Pablo Larraín’s film, written by Steven Knight, calls itself a “fable from a true tragedy.” It might also be called a fever dream, a surreal nightmare, a reductio ad tedium or just an inherently limiting concept that slowly but inexorably squeezes the life out of itself.

Inside the mysterious factory, a psychedelic realm where Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka holds sway, pleasure gradually gives way to a peculiar state that I can only describe as engagement without enjoyment.

Oh, what awful voices -- clumsy words as well as cheesy accents -- come out of the actors' mouths! Though I wanted to appreciate the human story, and the lavish spectacle, I couldn't get past the clangorous echoes of Charlie Chan.

This attractive, superficial stab at biography, with Renée Zellweger in the title role, is more concerned with a lonely woman's quest for acceptance and love than with an author's worldly achievements.

Five or 10 children might have led to comedy; 533 of them make for farce. All the same, Mr. Huard is endearing in the role of a perpetual adolescent who finally wants to stand up to his responsibilities, which include the one baby he has fathered the traditional way, and in his own name.

Sanctum is far from a good movie, just as 3-D is far from the movie industry's savior. But it certainly looks good, and watching it through those plastic glasses reopens your eyes to the promise of the third dimension.

The movie looks lovely, but it's luminous prose.

It should be said right off that this provocative off-black comedy, starring the Gen-Xer’s dream cast of Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, is not for everyone. And the people it is for will have to be in the mood.

Terrific performers doing what they're often forced to do, overcoming sorely flawed material.

It grows repetitious, both in its account of Crane's ritual behavior and in clumsily written -- and stolidly directed -- scenes between Crane and Carpenter, two men acting out their own unacknowledged sexual drama.

It’s decently entertaining action; Mr. Campbell knows what he’s doing in that regard.

Yet most of the film's energy is generated by flamboyant cinematography and music-video cutting, and much of that energy is false.

A good chance to see two superb actors having their way with wafer-thin material.

I might have liked About Adam more if its supposedly irresistible hero -- and the movie itself -- hadn''t been so smirky.

A two-hour documentary that feels like three, it certainly has a worthy subject, and a charismatic one; it commits a trove of valuable cultural lore to posterity. But it also commits a sin in never finding its rhythm, or a through-line on which to hang one of the great stories of American popular music.

"Another Earth" and "Moon" transcended their financial and physical limitations with mystery and ambiguity. Europa Report goes ploddingly where bolder films have gone before.

The perverse fascination of Jet Lag is watching two superb actors struggle with material that doesn't suit them.

Last Breath, which runs a compact 91 minutes, doesn’t feel like a finished film: The dialogue is strictly functional, and there is so little time for establishing character that none of the three principals really makes an impression.

What Minions does have is abundant if relentless cuteness, which audiences are sure to accept in lieu of content; people love these little guys.

Ms. Leo is in the kind of role that befits her particular gifts—a character overwhelmed by her own emotions, who sucks the air out of whatever room she finds herself in. But Measure of Revenge moves with too much trepidation—or too much style, one might say—for a convincing urban thriller.

The great strength of Concussion is its star’s performance.

The tone is that of a telenovela -- soap-operatic at heart -- even though the film was adapted from a 19th-century novel.

Strangely, though, there isn't enough for one movie, and the first clue to why lurks in the title's ampersand, a sort of linguistic duct tape holding together two stories that never really function as one.

The story’s pleasures are more literary than cinematic. On screen, it’s more obvious that Mr. Moore’s ideas don’t quite line up.

Mr. Douglas's performance in the sequel measures up to Gekko's rep, but the rest of the movie is pumped up to the bursting point with gasbag caricatures, overblown sermons and a semicoherent swirl of events surrounding the economy's recent meltdown.

In the not-so-grand scheme of such things, Along Came Polly is certainly harmless, and occasionally very funny. It's just not clever enough to keep you engaged.

Two movies for the price of one, though only one of them-a fragmented romance within a ponderous parable-qualifies as a bargain.

That's one of the puzzles of this piece. You'd think a film with talent to burn - would provide some electrifying encounters at the very least. No such luck. Words fly, some of them medium-witty, but lightning doesn't strike.