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.