M. E. Russell

Lawrence steps up. And her character's fierce independence provides a welcome alternative to certain vampire-fixated young-adult heroines who define themselves entirely through the attention of much-much-older men.

At its best, Prisoners dwells on the ways the characters affected by the case are held mentally captive -- by conviction, compulsion, procedure, skewed beliefs, rage, and grief -- and how each character's blind spot and/or maniacal focus furthers or frustrates the search for the girls.

In the films at least, there's something so naked about the Potter/Percy story parallels that's it's hard not to sit there as a viewer and get distracted playing connect the dots.

There's a potentially innovative teen comedy in here somewhere, but it's surrounded by one that's much duller.

As horror movies go, The Conjuring is an extremely skillful, entertaining remix album. That's not an insult.

"Fast Five" and Fast & Furious 6 -- the newest, nearly-as-much-dumb-fun sequel -- play more like "The Avengers" than they don't.

Oblivion is Moebius-comic gorgeous and it sounds great, especially the loud, nervewracking honks the drones make when they're weighing whether or not to shoot you. I suppose that's a surface appeal. But it's a nice surface.

Jim Carrey kills it every time he shows up in his supporting role as street magician Steve Gray.

The movie unfolds in the uplifting manner you'd expect, but its real pleasures lie in its terrific '60s pop-soul soundtrack and especially in its frequently funny performances.

It's quietly brutal stuff, beautifully acted by Fanning, Englert, Christina Hendricks and a word-twisting Alessandro Nivola.

The deadly dull action-comedy Identity Thief is an infuriating waste of time, on all sides of camera and screen. I did not know I could yawn angrily. This movie somehow proved it possible.

It's got a big heart and high spirits on a low budget and actors who refuse to phone it in.

Quality-wise, the crime drama Broken City lives in a frustrating mid-range area: It's too complex and competently crafted to dismiss as junk -- but it's also nowhere near sharp enough to work as the serious grown-up detective movie it clearly wants to be.

No one joyfully embraces this absurdity better than Michael Sheen. The actor finds a ridiculous-yet-perfect way to deliver every single second of his performance as head of the global vampire council -- He's all over the film's finale. It's fantastic.

The surfing scenes are gorgeous and overwhelming. But the rest of the film...

It's fascinating as an offbeat storytelling exercise.

The movie's excessive and logistically goofy in a way "Taken" wasn't.

The movie's perfectly understated, warts-and-all sense of time and place will send any suburban Gen Xer in the audience flashing right back to their less-cautious days, when mix tapes did heavy lifting as calling cards.

The film's climax is a bit of a jumble, but by then Hillcoat has built his world so vibrantly that it hardly matters. And the hard-charging soundtrack -- featuring Cave, Warren Ellis, Ralph Stanley, Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson -- is an absolute blast.

Wiseman's PG-13 remake isn't as funny, or vivid, or splatter-tastic. It contains no mutants, inflating heads, trips to Mars, or freaky little psychic dudes named "Kuato" emerging from people's stomachs. But it does a decent job setting up an unsubtle dystopia.

The end result is mediocre, slightly sloppy and a mild waste of a great cast.

The movie is well-acted and a bit frustrating, but also a pleasant little surprise.

There's almost nothing to Battleship beyond its grindingly dull, digitally rendered naval warfare.

The movie is directed with real confidence by Batmanglij. He lets his actors breathe, builds suspense in one group-purge brainwashing scene, and lets the mystery unfold in an immersive way that's probably a bit more compelling than its actual scripted payoff deserves.

It's better at being droll than laugh-out-loud funny.

When it sticks to its central flirtation, the latest movie based on a Nicholas Sparks romance, The Lucky One, is blandly pleasant enough.

Scenes will wander from gross-out gag to sentimental schmaltz to pervy leer to cheap nostalgia within a 30-second span, utterly free of clear directorial guidance. Even worse, very little of it is remotely funny.

Waititi is still telling stories of offbeat, semi-delusional New Zealanders, and he's still sprinkling his work with cartoonish flights of fancy -- but this time he grounds the comedy in a big-hearted, bittersweet story about a boy desperate to connect with his father.