Although formulaic in design and programmed to meet its quota of laughs, the film makes a point of going beyond basic expectations into some legitimate aspects of mature friendships without getting soggy about it.

There is much here of interest to aficionados of the great author as well as to those curious about the complicated relationship between sisters Mariel and the late Margaux.

If only adapter-director Gavin Hood's movie had been tempered with craft and care and wasn't such a blunt instrument, one that seems designed as a delivery system for CGI derring-do instead of the heartbreaker it should be.

Despite its scaldingly hot cast and formidable writer/director combination, The Counselor is simply not a very likable or gratifying film. In fact, it's a bummer.

Some of these gags are hilarious.

Gloria is a work of maturity, depth and emotional insight. There’s not a single false note here.

Any sense of narrative momentum or intellectual focus quickly unravels as the film evolves into an almost wordless symphony of disconnected images, sounds and music. But the nature-heavy montages are mostly beautiful and bizarre enough to excuse the film’s pretentious excesses.

Although director Alan Taylor manages to get things going properly for the final battle in London, the long stretches before that on Asgard and the other branches of Yggdrasil are a drag.

The film will frustrate viewers who insist on knowing which interviewees are recounting real experiences and which are perpetuating fictions hatched by the game's creator, Jeff Hull. But mystery is part of the appeal.

Torn approaches its incendiary topical issues with intelligent modesty.

Handsome and weighty-feeling but less substantial than it seems.

Ultimately, it’s little more than a trifle that’s enlivened by the older Huston’s inevitably referential performance.

Mike Mendez's shamelessly Corman-esque Big Ass Spider! does almost everything just a tiny bit better than it needs to.

American Promise shows the emotional toll that each boy endures, not only from the image that their privileged peers have of minority males but, accordingly, their own lack of confidence.

Less twisted than Natali's last film, Splice, it's sufficiently novel to uphold his reputation as a filmmaker not content telling conventional fanboy stories.

Taken strictly on its own terms, Saving Mr. Banks works exceedingly well as mainstream entertainment.

Directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine have fashioned an informative, emotionally uplifting saga of the powers of optimism and persistence in the face of the cruelest odds.

Toback does a great job introducing the non-initiated to the sticky job of getting a film funded outside the studio system.

The kind of mindless, silly romp the multi-hyphenate has become known for.

Glossier and more lavishly produced than most faith-based films, the film directed by Steve Race is ultimately undone by a relentless preachiness that gives it the feel of a two-hour sermon.

An utterly formulaic but sweet movie that does what a crowd-pleaser is meant to do.

If De Palma’s version was one part adolescent dream, three parts nightmare, with a sly streak of satire running through it, Peirce’s is a more earnest yet still engrossing take on the story that should connect with contemporary teens. At the very least it might send fledgling horror buffs scurrying to their Netflix queues to watch a vintage masterpiece of the genre.

They just don't make 'em like this anymore, and it's a good thing, too.

None of the characters,--whether human, fantastical, or anthropomorphically animal—prove remotely engaging. And the cheap animation, the sort of low-grade CGI endemic to endless direct-to-video efforts, proves visually unappealing.

Our Day Will Come speeds along for a while on the fumes of its own audacity until it can no longer hide the lack of coherent ideas in the tank.

An enjoyably naughty trip through Divine's career that happily makes time to introduce us to Glenn Milstead, the sweet kid and fledgling hairdresser who transformed himself so daringly.

The doc is slickly packaged, but it suffers from the pat reality-TV feel of manicured sound bites where greater candor and fly-on-the-wall observation might have been welcome.

The Old West is portrayed as a venal loony bin in Sweetwater, a handsomely designed, occasionally funny but ultimately empty female vengeance yarn.