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.

Generic B-level horror marked by numerous dull patches, long stretches of expository dialogue and, save for Astin’s admirably intense turn, uninspired performances.

While Freeland's plotting is graceful, there are occasional moments of stiffness in the dialogue itself, brief rough patches her largely neophyte cast can't fix in the delivery.

While the movie’s theme is familiar, even a little stale, the vivid details help to freshen the story, and the actors sock the movie home.

In Chadwick Boseman, it has a galvanic core, a performance that transcends impersonation and reverberates long after the screen goes dark.

There are so many witty touches and sharp little observations here that The Strange Little Cat can be forgiven for ultimately making no dramatic statement.

Fronted by an outstanding performance from Catherine Keener, who is onscreen, often by herself, at almost every moment, this challenging but not difficult second feature from Mark Jackson parcels out its information in gradual increments, forcing the viewer to infer rather simply receive most narrative information.

Good-looking but not very effective adaptation of the seedy classic by "Grifters" author Jim Thompson.

The plus-sized comic delivers a solid set of often highly personal material that’s consistently amusing even if it never quite hits the level of hilarity.

Paltrow shows a capable hand with the actors... However, the characters only intermittently engage our interest.

Whether they’re filing ridiculous complaints about each other to the unflappable mayor (Michel Blanc), arguing over the proper presentation of ingredients or sharing a cafe table, Mirren and Puri bring an effortless command to their roles.

When a filmmaker is capable of exploring a series of frankly outlandish filmic, thematic and moral propositions with absolute conviction and sureness of touch, the results are usually memorable. Such is the case with Manuel Martin Cuenca’s Cannibal.

There’s a terrific central idea at the core of the film, but it’s lost amid the endlessly repeated nightmare episodes, the banal subplot concerning the couple’s domestic problems and the clunky exposition and visuals.

The reductionist plot eventually forces both the protagonists and the filmmakers into a blind shaft without a productive exit strategy.

Overall, the writers have crafted a well-articulated universe with distinct settings and relatable, compelling characters devoted to a thrilling quest for redemption.

Always interesting, frequently explosive, but also sprawling and unfocused.

It may sound like a backhanded compliment to praise this sometimes cheesy movie for never taking itself too seriously, but in a summer of bloated spectacles, this modesty should not be underestimated.

With such well-tuned performances and scattered intensity, it's unfortunate that the technical aspects of the film are not always up to par.