Even if you remove the questionable quasi-religious touches, Flight doesn't quite soar past its narrative limitations. There's plenty of virtuosity to go around here - just precious little transcendence.

The metaphor is clever, injecting real-life risk and reward into these beautifully artificial vistas, scored to composer Henry Jackman's Nintendo-worthy beeps and bloops.

The film wants to be inspiring, when it might have been cosmic-a far greater ambition. Tossing boats and dreamers, the huge waves perform beautifully.

This Nickelodeon production may be designed for short attention spans, but must the characters have them as well?

The Black Tulip is noteworthy for its existence alone - and not, unfortunately, for much else.

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

Such a feature-length bludgeoning, even in the service of basic social and scientific literacy, is truly discomfiting.

Watching the elder statesman spin ring-a-ding wisdom is one thing; witnessing his generosity to another artist who couldn't handle her own talent, however, speaks volumes about what actually lurks under his placid, seemingly imperturbable surface.

Coyle's got charisma to spare - imagine a hard-man version of Andy Serkis - but even his screen presence eventually gets smothered by the film's cartoonish version of ethnic gangsters, macho caricatures and bruised-heart-of-gold hookers. The phrase accept no substitutes has rarely seemed so applicable.

There's a Polanskian black comedy buried in here somewhere; a sassy neighbor girl who knows too much hints at the right direction, which is never fully explored.

For all of Cloud Atlas's pseudorevolutionary blather about upending the "natural order," the execution couldn't be squarer.

The cast's performances are so gut-wrenching (particularly from Emmanuelle Devos and Areen Omari as the boys' equally empathic mothers) that the film's hopeful message and abundance of heart prove impossible to resist.

Adjust to the deliberate rhythms of this hiking movie-set on the lush slopes of Georgia's Caucasus Mountains - and the psychological payoff stings like a blister.

In drag or out of it, the soft-spoken star has rarely been less convincing than when locking and loading from his home arsenal or dangling from a decaying Detroit edifice.

Apart from a hi-def night-vision gimmick, returning directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman don't take advantage of either upgrade.

It may be a stretch to call the filmmaker a forgotten genius, but if nothing else, Le Grand Amour makes a case that Étaix was a fertile clown, overdue for a bow in the spotlight.

This is little more than an episode of VH1's Classic Albums writ large. You'll learn everything you ever wanted to know about the making of this chart-topping behemoth - except for insights about the man in the mirror who created it.

If any film could convince people that ACID is the patron saint of tomorrow's Godards, it's this one.

If director Stephen Fung's frenetic visual style is the Red Bull in this cinematic cocktail, then the dozy plotting is the vodka - leaving you feeling momentarily excited but ultimately narcotized.

Huppert fans have long been tolerant of her hit-and-miss filmography, and while her double act with the rubber-faced Poelvoorde provides a few well-played scenes-two words: horsey rides-it's not enough to liven up a trite story of loosening up.

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.

This aesthetically undistinguished yet still engrossing documentary follows the emotionally charged lead-up to the vote on Question One, a 2009 Maine referendum that put the marriage rights of gay and lesbian couples on the state ballot.

Tediousness sets in eventually; there's only so much zoological abyss-gazing one can do.

A noble goal, but That's What She Said's overload of self-loathing is apt to break the audience's spirit first.

Let your mind wander during this painfully generic teen-sex dramedy (trust us, it will), and there might be emotions worse than frustration in store.

Getting old's a bitch. But the long-in-the-tooth quintet (Chaplin, Fonda, Guy Bedos, Claude Rich and Pierre Richard) at the center of Stéphane Robelin's featherweight French comedy has it all figured out.

The Flat details his efforts to understand this unusual situation, and although the film suggests that his relatives may have maintained this odd friendship as a denial of their homeland's betrayals, there's only so deep Goldfinger can dig.

Eventually, the self-regarding acting clan admits they're only human after all. By then, the audience may want to disown them.