Close to a parody of a French sex drama - complete with bored, bourgie bed-swappers and a dull sense of amoral sophistication - this autopiloted import does no favors to the legacies of Truffaut and Godard.

It's fascinating to be so close to a then-sitting head of state as he negotiates for his homeland's survival, and the news that Nasheed was recently deposed in a coup by Gayoom loyalists makes the hard-won victories he did secure all the more poignant.

Despite being as pathetically penile-obsessed as any postmillennial comedy, Goon prevails where other sports-film farces fail thanks to Scott's winning, unwinking performance; Liev Schreiber's spot-on turn as a wizened, clock-punching rink assassin; and a pucked-up love of a bloody game.

Fresnadillo, working with screenwriters Nicolás Casariego and Jaime Marques, might be angling for the same YA fantasy as "Pan's Labyrinth," but they've forgotten about that film's violent underpinnings, a mistake that leaches their movie of suspense.

There's plenty here to recommend; so what if its explicitness and femcentric sexuality turn off some prudish viewers, dammit!

This antibullying advocacy group could not be more well-intentioned or needed, but suddenly, the sneaking suspicion that you've merely been watching an extended PSA for the grassroots organization starts to take hold.

There's just enough uncut truth and soul in Fishbone's story to keep die-hard Boneheads skankin' to the beat, even if it's just for nostalgia's sake.

Hall's puppy-dog charisma holds up under the strain, but it isn't nearly enough to keep this messy midlife-crisis dramedy afloat. A little of this Bliss goes a long way.

There are moments when The Raid: Redemption doesn't feel like an action movie so much as pure action itself, delivered in strong, undiluted doses and with the sort of creative one-upmanship capable of rejuvenating a stale, seen-it-all genre.

In many ways, this effervescent drama from Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan) upends conventions, even when it sticks to a familiar narrative path.

Let's not make 4:44 Last Day on Earth sound cooler than it is. Compared with Lars von Trier's histrionically doomed "Melancholia," the film lacks any serious attempt to grapple with mortality.

It's the stuff of melodrama, heightened by Davies's pitch-perfect use of pop songs, like a sad "You Belong to Me," slurred by a misty crowd in a bar.

Primarily a TV director, Torres lacks the chops to delineate Dorff's claustrophobic quarters, and the actor spends most of the movie confusing tough-guy stoicism with simple inertness, despite the occasional Jack Bauer–style yell.

The opinions assembled are impressive: everyone from "Rounders'" Matt Damon to former senator Al D'Amato, a poker defender. But where's the voice of reason? It's card playing, not a dependable income.

If the movie had a lead actress more delicate or malleable than the strong-cheeked Lawrence-a Natalie Portman, say-it would tip over into sexy-girl-killer celebration; the same goes for Harrelson's salty mentor, who is never too supportive or paternal. Both performers lean into the economies of survival, certain of the savagery that lies ahead, and come up with sharp work.

Once upon a time, the star would have added both gravity and a manic edge to this wronged everyman. At this juncture, Cage is less believable as an average Joe than he is as, say, a cursed trick rider with a flaming skull for a head.

This writer-director still has some evolving to do.

Those Dardenne brothers…still making great movies with second-nature ease.

You will see the man toiling and revising - killing off half-good ideas, struggling for clarity - and it's a routine well worth demystifying.

Consider the movie a testament to Rahim's screen presence. If nothing else, Free Men proves that the can't-take-your-eyes-off-him charisma the Franco-Algerian actor displayed in Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet" was no fluke.

The movie is one big scream, clichéd and hardly credible as an oblique call to civility.

It's a rebound-romance movie that's simplistic but sweet, an uncomplicated cinematic bonbon. It'll only take a few quick bites, however, before you'll be ready to move on to something meatier.

The oddest thing about the movie - and perhaps the asset that will tip it over into the plus column for you - is that it's a bona fide scuzz-Western.

As is, this semi-improvised feature comes off as a willfully vague exercise that, like its dimwit protagonist, presumes that profundity and enlightenment will emerge from the morass eventually. Er, maybe - or maybe not. Kinda like "Signs;" only much, much worse.

The longer this "Abbott and Costello's Lethal Weapon" goes on, the more the fun dissipates - until a queasily violent climax, which, naturally, fully embraces genre stereotypes rather than dismantling them.

Before this star vehicle devolves into a soggy New Age sermon, Murphy's manic pantomiming offers a few faint flickers of the mad comic genius from 1987's "Raw".

Aside from a few inspired vistas and alien life-forms (the Road Runner–fast red planet dog Woola is sure to sell a bazillion action figures), John Carter is as deadly dull as its basso-voiced, beefcake slab of a star, Taylor Kitsch.

Only Dissolution's divine climax feels truly poetic. Having the stamina to not break down on the journey to that moment is half the battle.