Much of the naval action is realistically and thrillingly staged with blazing cannon fire and slashing swordplay that sufficiently diverts attention from the sometimes unrealistic special effects.

It’s a pretty trying movie to watch, though it does have some striking images.

While the science behind Earle’s conservation project is fascinating, it’s her natural charisma and infectious enthusiasm that are most compelling onscreen.

Although many of the subplots play nicely, they take away from the main thrust of the film: a tightly knit family living so close to the enemy, who rarely is seen and never understood. So this is relegated to a footnote in favor of story lines that, while wholesome, are neither dramatic nor cinematic.

The film manages, impressively, to be both crushingly banal and offensive in its use of cultural stereotypes. Watching it is like being brutally violated by a greeting card.

Although some of the supporting performances can be a bit choppy, director Schirmer sets an effectively unsettling naturalistic visual tone, bathing all those dark impulses in sunny Indiana daylight.

Though the film's cat-and-mouse scenes hardly compare to those in a Bourne movie, they're enjoyable and only occasionally ridiculous.

Sinuous sequences where one object morphs into another are his stock and trade, and that strength is on ample display in Cheatin’.

This smart HBO documentary convicts the media coverage and trial itself as guilty to Farce in the First Degree.

Featuring a non-stop barrage of gross-out effects depicting the substances that its title would indicate, this low-brow horror film is mainly suitable for audiences desperately pining for yet another "Toxic Avenger" sequel.

The screenplay co-written by Nicholas Thomas and director Luke Greenfield fails to mine the potentially humorous premise for the necessary laughs, with nearly all of the gags falling thuddingly flat.

A lazy ending mars this fine, if generic, take on a much-loved YA novel.

Aiming for Hitchcockian suspense but coming closer to daytime drama, the film offers only occasional tension.

Though clumsily enacted, the eventual revelation at least avoids the sick-punchline feel afflicting some dramas sharing this theme.

Talking heads aside, the movie gets a big boost from the wealth of news footage and post-standoff reportage the filmmakers cull from archives.

A provocative portrait of an artist who seemed hell-bent on destroying his own legacy.

The script by John Swetnam is rudimentary, with only the most minimal and pallid stabs at characterization... Nevertheless, once the funnel clouds begin swirling, Quale and his special effects team achieve some remarkably authentic and frightening moments.

All of these characters are worth knowing and the acting is excellent all around, but somewhere along the line the narrative arc vanishes and tedium sets in.

Although all the main characters and plot points survive the transition intact, they don’t carry the same weight. Him and Her have an undeniable literary, collegiate feeling, like reading a long novel and getting to know the characters inside out. Them steps on the accelerator in a sort of Cliffs Notes version.

If the three hours of filming Cameron did in the Trench yield little obvious drama, the story of how the Deepsea Challenger reached those depths makes up for it.

Hughes and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. handle the assignment skillfully enough, but without much imagination, sticking to a conventional action style that is more about the quantity of explosions than nuances of execution.

Drawing on the prowess of Donnie Yen, the first 35 minutes of gimmick-free martial arts revives the sinewy action aesthetics of '70s Shaw Brothers classics.

The castmembers portraying Splinter and the turtles achieve a persuasive level of realism that was never possible with the elaborate puppetry required for the original film series and adequately fulfill expectations for their characters.

Though their resolution is a little too neat to be believed, the filmmakers' way with their cast makes this debut a promising one.

It's commonly expected that a self-described "thriller" should deliver some, well, thrills, but actor-director Zoe Quist's self-indulgent third feature turns out to be practically inert.

Visually, intellectually and emotionally, McDonagh’s film is one to savor.

Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet of Eternity, although clearly lovingly intended, is too haphazard and unenlightening to fulfill its mission of educating Western audiences about the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

This Lifetime-grade pic is bad enough to have no impact, a vanity project whose ostensible story -- a grieving dad fights bureaucracy to build a children's hospital honoring his dead daughter -- is one of the least dramatic things put on screen in recent years.