Whenever it promises to spin into madcap nonsense, Budreau asserts a kind of tortured primness, as if chastened by the realization that this all actually happened to real people. And they seem to be having more fun than we are.

That is what makes the movie highly watchable – along with Hemsworth's affable presence, backed by the always reliable Shannon and with Michael Pena and Trevante Rhodes as two of the soldiers, providing wry commentary from the sidelines.

Allen's best effort since 1999's "Sweet and Lowdown," but that's not saying a lot.

Let's just say that, when the parody looks indistinguishable from the parodied, something's gone awry.

Brüno is likely to be the funniest thing you'll see on a screen this summer. Which is precisely its problem: it's a thing , not a movie – if, that is, you believe a movie should be more than an accumulation of prankish set-pieces flimsily strung over 80 skimpy minutes.

The plot’s believability is stretched to the point of emaciation, even for this series. The comedy, which arrives on cue every other scene, is pained. And the action is now a fully cribbed and inferior sizzle reel of Bay’s greatest hits. . . Still, there are a few flashes of fun.

With what is clearly Perrault’s first feature script, the stars here struggle to keep up their energy in what adds up to be 93 minutes of crude jokes.

Mixes broad slapstick and off-hand one-liners in a sometimes surprisingly funny mixture.

Schroeder’s film makes a convincing case that the fact that the characters have never been licensed has a lot to do with why it is still so precious to so many people.

Sharply written by Billy Crystal and ably directed by Henry Winkler, Memories of Me turns out to be an enjoyably sentimental surprise - what it has going for it that the psychodramatic versions don't is a sense of humor, but it covers the same serious issues with a similar amount of depth. [07 Oct 1988]

As a psychological thriller, it's not so much either thrilling or psychological as it is wonderfully absurd. [25 Mar 1982]

Johnny Dangerously belongs to the comic genre known as the Dumb Movie, but it's a pretty smart example of how to be stupid. [22 Dec 1984]

Reiner is no Oliver Stone, but he does stir things up by presenting Bobby Kennedy in the villain's role as a serious jerk and crafty underminer.

Inside The First Purge is a scrappy little indie fighting to come out. Although this is the fourth installment in the Purge franchise, it’s a prequel to the other three, a chance to be born anew. A missed chance, as it turns out.

As a movie, Blue Chips is more journeyman than star, but, once in a while, it hops off the bench and shows a surprising flash of talent.[22 Feb 1994]

Savini seems to lose his grip in the second half, and what began as exhilaratingly horrendous settles into comfortable predictability. [24 Oct 1990]

Entanglement suffers from an unsureness in tone, somewhere between quirky and sombre.

Escape from L.A. is too preposterous to be a good film. But in keeping with its title, it does provide a couple of hours of entertaining escapism. [12 Aug 1996, p.C1]

A modest, winning comedy that overtly sneaks in its wisdom about life, worries and what really matters.

It is a rare biopic of any kind, let alone a sports bio, that merely celebrates participation. It’s that novelty that makes this simple comedy shine.

Fascinating, even when it's fascinatingly bad.

At 70 minutes, this groin and groan comedy seems almost dismissively short, but don't believe the myths you've been told: longer is not always better.

It’s tricky to give such a layered glimpse of high school in a movie that keeps its pace at a decent click. And while Moxie is just a small snapshot of those weird and wonderful years, it gives viewers a decent lesson in how to be an ally, without being preachy about it.

The achievement of Educating Rita is a function of the distinguished performances, the agreeably archetypal situation and the scissor-sharp lines. [23 Sep 1983]

Alexander narrates with a rueful, put-upon worldly wisdom that instantly enlists our sympathy, and the young actor Ed Oxenbould may be the most appealing junior loser we’ve seen since Peter Billingsley wished for an air rifle in "A Christmas Story."

The spaghetti western may be dead, but the noodle eastern looks to be alive and well.

This breach with the audience does matter, for it is one thing to seduce your viewers and quite another to trick them. Love is all about trust, after all.

Big Wednesday is American writer-director John Milius' attempt to use surfing as a metaphor for life. It doesn't work. [27 June 1978]

Perhaps sensing that the rest of his story - mostly focusing around the earnest do-goodery of Golja's aide - falls emotionally flat, Navarretta lavishes attention on his two marquee players, creating tiny moments of poignancy.

The director veers off course and heads straight for mediocrity. It's a disappointing ride.

Oblivion is an okay blockbuster, a multimillion-dollar exercise in competence.

The Boys in the Boat is a film made with such a gently dull spirit that you cannot help but wonder if Clooney put himself to sleep during production. Someone get this man a Nespresso.

Spies in Disguise is often amusing, and it’s especially nice to see it convey a message of anti-violence, but the film falls short of being truly memorable.

But it is bright, smart, sometimes wickedly funny, and crisply performed to the point where the acting seems richer than the script.

It's a jumbled mess, to put it mildly.

Even as he cuts confusingly between talking heads and time periods, Kastner elides key details that might have given viewers a more complex portrait of both the setting and his anti-hero’s role in the drama.

If the scariest thing to you is David Duchovny in a tight black T-shirt lecturing a group of 15-year-old women about how men need to take back their power, then The Craft: Legacy is a success.

There’s plenty of shimmying here, maybe too much, and lots of spin moves, but it’s missing on-the-field results.

The movie has a better sense of flow than his past efforts, and a few lengthy travelling Steadicam shots and some decent mountain scenery (supplied by B.C. rather than Colorado) help dispel the feeling that Perry has merely filmed another of his plays.

From his limp, liberal feminist pulpit (from which he also spews sexist jokes), Moore makes a condescending case for why Clinton isn’t only the least-bad choice, but an actually good choice. His thesis? Basically: she’s the pantsuit Beyoncé!

With its gore and brutality and general nihilistic sensibility – not to mention an eyeball scene that would make Bunuel blush – Becky is not fit for 95 per cent of the populace, especially those who might innocently click on the title after recognizing the star of their favourite CBS sitcom. But for those who like to get dirty with this kind of scuzzy chaos, then this is near-perfect slimeball cinema.

Director Kathryn Bigelow, who earlier proved in the vampire movie Near Dark that she has a thing for denim, leather and blood, is merely the overture to the violent shocks and severe sexual confusions (dozens of them) that give Blue Steel its dissonant, disruptive power. [16 Mar 1990]

Boogie is, finally, Huang’s cinematic realization of his dream, a debut filmmaker’s warts and all.

Somewhere between profound and ludicrous, kind of like a cross between "Waiting for Godot" and "Dude, Where's My Car?"

Done up strictly for laughs, this might have been fine. But the picture actually starts taking itself seriously, and that spells instant yawns. [16 Dec 1989]

The movie, about a doped-up black bear, is a much more lethargic affair, as if the apex predator’s supply was swapped out for some Ativan.

One of those comedies that is more peculiar than actually funny.

Contains fascinating footage – material from the 1980s that looks to be the work of angry, ancient Norse warriors. There is, however, almost no perspective here. Perhaps the filmmakers succumbed to a condition associated with a city east of Oslo – the Stockholm Syndrome.

Pure blockbuster gloss – perfectly fine for a Saturday afternoon matinee, but instantly forgettable once you’ve emerged from the dark of a multiplex.

A witty tale of deceit and betrayal, it’s an uncomfortable look at the values we tend to buy into and why.

Murphy's brand of crude is studied and sleek, all high-polish and sheer calculation. As a performer, he's stylishly smooth; as a comic, that very smoothness is both his greatest strength and his abiding weakness. [22 Dec 1987]

Fails to ever come alive as a human comedy in the manner of the best mockumentaries.

While Lawrence and his producing partners got deserved flak for breaking up Collins' third novel, Mockingjay, into two films, they've learned the wrong lessons here, compressing what should have been either two films or a miniseries into one excessive production.

Hancock (The Blind Side, The Founder) keeps the action moving briskly and with little tonal confusion, highlighting just what a polished studio-favoured professional can do when given gobs of money and zero intellectual-property obligations. And his trio of leading men are all given ample space to play to their strengths.

The movie feels trapped in the 1980s and feels like a missed opportunity.

As Sara and Julien bide their time in the barn, escaping into their imagination, Forster keeps himself interested by turning the movie into an ode to cinema.

Maybe Bee Movie is another ground-breaking show about nothing – a hornet's nest of hype for a fat hive of nothing. If so, pay up and get stung.

The drama is memorable but often feels grimly unpleasant rather than moving. And, as always, it’s frustrating to see Montreal cast as some anonymous and unilingual North American city.

Journeys more often than not are not what we expected. And neither is Cook's unpredictable and reflective work, set to a brooding solo-cello score and filled with whatever metaphors you need. We are alone on this trip – take it, and this marvellous film, at your own pace.

A bouillon cube, a bland and boring thing with only a meagre resemblance to its source. [23 Oct 1984]

One of this enlightened B-movie's many pleasures is French director Jean-François Richet's handling of atmosphere and setting. Shot almost entirely at night in a blinding snowstorm, the crime drama is an intriguing remodelling of a classic film noir.

The problem is that director Wayne Wang seems deaf to the tonal differences between coming-of-age, magic realism and children's comedy.

This isn’t some cutsey, bordering-on-laughable inspiration porn. It is more patient, messy and dead-serious than its sight-gag of a poster might have you believe. This doesn’t mean it’s a great movie – just a passable one.

FOR BATTERIES Not Included, intelligence is not required. [18 Dec 1987]

This is a no-cable, no-wake-up-call, cash-only dump of a film, where you breathe through a hankie and bring your own Lysol.

Ultimately Dark Fate is nothing more than a run-duck-and-repeat production – an extraordinarily familiar, if efficiently made, exercise in Terminatorology. If the franchise pattern holds, it’ll be back.

A one-two punch that marks a step forward in Taylor’s brand of stylish and heightened thriller films.

There's are nagging problems with the script, which feels like it has lost a few pages during its rewrites. Instead of an orderly, inexorable pressure of events, we get a surfeit of red herrings, followed by the rather uninteresting killer simply stepping out of hiding.

The Dream Team is a jolly romp of a movie. It won't make you think very much, but it's just about guaranteed to make you laugh. [07 Apr 1989]

From the projectionist played by Toby Jones who regularly pops up to vocalize what everyone onscreen and the audience is already well aware of – movies are an escape, of course! – to its eye-rolling treatment of Hilary’s mental health, Empire of Light is the most noxious kind of faux-benevolent “prestige” cinema.

A revealing portrait of outsider music nerds.

The deal with the new Hotel Transylvania animated comedy is that Count Dracula needs a vacation, but, really, it’s the creative team behind the franchise who could use the time off.

In the midst of material that's dusty and dated, People I Know somehow feels apocalyptic. How is this possible? Easy: When America's liberal conscience is in the sole care of a publicist, you just know the world's going to hell in a handbasket.

The script is definitely mediocrity mixed with complication.

Gospel music not only saves Darrin's plastic yuppie soul -- Praise the Lord -- it also gives an otherwise wasted hour and a half some warmth and buoyancy.

The Notebook is meant to be a romantic weepy, and you will shed tears - but only from the consistent and exhausting effort of trying to control your gag reflex. Even a body that welcomes a sugar fix will repel a sugar invasion.

Director Joel Schumacher has pulled no mawkish punches, wringing every drop of emotional potential from the script (adapted by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman from John Grisham's popular novel) down to the last manipulative glance and close-up. Call it A Time to Overkill.

Silent Night is all needlessly protracted foreplay, a true “when are they going to get to the fireworks factory?” tease of an action movie. And when Woo finally does light things up with only 15 minutes to go, the result is a limp pop of sparks, easily extinguishable.

The principle suspense is wondering when the suspense is going to start, as you scan the darkly-lit screen looking for any hint of imminent horror.

Sadly, 2010 is not going to make it any easier for the uninitiated to grasp the reasons its predecessor thrilled a generation: the only people 2010 is likely to thrill are the agents of the actors in the cast. [7 Dec 1984]

For its slightness and silliness, its concerns are grander. Here, the undead ghouls represent nothing but the cold prospect of death itself. “This isn’t gonna end well,” Driver’s omniscient copper keeps intoning. And it never does.

Rodriguez, is a hack in the best sense of the term, often serving as producer, director, writer, shooter and composer – all of which come into play for Shorts .

It's pure American corn but expertly and entertainingly harvested. The casting is excellent, the performances are so good and the emotional thrust of the film so strong that it is impossible not to enjoy. [10 Aug 1984]

A mixed bag of old-school and contemporary horror tricks that occasionally raises a hair prickle of intrigue.

The movie is a freakish creature, with lush, painterly animation inspired by Dutch and Flemish masters, attached to a convoluted, gloomy narrative punctuated with scenes of sadism that rival "The Dark Knight."

This is still her (Wasikowska’s) picture. She’s its 10-foot tower, mysterious and brave and excited and withdrawn. Alice is the true magic in a Wonderland that’s mere movie magic – the happy surprise amidst everything we’ve come to expect.

This pretty movie feels convenient rather than meaningful.

Conan the Destroyer is in a class below its predecessor. Director Richard Fleischer (The Vikings, Mandingo) has indeed made a dumb, ridiculous movie. [29 June 1984]

By Cinema Stathama considerations, The Beekeeper is a masterpiece – the best B(ee)-movie of this cold-hearted season.

The result is an offence-free, mild entertainment in which everyone from cast to scriptwriter seems to be winging it.

The whole thing feels like a late-night, dorm-room gab fest, except that the four women in question are well over 60, which is the gag.

To be very generous toward the filmmakers' intentions, Beowulf & Grendel might be seen as a misguided attempt to lend some modern nuance to a traditional tale of good and emphatic evil. But why pussyfoot? The movie is a lumbering and ludicrous mess.

Like an exhausted artist facing a blank canvas, or an underwhelmed film critic staring at a blank screen, The Artist’s Wife doesn’t have much to say but tosses something on the screen regardless, hoping it will stick.

Like "Rebel", directed by Nicholas Ray, this film excels at capturing the nervous posturing of adolescent boys marking their territory by pissing on each other's shoes.

While there are several moments in the film, including two extended monologues, that remind audiences just how ferociously committed a performer Daniel can be, so much of Anemone feels a few dozen workshops away from being camera-ready.

It is an overstuffed, manic, exhausting piece of instant movie-meme catnip – likely impenetrable to all but the hardest of hardcore genre devotees.

Some films, like some people, wear their artsy pretensions on their sleeve, and there really isn't much going on beneath – it's just a posturing armband wrapped around a plain arm. Welcome, then, to the emptiness of Mister Lonely, a movie that goes to extraordinary lengths to say ordinary things.

Hathaway may be in a royal rut, but the tiara seems to fit.