Even supremely talented actors like Melissa Leo (as a confidently sexy trucker) and Brendan Sexton III (as a train-station beggar) are stifled by all the pseudo-redemptive mush.

Provides more groans than laughs.

Working with uneven material, the illustrious cast is too often stranded in a realm of tony, high-art camp.

An economic slump is no reason to settle for this junked-up, unintentionally depressing "Office Space" bootleg.

Dramatically handcuffed and smothered in overbearing mood music, this lightweight New York crime thriller is desperate to look and feel gritty; the cast, meanwhile, deliver vein-popping diatribes between clenched teeth and weep openly in a desperate ploy to earn gravitas.

For better or worse, that detour into proverbial uncharted waters ends up hipchecking a by-the-book hagiography into the realm of compellingly cracked vérité.

The problem is that the film also refuses to move beyond a glacial pace, and its choice to go slow-and-low doesn’t scream art-house aesthetic so much as unintentionally sluggish. For such a small character study, that decision ends up being a doozy of a deal breaker.

It’s a gut-wrenching yet redemptive tale of fathers, sons and the horrors of war, which Marder allows to unfold with minimal intrusion or manipulation.

The problem here, though, is that the movie often feels fat instead of lean. A terribly purple folk score by Kate and Anna McGarrigle hypes the spiritual aspects of the Inuit way of life; you’ll die laughing on the tundra.

Terrific performances and superb cinematography (by Claire Denis’s right hand, Agnès Godard) lift cowriter-director Ursula Meier’s feature debut above its thuddingly metaphorical premise.

Adult children and friends watch nervously as Pippa reclaims a measure of spunk; too bad it all feels like one of those pharmaceutical ads for longer, healthier lifestyles.

And then, Robert Duvall appears—or, should I say, insinuates himself out of the muck. Cagily, his character wends his way into the story, played by the one American actor who might best understand the limits of bluster. “It’s foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these,” he mutters in the Duvall twang, the weather and indignity beaten into him, and The Road suddenly feels major.

Eye-candy–wise, the film plants a big wet smooch; everything else about this happily-ever-after tale, however, feels like a mere air-kiss.

Director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) films most fights in impenetrable shadow, punctuated by death screams, blood splatters and CGI throwing stars glinting from some unseen light source.

Only the irrepressible Luis Guzmán, stuck in a walk-on bit as the stereotypical mooching Hispanic, is able to milk this cash cow and exit with his dignity intact.

Maybe this is a good time to mention that the director is Richard Linklater, usually a lot more versatile. Try to imagine a version of Linklater’s "School of Rock" that didn’t pivot on the manic music teacher played by Jack Black but instead, perhaps, on his boring roommate.

Neither the film’s main players nor its random period spoofery has any personality.

Is this sequel defending its fan base and preempting criticism about its transparent agenda? This IS a soap opera, folks--and acceptable escapism for those old enough to see it yet still young enough to shriek at undead dreamboats.

It’s just blinkered middle-class pandering at its most shameless.

Cage is not quite Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo in the Big Easy. But his performance hits all the right mythopoetic beats, rising above the thin script and late-night-cable aesthetic.

Watching the new film is like getting upsettingly full on insubstantial tapas: You would never say no to just one more, but there’s better.

Moodysson hasn’t exactly descended to "Babel"-level pabulum with Mammoth, his first foray into English; these characters are too fascinatingly thorny, and he still has a supple way with a pulse-throbbing dance tune.

Like Moore’s modus, Shamir’s stroll is sloppy, but his willingness to tip sacred cows is truly courageous.

Never mind the unreliable Angeleno characters; it’s the director-actor who’s the flakiest, as he’s unable to decide if Fix is a real-time saga of a rebel, a loser or a victim. How many face-lifts can you give a single film?

It’s Shannon’s slow, steady world of hurt that makes the film watchable.

Sokurov, who also acted as director of photography, films the character and his surroundings with the eye of a newly arrived visitor to another world.

It’s a hysterical doc that’s a war on rational, levelheaded analysis.

For all his brilliance with choreography, Woo is flummoxed by the thousands of actual human extras, though there’s no denying his commitment to the finer points of battle tactics (yawn).