This frenetic horror-comedy from "Bubba Ho Tep's" Don Coscarelli is of the make-it-up-as-you-go-along school of storytelling.

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

It would be risible if Ozon’s hand didn’t remain so steady and confident throughout, all the way up to a complicatedly upbeat conclusion that recreates the Christian Annunciation with the straightest of faces.

Lessons are learned, bullies get their comeuppance, and every Wonder Years plot device is trotted out for maximum and-I-was-never-the-same-again nostalgia.

The use of real musicians (both professionals, like Nellie McKay, and street performers) provides a certain authenticity to the performances, but the film's wide-eyed view of New York as a wonderland of harmonic diversity soon grows as tiresome as the film's trite romantic shuffling.

A small masterpiece that places the mood and general ethos of the '50s with absolute precision and total affection.

A wittily efficient quickie, the film is a winner all the way - a surprise, since Starrett's career thus far had been the movie director's equivalent of a criminal record.

More of a massive back-patting for bleeding hearts than a comprehensive-or even semi-comprehensive-survey of DIY protest art, the film unintentionally makes the perfect valentine for the OWS version of radicalism: It's righteous, full of rage and cripplingly unfocused.

In live-action mode, Lilo & Stitch has some of the charm of an ’80s Amblin movie, like E.T. or Gremlins.

Hyams boosts the set-up with some heavy-duty action, but the journey follows essentially the same tracks as in '52 for an exciting ride. Hackman is boringly good, but Archer (like Marie Windsor before her) enjoys the more ambivalent role.

There's nothing strictly wrong with any of this, except for the fact that even a buttoned-down period piece like "Topsy-Turvy" feels sexier.

Little expense has been spared in putting this adventure fantasy on screen, with vintage planes and automobiles by the yard, striking Art Deco production design and breathtaking Thai coastal locations. A pity that the performers are so uncharismatic, with leading man Billy Zane plastic and soulless in Lycra, and not much more winning when he switches to playboy mode to woo free-spirited politico's daughter Kristy Swanson (pertly anonymous).

The girls are worth rooting for, but their pursuit is secondary to one sorry-ass dude's redemption. That's a win?

The writer-director does have a wonderful eye-a shot of a tractor wheel sticking out of the Hudson River is museumworthy-but his grasp of the melodramatic could use a little more grounding.

One's heart sinks the moment the trio is picked up by Prince Caspian (Barnes) and deposited on his ship, the Dawn Treader. Suddenly we're in green-screen land, where everything looks cheap, heavily digital and unfortunately postconverted to 3-D-hardly a fantastical otherworld.

A bland, so-so romantic comedy without the charm to see it through.

The main flaw — twirling farm girls and grunting oxen aside — is an utter lack of insight into the future leader’s character.

Hurt tries on an English accent as if he were in the Walmart changing room and a splendid-in-theory supporting cast - Simon Callow, Joanna Lumley, Arta Dobroshi - either ham it up or make moony eyes. Extra discredit to the embarrassingly jaunty score by Sodi Marciszewer, which should be taken behind the recording studio and shot.

It all gets off to a cracking start, only to dwindle very rapidly into thin and predictable variations on the formulaic ploys. And Vaughn gives his usual performance of perfect menace, which suggests that he should be about to engage in world domination, not just nicking motors.

The film lacks any kind of human interest, relying instead on our inferred love of lengthy strategy sessions and displays of ruffled pride. When it comes to yakuza cinema, you can do better.

Setting the movie in this unfamiliar but realistic world is intriguing enough, and Besson handles the action with consummate mastery. But the punk-chic style only accentuates the film's emptiness. That said, Adjani once again proves herself not only one of the most versatile actresses in European cinema, but also the most beautiful.

There are explosions, car chases, a climactic shoot-out, and a comic dog. Comedy and suspense sensibly packaged; but very old hat.

Suspect remains a routine Jagged Edge follow-up.

Writer-director Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) knows how to please crowds, so there's fascination in his consistently wrongheaded impulse to add more historical details: lengthy scenes of exposition, even a leap decades into the future for a courtroom drama involving Knight's persecuted offspring. He's lost sight of the powerful drama at this story's heart, about the ennobling swirl of momentous events.

While the story is formula cornball, director Mark Waters sells it confidently, handling the unruly antarctic denizens as amiably as he handled Lindsay Lohan in his "Freaky Friday" remake and "Mean Girls."

Winterbottom’s inability to bring off this lurid stew of sex and violence is one problem; his (mis)direction of Affleck is another.

It is a simple, touching story that is sweetly, undemandingly entertaining. It would be very easy to pick holes in it but it doesn’t give you much reason to want to.

You don’t often see style this gorgeous (however empty), and that must count for something. Groovy soundtrack cues by Ennio Morricone and others do the heavy lifting.

Bitchy histrionics curdle faster than a spoiled soy latte in this distinctly unlikable comedy about a trio of coked-up gal pals who barely muster the strength to celebrate their happier friend's wedding.

Insipid songs and not much story.

The movie's overall lack of imagination is the real tragedy.

Postdivorce reconciliation tales - not to mention mother-whore disquisitions - don't get more elaborate than this.

None of the hilarity is enough to keep Wanderlust from feeling like a late-night comedy-show sketch stretched to feature length. But why look a giggle-prone gift horse in the mouth?

Brooks' direction seems a little too stolid for all the sleazy, flaming passions.

A blistering take-down of the social media-driven celebrity culture, The Moment combines the anxiety-inducing mayhem of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and the omnishambles clusterfuck of The Thick of It. It works because the satire’s coming from inside the house.

LaMarque foregrounds her scenario’s awkwardness—it never quite feels like a comedy—and the pair of male suitors she brings in (Jake Johnson and Ron Livingston) are, refreshingly, as unfixed as her main character. But you still wish Kazan had more to work with.

Penn's film might seem an altogether ordinary foray into the world of international espionage were it not for his teasing examination of various concepts of 'family', a word much abused throughout to denote not only the Lloyds, but also the several murderous organisations out to destroy them. An uneven film, to be sure, but far more ambitious and intelligent than most spy thrillers.

Five Feet Apart, with its phoney emotions and baloney contrivances — these love-struck kids can’t even hold hands let alone get to first base because two people with cystic fibrosis aren’t allowed to touch — just didn’t do the job for me.

An engaging study of the disparate characters who are drawn to speak out when the authorities crack the whip.

If the final act is a bit dull and the anarchic Reynolds factor ends up muzzled, director Rob Letterman makes sure not to lose that self-aware edge altogether, while providing enough Pokémon Easter eggs to satisfy the most demanding fan. He’s also helped invent a whole new movie genre: cuddly noir.

O'Grady, at least, gives a nuanced performance, even if she appears to be doing an uncannily accurate impression of Kristen Wiig.

For a few brief moments, the film becomes something close to Greek mythology, as opposed to graphic-novel imitator. What a feeling!

Class, gender and ethnic issues get pushed to the sidelines in favor of rote who-will-win suspense; all that finger-crossing and Lucky Charms flavoring, however, doesn't keep Jig from being just another in a long line of nonfiction soft-shoe routines.

Regrettably, it's a mediocre slasher with a terrific gimmick.

There’s a tonne of interesting questions raised in all this that you’re just too numbed to absorb. No matter how often Malcolm goes outside to yell his frustrations into the night sky, the drama doesn’t feel any less airless.

What’s ultimately more impressive than the vigorous madcap action and innocuous humor, however, is Bowers’s willingness to address adult themes--alienation, regret, class tensions--with a directness that shows a surprising respect for his target young-adult audience

In format, this is no more than the classic mission movie: first they train, then they do it for real. But the film belongs to Eastwood.

Irony can’t survive in Lee’s airless vacuum; he’s not an experimenter at heart, and as a result, his movie feels heartless.

Zack Snyder's films have some of the best opening-credits sequences in cinema; the unfortunate thing is that there's always a movie after them.

No masterpiece, but a generally underrated musical all the same.

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.

It’s not going to win any awards, but it’ll sure make an excellent in-flight movie – ideally en route to Italy.

The Fallen Sun is a satisfying enough way to kick off a Luther Cinematic Universe.

It is wittier, warmer and more unpredictable than it has any right to be.

The movie’s most shocking feature isn’t any of its twisty plot reveals—mainly involving Dominika getting romantically mixed up with a CIA operative (Joel Edgerton)—but the exploitative brutality it rains down on Lawrence.

Only Julianne Moore, as the Bible-thumping mom, has an instinct to go softer — how couldn’t she, after Piper Laurie? — and paradoxically, it’s a move that feels wrong, the role requiring its cantatory bigness.

While veteran director Fernando Trueba (Belle Epoque) and writer Jean-Claude Carrière don’t bring much novelty to the May-December/muse-artist/naked-clothed cliché, they do imbue the material with genuine feeling—exploring the melancholy of waning days and a defiantly naive belief in artistic transcendence.

A lobotomised ice-skating obsessive (since many of the skating sequences are choreographed by former Olympic gold medallist Robin Cousins) might find something praiseworthy in all this predictable, ham-fisted, romantic tosh.

Even with its two A-list stars as jet boosters, Fly Me To The Moon’s bloated runtime and messy plotting mean that it doesn’t quite make it beyond the Kármán line. Then again, the art of the formulaic romcom isn’t rocket science. Houston, we have a likeable, if somewhat forgettable romcom – and that’s okay.

Niccol's attempts at satire are toothless.

The dueling dirty tricks zing half the time.... But subplots involving naive volunteers getting their hearts broken feel like strands from a less ambitious movie.

The tone here is unhurried and the bursts of violence and narrative played at an aesthetic remove, but the cycles of languor and activity ultimately feel too calculated-the strained overlay of sensationalism onto a desiccated canvas.

At its best, 5 to 7 is refreshingly sentimental in an age ruled by caustic irony, and the obvious fact that its romance is doomed from the start doesn’t make the film any less fantastical.

The script, about small-timers who wished they were bigger, is soon totally undermined by Fonda's most complacent performance to date and Susan George's sub-Goldie Hawn antics. By way of compensation, the locations are quite pretty and the car stunts are handled with a certain verve.

Would-be thoughtful Western which ultimately resorts to killing and ketchup to make up for its lack of style and originality.

Things hot up in the last 20 minutes, when Peter Jackson stops chucking intestines around and gets some serious hardware under way - we're talking rocket launchers and big chainsaws, equipment essential to the success of any movie.

The mostly non-professional actors are uniformly excellent, while the painterly cinematography (a Polish speciality) and spartan score create a suitably chilly mood.

This take on Alan Bennett’s pre-pandemic play, a love letter to the NHS set on a geriatric ward in Wakefield’s beloved-but-threatened Bethlehem Hospital (‘The Beth’), ticks along amiably enough for an hour or so. Then, like a hand grenade in a tombola, a harrowing third-act twist detonates beneath it and narrative and tonal destruction ensues.

What played as rousingly dumb fun in "Independence Day" (1996) — all those pie-eyed nationalistic monologues, and U.S. landmarks reduced to rubble — now come off as callously insensitive, even with tongue firmly in cheek.

Keanu Reeves’s five-years-in-the-making directorial debut won’t dispel the notion that his acting range begins and ends with monotonous recitations of “whoa.” But this wuxia does establish him as a deft helmer of cinematic combat.

What makes this latest installment such a riot — apart from having more money than usual, thereby allowing the practical special effects to achieve a splattery early–Peter Jackson glee — is its original script by "Brawl in Cell Block 99’s" S. Craig Zahler.

The dialogue is blandly speechified and the film’s pro-Taiwan agenda seems to have taken precedence over our enjoyment.

It’s an old cliché about biopics that if the story wasn’t true, you probably wouldn’t believe it. The Keeper takes it a step further: you know it’s true and you still don’t believe it.

This 'affectionate parody' of the swashbuckling Zorro myth is so determinedly amiable that one feels distinctly caddish for regretting that the laughs are not even more frequent. It fails only in that Leibman's villain shouts too much, and that the set pieces, the skeleton of most film comedy, are under-considered.

With its rock-skimming male bonding alternating between grisly homicides and a florid Mexican standoff that begets a tidy take-the-money-and-run finale, this tale seems less timely than merely tall.

A melodramatic thriller which did surprisingly well in the US given its implausible straight-to-video scenario. Undistinguished.

The film’s themes of inclusion, family and multiculturalism may be broadly delivered, but they definitely don’t all miss the mark.

Splendidly shot by Sven Nykvist and with excellent performances, it's an agreeable puzzle which doesn't, thank heaven, come up with a solution to the meaning of life.

Sorrentino is clearly trying to move with the times – even if he’s still most comfortable in the decades he’s depicting here on screen.

Had Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley accidentally weaseled his way onto the set of E.R., it might have played out something like Lance Daly's medical-drama-cum-upward-mobility-thriller about a hospital's new resident (and resident sociopath).

It's less a film than one long advertisement for itself-and for the fact that mindless entertainment truly knows no borders.

Unlike most directors, style is hardly a side dish with Michael Mann—it’s the main entrée. No one captures city lights at night or luxury cars slinking down the highway like the creator of Miami Vice, and his conversion to digital video continues to yield breathtaking results.

So it’s no surprise that, even with longtime screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala watching his back, the director never finds his groove with Peter Cameron’s tale.

Hard to dismiss completely a film in which Broderick Crawford turns up as 'Brod', but with Olivier overdoing it dreadfully as the crinkly old ne'er-do-well who persuades misfit American teen Lane and French youth Bernard to run off to Venice and consolidate their love by the Bridge of Sighs, it's not one that'll win over hardened cynics either.

Staying true to Murphy’s sense of humor, Coming 2 America embraces its goofy ’80s comedy roots, delivering a film that’s a little more self-aware and often pretty damn funny.

Even if you can miraculously avoid comparing this take on rock & roll record maker Leonard Chess (Nivola) to 2008’s similar Cadillac Records, Jerry Zaks’s lukewarm biopic still won’t get your fingers snapping; it’d be a runt in any litter.

Marvel at the desperate spectacle of three comic leads-Aniston, Bateman and Watchmen's Patrick Wilson as the original donor-being outperformed by the wide-eyed Robinson, a quiet collector of silences. These stars will never be as young as he is; you wish they'd all stop trying.

Coyle's got charisma to spare - imagine a hard-man version of Andy Serkis - but even his screen presence eventually gets smothered by the film's cartoonish version of ethnic gangsters, macho caricatures and bruised-heart-of-gold hookers. The phrase accept no substitutes has rarely seemed so applicable.

Ruzowitzky (The Counterfeiters) may be an occasionally interesting visual stylist, but storytelling-wise, his second English-language effort couldn't be more stillborn.

Mulligan's adaptation of Joseph Olshan's novel doesn't merely flirt with pathos, it positively marries it.

There’s an innately camp, silly quality to these star-crammed murder-mysteries. Embracing that would make Branagh’s adaptations more of a scream.

Departing from Marvel’s snarky, wham-bam formula, Eternals is an attempt to do straight-faced sci-fi. Sadly, the result is over-stuffed and underpowered.

You keep waiting for the movie to grow a brain, for that random attractive neighbor (Wilde) to turn out to be a decoy, for Banks herself to become suspect. Nope. The Next Three Days morphs into "The Fugitive" on steroids.

For a romantic comedy, there's little in the way of romance, but the film's strength lies in the escalating lies concocted by Gwen as she struggles to maintain a toehold on her new life. Although it doesn't add up to a whole, and screenwriter Mark Stein fudges the issue of Gwen's motivation, he does provide some very funny, cheerfully contrived scams.

So-so contemporary shows and cantankerous arguments are favored over in-depth looks at Reid's legacy. Any genuine weirdness about a funky, filthy-mouthed freak running around in a costume is left AWOL.

Henry Hobson’s zombie movie does for coping with terminal illness what "Dawn of the Dead" did for consumerism, the difference here being that Hobson isn’t interested in satire, only sadness. Oh, and he’s got Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Other than giving Almodóvar regulars Carmen Maura and Lola Dueñas plum supporting roles, that's the best you can say about Philippe Le Guay's trite-to-intolerable tale on the discreet eye-opening of the bourgeoisie.

Huppert fans have long been tolerant of her hit-and-miss filmography, and while her double act with the rubber-faced Poelvoorde provides a few well-played scenes-two words: horsey rides-it's not enough to liven up a trite story of loosening up.