Filho so completely calculates his causes and effects, even going so far as to have the villain of the piece literally swimming with sharks, that you never fully feel the senses-altering charge of a truly impassioned polemic.

When the monsters finally show themselves, this potent theme is lost amid a lot of proficiently staged but insubstantial scare scenes - heavy on musical stingers and weightless CGI.

It may be just an hour-and-a-half commercial for the new single, “Best Song Ever,” and a victory lap following a successful arena tour, but credit where it’s due: This behind-the-scenes look at the English-Irish boy band du jour captures the group’s unpretentious stage show and regular-joe nature in all their glory.

There’s a whiff of inconsequence to Reitman’s take, fizzy and watchable though it is. It should be about the stealth weaponization of outrage (and of women)—a tragedy that’s leagues more sophisticated that this.

To be sure, the film as a whole feels like a creaky vehicle, belabored with plot strands and stereotypes that only serve to highlight Winstead's ragged commitment to something real.

Tediousness sets in eventually; there's only so much zoological abyss-gazing one can do.

The whole notion of taking a page out of the Bressonian handbook (nonprofessional performers, a complete lack of emotionalism) lends a spiritual aspect to this antihero’s plight, with neither social neglect nor a battered corpus keeping his soul from transcending the self. Reaping the benefits of such a minimalist methodology, however, requires a high tolerance for Porfirio’s pitiless formalism.

Director Leanne Pooley's documentary on the sisters and their "anarchist variety act" is definitely a formulaic bit of portraiture, but given its engaging, pioneering subjects, gimmickry is hardly needed to spice things up.

Thunderously patriotic (the navy is wonderful) and sentimental (kids are wonderful), it's heavily dependent on Kelly's charm and Sinatra's supposed little-boy appeal, the combination of which fuels the running gags and almost saves the scenes with Grayson.

This handsomely made spook story (love those echo-prone hallways!) becomes less involving the more the narrative's mysteries are solved. By the time all the tarot cards are on the table, it's likely that you too will feel conned.

Yet it's impossible to shake the sense that what felt thrillingly, cohesively alive in the director's earlier movies plays here with more laurel-resting creakiness than go-for-broke verve. Russell's once-mercurial assets have become a formula.

Wingard’s scaly-furry face-off is often outrageously dumb fun.

An admirably balanced, wide-ranging look at the phenomenon of Somali high-seas piracy.

Don’t think too much about the plot; it’s about as water-tight as a corporate-pension scheme. All three stars deliver exactly what you expect from them — nothing more, nothing new — but their onscreen familiarity is a strange comfort in itself.

[Ridley Scott's] second film in as many months, after The Last Duel, is uneven, overlong and completely over the top, and has characters and plot turns that Marvel and Pixar would reject as ‘a bit much’. The good news is that it is undeniably a proper drama and, for the most part, wildly entertaining.

There is so much talent behind and within Nia DaCosta’s provocative adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler that it’s easy to embrace as an inventive artistic experiment.

Like some of the ’50s and ’60s biker flicks it homages, The Bikeriders runs out of gas in a predictable final reel that never quite delivers the promised heartache. Still, it’s an intelligent and strikingly photographed film, a journalistic but romantic snapshot of a moment in time lost forever.

The movie is nostalgia, pure and simple, unfettered by examination. Even its title is fuzzy and vague.

This aesthetically undistinguished yet still engrossing documentary follows the emotionally charged lead-up to the vote on Question One, a 2009 Maine referendum that put the marriage rights of gay and lesbian couples on the state ballot.

Fanning manages to bring soulfulness to a character who mostly reacts to others; you just wish the whole movie were, well, jazzier.

The new film sometimes feels too snazzy in its jittery cinematography, but the stunts make it through the budget upgrade intact.

This reverential, sentimental and occasionally bittersweet film only erratically illuminates his (Eric Kandel) ideas. Rather, Petra Seeger prefers to honor Kandel’s boyhood remembrances as a Jew in Nazi-era Vienna.

When Ma breaks bad, it breaks bad hard, with some real wince-inducing moments of bodily harm.

Keshishian's record of the 'Blonde Ambition' tour is memorable not so much for the live footage (electrifying, but brief), nor for the few risqué moments contrived to provide hype, but for its study of the loneliness of stardom and the ties of family.

It's undeniably humanistic; resourceful and well managed, however, are a different story.

MacFarlane may need to jettison his adolescent belief that cramming every moment with two winks and a zinger exponentially ups the gutbusting, however, before he can hit his real artistic stride.

Its trump card, of course, is Zellweger, who blows through the film in a gust of jittery energy, wounded ego and half-buried star quality. The transformation is startling.

If the film occasionally bumps up against the limitations of its "Spellbound"-like template, its refusal to ignore the social issues outside of the classroom proves it's more than simply a novelty human-interest story with impressive knight moves.

Younger audiences will see "The Fault in Our Stars’" Shailene Woodley once again excelling in an emotionally tricky role: Kat, a 17-year-old blooming into her wild years while reckoning with an increasingly unhinged mother, Eve (Eva Green, crazy-eyed and just this side of Faye Dunaway).

Workman’s study, complete with a fawning sit-down with Steven Spielberg, feels slightly awestruck: The films certainly deserve it, but you’ll want more of Welles’s Illinois schoolmate, rolling her eyes when the subject is described as “humble.”

Ziba’s relationship with her unwaveringly affectionate mother (Narges Rashidi) is genuinely touching, a rejection of the austere immigrant parent stereotype.

Hitchcock matches the play's compassion for women suffering in the face of feckless men, especially in the film's powerful final shots. [07 Oct 2010]

It’s the kind of two-hander that relies solely on the chemistry of the actors, both of whom banter, parry and bum rush their way through various left turns with grace. Their pas de deux almost makes up for this threadbare tragedy’s no-win endgame. Almost.

Shots of the kids and their friends running around unfamiliar environments have the fantastical qualities of Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are," minus the forced whimsy.

Ultimately, the returns of the film's premise can't justify a nearly two-and-a-half-hour squirm. The savagery is honest, raw and hardly entertainment.

Washington has the quiet authority, and Fuqua the stylistic chops, but the story they’re telling becomes more predictable as it goes along. Once it’s over, you won’t necessarily be itching for an Equalizer 3.

How can a movie so steeped in post-Katrina imagery eschew even the smallest comment about social responsibility? Maybe that was deemed too earnest, a decision that makes zero sense when a twinkling score is ladled on like instant pathos. Real people aren't beasts, nor do they require starry-eyed glorification. Bring your liberal pity.

Point Blank fires nothing but blanks in the end, dealing in increasingly ludicrous plot twists and one fizzle of a finale.

The film strikes the right balance of outrage, hopefulness and despair, compellingly arguing the case that a profit-driven, racially motivated collusion exists between Big Pharma and the U.S. government.

Shot when the director was 91 and finished just before he died in March, Alain Resnais’s third adaptation of an Alan Ayckbourn play is his gentlest attempt at using the artifice of theater to affirm the reality of imagination.

The precedent for a movie like this is Ang Lee’s bruised "The Ice Storm," but whereas that film sprung from a novel that burns with indictment, Julia Dyer’s effort — scripted by her late sister, Gretchen — is a more open-ended affair and slightly unsatisfying for it.

Smile is overall a solid horror, a fine way to make yourself scream at the cinema screen, but within it there are enough moments of horrible invention to make Finn a director to keep an eye on. There may be bigger, freakier surprises in store.

If you remember Larry Clark’s downbeat 1995 "Kids," a vastly more adventurous movie, you’ll feel a depressing sense of indie sellout.

Tasteful adaptation of Grace Metalious' best-selling novel detailing the lives and loves of 'ordinary folk' in a small New England town. It comes with its full quota of sex, conspiracy and violence, but the story is told in such circumspect fashion that next to nobody was offended.

The energy of the music and of the supercharged Day just about prevail over the lethargy of Butler's (non-)direction.

Forget the story, 'cause there isn't one, but see it for the gory bits and marvellous gutsy make-up. Yech!

Common wisdom suggests bakers are sour because they reserve the sweetness for their work. But these competitors' kindness in the face of adversity-at one point, a well-established chef breaks down in tears while his colleagues comfort him-is what sticks with you the most.

It plays like a conventional melodrama with better-than-average production values.

The surprising thing here is how smoothly this over-iced cake goes down.

If you can stomach the lovey bits, the film has a lot of good car stunts, some innuendo for the adults, and the ultimate accolade for the Chaplinesque Herbie - a chance to play opposite a cute Mexican orphan.

For a bright and breezy franchise with a talking tree and wise-cracking racoon, it gets unexpectedly bleak.

Movies this silly, crass and manipulative really shouldn’t be allowed to exist in 2014. But we’re guiltily glad that they do.

Ultimately, points may be scored on the balance sheet of workplace exploitation - usually we see it go the other way around, gender-wise - but these conference-room banalities have been better explored elsewhere, and the effort here feels like a rough draft.

The Virginity Hit is elevated by its cast of very funny young actors who match good comic timing with relaxed spontaneity.

It’s an earnest hope, to be sure, and the greatest strength of Sam Raimi’s imaginative, if highly uneven, take on L. Frank Baum’s series of children’s stories about that magical land over the rainbow is its unabashed sincerity.

If anything, Soul is guilty of over-ambition. The wizardry and wit is there, but it lacks Pixar’s usual deftness in making complex themes sing for youngsters. Mixing heart and existential angst, it’ll connect more with Joe’s generation than little ones. It’s smart and, yes, soulful but it never quite takes flight.

Hyde Park could have been fawningly ponderous; that it's merely an airy trifle puts it a cut above the usual Oscar bait.

Mildly diverting comedy in overexposed terrain.

The result is not so much complexity as a mildly entertaining collection of rather superficial short stories; or perhaps it's best described as an elementary elaboration of a greater number of subsidiary characters than usual, inside a piece of pulp fiction. Smoothly constructed, for such a busy piece of work, and Hatcher's ascent to stardom continues.

The plot’s a bit complex for what amounts to a lot of running around — the movie can’t help but evoke the Bourne series along with a high-gloss hint of Skyfall, not wholly unpleasantly.

Hipsters is also a musical (in an intentionally naive "Absolute Beginners" vein), and while everything looks glinty and gorgeous, the story's political edge is dulled by excessive levity.

The doc's straining for a larger, Varda-esque metaphor about the sad humans on the sidelines is ill-advised.

A largely sexless sex romp, has such a winning sense of middle-aged exhaustion to it that you might want to add a star or two, especially if you're familiar with the banalities of matrimonial bliss.

There’s social satire for those who want it — don’t tell the rest of the neighborhood our daughter’s risen from the dead! — and a fine, simmering sense of apocalypse that turns this suburban community into a war zone. Still, it’s a lot of heavy lifting for what amounts to “he’s just not that into you,” mainly because you’re as ripe as a cadaver.

Worth seeing for Hathaway's superbly crafted direction, even if it needed a Hitchcock to merge the symbolism of the location (the falls, the belltower) with the themes of sexual domination and envy.

Justice is blind - but there are cases where fingers start weighing down the scales. That's the j'accuse that Ra'anan Alexandrowicz's documentary puts forth regarding Israel's rule of law in its post-'67 occupied territories.

Even at this short running time, there's a looseness to the kaleidoscopic adventure that becomes slightly wearying.

Fincher's film tips much more in the indulging direction of crowd Comic-Con - delighting the franchise junkie above all other considerations.

The movie is never less than involving, but rarely amounts to more than a third-generation grindhouse knockoff.

If you’ve seen "Species," you know where this don’t-mess-with-Mother-Nature horror show is going, though director-cowriter Vincenzo Natali has a few interesting twists up his sleeve.

Happily, it emerges at last with enough inventive action to stand alongside its murderous predecessors, and makes Ana de Armas into a likeable assassin hero – a phrase that makes more sense in her killer-filled world than our own.

Nicholson and Lange make a class act, and the film does restore the overt sexuality missing from the 1946 version. But, disappointingly given his excellent track record with films like Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens and Stay Hungry, Bob Rafelson tries to make art out of high-grade pulp, with a resultant loss of energy.

Given the keys to the franchise and a role in the writing, Black has massively upped the verbal sparring and kept the broad inventiveness of comic-book malleability in mind. “I’m a mechanic,” Stark says to the boy in a moment of self-doubt. That’s 100% Black, that line, a tidy code of craft, and the jitters pass.

Cristián Jiménez's dust-dry dramedy attests to the writer-director's own bibliophilia (the film is literally divided by chapter pages), as well as his lead actor's ability to milk a deadpan look that would make Buster Keaton proud.

Its brainless brawn is again pretty entertaining, until the credits roll and you can instantly forget the whole thing.

Trauma from WWII haunts each character, but even the historical foregrounding doesn't keep Ben Sombogaart's weepie from being more soapy than serious.

Straight-line conflicts, low-light visuals: the film's basics, its strengths, and its critical Achilles' heel are all those of the classic American male action movie.

Garris plays it for laughs, and despite dull moments (and the obvious plagiarisation of Gremlins), does a pretty good job.

At the end of the day, it’s not really Hamlet, it’s something new that uses the words from Hamlet. But at its best, it’ll still hit you with all the force of Shakespeare's existential masterpiece.

This is no family-friendly "Peanuts" special.

At times, the film's lyrical drift shades into incoherence, spackled with globs of free-floating voiceover and Larry Clark-like indolent moments. It's both lovely and frustrating, at least until hard times lay bare the gulf between Skye's fractured family and the boys' more stable lives.

Well, Ghost Protocol ultimately ends up as an eye-rollingly towering totem to L. Ron's favorite son, complete with treacly music cues and longing glances - bromantic and otherwise - that will send you screaming into the thetan-stealing clutches of Lord Xenu.

Ridley Scott delivers a spectacular but flavourless French history lesson.

Time and changing tides have been kind to Graceland (and to the local musicians who've since become internationally renowned), but an on-camera meeting between the songwriter and ANC leader Oliver Tambo finds their conflict between creative freedom and revolutionary solidarity fascinatingly unresolved.

The result is not so much a documentary as an engaging, if didactic, travelogue with embedded yuks.

It's especially disappointing when the story takes an inevitable turn to starry-eyed mush, dulling the sharp satire of the crazy, stupid ins and outs of romantic entanglement with an unconvincingly saccharine one-true-love-for-all moral.

Mostly it remains enjoyable for its colour and visual flair. Danilo Donati's costumes are, as usual, breathtaking.

A smart horror film will fatten its pigs before the slaughter, and the mock doc The Last Exorcism feeds its prize hog nicely.

The look of the film certainly achieves the right rubble-strewn, monochrome period feel with precision and genuinely cinematic scope. Perhaps the greatest hurdle cleared, however, is the problem of incident. Radford's achievement is to have incorporated the impossible preaching and crazed ideas into the fabric with hardly any loose threads. The locations look very like modern Britain; and Burton at last found the one serious role for which he searched all his life.

A typically plot-heavy script from Ernest Tidyman survives unimaginative direction to deliver that current rarity, an unpretentious action movie. A bit out of its depth at the top of a bill, but vastly superior to the ostensibly similar Jaguar Lives.

Avildsen draws good performances from the three actors who play PK, as well as from the ever-reliable Freeman and Müller-Stahl, but subtlety is abandoned when he focuses on the ring and teen romance. The climax is a slugging match between PK and a former school bully which would make Rocky proud.

The central idea here is as durable and effective as a well-told fireside ghost story, but in the cold light of day, the film fades.

That One Lucky Elephant ultimately comes down on the side of anthropomorphizing Flora and her kind is extremely disappointing - a little clear-eyed ambivalence would have helped the film feel more focused and less like patchwork.

Still, if his doc is as toothless as Cookie Monster 2.0, it’s still a nostalgic treat to spend time with the man who gave us Kermit, Big Bird and the Goblin King.

Price is fun (this was the film that typed him as a horror star), the fire in the waxworks is good for a gruesome thrill, and De Toth brings off one classic sequence with Kirk fleeing through the gaslit streets pursued by a shadowy figure in a billowing cloak.

It’s tamer than its deeply unsettling predecessor, but still unhinged enough to keep you nicely on edge.

A drama about the dirty business of gaining power, it needs bared fangs - and more bite.

While billed as a psychological horror, it may be best approached as a dark drama or thriller, rather than a fully terrifying experience. But if you invest in its characters, it offers a thought-provoking insight into the depths of the human mind when faced with the laws of survival. It’s grim, but good.