A workmanlike but fan-pleasing picture.

Gurukulam succeeds in its goal of immersing the viewer in its gentle and spiritual setting. Whether you'll achieve enlightenment watching it is another question.

With such an elliptical tease of a plot, which jumps back and forth temporally disdaining explication, some may feel a little of this travelogue goes a long way.

Most effective in its quiet dialogue-heavy scenes, the picture stumbles when anything more dramatic is required.

Liberally riffing on situations and themes familiar from the high school-set movies that established the renowned writer-director’s legacy, Lee has crafted an entertaining alternative interpretation that substitutes an international cast of Asian actors for Hughes’ largely white, suburban ensembles.

All this is portrayed in such elementary terms it could be the libretto of a 19th century operetta, or maybe a children’s film, were it not so disturbing.

Inspiring as her journey may be, however, the film tracks an overly familiar arc, dwelling on Shields' disadvantaged background, teenage romance with another young boxer and family turmoil but providing limited focus on the sport of women's boxing or the complexities of obtaining training sponsorship or lucrative endorsements.

The film feels a little too eulogistic, too reliant on hyperbole and too in love with its own gimmicks to make it more than just a serviceable crowd-pleaser.

A dynamic glimpse of contemporary Los Angeles funneled into an old-fashioned coming-of-age saga, Lowriders isn’t always persuasive, but it has plenty of heart.

Meyer...and his easy rapport with the kids and Sacks helps coax sometimes surprisingly candid comments from his subjects. What’s missing however is adequate background on how the boys became such impressive young musicians and why they gravitated toward heavy metal rather than pop or rap.

Traded features nary an original element but nonetheless registers as a solid if minor oater.

Unfortunately, after its fine start, this brainy slice of provocative speculative fiction slowly but surely loosens its grip on audience involvement rather than increasing it.

Yadav’s concerns about discrimination and violence against women are evident in nearly every scene of the film, as her script positions each of the principal characters to undergo an experience of self-actualization in defiance of prevailing patriarchal norms.

It's to the script's credit that it doesn't tie up the story in cute little bows and instead leaves a number of questions unanswered by the end.

In a time of plentiful lush and/or enlightening food docs, only viewers who idolize Rene Redzepi and his talented crew need pay attention to this one.

While the filmmaking is crudely effective at best, it successfully showcases the physical, if not the acting talents, of its largely female cast.

While Brosnan has quite a few opportunities to show his acting chops, Chan makes do with less.... In any case, it’s good to see Chan swapping his happy-go-lucky persona for two hours for some gravitas as a tragic rogue with a marked past.

Kinnaman delivers a superb turn.... Holland and White also are excellent as the boys who still love their father even while becoming ever more aware of his failings. Their quietly terrified reactions to his escalating belligerence is far more emotionally wrenching than the tired thriller genre conventions to which the film ultimately succumbs.

The actors impressively give it their all.

This film feels more of a piece with the fashion shows and musical efforts it chronicles: an art-therapy product valuable mostly to those who made it.

The lead performances have power, whereas pictorially the film is pretty rough and ordinary.

Chan’s English-language dialogue occasionally comes across a bit muffled, but his body language rarely fails to connect. Knoxville thrashes about in a fairly undisciplined manner, but succeeds in providing a sizeable share of the comic relief.

Unfortunately, [Miike] never quite tops the hijinks of this film’s opening reel, and at nearly two hours, As the Gods Will grows gradually tiresome until it seriously drags during a lengthy and entirely kitschy closing battle.

As robust as the lead performance is, though, the movie around it, directed by Stephen Gaghan from a screenplay by Patrick Massett and John Zinman, too often feels serviceable rather than inspired.

The Commune effortlessly entertains at a TV sitcom level, with its pithy dialogue, its chorus of thinly drawn caricatures and its cozy sense of mockery towards the failed social experiments of past generations. But as serious cinema, it feels limited for the same reasons.

Diffuse and rambling at times, An Animated Life, which sometimes has the feel of a tribute film shown at an award gala, is not as compelling as such similarly themed docs as "Waking Sleeping Beauty" and "Frank and Ollie." But it nonetheless serves as an entertaining salute to an unsung figure whose considerable accomplishments well deserve recognition.

The Rocketeer is low-octane Steven Spielberg — projected in the right happy direction but lacking the gritty accelerant and around-the-edges humor and humanity of other heavy popcorn-load adventures.

It feels like a sermon delivered by an extremely cine-literate preacher.