The film remains stranded in a sort of genre no man’s land.

Based on a true story that's perhaps less famous than some others but just as intriguing, this serious-minded — no Helen Keller jokes, please — period film is nonetheless quite entertaining and, finally, moving.

When in doubt, the director cranks up the assaultively reverberant score from po-faced '80s rockers The The (aka Matt Johnson, the director's brother), which at least provides intermittent pep to this increasingly torpid wallow in the moral mud.

Wavering between wry humor and frank tenderness without fully committing to either, the film ends up stranded in an innocuously sweet middle ground. That’s a disappointment, especially since the movie gets off to an amusing start.

The overwritten script has so many subplots it’s hard to keep the stories straight, especially when the ending throws a truly unexpected twist. But little matter; the exceptional tech work gives the film plenty of energy and excitement.

What makes the sharp-as-a-tack nonagenarian Apfel such splendid company is that beneath the busy prints and multi-layered accessories is a woman who is less an eccentric than an ineffably sane, sensible commentator on her own colorful life and the world she inhabits.

While the film carries no writer credit, the accompanying voiceover commentary from all five band-members feels canned, short on off-the-cuff spontaneity and hindsight perspective. Still, even if it has not much more depth than a VH1 Behind the Music special, the doc holds ample pleasures for '80s cultists.

Grimy and sad but not sensationalistic, the debut feature is like Drugstore Cowboy drained of its hipness and sex appeal.

Lafleur delivers an affecting, funny and eccentric -- in the best sense of the word -- meditation on that in-between state that people in their early twenties find themselves, as they are technically old enough to participate fully in all of life’s activities but they still lack the experience to know what they really want or what’s really good for them.

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

While it might have made for a mildly diverting stage thriller — the hugely successful Deathtrap, for instance, was built on similarly absurd contrivances — the endlessly talky 3 Holes and a Smoking Gun founders onscreen.

Sagnier and especially Baye try to locate the heart in their cartoonish maternal characters, and newcomer Lasseron is at least a warm and spunky presence in a role that's severely underwritten, though all of them are frequently upstaged by all the bells and whistles newcomer Neel feels he needs to keep throwing at the screen in order to mask the fact there's not much of story in the first place.

Featuring stereotypical characterizations and painfully awkward dialogue, the film treats its dramatic themes with a wince-inducing shallowness. Virtually nothing in the drawn-out proceedings works on any level, and the characters are so inherently unlikeable that being in their company is as painful for viewers as it is for them.

The sort of film that would be best appreciated in the '70s-era grindhouses that sadly no longer exist, Kung Fu Killer is delicious popcorn fare.

Loosely inspired by real events, the plot is time-scrambled and non-linear, hinting at Quentin Tarantino levels of post-modern playfulness that sadly never materialize.

While director Martin keeps the film moving, its implausibilities turn from holes into canyons.

A less successful aspect of the film is Cognet’s attempt to tie the concentration camps as contemporary spaces into the narrative, with shots of the now practically empty landscapes -- some tourists here and there notwithstanding -- interspersed throughout.

First-time feature helmer Romanowsky has a hard time distinguishing between the things that draw her to Elliott's story and the things that make him pathetic.

While Hobson's smarts are evident here, the picture's uniformly dim visuals and sometimes overplayed sound design are static enough to do a disservice to his work with the cast.

In every sense, The Great Museum (Das grosse Museum) imparts a feeling of privilege — privilege on the part of those (the Hapsburgs) who built and opened Vienna's extraordinary Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1891, privilege among those lucky enough to work at such a rarified establishment and privilege on the part of any viewer of Johannes Holzhausen's wonderfully evocative and droll documentary.

In a simpler form, Mojave might have been a gripping if minor genre film. Instead, it's undone by the sort of pretentious overwriting that might have seemed impressive in the '70s but now comes across as merely forced.

Moviegoers may expect something sexier than what they get here, but Neil LaBute's focus on just-talk between Broderick and co-star Alice Eve, funny but never uproarious, provides its own modest rewards.

Heaven Knows What is a strange film, at once distancing and transfixing. If it's not as impactful as it might have been considering the experiences portrayed, it has potent atmosphere and an admirable refusal to put any kind of gloss on the bleak reality of its limbo world.

The film falters when it ham-fistedly attempts to detour into sensitive drama.

The film is not always subtle in its portrayal of a family ripped apart by tragedy, but remains captivating as a pure procedural that raises questions about the Paris police's handling of such situations, as well as about the state of race relations in contemporary France.

Avengers: Age of Ultron succeeds in the top priority of creating a worthy opponent for its superheroes and giving the latter a few new things to do, but this time the action scenes don't always measure up and some of the characters are left in a kind of dramatic no-man's-land.

Both actors stay sharp through some pretty degrading moments, and if Palmer and screenwriter Tess Morris are bent on serious button-pushing in the closing scenes, at least they garnish it with playfulness and wit.

Strip away its gorgeous wintry landscapes and we are left with a symphony of ponderous New Age mumbo-jumbo masquerading as philosophical wisdom.