Thank goodness for Rainey. Even when the story feels false, he never does, operating with an open-faced sense of easy honesty that is missing from much of the rest of the film.

More seriously -- and substantively -- "A Late Quartet" was a quiet but thoughtful meditation on the power, and the necessary pain, of human connections. By comparison, Quartet is a flimsy bit of cinematic puffery that takes every obvious path on its way to its even more obvious "seize-the-day" message.

The result is exactly what you would expect from a concept whose odometer has been running for so long: uneven laughs, sparked largely by spurts of shock comedy but marred by a general sense of familiarity.

It's done with affection, so it's hard to begrudge Hill for indulging in a postcard cliché or two. After all, it - like Hill's movie as a whole - certainly beats a bullet to the head.

Beautiful Creatures is still an unabashed imitator, hewing closely to the "Twilight" blueprint. Some might go so far as to call it a blatant ripoff, as the differences between the two are cosmetic at best.

This is the sort of movie that Charles Bronson would have made back in the day, and indeed a shot of Johnson standing in a sporting goods store, contemplating a wall of shotguns as he gets ready to get busy, could have come from any "Death Wish."

Unfortunately, Franklin isn't quite as successful at capturing the depth of the traditions for which Anaya's source material is so well known.

There's no sense of pacing here, as would be the case in a single feature-length narrative in which a wise filmmaker would vary the intensity level. Instead, what we get is a ceaseless visual and emotional assault. That makes for an exhausting movie-going experience. This is by no means a feel-good film. This is a feel-bad film -- and at times a feel-icky film.

For 91 minutes of its briskly paced 94-minute running time, the film works as a tightly wound bit of pins-and-needles storytelling. Then, Anderson lets it all unravel in a three-minute stretch of cheap writing that not only betrays the characters he worked so hard to develop, but that also thumbs its nose at any audience members with a brain.

What we end up with is an arm's-length film that feels more haunted than haunting -- and one that audiences will want to forget rather than remember.

The Croods does a lot of things well -- even if it does none of them extraordinarily. The end result is a solidly middle-of-the-road bit of animation -- but the kind that is easily forgotten as soon as something more evolved, and original, comes along.

Niccol and Meyer -- who co-produces this, her first post-"Twilight" film -- choose to trade away any shred of the ripe social subtext that has made other body-snatcher films so rich. In its place: the kind of supernatural, star-crossed romance that generates so much swooning from Team "Twilight."

If you currently own a G.I. Joe toy or if you've dressed like a ninja at least twice since Halloween, you're going to find a lot to "hooah" about in "G.I. Joe: Retaliation."

Because while it can boast of some truly extraordinary special effects -- stomach-churning, face-hacking, arm-slicing visual effects, the kind that are sure to titillate the gleefully twisted -- this Evil Dead is far more gruesome than awesome.

You'd think that a movie about such a dynamic moment and such a vibrant ad campaign would be more dynamic and vibrant.

What Leonie is missing, however -- in its script, in its performances, really in everything about it -- is any hint of sparkle, any sort of compelling hook on which to hang its hat.

There's not much meat to the story. So while the picture on the menu suggests filet mignon, we really get mostly fish-and-chips stuff.

This is a tragedy, not a comedy.

Lacks any real sense of vitality. And no matter how worthwhile a film's message is, it's difficult for audiences to care if the path to the payoff so often feels like a slog.

For movie-goers who like a little cleverness with their comedy, however, one word: N-opa.

Almodovar lets his movie become boring, and insufferably so.

Anthony Hopkins still does elegant menace better than anyone.

Even if The Bounty Hunter is more plot-driven than your standard romantic comedy, it's never quite as funny as it should be.

You can't just cast an appealing actress in the lead role -- in this case Queen Latifah ("Valentine's Day, " "The Secret Life of Bees") -- and expect her to do all the heavy lifting.

Little more than a glorified situation comedy. The problem is, it's all situation and no comedy.

The really annoying thing about Jack Black's Gulliver's Travels is not so much that it's a bad movie -- it is bad, but only run-of-the-mill bad, not epic-misfire bad -- but that the movie sullies a piece of literature that has endured for nearly 300 years for the sake of a cheap kiddie flick that'll be forgotten in a month.

Dumont's fans might find this latest exercise enjoyable, but his style of filmmaking is an acquired taste. I doubt those without that taste are going to acquire it here.

The school freak, played by Mary-Kate Olsen, misses a chance to really have some fun as this story's wicked witch.