Like many lab experiments, this melodramatic hybrid makes for an unstable fusion. Only someone as talented as Almodóvar could have mixed such elements without blowing up an entire movie.

Effects work is slick, and Goddard keeps his foot on the accelerator with help from David Julyan's suspense-building score. It's just too bad the movie is never much more than a hollow exercise in self-reflexive cleverness that's not nearly as ingenious as it seems to think.

Representing a sort of equal opportunity religious variation on an all-too-familiar theme, The Possession is a Jewish-themed "Exorcist" that, if nothing else, should discourage the practice of buying antique wooden boxes at flea markets.

As novel and absorbing as In Time is in several respects, however, Andrew Niccol's latest conception of an altered but still recognizable future feels undernourished in other ways that are not as salutary, preventing the film from fulfilling its strong inherent promise.

This punishingly predictable tale will test whether sci-fi action fanboys can stomach having their cherished genre infiltrated by sentimental hokum about a down-on-his-luck dad and his spunky long-lost son.

Rowan Joffe's film of Graham Greene's 1938 novel "Brighton Rock" takes a gothic approach to the story of a young thug obsessed with hell with little of the writer's subtlety and too much reliance on a loud quasi-religious choral score.

A just-OK second feature from Ami Canaan Mann – daughter of Michael Mann, one of two credited producers here – and the latest outing for "Avatar" and "Clash of the Titans'" Sam Worthington.

A pedestrian chronicle of an eventful true story.

The film just doesn't mine enough humor or drama from this situation. Meanwhile most of the developments are wholly predictable.

The clash of cultures isn't exactly groundbreaking but Qasim "Q" Basir's feature debut is told through the eyes of a young, black American Muslim, a perspective that has rarely been seen.

Designed to make you laugh and squirm, Lovers of Hate does more of the latter.

A bold rethinking of a familiar old story and striking design elements are undercut by a draggy midsection and undeveloped characters in Snow White and the Huntsman.

More stylishly filmed than many others of its ilk, but at the end of the day, is just an ordinary slasher film.

Smartly observed and precisely visualized, 3 Backyards is nonetheless a bore: We never care for any of the characters and their lives of "quiet desperation."

Horror film buffs like to giggle as much as scream but there're no giggles here.

In The 5th Quarter, the filmmakers' hearts are in the right place but the execution couldn't be more wrong-headed.

After a promisingly tart start, the strident satire stumbles and falls into a sitcom-y hole from which it never emerges, despite the game efforts of its dynamic ensemble.

Skateland is every coming-of-age-after-high-school movie you've ever seen with a formulaic plot and well-worn characters.

The film wants to put on screen the sense of random play and concentrated games that fill a child's world for a few summers. In this it succeeds, but the film does not welcome others who might still retain memories of those NOT bummer summers.

Staggeringly cornball and squeaky-clean even when flirting with such issues as interracial sexual rivalries.

More aggressively violent and thankfully less mythology driven than previous installments, Underworld: Awakening is strictly for the converted.

Terse and understated, this is a spy vs. spy tale designed to minimize talk and maximize action, not at all a bad thing in movies but over-worked to near-exhaustion here.

Such heart-tuggers have their appeal to some people in any era, but earnest hokum of this nature has become increasingly rare. And for a reason.

The same tone and look are maintained, but the visceral excitement is muffled by familiarity, an insufficiently conceived lead character and the sheer weight of backstory and multiple layers of deception.

Though satisfying enough to please many casual moviegoers drawn in by King's name and stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, it will likely disappoint many serious fans and leave other newbies underwhelmed.

While Malcolm Venville's Henry's Crime is billed as a comedy it's more funny odd than funny ha-ha.

That the film works to the degree that it does is largely due to the sensitive performances. Bonnaire delivers a beautifully modulated turn.

Part murder mystery, part dysfunctional family drama and part meditation on the elusiveness of the American dream, Motherland doesn't fully succeed on any of its levels.