Despite its successful attempts to show how oil has affected everyday citizens in nearby Nigeria, the film remains fairly dry.

The homily-laden wrap-up, stressing the upside of bad days, is enough to make you hold your nose, but it only lasts a moment, which is suggestive of the way Arteta and the cast provide the energy and momentum to get the job done but not overstay their welcome.

The film is absorbing on a scene-by-scene basis. But it connects the dots of Raymond’s life in a perfunctory way, without locating a fluid through-line or gaining emotional access to its elusive subject.

For a time, an appealing gentleness prevails that's rooted in this unique inter-generational romance, a feeling augmented in particular by Purnell's slow-blooming flower of a performance, and if the film had remained focused more on the improbabilities of this love story, it might have emerged as something rather special.

You may come away more impressed by the intentions than by the achievements.

The non-linear structure works extremely well, making the drama a bracing emotional roller coaster of feel-good/feel-bad turns.

Director Vincent Sandoval (Senorita) seems most interested in is using the convent as a metaphor for Filipino society in the Seventies, which buried its head in the sand while president Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and police tortured and murdered opposition protestors.

The first act is great, full of dark portent and bravura film-making flourishes. However, the final hour disappoints, with too many off-the-peg plot twists and too many characters conforming to type.

There are simply too many characters jostling for attention and too many competing plot strands in a not-quite-seamless marriage of hard-edged social realism with a lyrical novelistic overlay. That said, the film is rich in poignant moments and negotiates its frequent shifts from violence to gentleness to sorrow with sensitivity.

While weighed down by digressions and contraptions, Man of Tai Chi is an adequate and ambitious effort from a first-time director, who could have enhanced his on-screen philosophical arguments with a bit more depth and done with a touch less of the admittedly riveting man-to-man melee.

For all its fandom and self-indulgence, Dear Mr. Watterson does offer some insightful musings about the decline of comic strips in general, with their content ever shrinking due to the diminished state of the newspaper industry.

Doesn’t exactly dig very deep, but its often fascinating archival footage and stories of royal lineage dating back to the days of Queen Victoria (who bore no less than nine children) surely will delight devoted Anglophiles.

The movie becomes a survival tale and is more successful in its grueling, slightly crazed second half. The Goetzes do a better job capturing the terrain's physical extremes and the challenge of endurance than they do depicting a relationship.

Though the inventions of Misan Sagay's script emphasize concerns over dowries and social rank that will be grating for many contemporary viewers, extracting little of the humor that Austen regularly found in such hang-ups, the picture's sour notes are balanced by fine performances and clear historical appeal.

Some of these gags are hilarious.

Only the bravura of the cast, first and foremost Park and Lee (both veterans of Unbowed), generates sufficient interest to see the film through to its surprising conclusion, recounted in a respectful coda many years later.

A pictorially unusual but dramatically listless tale.

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

Although it offers some insight into his distinctive technique, it could have gone much further. But viewers will appreciate spending time with this cheerful, unassuming man, and will enjoy seeing the artist acknowledged by celebrities who owe him so much

The film doesn’t fully succeed in elucidating its complex issues. But the wide-spread problem it explores is clearly undeniable, and at the very least this rough-hewn but provocative documentary will hopefully inspire further discussion.

Ted's Boston-accented zingers are expertly delivered by the director/star, whose voice talent is undeniable, and Wahlberg again demonstrates that he's skilled at comedy.

Even as a quasi-experimental work of subjective surrealism, Escape From Tomorrow is massively erratic and isn't particularly original. But it must also be said that its take on Disney World, as well as many of its individual images, are indelible and won’t be easily forgotten.

There’s no denying the inherent emotional power of watching Wampler, aided by two experienced climbers, endure his arduous quest to climb a mountain twice the height of the Empire State Building.

Although not wholly successful in its sociological aspirations, the film does provide both considerable laughs and food for thought.

Although its formulaic storyline...holds no surprises, the film nonetheless exerts a certain charm.

Money for Nothing feels less prophetic than generally handwringing -- it's just enough to produce vague worry in the unschooled without moving policymakers to do anything they're not already doing.

Although Weigert is convincing as Abby, Passon's attitude toward the character is hazy.

The Dirties is as provocative as it is sloppily messy in its themes.