The release date is the most original thing about it.

Smith stumbles setting up dramatic confrontations and strains credibility a time or two with implausible moments.

It’s Hamm’s emotionally wounded small-town top cop who gives the film its engine, especially in his dealings with Mohammed and Fey’s characters. The schemes and cover-ups and collateral damage spin round with little dimension, or, as Police Chief Sanders sums it up, “Just a bunch of people that deserve each other.”

An examination of a sexual relationship that's about as viscerally explicit as hardcore can get...But as satisfying viewing experiences go, the film comes up mighty short in terms of story, interesting characters and technical prowess.

Such heart-tuggers have their appeal to some people in any era, but earnest hokum of this nature has become increasingly rare. And for a reason.

[Ben-Adir] wholly conjures Marley’s charisma while also teasing the musician’s sense of isolation, stemming from a childhood marked by abandonment. His compelling performance enlivens a film that otherwise feels like it’s perpetually struggling to take off.

Unfortunately, the gags start to wear thin shortly around the 15-minute mark, not to mention the fact that they pale in comparison to the real-life indignities endured by the members of the "Jackass" crew.

In the end, Antebellum is undone by a lack of empathy and emotion. It has no real perspective on the past and thus fails to make any real impact on the present.

The animation punches well above its weight with properly Looney Tunes-standard sight gags, polished, highly expressive character design, and rendering so intensely computed nearly every barbule and rachis on each individual feather is visible.

With its clichéd characters and situations, formulaic subplots (Alexandre neglects his grad student daughter to concentrate on his career) and overly cutesy comic tone, Le Chef is a cinematic dish best sent back to the kitchen.

For high-concept melodrama that's low on complexity, this very solemn film takes itself way too seriously. But it's not entirely without interest, thanks to sleek visuals and decent chemistry between alluring leads Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart.

Ploddingly paced (it runs nearly 20 minutes longer than the 1977 film, to detrimental effect), poorly scripted and featuring largely amateurish performances and cheesy special effects, this Rabid strives to emulate the striking body horror of the original but mainly comes across like a half-baked imitation.

The filmmakers take a heroic, action-packed, high-tech approach that empties out some of the originality of this unique female heroine.

An audacious, highly contemporary psychological thriller, Sorry,Haters is the kind of audience provoker certain to elicit at least as many haters as admirers.

Utterly disposable but diverting, MacGruber manages to spin feature-length product out of an idea that few would try expanding beyond a "Saturday Night Live" skit.

A fast-moving Walt Disney Co. comedy that manages to sail past many of the cliches usually found in this genre while throwing together a wild story line more apt for a new millennium.

Every conceivable button is pushed to achieve rote satisfaction in young viewers, while any notion of creating tension and suspense is dutifully ignored. Not for a moment is actual peril considered as something worthy of a dramatic climax.

Only in the loosest sense is X Games 3D: The Movie an actual movie. It is essentially a promotional film for extreme action sports and ESPN.

Displaying his usual mixture of broad, sitcom-style humor and soapy melodramatics, it's an entertaining if hokey effort that his target audience will eat up.

The movie morphs from sluggishness to confused ludicrousness, as it turns into a thrill-deprived thriller.

Joan’s story unfolds all too neatly, but in Allen’s spark and grace there’s a real sense of discovery.

Part somber character study and part revenge thriller, Steven Knight‘s debut feature lacks the thematic depth necessary to take it seriously while not featuring enough of the high-octane action that its star’s fans have come to expect.

The film simply has too many tiredly predictable elements for its own good, and despite the handsome cinematography of the extremely picturesque California locations, "Sherman's" never really finds its way.

Trying to be amusing and respectfully serious at the same time, Austrian director Wolfgang Murnberger's film remains in limbo, saddled with an over-worked story, characters and setting.

Part showbiz send-up and part earnest romantic drama, the film lurches awkwardly between its two modes without settling on a single cohesive tone. Fortunately, both halves are also blessed with the same quality that allows Chris to embody both Zara’s idea of him and Brooke’s: enough charm to make you come away smiling, even as you shake your head at its missteps.

Night School has a lot to learn about how to live up to its potential, but it squeaks out a passing grade in the end.

A more mature work from actor-director-producer Zach Braff that feels like a Garden State for grown-ups.

The outcome is engaging enough, although not entirely satisfying from either a genre or narrative standpoint, lacking both substance and a degree of imagination.

Ultimately too sluggish and disjointed to have much cumulative impact.

A nifty science-fiction twist on the old amnesia plot where a guy spends most of a movie trying to remember what he did and why everyone is after him.

Depressingly one-note, a story that never springs to life.

Although well-meaning in its attempt to dramatize the stigma the subject evokes in the South Asian American community, Hiding Divya ultimately falters in its execution.

Stronger in concept than execution.

While its supernatural premise might have fueled a perfectly good Twilight Zone episode, The Brass Teapot strains to fill its feature-length running time.

Though full of material that will move sports fans, some questions of emphasis and lack of polish make the film less galvanizing than it might've been.

While this low-budget effort seems to have its heart in the right place and features a sensitive, moving performance by Oscar winner Melissa Leo, it ultimately feels like a compendium of bizarre character quirks adding up to a barely coherent whole.

Atmospheric visuals and strong performances aren't enough to compensate for this would-be poetic drama's thin plotline.

There’s certainly an interesting documentary to be made about soccer, the world’s most popular sport by far, but This Is Not a Ball isn’t it.

Moore displays a low-key deadpan charm and Zima, although a little too prone to constant giggling, is sexy and charming. But by the time the film is over viewers are likely to wind up feeling like they've been stuck in traffic themselves.

Far too broad to be deep in any respect, the lightweight documentary benefits from access to plenty of top-shelf interviewees but plays like a back-patting muddle.

The performers' fine acting and vocal efforts (the film is almost entirely sung-through) are not enough to compensate for the vacuousness of the material.

It's a veritable bagful of box office treats.

Not bad enough to be considered a camp, guilty pleasure, it's more of a dull, defanged dirge with the reliably intriguing Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins turning in oddly disaffected performances.

The film, while heartfelt and directed by multiple-Oscar nominee Lasse Hallstrom, is dramatically stillborn.

Lacking coherence and suspense, the picture is likely to attract a cult following while disappointing Coppola's fan base.

Besson responded to something in the story that prompted him to step outside his comfort zone, but exactly what that was is unclear in this well-intentioned but pedestrian retelling of a stirring true story.

Full of legitimate, even urgent concerns but so garish in tone it encourages viewers to view it as propaganda, Peter Navarro's Death By China does a disservice to its message.

Don't tell anyone I said this, but the result is not only pleasingly emotionally purgative, but also has some elements worthy of genuine admiration, despite the fact that the third word in the title is one that should now be entirely banished from the English language for its precious, psychobabble connotations.

Precious little is revealed and one is left with the feeling that the material needed a different kind of treatment to illuminate its protagonists.

Gutierrez's script can't supply female characters as believable as Almodovar's, but in the director's chair he gives his cast room to compensate with funny, self-aware performances.

La Ronde 2011-style is simply a game and its makers expert gamesmen. The film is never less than intriguing. But the artifice shows all too clearly.

Weakest of the performers is Chris O'Donnell as D'Artagnan. He's certainly young enough to portray Dumas' "Don Quixote of 18," but most traces of D'Artagnan's hot-blooded, big-hearted Gascony traits have been blunted in favor of mere eager stubbornness. [12 Nov 1993]

The film is, above all, a moving portrait of hurting souls, brought to life in compelling performances.

The plot's pretty lame, the dialogue is downright hokey, and the characters are a bore, but somehow Final Destination 3 (an oxymoron if there ever was one) still delivers a certain degree of over-the-top amusement.

The film, like the novel it’s based on, skirts the issues — of race, gender and class — that would texture its narrative and strengthen its broad thesis, resulting in a story that says more about how whiteness operates in a society allergic to interdependence than it does about how communities fail young people.

There are multiple levels on which to enjoy Roman Polanski’s Based on a True Story (D’Apres une histoire vraie), none of them very deep or complicated. But together they raise the resonance of a masterfully made psychological thriller in the traditional mode.

Bleeding Steel is all about old-school thrills, and Zhang has delivered a wide range of them, from cafeteria catfights to expansive pyrotechnics — with not just one but two crotch-kicking gags thrown in for good measure.

In the midst of this didactic, self-conscious movie about a high school shooting comes an extraordinary and intense performance by a young actress named Busy Philipps, which elevates the whole picture.

None of it is earth-shattering, but Goodman gives it muscle and makes it work. And with their synapse-firing performances, Banderas and Rhys Meyers keep the viewer at arm’s length and guessing — through, and even past, fade-out.

Eddie Murphy's amusingly out of this world in this otherwise tired vehicle.

It’s a film that doesn’t always work but when it does you almost hear an audible click. Violet & Daisy has its share of these ah-ha moments.

Shot on location in vibrant Cartagena, the film's strong suit is aesthetic. Cinematographer Alfonso Beato, designer Wolf Kroeger and costume designer Marit Allen evoke aged exotic locales, rugged rural settings and dimly lit period interiors. A closing, aerial image has a breathtaking, spiritual beauty.

The film gives vivid reality to those photos of disappeared children on milk cartons by letting us peek into the lives of two abducted children subjected to sexual abuse and then prostitution.

A heavy-handed reimagining.

Poor writing, an indifferent production and sincere but often wooden acting make "Season" one big strikeout.

Ultimately a hollow and pointless exercise.

The familiar formula feels significantly watered-down the third time around.

Frozen delivers enough thrills and gory chills to satisfy the horror film crowd, but is not written, directed or acted well enough to be a first-rate thriller.

Making a vampire movie without any bite is like removing guns from a Western.

The film is still cheesy rather than deliciously scary. It never really generates sustained suspense.

Danger doesn't quite translate into sustained drama here, in part because the reliance on voiceover distances us from the action.

Lacking the personalities and attitude that have led some other unassuming productions to commercial success, the film has little to boast about beyond some fine dance sequences — none of them more transporting than what can be found easily on small screens.

Where it might have been an old-fashioned melodrama with credible historical appeal, instead it suggests an old-school celluloid epic whose print has lost a reel or two.

Despite the author’s scripting and the fine central performances by Joan Allen and Anthony LaPaglia, this low-key effort directed by Peter Askin fails to fulfill the potential of its provocative premise.

A little charm and inventiveness would have gone a long way to tone down some of the picture's more obnoxious impulses.

For all I know, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey actually takes place on the Holodeck of the Starship Enterprise, so phony is everything contained within it.

It never manages to overcome its air of overfamiliarity, straining mightily but giving off little but flop sweat.

There's some nice low-key work amid the uneven performances, but the Montana-shot film's key strength is its sense of place.

There seem to be some impressive performances here, though it's not always easy to tell because director James Cox is always feverishly cutting away to something or other.

This soapy effort about a prosperous businessman having a midlife crisis finds Perry working in the heavily melodramatic mode that marks his weakest efforts.

There is not a lot of risk-taking involved in the visual storytelling or in trying to find a cinematic equivalent of the novel’s style, making In Dubious Battle a rather classical period piece for the most part, though one with at least one very solid performance at its center.

The best you can say about the movie is that it isn't boring. It's fast-paced, but it isn't really well made.

The actors do what they can with the cards they're dealt but can't overcome the nakedness of the dialogue or the characters' actions. Duke does ensure that the production flows smoothly though. And those frequent injections of comedy do wonders.

One can't escape the nagging feeling that the film doesn't dig deeply enough into its real-life hero. The film doesn't explore all those "whys" and "whats."

Sustains a few icy chills, but a mix of genres muddles the story.

Director Nimrod Antal (Predators) stages the mostly vehicular mayhem with as much variety and visual excitement as possible, especially in a crucial scene in which Matt is cornered by the police in a tunnel. But there’s only so much he can do with the hackneyed premise.

Back to Black is, like its heroine, flawed and fallible but frequently very affecting.

Bram Stoker would be, well, horrified.

Landing somewhere between a generational comedy and soap opera, the film is forgettable fun.

Director-screenwriter Hopkins is unsuccessful in navigating the absurd storyline’s jarring tonal shifts, with the result that this kinder, gentler variation on Ms. 45 mainly emerges as off-puttingly bizarre.

A smart, sharply observed, highly affable look at contemporary relationships that finally injects a little life in the stagnating genre.

Even as she is the center of attention here in a double role, the jury is still out on Gomez's bigscreen potential; she's not very appealing or magnetic here, nor does she display any particular comic gifts for this sort of broad fare.

Has its moments, especially when lithe, beautiful bodies twirl themselves around the dance floor with appealing athleticism. But as a movie trying to deliver comedy, drama and romance, you might want to sit this one out. It's not terrible, mind you, but it just isn't very good.

The convoluted, cliché-ridden storyline, apparently inspired by the director’s father’s real-life experiences in the drug trade, is the least interesting element, while the brief, perfunctory action sequences no doubt reflect the low budget. But the film certainly looks and sounds good.

A slick, occasionally hilarious but ultimately uneven appraisal of France’s favorite extramarital pastime.

Clara forgets to have anything resembling a compelling plot. Or an original one. Even science geeks will find little here compelling.

Laborious and dull, I Can Only Imagine 2 only comes to life in the comedic scenes featuring Ventimiglia, who buries his handsomeness in a buzz-cut, full beard, and Buddy Holly-style glasses to resemble Timmons.

Played at an unmodulated level of subdued excitement that never quickens the pulse, longtime series producer Simon Kinberg's directorial debut lacks the exclamation point fans have justifiably been hoping for at the end of a road.