Intriguing, if uneven, thriller.

The movie is adapted from David Mamet's play, "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," but it bears little relation to it -- screen writers Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue nod to Mamet's structure, appropriate a couple of monologues and take off on their own. They and the director, Ed Zwick, could have done a better job of opening the play up -- outside life rarely intrudes on this foursome, as it needn't in the theater, but must in movies. [2 July 1986, p.D1]

There are some very funny moments in the movie, even for grown-ups, including a video of Will that goes viral. The absurd machinations of Will’s smarmy political adviser are also good for a laugh. But ultimately, Annie is so fixated on being current that it will never be more than a passing fancy.

Without the benefit of deeper psychological spadework, The Kings of Summer stays resolutely on the surface, resembling more of an extended sitcom than a memorable movie on a par with the films it references.

Interstellar tries so hard to be so many things that it winds up shrinking into itself, much like one of the collapsed stars Coop hurtles past on his way to new worlds. For a movie about transcending all manner of dimensions, “Interstellar” ultimately falls surprisingly flat.

There are only so many ways to photograph black starry space and the under-bellies of spaceships, and the films that got there first used them all up.

The actors can’t compensate for a story that ultimately sputters.

A lean, low-budget and claustrophobic mistaken-identity thriller that’s so stripped-down, it’s nearly nonexistent.

The story offers uncommon insights on the endlessly parsed period in history, but its execution sometimes falls short. Both the production quality and the persistent, sentimental soundtrack create a made-for-TV feel.

A film in search of a tighter edit and a stronger point of view. It meanders from scene to scene, calling to mind the images of leaking faucets and dribbling IV fluid that appear here in close-up.

A picaresque romance of self-discovery that delivers a near-constant flow of small delights until veering too far into screwball preposterousness.

With the exception of one heartbreaking and well-acted scene towards the end of the movie, the atmosphere is oppressive and the characters act as if their personalities have been shot with novocaine.

Each sweet moment is inevitably punctuated by some in-your-face joke that’s at least as stupid as the preceding moments were heartfelt. Blended has other problems, too, including some faulty editing and a typically predictable finale. But there are some genuinely sweet and funny moments, which are more than enough to exceed expectations.

Think Like a Man Too, the derivative, intermittently amusing follow-up to the surprise hit rom-com from 2012, is so frenetically paced and hysterically pitched that it makes almost no room for simple enjoyment.

It’s incrementally more fun than it is silly.

It’s difficult to believe a word of Labor Day, but then again you don’t have to in order to luxuriate in Winslet and Brolin’s bubbling, steaming chemistry.

Like Father, Like Son grows on you, subtly and over time. Just as with the unexpected realignments forced on its characters, it may be difficult to fall in love with the movie, but eventually you do warm up to it.

The Theory of Flight, an unlikely marriage of malady movie and romantic comedy, never quite soars, but beats its wings with the desperate tenacity of a wounded butterfly. Alas, the proportion of lift to drag isn't quite enough to defy the gravity of its subject.

Partridge is such a fatuous, superficial figure that the trick is to make him palatable enough to sustain interest for more than an hour. The filmmakers meet with uneven success.

It has more complex stunts, more technical perfection, and more than a touch of genius. It's fun at both ends. But it's also mean-spirited and corrupt at its core.

Isn’t Statham’s best — or most brutal — work, but it’s not bad.

By the end, the film’s early promise has pretty much degenerated into routine pyrotechnics.

In the end, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before. But there’s also nothing as agonizingly awkward as James’s prose.

Sometimes the punch lines land and sometimes they don’t, but overall the result is pleasantly nostalgic.

The Artist and the Model isn’t about much, other than female beauty. That theme is not exactly controversial. Chalk the tameness of the subject matter up to the period in which the film is set.

The movie doesn’t offer much more than fleeting and superficial pleasures.

In structure and concept, the film resembles the faux-documentary “Borat,” with the distinction that the cameras here are all hidden. And that is where the film falls down and can’t get up.

A shaggy, baggy collegiate comedy that is less a coherent movie than a loosely assembled series of lewd jokes and punishing slapstick routines.