The movie indulges a few too many whims, but it's never less than alive.

Shadows still functions as a study in superior sequel-itude, building a fine showcase for a reimagined character and the compelling, twitchy dynamo playing him. Should Ritchie ever learn to be elementary instead of epileptically overwrought, he may one day do proper justice to both.

Pomes squeezes in a few well-observed details among the recycled white-trash clichés, but any AMC viewer who's tuned into the lead-in for Mount's TV Western - Breaking Bad - expects far, far more from his or her meth-fueled entertainment.

Watch the director's 1976 "The Tenant," and you'll know he can do more with less.

So long as we're watching DeNoble recounting the details of his laboratory experiments, Addiction Incorporated remains sufficiently gripping; when Evans is reduced to observing his saintly subject educating high-school students about the dangers of nicotine addiction, it's considerably less so.

After "Pineapple Express" and "Your Highness," is Green now contractually obligated to revive every dead comedic subgenre of the '80s? What's next, a stoner-friendly "License to Drive"?

Well, Ghost Protocol ultimately ends up as an eye-rollingly towering totem to L. Ron's favorite son, complete with treacly music cues and longing glances - bromantic and otherwise - that will send you screaming into the thetan-stealing clutches of Lord Xenu.

Fincher's film tips much more in the indulging direction of crowd Comic-Con - delighting the franchise junkie above all other considerations.

Here's where it's easiest to see Clouzot's advantage over his more famous peer, as he combines nail-biting action scenes - calibrated to the millimeter - with a Hawksian command of earthy performances.

Palmer's acknowledgement of his own involvement in, and thrill at watching, these events speaks volumes, but simply showing generations of pasty, fat men pounding each other to a pulp shouldn't be mistaken for an in-depth exploration of Gaelic machismo.

Both Reitman and his first-rate cast do their best to add depth. The real tragedy of Young Adult, however, is the story's lack of tragedy.

The movie toggles between two periods-before and after a catastrophe-and, were it not for Swinton's magnetism, it would be unbearable. Instead, you'll want to stay for the wallop.

The Cold War is over, but director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) and his collaborators have brought those suspicion-fueled days to vivid life in this masterful adaptation of John le Carré's beloved 1974 spy novel.

A Euro gloss on "Pretty Woman" suddenly turns into "Occupy Gaul."

It's a credit to both the actors and Franco-Algerian filmmaker Rachid Bouchareb (Days of Glory) that the film never dives headfirst into mawkishness.

You know the money-over-morality argument will eventually tilt toward righteousness, yet the film's turn toward charcoal-sketch notions of good and evil only fuels a simplistic view of historical tragedy in the worst sort of way.

An excruciatingly awkward stab at generational sympathy, I Melt with You presents a quartet of thickening college buddies gathering at a Big Sur rental house to mourn their lost ambition.

Director Garry Marshall continues his systematic defilement of society's most romantic holidays with another rom-com built - and executed - like a '70s disaster movie.

The unveiling is unnerving, and suggests that some dangers are now permanently beyond our control.

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.

In lesser hands, this could have easily been some seriously detestable John Wayne jingoism. But via Fiennes, the film is a spiky and complex counterweight to Hollywood sentiment and indie cynicism alike.

Not one single character strikes you as being anything but a mouthpiece for writer-director Matthew Leutwyler's simplistic views on socio-emotional problems (racial self-hatred! post-rehab guilt!) or an excuse for self-satisfied, back-patting acting exercises. The title is an understatement.

At its best, Outrage offers a meat-and-potatoes look at an age when battles of honor and humanity are AWOL in yakuza society. As things wind toward the inevitable hierarchical breakdown, however, the movie too often resembles a repetitive cycle of tough guys shouting, shooting and shuffling off this mortal coil.

It's more a summarizing project than an act of investigative journalism or a revelatory indictment.

Leigh does a stellar job of showing how these events seep into the unaware girl's everyday existence - almost all of the film's sequences are photographed in precisely composed, inherently surreal single shots.

Fassbender and his multifaceted allure helps counteract any thematic or conceptual shakiness, as was the case in McQueen's highly uneven debut, "Hunger." One thing's for sure: McQueen has found his De Niro, and he better keep him close.

Tuschi leans too far into an admiring position, and you thirst for some commonsense critique. It's all a bit rich.

It's no recipe for hilarity or pitter-pattering hearts, but like our hero's sweets, this pleasant, delicate confection goes down easy enough.