Ultimately, as is made overwhelmingly clear, this is a film about forgiveness. So allow us to extend the same grace to some clunky writing.

At its best, “The Lost Bus” offers a testament to people’s courage, solo or in groups, when faced with nature’s deadly chaos (albeit a chaos intensified by human-caused climate change). At its worst, it reduces the biggest fire-related calamity in recent memory — 85 deaths, about $16 billion in damage and an area five times the size of San Francisco burned to the ground — to an effective but impersonal disaster movie.

Adapted by Craig Lucas from his Broadway play, "Prelude" is worth watching for the human interaction, and for the pleasure of watching a love story with engaging partners.

The story manages to put a smile on your face from time to time, despite the gloom of its humor. It avoids happily-ever-after almost as strenuously as it works to remind us: You’re not in Hollywood, hon, but Hampden.

Eternity might start out strong, but its plot eventually runs out of steam.

In the end, “Rental Family” is a movie that gives viewers a lot to ponder — about loneliness and family, about the importance of truth and the comfort of white lies — even if the delivery mechanism proves imperfect.

If you go for this kind of fare, you’ll have a good time. If you don’t, you’ll probably find it off-putting.

Goodbye June is a sweet but bland Christmas film that relies too heavily on its talented cast to make up for its narrative shortcomings — a surprising choice for actress Kate Winslet’s directorial debut, until you take note of who wrote the screenplay.

The resulting film offers a unique and revealing — but fundamentally incomplete — perspective on the ongoing war in Gaza.

This month’s Statham movie is titled “Shelter.” And as these things go, “Shelter” is more Shake Shack than it is McDonald’s. It resembles his other genre movies in the basic form and idea, but it’s a much more high-end and satisfying version.

What comes through in "Backbeat," along with the amphetamine-fueled adrenalin of Hamburg, is confusion, bruised feelings and the dawning understanding that life isn't just fun and games -- and neither is rock 'n' roll.

For all its visual delights, however, Coraline remains more an engaging spectacle than a connective drama. That is chiefly because of the writing. Director-writer Henry Selick doesn't reach for the kind of universality that would enrich the movie.

More thoughtful than its cookie-cutter marketing campaign implies, and better than its awful title promises, "Love Happens" is the rare Hollywood romance concerned with emotions other than love at first sight.

Does 9 rival last year's "Wall E" as the best post-apocalyptic "cartoon"? The short answer is Nein. 9 is, however, a visual stunner.

A movie that soars whenever Child is on the screen and sags when Powell shows up.

Admittedly, this is the stuff of lurid adolescent distraction, not great cinema. Jennifer's Body is strictly a niche item but provides a goofy, campy bookend to "Drag Me to Hell" on the B-movie shelf. Watch it, forget it, move on.

May be one hundred percent sap, but its spirit is anything but cloying, thanks to persuasive performances, most notably from Rachel McAdams.

Yes, Knowing is creepy, at least for the first two-thirds or so, in a moderately satisfying, if predictable, way.

The kind of stunning and contentious work of art that will leave a lot of folks speechless.

Thirst is good, insolent fun for about two-thirds of the way, before it stumbles and drowns in a pool of its own excess. Still, you can't help but admire a horror movie that prompts us to wonder how vampires with a surplus of blood got by before the advent of Tupperware.

It's frenetic to the point of crazy while achieving a mark that barely exceeds mediocre.

Within this structurally baggy weepie, at least two perfectly good movies fight to break free, one a provocative legal thriller, the other a melodrama.

A clinically adequate, occasionally above-average art house film. In certain moments, it has all the subtlety and illumination one should ever need.

Refreshingly free of the hyperbole of special effects...Ong-Bak will win no scriptwriting awards, but Jaa is definitely the real deal.

In the end Monsieur N. could use a little less cloak-and-dagger and more of what made "The Emperor's New Clothes" work, i.e., heart.

Intriguing, oddly banal and ultimately deflating.

Satisfies and disturbs in just about equal measure.

It's hardly the best film in the world but you can have fun with it.