It can be charmingly elliptical at first (and even again toward end, when things get momentarily, gleefully weird), but the film gradually loses its power as Parthenope’s life becomes a kind of pointless merry-go-round showcasing new permutations of her seductive beauty.

Black Snake Moan' is a trip to that unfamiliar territory well worth tagging along on.

A notable, worthwhile picture.

Worth seeing just to admire how Argentine writer-director Marcos Carnevale avoids so much as a whiff of condescension.

The emotion the Zucheros are trying to express and illustrate here is a deep, fathomless, infinite loneliness, and here and there, but more than once or twice, they hit their target.

Blackhat is pretty much nonsense, which Mann directs with such misplaced energy and with such little natural instinct for the material that, for most of the running time, the movie’s problems seem entirely his fault.

The story, based on a novel by Victor Headley, is pointless and occasionally ridiculous. And the movie is hardly helped by a protagonist that we’re expected to care about, even as he does an unending series of colossally stupid, violent and self-destructive things.

Doesn't transcend the yawner template of coming-out films.

From the start, we can see where this is headed: a big fat power struggle, with Omar at the eye of the storm. But the storm is more of a drizzle than an apocalyptic downpour, just one snippy conversation after another in languorous settings.

You won't see another film like Fay Grim this year, and we should give Hartley credit for making it work on his own terms.

So restrained that viewers may start to yearn for a bogeyman to burst from the closet.

Surprisingly robust.

Amateur in the true sense of the word -- plainly, proudly homemade.

Really is just an excuse to string together some silly fake-movie clips.

Breaks the formula for teen romances. Martin Short, as the vain and zany drama teacher, does not disappoint.

Duller than first version.

By the end, “Coming 2 America” has us. It’s strange, these movies that create a warm feeling. It’s hard to say why or how. But when Murphy sits on the throne watching a bad lounge singer (also played by Murphy) perform “We Are Family,” it feels like the summation of the three decades of virtuosic silliness that Murphy has brought to the screen, and of all that has meant to us.

Insidious: Chapter 3 is simply not scary. Not a bit, not a whit. Except that the audience will be terrified of the next stabbing of their eardrums, at generally predictable intervals.

The movie's flaw is impossible to ignore, turning on the most tired of romantic comedy conventions: Someone knows something, and all that person has to do is say it, and the movie is over and everything's great.

A pleasant diversion starring the always amiable Nick Frost, with Chris O'Dowd relishing his role as a slimeball.

Gridiron Gang gives you a lot more to think about during the ride home.

From scene to scene, the tone shifts from supposed sincerity to arch and amused, until the picture begins to seem like some mad, desperate, scattershot attempt to hold an audience's attention from moment to moment, by any means.

It’s an action and suspense film, and, like Butler’s earlier 2023 flick “Plane,” a good one. Impressive set pieces include a car chase through a small-town bazaar, and a midnight shootout between Tom, outfitted with night-vision goggles, and a helicopter.

To watch Boulevard is to keep circling back, over and over, to the question: Was it merely an actor’s misguided inspiration, to take a repressed character and turn him into a grievously depressed one? Or was Williams simply unable to do it any other way?

The measure of this kind of movie is its seductiveness, not its logic, nor the ways in which it exploits the supernatural angle, and The Lake House is seductive.

Despite a super-dark noir plot and respectable cast, Deadfall is a thriller that never quite delivers on its promise.

Overacting and silly lines sometimes distract, and the latter sound sillier in Branagh’s forced French accent (“Ah love, it is not safe”). Still, Branagh’s direction and screenwriter Michael Green, who also scripted “Orient,” add diversity and convincing emotions to the mystery mechanics.

Some of the middle section of Bean sags, but most of the film zips along with a series of comic setups, played like skits, that emphasize Bean's klutziness, his feeble mentality, his childlike, me-too urges.