The action is largely routine and the dialogue rarely more than functional, but DeMonaco, marshalling the franchise’s best production values yet, shrewdly taps into the angry zeitgeist; his vision of an America where the citizens are encouraged to express their basest emotions is more relevant than ever.

The cast make the most of an intelligent script, with Rowlands and (especially) Jett providing most of the emotional punch. They create a powerful feeling of real lives being lived and lost.

Despite toggling among the three characters' story lines, the film is barely concerned with the who, what or where of the incidents, much less a deeper why. It simply wants to milk this real-life example of courage (and chaos) under fire for multiplex thrills, reducing everything to a cheap adrenaline rush set to a pulsing soundtrack.

It’s a stylistic flair that looks impressive at first, but the more Zeitlin returns to his same tricks, the more tedious it all becomes.

Though Hilary Helstein’s film displays depth, its structure relies too heavily on Maya Angelou’s narration to flesh out deeper implications.

Fans of "The Wire," take note: Clarke “Lester Freamon” Peters does an impressive turn as Nelson Mandela.

In the director’s hands, these societal passion plays and “documentaries” offer a terrifying, top-down perversion of art itself--another insidious extension of politics by other means.

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.

There are some fine set-pieces, including a magical release of butterflies and a disturbing dream sequence, but the end opts disappointingly for standard horror-house effects.

The cast are decent, but not much more. Filmed in Panavision and angled at childre

Biopic with all the usual faults plus Alda, as George Gershwin, at one point looking hilariously like a Frankenstein monster as he sits at the piano while protruding arms clearly not his own tinkle the ivories. Still, it's something of a musical feast, with a slew of old favourites and an outstanding all-black number on 'Blue Monday Blues'. When the music fails, there's always Sol Polito's lushly impressive camerawork.

Hellion aims to cut deep, striking a tone that melds the hysterical moralism of Larry Clark’s Kids (1995) with the coming-of-age melancholy of Mud’s Jeff Nichols (also this film’s executive producer).

The laughs, meanwhile, are delivered by cross-dressing Perry’s sassy grandma Madea, whose wild threats of violence to children and adults alike are the only things that sporadically lighten up this narratively and grammatically dim redemption pap.

While beautifully shot, admirably old-fashioned (sexual violence and explicit gore are absent), and endowed with pleasing plot twists, the film is too formulaic and offers little opportunity for Penn to display his prodigious talents.

Snoozeworthy diplomatic lark.

Savage directs with a light hand, and sometimes you wish for a little more shape to the baggier scenes.

Unfortunately, Mumbai Diaries addresses these weighty concerns with such delicacy that they barely make an impact, thus calling further undue attention to the creakiness of the warhorse plot.

A quintet of Canadian TV comedians, hit the cinema screen with a splat.

There’s little of the Church’s perspective in this doc, but you can’t really fault the filmmakers--Mormon leaders refused several overtures to participate. Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/86550/the-mormon-proposition-film-review#ixzz0r2j38wUF

2 Guns quickly degenerates into boilerplate Hollywood sound and fury, complete with a climactic Mexican standoff that revolves around a massive, burning pile of money. Irony, thou art lost.

In a word: Ugh.

The performance sequences feel intimate and exhilarating-but in the end, Li's journey is compelling only when he's onstage.

You can't help feeling that an initially adventurous movie has had its rough edges sanded away.

A bizarre, conflicted mess, horrifying when it’s trying to be funny, oddly appealing when it turns the screws.

Given the ingredients (the deeply personal vision; a cast including Driver, Aubrey Plaza and Laurence Fishburne; the big budget; the years of gestation), it’s fair to wonder why it ends up being, one, so little fun, and two, so deadening on an intellectual level.

The movie’s never tastier than when screen vets Mirren and Puri are sparring, pettily buying out each other’s produce at the local market or bellyaching to the town’s mayor.

Jason Momoa's surf-bro superhero is a welcome addition to a ponderously serious genre, but his movie as a whole feels waterlogged.

Long Shot confirms that achieving one's goals is rarely possible without the staunch support of others.