Like a stumpy limb requiring quick cauterization via steam pipe (our first cringe), the Saw series is begging for closure.

What starts as an intriguing reverie ends as a hollow allegory.

The film definitely gets it up, but has some commitment issues.

The Rock deserves better than this ho-hum revenge picture.

That the duo will work their way back to each other is never in doubt, although Chazelle doesn't succumb to easy sentiment. If anything, he moves too far in the other direction, aiming for a wizened ambiguity that doesn't entirely come off.

With both hostility and compassion, the damaged duo slowly come to understand themselves and their respective pain-a familiar path that's energized by subtle lead performances, a tactile sense of place and surprising insight into the way people connect as they help each other heal.

We know how these bargains turn out, so all we're left to do is watch pretentious exchanges about grief pile up, laugh at the way the movie exploits its Indian-girl-as-innocence-personified notion and wish that Eddie Marsan's giddy cameo as Hell's personal weapons dealer were much, much longer.

The funny thing? It all works reasonably well, especially if you have a yen for the urbane register of city kids and their amazingly cool parents.

Firth is exceptional in letting us into his dissolving pride.

Shoah's ultimate legacy, however, is being the final word on the Final Solution-one that renders every well-intentioned dramatic re-creation of such horrors into repulsive Ausch-kitsch by comparison.

This Age-of-Aquarius relic's dedication to utopian ideals is great; this superficial portrait, however, is merely grating.

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

You still leave hoping he ultimately found peace and enlightenment, two things he graciously gave to those of us who hung on his every word.

The movie dies onscreen; it might be the best advertisement for avoiding the glories of Italy ever released by a Hollywood distributor.

Disney knows how to bewitch a crowd, but the sense that Tangled was made more by corporate mandate than artistic spark remains constant throughout.

The divas rule in this glossy musical.

The first part of Deathly Hallows has plenty of invigorating imagery alongside the pro forma narrative elements.

Someone surely thought to call this knowingly ridiculous genre mash-up "Cowboys vs. Ninjas," though even that title wouldn't hint at all the you-gotta-be-kidding-me craziness on display.

The result is a work that radiates a boozy, Bukowski-esque downward spiral, all alcohol-fueled anger and aimless sadness.

A tiresome mess that's completely bereft of a quiet moment in speech or manner, The Tempest aches for the wisdom of discipline.

For an especially egregious bit of miscasting, look no further than Mena Suvari, star of this tony adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's posthumously published novel about a disintegrating marriage.

A quintet of actors carve out a beautiful, ill-fated geometry in John Wells's layoff drama, which might play like a retort to "Up in the Air" if it didn't have shortcomings of its own.

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.

You can't necessarily blame Wahlberg, as his modest performance is the one element that feels truly authentic and heartfelt.

From its title on, Come Undone is as dully generic as is imaginable.

Jaglom can craft a scene and stage organic conversations, but if his saps and suckers never wander beyond a hermetic view of the real world, then so what?

Night Catches Us surges awkwardly in its latter third, suddenly aware that a promising setup isn't enough. Regardless, here is an honorable attempt to address a complex chapter of African-American pride, one that's usually hidden under hairdos and wah-wah pedals.

Some moments are so deliciously shivery-our heroes' breath condensing in the air like in John Carpenter's "The Thing"-that you wish the film were naughtier and less nice.