The uniformly showy performances (Acting with a capital ‘A’) are what do in Prisoners more than anything.

It feels like a massive retrenchment—privately, a rebellion seems to have been fought and lost—and only the most loyal fans will be happy about it.

It feels too flabby for the company it keeps.

You could get whiplash watching this bipolar drama jerk between extremes: For every extraordinary scene - such as an authentically awkward exchange between Bosworth and estranged dad Thomas Haden Church - there's a sequence or three that might be extended collegiate acting exercises.

After the Wedding contains enough domestic revelations for several seasons of something delicious, but Freundlish’s showdowns all seem to dissipate or get curtailed abruptly.

About as deep as a kiddie pool, which isn't to say it's an unpleasant frolic.

This doc isn’t exactly a puff piece, but it’s certainly not the in-depth record that the magazine deserves.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates follows a sturdy trajectory toward incipient maturity (and ceremonial catastrophe). If you don’t think about it too hard, you won’t hate it.

Brisk, easy, brutish. It has explosions, punch-ups, shoot-outs and more than one bit where someone gets smacked in the face with a big hammer. How much more could you reasonably ask? It’s a blast.

Interviews with real-life Gleeks contribute to the signature mix of schmaltz and earnestness one can expect from any Ryan Murphy vehicle, and there's nothing here that couldn't be accomplished in good old 2-D. Still, there's no need to stop believing.

A scattering of fine one-liners , but one can't help wishing that Allen would investigate pastures new.

While O'Quinn is effectively scary, one is left longing for Hitchcock's dark, daring wit and disturbingly amoral insights.

The result is less an ode to late-'60s California dreamin' than an NYC-hip riff on SoCal somnambulism, one that occasionally Pops with Warhol's mondo minimalism yet never snaps nor crackles. "Lonesome Cowboys" this is not, despite the fact that Surf uses virtually the same cast.

When The Father of My Children shifts focus to Grégoire’s wife (Caselli) and children (the eldest is beautifully played by De Lencquesaing’s actual daughter, Alice), Hansen-Løve’s hand steadies, and she reveals a true talent for intimate, behavioral observation.

The material isn’t excited or shaped toward any insight — the Mike Leigh of "Naked" did this sort of thing brilliantly — and the arrival of a sluggish investigating journalist (Richard Jenkins), himself a bar fixture and underachiever, doesn’t offer a valid counterpoint.

The movie works-to the extent that it does-because of its sharply un-PC script (credited to Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky) that sometimes feels like a Hollywood rewrite of "Election."

It’s as sickly-sweet as an eggnog tsunami, but Bing’s brandy-butter baritone and Kaye’s incessant, proto-Jim Carrey clowning always manage to raise a smile.

However great is Tarkovsky’s mastery of mise-en-scène, or astounding his use of sound composition, it appears dehumanised and not a little egocentric, closer to a study of madness and self-delusion than, as I believe Tarkovsky hoped, an illustration of the power of faith and self-sacrifice.

It ain’t bad, though all that detritus detracts from a far more interesting history lesson on repression and rebellion that’s left on the periphery.

Urushadze’s excellent cast imbues their thinly drawn characters with a great deal of life, but the roles are so transparent that the film feels like more of an advertisement for peace than it does an argument for it.

Fortunately Coppola’s sensitivity is always evident, especially in the open-hearted performances she gets from Roberts and Kilmer (whose father, Val, has a funny, pot-addled cameo).

Cairo Conspiracy doesn’t quite deliver the dazzling fireworks its promises, but it’s still a thought-provoking watch.

Even the soundtrack is mostly on-the-nose jug-band hokum, except for one cue: a searing old-timey version of the Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat," courtesy of octogenarian bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley. If the rest of the movie had the same energy, spontaneity and soul, it would have been more potent than 190-proof hooch.

There’s no denying the movie’s climactic gathering of females bent on saving the species.

Tasty ingredients (Sihung Lung's Mr Chu and Chien-Lien Wu's Jia-Chien are especially good), but the food metaphor never carries weight, and the characterisations are too shallow to lend the film emotional punch.

Like fellow countryman Park Chan-wook's vengeful epics, this man-on-the-run thriller knows how to deliver a rush; unlike those superior tales of lives on the edge, that's the only trick up its sleeve.

The boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl-and-turns-heartbreak-into-great-art plot is as hoary as they come, but Mariscal's eye-popping artwork and the evocation of a bygone musical era (Charlie Parker at the Village Vanguard, Tito Puente at the Palladium) are delirious.

As scripted by Bryan Sipe, Demolition buries its lead actor under a rubble of clichés.