Overlong, willfully obscure and scatologically extreme, the film will elicit a variety of negative responses despite offering some individual elements that, on their own, would surely impress any of Barney's admirers. The work simultaneously is more fully realized and less creatively inspired than the Cremaster cycle.

Features fine performances from the veterans in its cast. But it ultimately comes across as little more than a compendium of cliches.

This quite mediocre spawned-from-television feature feels like a Jesus film designed primarily for true believers, meaning that the faith-based public that has already been put on alert by seal-of-approval-dispensing church leaders that this is a film to see will make the Fox release into a significant Heartland attraction.

A constant low-boil of ridiculousness both mocks and sustains Non-Stop, a jerry-rigged terror-on-a-plane thriller with a premise so far-fetched as to create a degree of suspense over how the writers will wriggle out of the knot of their own making.

Fatal Assistance is a chilling indictment of how billions of dollars in aid were squandered or lost, and how aid and politics are inextricably linked.

While this low-budget effort seems to have its heart in the right place and features a sensitive, moving performance by Oscar winner Melissa Leo, it ultimately feels like a compendium of bizarre character quirks adding up to a barely coherent whole.

It is a strange cross-breed between an old-fashioned WWII epic full of genre cliches and a modern update whose meticulous historical recreation is frighteningly real.

Over the decades, there’s been no shortage of boneheaded premises for romantic comedies, but the painfully ill-conceived Barefoot takes boneheadedness to regrettable places.

More casual fans are advised to wait a movie or two and see if Begos can do anything new with the idiom he knows so well.

While One Candle, Two Candles… sheds much needed light on the archaic, barbaric custom that is its subject, its jocular tone threatens to undermine the importance of its message.

Ali has a deft hand in creating a fantasy world based on the classical Sita-Ravana model, and gives Bhatt free rein to project herself with unabashed teenage appeal.

If the plotting was only more coherent and audience-friendly and the story-telling more disciplined, the film's extraordinarily complex atmosphere would be irresistible.

It’s all absurd in a way that is typical Besson. But it’s also undeniably entertaining, and it marks a relatively pain-free way to kill, if not three days, at least a couple of hours.

Whenever the camera settles down to record a simple conversation between two characters, things suddenly feel stilted, as if the filmmakers cannot build the drama without flinging a hundred different things in front of the lens at the same time.

While Anderson excels in the film’s many moments of digital doom-and-gloom, he can’t deliver a single authentic emotion between the two star-crossed leads, leaving us with a sooty aftertaste of having sat through one very loud rendition of Titanic in togas.

Ingrid’s complex and flawed psyche finally does come into view in the home stretch but it feels like Vogt’s kept his narrative cards too close to his chest for too long. It’s a shame, especially because Petersen (Troubled Water) is terrific in a very tricky role.

Nelson's amiable comedy occasionally gets fixated on things that don't serve its overall purpose and is too self-conscious to really shine. But it's a more competent, accessible film than its stealthy theatrical release suggests.

What makes this film such a warm and touching portrait is that it reveals a woman who, even at her lowest, never loses her sense of humor.

It's not surprising that the remake of the 1986 film About Last Night... is broader, cruder and raunchier than the original. What is surprising it that's also much, much funnier.

The convoluted, cliché-ridden storyline, apparently inspired by the director’s father’s real-life experiences in the drug trade, is the least interesting element, while the brief, perfunctory action sequences no doubt reflect the low budget. But the film certainly looks and sounds good.

The film’s attempt at blending humor, poignancy and melodrama results in an awkward mish-mosh. But it has heart to spare, and the performances by the multi-generational ensemble are very effective, with particularly moving work by the veterans in the cast.

Less exploitative and a bit smarter than its seedy adult-film setting would suggest, the shoestring-budgeted film is nevertheless a niche outing that will rely on a stunty premise to attract voyeurs to its debut this Valentine's Day.

A rom-com whose agreeable individual elements aren't enough to sell the witless contrivance around which they revolve.

A highly homogenized and sanitized remake that's little better than its 1981 predecessor.

Aspiring transcendent love stories don't come much more claptrappy and unconvincing than Winter's Tale.

Though the screenplay, based on Laurence Benaim’s biography, is all build-up and no payoff, there is just enough emotional insight to compensate for the lack of narrative fireworks in the last half-hour.

This outstanding, muscular feature debut for French-born, British-based director Yann Demange almost never puts a foot wrong, from the softly underplayed performances to the splendidly speckled cinematography and fine-grained period detailing.

The film’s true MVP is Cusack, delivering a wittily subtle and acerbic turn that well displays his gift for deadpan comedy. He elevates the material whenever he’s onscreen, providing hints as to the more interestingly subversive film Adult World might have been.