Everything in the movie is suffused by a vision of life that is resoundingly and evidently false, but as this vision is not repulsive, but is intended to reassure, the lies don’t produce anger or frustration. No, they bring on the laughs.

It has verve, color and energy, but there's something fundamentally bogus about it.

Features bursts of humor and electrifying energy offset by speechifying and a dud of a subplot.

A confounding and unsatisfying film.

It's hard to get swept away when you're struggling to figure out who's doing what to whom and why.

Inventive and intermittently amusing.

In many ways a beautiful movie, and yet in other ways it’s not very good at all. As an achievement in stop-motion animation, it’s stunning — seamless and detailed, so perfectly done that it’s easy to forget that you’re witnessing skill and not magic.

Predictable.

Steep begins to feel a mite in need of tighter editing. In truth, the film will appeal primarily to skiers, while others may get a bit, well, snow-blind.

As Bilbo, Freeman is a pleasure to watch to the extent we get to watch him. His timing is brilliant — he gets the movie’s only laughs. He has tremendous sensitivity and an ability to seem like he’s about to say something — and then convey it without saying it. He could have made a great Bilbo. Instead he’s the one thing that has made this trilogy bearable.

The first half of My Worst Nightmare contains some of the best comedy and the biggest laughs of the season, and the second half ... eh.

The King of Kings gives the Jesus story an animated treatment with some whimsical Dickensian touches. It’s nothing to write scripture about, but it should provide amusing and possibly enlightening Easter entertainment for younger children.

All this makes Zama interesting and unique and something to be respected. But none of this translates into anything resembling a satisfying narrative or even entertainment as we know it. Still, as bleak experiments go, Zama is the real thing.

This is the weird thing, Old Dogs is not that bad.

Clearly, an effort was made to create a serious, thoughtful movie.

Long before the finish, Man From Reno has flat-lined.

Amusing performances -- especially from Willis, who takes on a new personality with each new hairstyle -- can't disguise the fact that the film is basically a pastiche of recent movies.

A sexy, mildly entertaining import.

Well-intentioned but predictable romance.

Theo Padnos, who was kidnapped and held for nearly two years by al Qaeda in Syria, has a compelling story to tell. Unfortunately, it is not compellingly told in the documentary Theo Who Lived.

Pitt’s all-in performance and an impressive supporting cast supply enough roughhouse wit and Brooklyn grit to hold up scenes that might have otherwise gone down for the count.

Heartfelt but somewhat bloated documentary that's partly an homage and partly a literary mystery.

Clunky adventure story.

Ultimately, this is a very predictable picture, made by the director of “The Full Monty,” Peter Cattaneo. Its formula inevitably rises up like a wave and submerges everything Thomas is trying to do. To extend the metaphor, she swims along and doesn’t drown. But unless you love this kind of movie, Military Wives will be, at best, a pleasant diversion and, at worst, a not-so-bad waste of time.

Sweaty, filthy, miserable and well acted.

It’s nice to see Pegg stretch a little and play the bad guy. Too bad Kill Me Three Times doesn’t give him better material.

Entertainment value and reasonable length still make the film a decent, low-effort option for home viewers — especially those already subscribed to Hulu.

Try as it might, the movie is hardly profound, and the murky atmosphere and the leaden pace drag things down.