Filmmaker Alan Govenar misses the mark in his attempt to document the historical French dwelling of once famous beatniks.

Young viewers looking for unbridled raunch will be sadly disappointed, and so will other moviegoers expecting more than a few wan chuckles. This picture is like a brightly colored balloon with all the comic air seeping out.

Despite the overstuffed assortment of vampires, werewolves, warlocks and demons of all shapes and sizes, The Mortal Instruments seldom feels like anything more than a shameless, soulless knockoff.

The result, Chronicling a Crisis, is an admittedly harrowing exercise in solipsism that will be of little interest to anyone besides the director's diehard fans and perhaps his therapist.

A damning account of institutional dysfunction whose ability to stoke indignation is undercut by its filmmakers' misguided comic antics.

Its low-rent cast and unappealing key art won't help at the box office, but viewers who stumble across it on cable may be pleasantly, if mildly, surprised.

An ineffective indie variation on the sort of generic romantic comedy that should be starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

After a strong run of films during the past decade, David Cronenberg blows a tire with Cosmopolis.

A coming-of-age story without any clear epiphany, Goats meanders rather aimlessly through 92 minutes of running time.

This middle portion of an intended trilogy will only play to the converted who have already seen Part I, and then only to the most gullible among them who will swallow mediocre filmmaking for the sake of ideology.

Need For Speed is a flat, sexless movie that seems not to understand why people like to sit in the driver’s seat and rev that big engine: Because of the transgressive rumble in your nethers.

The action sequences are strictly pro forma and -- despite the sleek killer's resemblance to the similarly lethal heroine of "La Femme Nikita" -- this dull effort lacks the excitement generated by any of its incarnations.

Unfortunately, the alternately melodramatic and comic Bringing Up Bobby fails to impress, despite a showy turn by Milla Jovovich in a sharp departure from her usual zombie butt-kicking in the Resident Evil series.

The comedy just isn't that funny and the enterprise never finds an exact tone.

If you could take the Shrek, Happy Feet and Smurfs movies, toss them in a blender and hit the pulse button a few times, the result would be a pretty reasonable approximation of Trolls, an admittedly vibrant-looking but awfully recognizable animated musical comedy concoction.

Director Neil Burger struggles to fuse philosophy, awkward romance and brutal action. Even with star Shailene Woodley delivering the requisite toughness and magnetism, the clunky result is almost unrelentingly grim.

Unfortunately, the thin storyline isn't substantial enough to sustain the nearly two-hour running time.

Six Million and One suggests the need for both a more ruthless editor and a well-trained family therapist.

This informative but scattershot documentary about the Occupy Wall Street suffers from a surfeit of facts and figures.

This thriller about child sex trafficking is well-intentioned but dramatically stilted.

Other than providing yet another meta-theatrical examination of the ever-blurring line between reality and artifice, Janeane From Des Moines emerges as a pointless affair.

The Prosecution of an American President demonstrates that you can be deeply sympathetic to a film's arguments and still come away feeling unconvinced.

This tale of an elite military unit assigned to rescue a war correspondent kidnapped by the Taliban is as frenetic and ultimately mind-numbing as a "Call of Duty" videogame, only without the thematic depth.

Not quite able to make up its mind whether it's a parody or homage, this tired exercise wastes both its gorgeous visuals and a first-rate cast.

This Chekhovian-style comedy about a group of neurotic actors endlessly kibitzing during a weekend at a country house might have some appeal for self-absorbed thespians, but "civilians," as they're derisively referred to in the film, will find little of interest here.

Least Among Saints has the strained feel of a basic cable television movie, with modest production values to match.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber adequately manages the mechanics demanded here but adds no finesse or grace notes.

Eventually, though, Waiting For Lightning suffers greatly from the absence of Way himself.