The gore was laughable and the script was blood curdling. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

After Tiller is not an important film just because of its political and cultural relevance, but because of its humane and compassionate approach to telling the stories of these doctors, their work and the women that they seek to help.

This film reveals not just how integral casting directors are to the creative process of filmmaking, but really how important they have been in shaping the history of American cinema.

The Wolverine wants to have it both ways: a dark character story and an action-packed superhero film. But it never reconciles the two notes, and thus becomes more and more atonal as it wobbles towards its symphonically jarring ending.

What really sets this film apart from nearly every other teenage sex comedy ever made, from "Porky's" to "American Pie" to "Superbad," is that this isn't about some dude trying to get laid.

As a film whose central theme emphasizes the dangers of living in the past, Wright, Pegg and Frost become fatally distracted by nostalgia, eventually paying too much homage to previous classics—especially their own—to create another film that deserves to stand alongside them.

Drive works as a great demonstration of how, when there's true talent behind the camera, entertainment and art are not enemies but allies.

The endlessly surprising, often riotously funny Computer Chess basks in the details of a group of men who, at a key point in history, are asking themselves not only if they can accomplish something, but why, and what it means to their current generation.

This expensive misfire runs a little less than ninety minutes, which means that there’s likely a 105-110 minute long version that the producers hacked up in order to get the maximum amount of 3D showtimes to not embarrass the studio on opening weekend. Judging by the released product, that version is likely even worse, if such a thing were possible.

It’s part raw and ugly character study, part ensemble comedy, but it’s that first element that is so striking, bold and unnerving, while the latter element is sometimes amusing, but familiar.

There are occasional laugh-out-loud moments, for sure, and the winningness of the leads makes the inevitable climactic clinch actually rather affecting, but Grabbers could have been so much more than the derivative me-too it turns out to be.

Broken simply can't get it together on any level, delivering a tedious drama, that for all the characters and over-emoting, doesn't have much to say.

Overall, this is an action-comedy that should be as full of laughs as it is explosions (So. Many. Explosions.), but there’s little joy other than letting Mirren be (super) sexy and Malkovich deliver a few good lines.

An illuminating and often hilarious portrayal of the man and his myth, and those who surrounded him.

One of the more disappointing big studio animated features this year, a movie can't even muster the energy to be visually engaging, let alone give you anything to care about story-wise.

The low-key nature of what's come before simply serves to render all the more effective the final shootout, when the film careens completely, and bloodily, off the rails.

A sincere, slow-moving, occasionally successful film devoted to one specific homefront story. That, in itself, is noteworthy.

Wiig really shines in the film, proving that her finely honed comic timing can make a character work even when the film ultimately doesn't.

It succeeds not just because of the gripping footage and troubling stories of the spectators and trainers close to the incidents, but also because it consults experts in the field who offer insights into killer whales’ biology and psychology.

Even given the shapelessness of the picture, Hoback does the best he can in providing an imperfect timeline to a possibly worsening issue.

The Conjuring, at points, is terrifying. Wan really understands how active, acrobatic camerawork can enhance the storytelling without breaking the fourth wall, a technique abused by today’s horror craftsmen.

Director Mark Steven Johnson can’t seem to balance a tone here, which is a pity because for the most part he stands back and lets the two stars go at each other.

Basically, it’s a film made for brainless grunts who like to hang out all day making sub-literate jokes about boobs and gays while watching the game. No wonder the first movie was such a success.

It’s all very first draft, with a layer of supernatural permeating the events that suggests added attempts to connect three wildly disparate storylines.

If your basic movie needs demand a little bit more -- logical premises; interesting, marginally original characters; dialogue that doesn’t reek of throaty, aspirational monologue after monologue -- Pacific Rim will leave you feeling hollow and wanting.

While Felix von Groeningen's film, which centers around a couple whose child is diagnosed with cancer, could easily have strayed into maudlin territory, the deft, non-chronological structure and the constantly surprising, beautiful performances -- both acting and the musical -- elevate it well clear of any Movie of the Week associations.

An enigmatic and perhaps occasionally overly deferential documentary about one of the all-time great character actors, Sophie Huber’s Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction, is slow out of the gate, but gently, ever so gently, builds to a thoughtful portrait of a thoughtful man.

The last quarter of Child's Pose is so remarkably strong that it makes a sometimes grim journey worth sticking with to its destination.