuzzy way, about the ways women can sometimes inflict cruelty on other women in the name of feminism. Feminism doesn't have to be the enemy of kindness, but sometimes -- alarmingly often -- it is.

If you can tolerate watching it once, it will burrow into your brain and never get out again; your only recourse will be dragging your friends into the nightmare and seeing it again.

Duck Season is something quite different, capable of gratifying film snobs and regular viewers alike.

Writer-director Thom Fitzgerald -- his previous feature was "The Hanging Garden" -- has managed to make a comedy about assisted suicide that hardly feels black at all.

John Hillcoat's The Road is an honorable adaptation of a piece of pulp fiction disguised as high art; it a has more directness and more integrity than its source material, the 2006 novel by Cormac McCarthy.

What will likely draw butts into theaters for Friends with Kids isn't one star in particular, but the sum of its comic pieces.

In "Buffalo 66," Gallo was an unfunny prankster. In The Brown Bunny, wearing his heart on his sleeve, he's a real filmmaker.

A charming comedy with a philosophical undercurrent that provides a fascinating glimpse of Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jews, who live in a realm almost literally sealed off from outsiders. But the most remarkable thing about the film is that it exists at all.

After an uninspired middle period, the "Shrek" series has, like the revitalized character himself, roared back to form.

Bale’s performance is absolutely letter perfect, and he disappears into the role.

Whether he's getting hit in the face with a dildo or cozying up to Martha Stewart, Knoxville is always affable, playful and able coax a laugh out of an audience by doing ridiculous things. He's a jackass all right, but he's a jackass in shining armor.

It honestly shouldn't work at all, yet somehow on the strength of good humor and sex appeal ends up being one of the most enjoyable mainstream films of the season.

Sarin and Sonam also lift the veil on potentially explosive divisions within the Tibetan exile community, which is torn between spiritual and cultural loyalty to the Dalai Lama and a widespread longing for true independence. (The filmmakers clearly belong to the pro-independence camp.)

For all the CGI action sequences and butt-rocking Dolby sound effects, in fact, Green Lantern is most satisfying when it sticks close to stodgy comic-book archetype.

Like a Theodore Dreiser novel for our time, infused with the vivid, vulgar spirit of reality TV. It often had the sold-out Eccles Center howling, but also has elements of profound tragedy and allegory.

This is a sturdy little cop thriller, and even when it stretches the bounds of plausibility, you go with it, partly because you believe -- almost against your better judgment -- in what the characters are doing.

While Keating's agenda is clearly hostile, and Giuliani's political committee is eagerly trying to do counter-propaganda, this isn't a campaign of character assassination or innuendo, but rather a dutifully constructed biographical film about a tremendously skilled prosecutor and politician.

I was laughing myself sick over Saving Silverman, a sublimely idiotic farce in the "There's Something About Mary" tradition.