As pithy and sharp-witted as the screenplay is ... the direction by series creator Rob Thomas ... is oftentimes flat and visually dull. ... And so the movie, is more than anything, a bold and breathless work of fan service, configured by the creators of the original series for the maximum enjoyment of the fans of the original series.

Forgettable and only mildly entertaining, 300: Rise of An Empire seals its own fate at the initial story level by being so deeply invested in its own mythmaking and playing super safe.

It's the accumulation of a set of ideas that a bunch of creative types and executives think would be clever, instead of something that actually delivers on an engaging entertainment level.

For all its minor faults of under-developed characters and disjointed scenes, “Honey” is worth seeing not only for the compelling performances from the two leads but for the incredibly effective use of light, reminding us just how much other films take it for granted.

Odd Thomas is a much better film than it's non-release would suggest. Hopefully one day it'll find it's audience and people will appreciate it for something other than just being better than "Phantoms."

The Bag Man is, in final analysis, truly disheartening.

The admirable wit that's on display when it comes to subtle motifs and the poignant conclusion that resonates if you let it, regardless of how predictable or not it may seem, are all things that add up to a satisfactory feeling.

In addition to the shocking scenes of sex and defecation I found myself reflecting on the way River of Fundament would slide from a typical “scene” into abstract musicality. It’s a neat trick, one repeated frequently and, quite frankly, one worth further examination. That is, if you can make it across the disgusting river to get there.

Non-Stop isn't exactly a smooth ride, but as far it being the big screen equivalent of an airplane novel, one that you read on the flight and throw away when you get to your destination, it is wildly successful. Just don't think too hard about it.

Inspirational, entertaining, and absolutely awards-caliber (from first-time director Karasawa), Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me offers up an indelible and rare experience in cinematic form—it’s simply an absolute treat to be able to spend this much intimate time with such a legendary lady.

Ultimately, the picture becomes an old-fashioned Bible Belt actioner, a shift towards genre that works on its own, but is tonally a peculiar place to take the events of the film following a string of several shocking and not-so-shocking revelations.

The sincerity and honesty of the stories within, as odd as they are, make The Final Member worth seeking out.

Black Out ultimately limps to feature length, burying its intriguing leading man underneath endless mishaps and shenanigans.

This is easily more exciting and tense than any genre film 2014 has seen thus far.

The odd rhythm of very fast and slick followed by very slow and arty is difficult to settle into, and the film ultimately frustrates, willfully obscuring the apparatus of what appears at first to be a promising film noir framework.

3 Days to Kill might not be art, but it's better than most of the overtly violent action fare that litters the multiplexes these days, thanks largely to the fact that its heart is almost as big as its explosions.

The choking pictorialism of the sets and CG backgrounds, coupled with the barely-there performances, contribute to an inescapable sense of lifelessness and sterility.

When you plunk down your $12, you will get the destruction you were promised. But it's too bad it's such a repetitive, unengaging, glaringly digital experience and worse than that, you'll have to sit through the disaster that is the rest of movie.

This is a peculiarly beautiful film, with lingering sustain and the kind of hard-won optimism that feels truthful as well as hopeful.

There is something potentially special in the elements of The Returned, with its allusions to class and social structures, and stigmas held around people with certain afflictions. But it merely nods toward them with no commentary or depth.

It’s a movie-length cliché about the type of love that explains why drugstores are stocked with cheap, forgettable Valentine’s Day gifts bought by teenagers and the immature at heart.

It’s a competent, unobjectionable history lesson but Cesar Chavez’ legacy needs a more inspired and inspiring telling if it's to get the exposure this crusading figure deserves.

The film is awful, but it is not unwatchable.

Over the twenty-odd years the film covers, Saint Laurent is scene-by-scene depicted as a genius, a manic-depressive, a polyamorist, a drug taker, a mercurial friend, a partier and a terribly, terribly sensitive soul. He undoubtedly was all of these things and more, it's just a pity he doesn't also come across as a person.

The entire movie feels belabored, lumbering from one awful, over-dressed set piece to another. It's wrongheaded, it's horrendous, it's filled with lines of dialogue that are utter howlers, and yet, it's the type of movie that feels so confident that it really is something. It is, in fact, not.

Karr came up through documentary filmmaking, and he knows how to turn the switch on an event to make it feel immediate and dangerous. Unfortunately, the picture strands its characters in the middle of this event, building to a climax that seems open-ended if only because the story, and its skimpy characters, has nowhere to explore.

It's a sterile affair, no ambiguity, no ambivalence, just people doing one thing and then another.

The film’s dismal action staging and over-complex story can’t seem to overcome Mr. Fairbrass’s lo-fi presence.

Someone Marry Barry is a reasonably entertaining argument that good performers can enliven weak material.

At the very least, Fantastic Fear of Everything has a fantastic central performance. And sometimes that's enough.

As off-kilter affecting as we found its nostalgia for a world of charm and dash that really only ever existed in the movies, and as terrific as almost all of the performances are, as a whole package it fell just slightly short of the promise of its parts.

The narrative may hit all the markers, but its transparent attempts to wring emotion fail to move.

There are enough rough edges and interesting kinks across the two-hour running time that you come out forgiving it for the more generic elements, though we'll acknowledge that the flaws might stick out more on a second viewing, when you're not just pleasantly surprised that the whole thing isn't a stinking mess.

If women's pictures are truly dying (in this personal reviewer's opinion, they are not if you know where to look) it's movies like Love Is In The Air that are its executioner.

We'd be able to give this movie a pass if it actually took its own original concept seriously, which is the biggest problem that After The Dark perpetuates.

The Lego Movie is an absolute blast—a whip-smart, surprisingly emotional family film where the toy property is seen less as a concrete template than a tool for seemingly limitless potential.

12 O’Clock Boys is an exciting, beautifully shot look at a subculture through the eyes of one of its most devoted admirers.

A truly moving and edifying film, Rich Hill is the type of media object that could and should be put in a time capsule for future generations.

The Babadook is a smart, respectful horror that puts character and emotional issues first, yet never at the cost of a delightful and haunting fright.

There is something of a manufactured air to the proceedings, one that is acutely aware of the techniques and traits of other similar better film, but without the strength in writing to back it up.

Turns out it was even trickier than originally imagined and that for all of its best efforts, The Monuments Men remains an unwieldy, overtly sentimental (but still emotionally distant) epic.

If some elements are more successful than others in achieving a balance between the public and the private, between the story of a nation’s ruination and that of a family’s annihilation, it remains a shocking, poignant and soulful tribute to lives ended and to innocence lost in the country’s notorious Killing Fields.

Director Pavich, his first time at bat, has crafted an unalloyed pleasure of a documentary, especially for those of us who care about "Dune," about sci-fi, and about the value and power of creative passion.

Wish I Was Here is not a total disaster, but the tricky tone seems like it needed more time in the editing room to focus its story and trim some of the extraneous threads.

White Bird in a Blizzard is worth seeing for Eva Green’s performance alone, and to experience the dreamlike quality of Gregg Araki’s individual, highly unique vision of cinema.

It knows how to mock cliché big things, like jokes about set-dressing and music video montages; it’s also wise about small matters, right down to the font and the framing device.

Song One is well intentioned, well-shot and has its musical heart in the right place, but it often feels incredibly familiar, and the more contrived, credulity-straining moments don’t help.

It may not always work as a drama but The Skeleton Twins proves to be a fine showcase for Wiig and Hader, showing they are both capable of dramatic material.

The Overnighters is starkly bleak and devastatingly humane, and an indelible American documentary.

The film plays nary a note of reprieve and the dank aesthetic does nothing to help the mood. “Low Down” is unequivocally a downer.

Trenchantly reflecting on the mishandling of success, blind ambition, idolatry, hero worship and the complex and competitive nature of artists in romantic relationships, Listen Up Philip is brilliantly chock-a-block with resonant observations.

James tells this unapologetic story with little sympathy, as per Ebert’s wishes, and a lot of passion—he wants the audience to really know who Roger Ebert was, and understand the importance of his work.

Gently involving, but never quite engrossing, there’s a first draft shape to the picture that feels slight and makes for a minor work.

Its patchy tone, plot, characters and sympathies make for a film that’s difficult to wholeheartedly endorse.

Kumiko The Treasure Hunter is a striking film, a bizarre joy and a beautiful delight.

Forbes’ script simply cannot make the things she lived through alive for us in anything but the most glib, shallow and contrived way.

It’s a heartwarming story of a father and son bonding, one which highlights that nothing is more powerful than family.

I Origins is a fascinating examination of belief, spirituality and otherworldliness through the skeptical lens of science, however, it's not always perfect.

The film does possess ample charms and insights, though admittedly, they do take quite a long time to coalesce.

Warm, soulful, funny and quietly insightful, Boyhood shines in its engrossing, experiential understanding and it’s a special achievement that should be cherished and acknowledged.

This terrific and sublime experience, and strikingly original film, is mandatory watching for the adventurous viewer.

24 Exposures has a handful of interesting ideas, and a lot of cute topless girls, but it doesn’t add up to much.

This movie is a corpse in desperate need of reanimation.

Calvary may not be for all audiences, with its pitch-black heart and sober existentialism not exactly commercial stuff, but its unwavering commitment to the intelligent thorniness of its themes, and the masterful control McDonagh exerts over the shifts in tone are worth cherishing, bringing it soaring close to something divine.

A major gaffe, God Help The Girl finds a great artist taking on a huge challenge and stumbling painfully on its ambition almost every step of the way.

It’s a sequel that, over a tighter running time, kicks against the law of diminishing returns, and only succumbs to it after a fight.

The Raid 2 brings the noise, but length, repetition and too much space also make it a slightly reduced echo of its predecessor.

Van Damme’s an arresting presence in his old age... His performance is a wonder, showcasing a man who has never found his physical equal, and how amuses himself by telling stories that ultimately mock opponents.

For being a kids-centric film, the picture is relatively slow and joyless.

The problem isn’t quite that the film is short on thrills (there is a paucity; the first adrenaline racing sequences don’t arrive until about an hour in), it’s that it’s not quite a character piece either.

The quest to be the best is a familiar film story, but if director-writer Chazelle has achieved anything here, it’s a deeply and richly different take on that journey—not only examining the cost of struggle but the reward of it, showing both what it takes to be great and what happens when you don’t have it.

Batra's film is ultimately less about love than about the vulnerability relationships place us in emotionally, and courage required to move past pain, and experience life again after we've been hurt.

Calling Love Is Strange a great gay love story is both precise and inaccurate; I doubt I’ll see a more finely performed and beautifully crafted love story, with or without any mere modifiers, up on the big screen this year.

Despite the affecting drama and performances, Run and Jump just never feels more that perfunctory in this regards.

Maidentrip ends up being not necessarily about the amazing feat that Dekker accomplished, it’s about finding one’s true self, and enjoying the ride along the way.

Wanting to create a leading character worth rooting for, and experiencing the schadenfreude that comes from her failure, is a complex balancing act, one that Adult World simply cannot pull off.

If there's a problem that gets in the way of some genuinely scary moments, it's that the filmmakers (all four of them) don't ever give you enough information to invest in the characters.

A genuinely sweet, charming and funny tale of identity lost and found.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit refashions the character (this time played by Chris Pine) into a man of immediate action, and in doing so drains him of anything that made him a relatable human being.

Eventually settles into a dull routine much like the dissatisfied characters of the film, which will make for an easily dissatisfied audience.

He (Fishburne) rips into his dialogue like steak, savoring every word as if he were paid by the syllable. For a moment, we’re in a different movie, one where someone has decided to singlehandedly deconstruct a cliché. It’s a very short moment.

Less a polemic than a portrait, If You Build It celebrates the flinty spirit that spurs problem solving and creativity (sometimes at the same time) with people not dedicated to a cause, but to people.

Chun admirably attempts to make each thriller-y motion mean a little bit more. But oftentimes he fails, and the back half of the movie is filled with perfunctory suspense set pieces, doused in blood and full of trauma, that leave little impact.

A movie so ugly and woeful that you'll wish you had superhuman strength to pluck your own eyeballs out of your head.

The picture isn’t plotted with story beats, only shock moments.

Franco has finally delivered a side project that does at least some justice to his eclectic artistic ambitions.

It’s a strong and eye-catching debut, but one that doesn’t quite mark its ground as the next big thing in Israeli cinema.

While it’s an occasionally funny film with good performances from its stars, it’s poorly and cheaply made.

Mordaunt’s eye indicates a thoughtful filmmaker able to listen to the winds of what a movie needs. Effortlessly natural, his workmanlike craft carries the capacity to keep an ear open to happenstance.

You get the feeling that if there were less fighting and more character work, not only would Bell knock it out of the park, but Raze would be a better, more interesting movie.

Strangely old-fashioned in its construction and requiring a Golden Gate-level feat of engineering to achieve the suspension of disbelief necessary to unironically enjoy it.

It’s easily the most suspenseful American film of the year, a thriller that feels like lightning across a quiet night sky; sudden, terrifying, and excitingly singular.

An expertly timed, painstakingly assembled and endlessly engaging game of cat and mouse, Grand Piano succeeds as a whole for the same reasons that Selznick does—namely, because Mira brings all of its elements to work together in concert, and then executes them like a virtuoso.

Patchy as often as its outright hilarious, fantastically outrageous just as frequently as its forgettable and flatlining, the sequel winds up a bit better than a second tier Ferrell outing.

As an sensory experience, 'WOWS' is mostly a terrifically visceral one, a full throttle fast and furious bacchanalia of drug-fueled madness. But as a scathing indictment of American rapacity, it isn't particularly deep or resonant beyond the exterior.

It's all very cheap, wholly unconvincing, and loaded with dull narration.

Heisserer is able to keep the thrills coming while maintaining an emotional tether to the character and the situation. While occasionally the movie veers into the realm of implausible melodrama, it's a well-modulated affair and knows exactly when to pull itself back from the brink.

The Crash Reel can never be accused of being dry or boring, but Walker brings an energetic style that also complements its subject.