Strange Magic is strange all right, but hardly magical.

Whishaw, Hawkins and Downton Abbey's Bonneville strike just the right notes. Imaginative production design, which occasionally brings to mind Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom," adds to the story's appeal.

Blackhat is a tedious, preposterous and incoherent cyberthriller that is anything but thrilling.

A deeply moving film, it's a powerful reminder of a time not so long ago when, for a large group of Americans, attempting to register to vote could result in a serious threat to their lives.

This intriguing and well-acted gender-bending story occasionally feels like "The Crying Game" meets "Looper."

While this third installment offers a jot more humor (mostly unintentional), the action scenes are disjointed, badly staged and mind-numbing.

Despite its patina of stylishness, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is sorely lacking in thrills.

Aniston's portrayal feels honest, but the film doesn't rise to the level of her performance.

The Gambler is a hollow, overwrought and glibly cynical remake of a '70s drama about a self-destructive academic.

As directed by Angelina Jolie, it is occasionally powerful, with soaring visuals. It also is, however, stately and slow to the point of tedium.

Big Eyes is a fabulous match of artist — Burton — and material. While it's one of the director's more low-key works, his trademark sly wit infuses the mesmerizing stranger-than-fiction biopic.

American Sniper's wartime sequences are well-paced and harrowing, reminiscent of those in 2008's "The Hurt Locker." Like that film, Sniper can be interpreted either as a patriotic salute or as an incisive anti-war movie. In either case, it's a powerful, moving and tragic tale.

The notion that children are raised on fairy tales and the question of how those early stories affect us all — even into adulthood — remains fascinating and is delivered here with visual panache and musical flair.

The third installment of the Night at the Museum franchise, Secret of the Tomb, is better than its predecessors, funnier and more adventurous, thanks to a visit across the pond to the British Museum.

Quvenzhané Wallis is adorably plucky as the lead in Annie. She and Jamie Foxx as the newfangled Daddy Warbucks character have an appealing chemistry and their songs together are the best moments in the movie. But the rest of Annie is banal, shallow and markedly cynical.

The final installment of the Hobbit trilogy is the best, featuring more spectacular action scenes as well as the series' most emotionally resonant moments.

Considering the controversy and chaos Sony Pictures Studios is undergoing because of it, The Interview fails to live up to the hype, floundering as a rowdy comedy as it grows duller by the minute.

The result is raunchy, energetic, sharp-eyed and a bit rambling.

Swarms of flies, oozing pustules, alligator attacks and gaggles of frogs are vividly rendered in three dimensions in Exodus: Gods and Kings. And yet this biblical epic is still bland, overly long and otherwise forgettable.

Well-acted, intermittently compelling, often incoherent but always offbeat, Inherent Vice is a twisting story about twisted California stoners. Think of it as a film that's meant to be experienced, more than fully understood.

While other Alzheimer's-related films, including "Amour," "Iris" and "Away from Her", delved more deeply into the subject, Alice is understated yet still moving.

Partners is exceedingly well-cast and well-acted, bringing a lightly satirical and witty script to life. Meester and Jacobs have a disarming chemistry, and their conversation is filled with a comfortable shorthand.

Translating solitary musings, raw despondency and personal enlightenment into arresting visuals is a substantial feat and novelist/screenwriter Nick Hornby was the perfect choice to convert the fascinating book into a lively script.

"Imitation" illuminates Turing's brilliance in an engrossing and moving film that features a standout, Oscar-worthy performance by Benedict Cumberbatch.

This is a joyless, frenetic film that is very rarely funny.

This ill-conceived sequel to 2011's entertaining Horrible Bosses is base, moronic, insulting and vulgar. It's also cringingly unfunny.

It's easily the most political of the three films. It also is the most absorbing and best in the series.

Foxcatcher might just be the feel-bad movie of the year. But it's so well-acted that audiences won't want to miss its dark, chilling yet restrained story. A little less muting of this outlandish true-to-life tale, however, might have made it even more mesmerizing.