Irrational Man is the classic Strangers on a Train setup, with the twist that there’s only one stranger, and he’s motivated by vigilantism
Slow West is going for something like Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, but it’s much too simplistic and straightforward to work on that level
These are vapid, vacuous, arrogant and selfish men, driven by the most basic desires, and Entourage is the male equivalent of Sex and the City
When you cast Samuel L. Jackson as the President of the United States, you’re promising something that Big Game completely fails to deliver.
Child 44 devotes only about a quarter of its 137-minute running time to the murder investigation it purports to depict
2015’s Poltergeist plays like a highlight reel of the 1982 original, sufficiently re-creating its scare scenes and shaving off 20 minutes in the process
The finale of Pitch Perfect 2 is similar to Rocky; only we don’t know when the punches land, or if Rocky and/or Apollo are struggling to keep up the fight
Avengers: Age of Ultron climaxes with a 30-minute sequence of our titular heroes bashing the hell out of an endless army of metalheads
Still Alice is a Disease-of-the-Week movie in which an A-list cast struggles with banal Lifetime TV material
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes with high pedigree, bringing back most of the first film’s original players
Into the Woods is largely a drag despite lively performances and Stephen Sondheim’s wonderful music and lyrics
Flatliners meets Re-Animator in The Lazarus Effect, a dull, plodding, but mercifully short horror film from Blumhouse
Petr Jákl’s Ghoul was filmed in English with an international cast of actors, and shot in the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and California
Love, Rosie is an uneven and surprisingly crass comedy from director Christian Ditter based on the novel Where Rainbows End
Liam Neeson is back in action as retired ex-covert operative Bryan Mills in Taken 3, a preposterous but entertaining sequel
Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings is a misguided take on the Old Testament that succeeds in de-mythologizing the biblical story of Moses
Dumb and Dumber To is a belated sequel to the accurately-titled 1994 film that launched the career of writers-directors The Farrelly Brothers,
Annabelle is a follow-up to last year’s The Conjuring that successfully employs many of that film’s hauntingly understated techniques
While If I Stay is considerably less offensive than The Fault in Our Stars, this year’s other serious young adult drama, it’s also pretty much a dud
And So It Goes gets by as far as it does due to the charisma of stars Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton, who bring a genuine humanity to their roles
As Above, So Below has a great premise, an interesting supernatural concept, a cast containing professional actors, and a genuine storyline
Style so overwhelms content in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For that plot specifics are rendered meaningless
While The Expendables 3 is a better film in most technical regards, it’s lost the goofy charm and rough edges that made the first two Expendables fun
Magic in the Moonlight is a lightweight piece of Woody Allen fluff with precious little magic or moonlight.