A pleasant if pedestrian British romantic comedy.

Hatchet II earns bragging rights with buckets of giddily over-the-top blood 'n' guts in sequences that are as gratuitous as they are amusingly ridiculous.

Well cast with actors who help the film overcome an obviously meager budget, Phoenix is as rough at the edges as its protagonist, and will inspire a similar kind of sympathetic response — especially among viewers who've been through a few reversals and know not every rebound has to take the form of a glorious firebird to be worthwhile.

Suffers from an awkward, plodding structure that robs it of much of its dramatic effect.

It is a strange cross-breed between an old-fashioned WWII epic full of genre cliches and a modern update whose meticulous historical recreation is frighteningly real.

There is a fine idea for a romantic comedy in Jake Paltrow's The Good Night but the writer-director, in his debut feature, never develops it much beyond the idea stage.

The rest of us will likely fall into one of two camps regarding this well-intentioned film: those who praise it for drawing attention to the suffering of helpless children, and those who find it sufficiently lacking in cinematic value to decide there are better ways of helping those kids than spending 90 minutes watching it.

It’s all about metaphor and mood, while the storytelling is so lightweight it might not exist. Without it, this drunken boat sailing on poetry can't hold interest for its entire two hour running time.

Full of incident but nearly devoid of dramatic tension, The Children of Huang Shi is a based-on-fact saga that has lost much of its power on the long road to the screen.

Woodard conveys the rock-solid values of a true Christian without ever falling into sappiness. Bates is enjoyably larger-than-life, as the role requires.

Despite the performer’s engaging charisma, One Track Heart ultimately lacks the contextual depth to make it more than mildly interesting.

Unfortunately, the film itself -- though it contains some superbly staged and highly lavish action sequences -- lacks the tautness of its heroine.

Despite that nagging whiff of familiarity, there are enough character quirks and inspired bits of funny business to carry this amiable if slight tale.

Convincing in its depiction of late-20s romantic anxiety (if not of that age bracket's real estate realities), it is broadly appealing without bowing too deeply to formula.

The event-stuffed screenplay seems frightened of the running time associated with historical romances, though, excising any occasion for reflection or distraction; as a result, the picture moves with a mechanical predictability that would be considerably more annoying with a less watchable cast in front of us.

Call this one "Brother Act." Instead of Whoopi Goldberg's Reno lounge singer in "Sister Act," Preaching to the Choir has a hip-hop star hiding out from a gangsta record producer in his estranged brother-minister's Harlem church.

It's an unusual idea but fails -- Sun spends so much time on the mood and atmosphere that he forgets about the story.

Should be intriguing to all who know the family, as well as to cineastes yonder at the arty film schools who will lap up its elliptical/self-reflexive style. Normal people will simply walk out on it.

Sumptuously clothed in vintage fashion, pop idols Wu and Hsu may bring in a younger crowd otherwise indifferent to the dated subject, but their performances are unimpressive.

It’s an if-it-ain’t-broke-then-don’t-fix-it approach that works just fine if you’re simply looking to take another ride on the rollercoaster.

The film tracks the history of the country, but viewers may feel the documentarian inserts herself too much into the story.

The disappointments here are many, from a starry cast the film ill-uses to flat musical numbers that never fully integrate into the dramatic story. The only easy prediction is that Nine is not going to revive the slumbering musical-film genre.

Fleischer stages one chase scene with a bit of comic flair but otherwise never locates that mix of macabre action and comedy that at least made "Zombieland" amusing.

Evans directs energetically, and the personable actors help to keep us involved, but the picture skims stubbornly along the surface.

The action is practically non-stop from beginning to end, but is never remotely exciting due to the Cuisinart-style editing that reduces it all to an incomprehensible, messy blur.

The film does develop the chemistry between the titular alien and the human he’s forced to inhabit while inside Earth’s atmosphere. But the distinctiveness of this buddy-movie bond is often drowned out by giant set pieces of CG mayhem that feel exactly like those found in the good guys’ movies.

A slow burn often works in creep-outs such as this, but here the pacing is a deficit, despite an especially good performance by Harper (of NBC's The Good Place) as the worker whose partner may be turning against him.

While the group’s short SNL videos are often quite amusing, this feature-length venture doesn’t do them any favors.

Fortunately, its talented and appealing young ensemble make it go down as easily as a cold beer on a hot…well, you know.

This contemporary riff on "The Sunshine Boys" generally manages to succeed anyway, thanks to the entertaining performances by Mac and co-star Samuel L. Jackson and its generous doses of raucous humor and sweet soul music.

A creaky haunted house that, once the big twist is revealed, makes very little sense at all.

While it lacks the ambition to turn its obvious plot into a film that feels new, it also avoids the pitfalls of moral smugness and stereotyping. It flows along easily, bolstered by Taraji P. Henson’s and Sam Rockwell’s vibrant performances.

Like many action stars, Statham is good at cool brooding, but West's frantic style works against this.

Young director Marek Najbrt, commendably, is not interested in wringing easy tears from the European experience of World War II. In the handsome drama Protektor, he brings a cool, noirish slant to a story of Czech artists and intellectuals as they accommodate and to a lesser extent resist the German occupiers.

Despite the presence of Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer, both sprightly and appealing in the lead roles, this misfire of a cornball romance is so tone-deaf, so utterly lacking in screwball snap and visual punch, that viewers will find it hard to care whether or not the aging lovebirds end up in each other’s arms.

The movie plays quite well for a while but begins to run out of steam in its second half, its occasional laughs not coming quickly enough to keep us interested in the unfolding lore of 19th century murders.

Though it contains some nice twists, the story is largely predictable and old-fashioned in ways both good (the characters’ unlikely come-what-may camaraderie) and bad (misogyny and machismo abound).

This unquestionably good-looking film, shot by world-class cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis (The Drop, Bullhead), plays like a Low Countries-variation on the classy Spanish-language work of Guillermo Del Toro, at least in terms of style if not substance, with what little narrative there is more of a clothesline for small-scale set pieces rather than a conduit for character insight.

However polished the doc's tech and score, it simply doesn't find drama in this familiar template.

An intriguing but iffy look at alternative therapies that ignores some questions about its subjects.

That the film works to the extent that it does is a testament to Murphy’s ability to command the screen with stillness. His anguished expressions and halting body language go a long way toward filling in the frustrating narrative blanks.

There’s absolutely nothing memorable about the film.... But it boasts plenty of gritty period atmosphere and earns points for its lack of pretension.

The untrained actor is the weakest link in an already hit-and-miss cast, and few viewers will respond to Ben's unearned bravado.

There’s so much potential heart and heartbreak in Firebird’s tale of forbidden passion that the screenplay and the cautious pacing become frustrating; with every ache measured and spelled out, the film’s dogged striving for poetry too often leaves it feeling disappointingly prosaic.

As robust as the lead performance is, though, the movie around it, directed by Stephen Gaghan from a screenplay by Patrick Massett and John Zinman, too often feels serviceable rather than inspired.

The storytelling overall is less sophisticated, leaning a little too often on strained humor, but this is a slick, enjoyably playful entertainment.

While Avery handles the kinetic action set-piece with impressive swagger for a first-timer, his self-penned screenplay is a major weak point.

Australia makes a modest contribution to the growing sub-genre of everyman superhero movies with Griff the Invisible, a sweet but scattershot debut from local TV actor Leon Ford.

It should be a pulse-racing account of knife-edge real-life conflict and valiant heroics, full of needling political questions. Instead it's merely another slack thriller with underdeveloped characters and sputtering dramatic momentum.

There’s no denying that The Tomorrow Man has a knockout ending. But is it worth sitting through the mundane, relatively uneventful film that precedes it? Few will think so.

The Front Room perhaps leans more toward the repulsive than the highbrow, potentially carving out its own distinct genre niche.

Working from a discursive screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Baird, Costner is not at his best as a director with this kind of multi-branched narrative. He struggles to keep all the story’s plates spinning, as characters are sidelined and resurface with too little connective tissue.

Under Saldanha's guidance, an extensive team of animators and visual effects artists elevates the 3D format to an alluring level, with character details, dense background imagery and often complex action and aerial sequences (including a requisite Busby Berkeley-inspired musical number) appearing effortlessly executed.

Less twisted than Natali's last film, Splice, it's sufficiently novel to uphold his reputation as a filmmaker not content telling conventional fanboy stories.

Live By Night is solid enough entertainment, but it lacks the nasty edge or narrative muscularity to make it memorable.

It proves more interesting in its chronicling of the business practices that made the Beanie Babies such a sensation, at least for a while, than in its portrait of personal dramas, the veracity of which obviously has to be called into question. Overall, the movie follows a by-now familiar trajectory, with the company’s mammoth success inevitably followed by its big fall.

Ends up committing the spoof genre's worst crime: becoming a tired parody of itself.

While Lee leaves some of Park's more memorable outrages behind, he and screenwriter Mark Protosevich find one or two ways to up the taboo-testing ante, small surprises that retain the tale's edge without pushing into the realm of exploitation.

Credit first-time director Jeremiah S. Chechik for his sure-handed rein on Christmas Vacation's polar opposites of sentimental and satirical sides. It makes for a smooth-sledding comedy.

Inkheart goes crazy with fairy tale characters popping in and out, all sorts of fantastical creatures materializing and so many rescues one loses count. Yet the movie fails to involve the key constituent: the audience.

At heart a love story, Rosenstrasse benefits from strong, sympathetic performances from two actresses who play the same character at different ages.

Aniston submits an honest, sturdy performance. However, the film, directed by Daniel Barnz (Phoebe in Wonderland, Beastly) and written by Patrick Tobin, is less emotionally potent than it wants to be.

It’s not terrible but it’s far from great, instead landing in that dispiriting morass best identified as “passable entertainment,” designed to make critics grasp for new ways to say “Meh.”

The pic benefits from a loveable-loser turn by Simon Pegg, but the "Shaun of the Dead" star's presence may also lead to disappointment for those familiar with his work.

A light-hearted if ghostly murder mystery that for all the contemporary English locations feels like a 1930s studio film including a plot that bears little scrutiny. Along with the delectable Johansson, the film offers fun roles for Allen, Hugh Jackman and Ian McShane.

To use what, under the circumstances, is a far too convenient metaphor, Bay is interested in accelerating from zero to 100 as quickly as possible and then maintaining speed, rather than skillfully shifting gears and adjusting speeds based on curves, hills and road conditions. In this case, he gets you there, but you know the ride could have been a lot more varied and nuanced.

The Judge is well served by intense performances from stars Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall, but is undercut by obvious note-hitting in the writing and a deliberate pace that drags things out about twenty minutes past their due date.

An underwhelming attempt to turn a tight little thriller into a sequel-spawning franchise, Adam Robitel’s Escape Room: Tournament of Champions lacks many of the original’s strengths while failing to improve on its more underdeveloped aspects.

Spice is full of colorful family moments and flavored with observations like the role of spices in provoking wars. Takis Zervoulakos' elegant camerawork serves up painterly, magical shots of condiments, lavish banquets and mysterious spaces.

Derivative and otherwise lacking in originality, the film which features enough gratuitous nudity and violence to satisfy the genre crowd is a strictly by-the-numbers affair that probably won't be filling the multiplexes in Salt Lake City.

Leveraging highly polished production values evoking the Old West with detailed sets, authentic weapons and period costumes, Wiluan gets enough of the details right so that the genre’s typical characteristics blend fairly seamlessly with the Indonesian adventure yarn.

While there's some novelty in using genre conventions to contemplate the sin of taming a wild frontier, the reverential film takes itself far too seriously; it ends up being neither sufficiently inventive nor revisionist to surmount its archetypal cliches.

This trying-to-please-everyone Jennifer 8 is likely to disappoint viewers on every level, from the cerebrals who enjoy a brainy, cop-and-killer psychological duel to the clunkheads who savor a bloody, bump-in-the-night, mechanical scarefest. [5 Nov 1992]

This is a hand-me-(dumbed)-down chick flick that is counting on Kutcher's tabloid popularity and Peet's unmistakable though here underutilized talents to cover up for rote characterizations, tired plot devices and a general lack of inspiration.

Undeniably, it's a strange and savage blend, and Altman has undressed the fashion world as a heap of dirty laundry. He has fashioned a super satirical sendup. [9 Dec 1994]

Despite being entombed in all that prop flesh and wrinkles, Mirren manages to emote very effectively with her voice, mimicking Meir’s midwestern twang, gait and posture.

Neither an inspirational faith-based film nor an attack on Christian dogma, Will Bakke’s comedy/drama Believe Me plays like a religious variation of "Risky Business" minus the sex.

Though not as fresh or funny as its predecessor, this feature directing debut for actor Jay Baruchel stays true to its spirit and will please its most enthusiastic fans.

If Ainsworth is ever turned off, you won't know it: She and DP Ben Ainsworth make everything look interesting, if not necessarily appetizing.

Jakubowicz's direction is assured except in the film's final moments, when he makes a clumsy attempt at sociopolitical philosophy that is delivered by an omniscient narrator. It's an indulgence that threatens to undercut the ferocity that precedes it.

This week's campaign commercial, er, political documentary, is a portrait of Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry's service in Vietnam.

What fans of the original movie, "Charlie's Angels," which was fun and good-natured, will make of this sloppy mess is hard to guess.

The story gets a bit more involving as it goes, though some elements that might've been memorable (a musical number from a dog played by Janelle Monáe, for instance) fall flat.

While the other Predator films tried to remain dark and tense, tossing in a decent one-liner here or there, Black’s movie is so cleverly over-the-top that it’s easy and pleasurable enough to watch, though never exactly scary or suspenseful.

By turns deft and clumsy, inspired and insipid, Ride is a deeply sincere mess of a comedy.

Despite the filmmaker's obvious good intentions in trying to impart valuable life lessons to younger viewers, We the Party suffers from any number of problems, including uneven acting (talent isn't always hereditary); stereotypical characters and situations; and a manic visual style featuring the sort of split-screen obsession that felt outdated decades ago.

After quite a few tedious detours and distractions, when the film finally gets down to the business of a climax at a gathering of elite European diplomats in a precariously perched Swiss mountain castle, it becomes not half-bad.

What it lacks is a villain, and magic without danger is simply a parlor trick, which is what the film becomes.

Less music-stuffed but more conceptually ambitious than the average music doc.

Sans a compelling marriage of danger and eroticism, much of the third-act suspense fails to captivate

Tokyo Decadence, a midnight film if there ever was one, is the ultimate date movie for the S&M crowd. [30 July 1993]

Despite the affecting performances by the two leads, this overly muted drama fails to make much of an impact.

Admirers of old-fashioned British war drama should find this passably entertaining, and the dazzling green Welsh countryside and seafront locations that stand in for England's Southeast coast are certainly pleasing to the eye. But handsome production values can't disguise shaky storytelling that relies almost entirely on composer Marc Streitenfeld's agitated orchestral score to stoke suspense.

The Beauty Inside works for the fantastical, soft focus romance it is.

Compared to other thrillers that treat webcams as a structural gimmick or visualize social media in ways that look corny even by the time credits roll, Videophilia casts a singular spell.

All the well-crafted effort has unfortunately been expended on a tired and overly familiar story that never registers as anything more than a compendium of horror-film clichés.

It’s no sci-fi insta-classic, but there are worse things to be than a surprisingly entertaining post-summer popcorn bucket.

A playful movie that celebrates nature and the spirit world with striking imagery and a smooth blend of drama and comedy.