This one barely musters a pulse.

Barkin may be the equal of Gena Rowlands or Liv Ullmann. Her director's clumsiness, however, suggests he isn't fit to hold Cassavetes's or Bergman's old camera cases.

It's Weiss's sheer gonzo energy and his determination to keep it together (barely) in the name of justice that initially fuel this underdog tale, giving it a far more manic, unpredictable edge than your usual courtroom handwringer.

The effort - by Vedder & Co., as well as Crowe - is heroic, if not quite persuasive. Legends aren't made of longevity alone, and while you wouldn't wish Kurt Cobain's pain on anyone, you can't help but feel this band survived well past its meaning.

Best of all, filmmaker Bennett Miller (Capote) uses this brainiac sports movie to remind viewers that money is neither the measure of a man nor the ultimate assessment of quality; it's a myopic metric based on past accomplishments rather than future potential. After all, success isn't always about the home runs so much as just getting on base - again, and again, and again.

Childers's varied, charitable life story warrants a movie, but whether that means it's okay to simply mash up sappy Christian piety and action-movie chaos is highly debatable.

This is still a fascinating history, especially when Limelight touches on the club scene's dark side: A lengthy dissection of the Angel Melendez murder, complete with an appearance by weathered-looking killer Michael Alig, chillingly shows how the out-all-night lifestyle can take its toll.

A few awesome firefights does not an action film make, and even De Niro's Ronin-esque interlude can't shake the feeling that the thrill, like the '80s, is gone.

The underwater scenes of Sawyer playing with the dolphin are gorgeous, a cinematic daydream of interspecies connection.

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.

No matter what the film says about sexual fluidity, you can't shake the feeling that 3 exists primarily to justify a shot of three figures impeccably posed together on a mattress. Everything else is reduced to trumped-up afterthoughts.

Even at a mere 75 minutes, Silent Souls is thrillingly dense and allusive, and the elegiac finale maintains the overall air of mystery while beautifully bringing all the disparate threads together.

For once, trying to expand into a bigger exploration of the zeitgeist actually proves to be a misstep; the movie works best when it simply shuts up and concentrates more on the anatomy of a prank gone pop phenomenal.

Gus Van Sant directs his players just shy of mush; he's a filmmaker capable of brilliant dares (Milk, Paranoid Park) and shocking whiffs (Finding Forrester, the pointless remake of Psycho). This one's kind of in the middle.

Writer, director and star Fuller posits a dichotomy between belief and scientific rationality, only to gull us into accepting the former.

While the screenplay, adapted from a novel by Marie-Sabine Roger, grows more clumsily trite as the film proceeds, the two leads are always enjoyable together.

Only Kinnear manages to give his role some shades beyond the broadly farcical, though even he ultimately succumbs to his leading lady's toothy grin and Oprah-sanctioned bromides.

Any analysis of her philanthropy or character is traded for blind idol worship; only intermittent footage of the subject interacting with the natural environments she hopes to save (hippo habitats, arctic snowscapes) manages to sidestep bland reverence.

Throw in some quirky interludes of a Norwegian quartet singing old American spirituals every so often, and you've got something that's truly messy, messy.

The burgeoning relationship between both the athletes, bonding over a kindred "otherness," is handled tastefully by director Kaspar Heidelbach, though the lack of new insights on the subject of National Socialism's wickedness ultimately reduces a well-staged film to a historical footnote.

Drive feels like some kind of masterpiece - it's as pure a version of the essentials as you're likely to see.

The repeated sight of people watching video monitors or communicating with others via laptops becomes a stilted, gimmicky affectation, and there are only so many times you can watch a camera panning and zooming over still photos before your tolerance for the Ken Burns effect reaches its limit.

Majewski's film is a dazzling master class in visual composition.

This movie is dire, soul-crushing stuff.

The rush of A-listers combined with apocalyptic dread creates its own kind of dizzy pleasure: Who's going down next on this Poseidon Adventure?

Shared tragedy can bind together the most unlikely of people. Movies often make too much of that truism, but surprisingly committed performances from actors like these can still make it feel like something meaningful.

Outside of a few spirited celebrity cameos - Favreau seems convincingly affronted by Dax's ineptitude, Bradley Cooper gamely tussles with him on a suburban lawn - this meta-vanity project isn't funny so much as counterproductive. It's no less a work of wankery for winking at us.

Paul Levesque's over-the-top acting may be ideal for the larger-than-life world of WWE, where he grapples and grunts under the nom de ring Triple H. Forced to mime grappling with demons more internal than external, however, the ex–wrestling champ proves disastrously out of his league.