A surfeit of spectacular images from top-of-the-line computer animation. And the love story branches out beyond a boy and his dragon into gladdening fulfillment on both sides of the species divide. That will certainly be sufficient for kids and families who’ve been waiting for the final chapter of the big-screen trilogy. Over much of the territory it covers, though, the film feels like it’s flying on empty.

Ambitious and uneven.

The children's real world, or what passes for real in a fantasy, could hardly be more inviting, for reasons that are hardly mysterious: the strong performances, under Mark Waters's accomplished direction; the smart, bright language, much of it taken from the books; the stylish cinematography, by Caleb Deschanel.

The sometimes hilarious Good on Paper is actually an anti-romantic comedy.

Once the plotters plunge into action, though, Valkyrie becomes both an exciting thriller and a useful history lesson.

A modest film about a modest man and benefits enormously from Mr. Wyman’s apparent obsessive-compulsive drive to collect, record and photograph.

It's easy to speculate that the loving Cleo and the frequently absent Johnny are stand-ins for Ms. Coppola and her own famous father, but Somewhere needn't be seen as a film à clef. The movie stands on its own terms as a slow-burning drama of life in a Hollywood purgatory where you can not only check out but leave.

Open Water, which was made for $130,000 -- and seemingly without special-effects assistance -- proves you don't have to have a big budget to have an audience on the edge of its seat.

Eye in the Sky is literally all over the map in its depiction of drone warfare, and right on target, if flagrantly contrived, in examining the ethics of killing by remote control.

Eleven years after An Inconvenient Truth Mr. Gore remains a prodigy of hope, with energy that seems endlessly renewable.

The film has a surprisingly sweet spirit, and its co-stars respect the human core in their garish material; Mr. Kinnear, especially, has never been more likable.

Plain-spoken and unpretentious, he’s a fount of surprising information and informed opinion.

Here, it is saying in effect, are old-fashioned conventions that still have life in them, but to appreciate them we need to approach them playfully. That worked for me, from the understated start to the overwrought finish.

Everything in The Light Between Oceans is deeply felt and dramatically precise, in a way that seems destined to become profoundly personal for each and every viewer.

An affecting story of punishment and crime, of betrayal and redemption marred by preachiness and a treacly ending, Catch a Fire is notable for its refusal to see things in terms of black and white.

As a love story, Fantasy Life isn’t particularly original, but the low-key way Mr. Shear realizes some familiar situations is warm and human, with comic aspects and sad ones kept in an appealing balance.

A freewheeling denunciation of the capitalist system that is often mordantly funny and, by lurching turns, scornful, rambling, repetitive, impassioned, mock-lofty, pseudo-lowbrow, faux-naïve, persuasive, tabloid-shameless and agit-prop-powerful.

The essence of the film is slapsticky, chopsocky action, rendered with great verve and accompanied by bromides having to do with the need to believe.

There's plenty of scary pleasure to be had from this clever, compact thriller.

Several startling depictions of the artist at work make you forget, if only temporarily, the serious shortcomings of the script.

This one is nowhere near as original -- it's a flawed remake of a fine first feature from Norway -- but "Insomnia" still stands on its own as a thriller with brains and scenic beauty.

A series of picaresque adventures in a notably picturesque land. Is it enough to sustain anything resembling dramatic momentum? For a while it isn't, but then, unexpectedly, it is.

There's the expected, though no less astounding, profusion of life forms on the way down — Mr. Cameron calls them "critters" when he isn't using their scientific names — but the essence of the drama is the explorer's deepening solitude.

The heart of the film is the emotional triangle of Petey, Li’l Petey and Dog Man, as the two erstwhile enemies both find something like love for the kitten (voiced by Lucas Hopkins Calderon and full of disarming innocence) and something like forgiveness for each other.

Horror and social value contend for equal honors in Must Read After My Death, a frightening -- and eerily edifying -- documentary that Morgan Dews created from a family trove of photos, Dictaphone letters, audiotapes, voluminous transcripts and home movies.

Wittily written and directed by Gerard Johnstone, who directed but did not write the first film, the follow-up is notably clever, amusing, ambitious and densely plotted. Unlike its predecessor and most works from the horror-thriller production company Blumhouse, it combines a high-concept premise with a highly complicated story.

The repetitions are meant as a sort of metajoke, and it works well enough, more often than not, though heightened levels of raunch and chaos seem not so much meta as frantic.

If Sorry, Baby isn’t exactly an assured debut, it nonetheless has a sincere purpose, thoughtfully expressed.