The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)

With The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, director Don Scardino (30 Rock) blessedly keeps his star-filled cast on task. But the movie’s formulaic plot, from a script written by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, is far from making any kind of movie magic. Read the full review on KCActive.com.

Snitch (2013)

In Snitch, former stuntman Ric Roman Waugh takes on the federal mandatory minimum sentencing and conspiracy provisions in anti-drug laws. Inspired by a 1999 Frontline documentary, Waugh and Justin Haythe wrote the screenplay based loosely on true events. And like most projects with an issue to push, the film feels forced, filled with cardboard dialog and stiff performances. Read my review here.

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Based on the series of young adult novels by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl,Beautiful Creatures contains exaggerated mythmaking, laughable CGI and a convoluted plot. Despite this, writer/director Richard LaGravenese (Living Out Loud, The Fisher King) brings an endearing, very human charm to this Gothic love story. Read the full review here.

Safe Haven (2013)

Because Safe Haven is based on the Nicholas Sparks novel it contains lots of contrived tricks. Adapted for the screen by Dana Stevens and Leslie Bohem, the film is basically a rehash of Sleeping with the Enemy with precocious children and the ghost of a dead wife hanging around. Disappointing Swedish director Lasse Halström adds the schmaltz that has become his trademark in recent years. Read the full review here.

Identity Thief (2013)

Melissa McCarthy hasn't had a decent role since her scene-stealing performance in Bridesmaids. Paul Feig and Kristen Wiig aside, very few Hollywood filmmakers understand how to use the actress' unique comedic talent, least of all director Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses). Hampered by a convoluted plot from writer Craig Mazin, Identity Thief buries McCarthy in sight gags and slapstick, putting her down every chance it gets. Read the full review at KCActive.com.

Warm Bodies (2013)

Both concept and execution of writer/director Jonathan Levine's (50/50) latest film Warm Bodies, adapted from Isaac Marion's 2011 young-adult novel, suffer from drastic shortcomings. Described as a zombie romance — there are allusions to Romeo and Juliet — the film relies on rhetorical tautology to appease genre purists (it won't work) and overly expositive voice-over narration to compensate for a non-verbal protagonist. Read the full review on KCActive.com.

Quartet (2012)

For a first-time director, Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman, 76, is a late bloomer. Accordingly, Quartet, the adaptation of Ronald Harwood play about a retirement home for musicians, is not a completely odd choice-despite its evident Britishness-for the aging star of Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man and Kramer vs. Kramer. Yet, it's possible that Hoffman is too close to the subject matter to see the screenplay's faults and, as a result, Quartet marks an uneven and disappointing directorial debut.

Read the full review here.

Broken City (2013)

In recent years, the broody Scandinavians have produced a welcome resurgence of interest in noir, originally associated with Hollywood in the 1940s and ‘50s. Led by The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Wallander, the novels were successfully made into television series and feature films. Soon enough, the Brits, obsessed with Nordic noir, began making English-language versions of the moody crime dramas, mostly for the small screen.

With Broken City, director Allen Hughes, who with his brother Albert began their careers as auteurs with a type of urban noir expressed in Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, takes on a very American neo-noir political thriller. But the script from first-time screenwriter Brian Tucker isn’t smart or dark enough to anchor the film’s intended seriousness.

Read the rest of the review here.

Django Unchained (2012)

I must confess that, like Spike Lee, I prejudged Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. However, my reservations stemmed not from any debate over ownership of the story Tarantino ventures to tell but from the opening credits. Titles in a spaghetti western typeface display on the screen as Luis Enrique Bacalov's theme song from Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Italian Western Django plays. I feared these were signs of Tarantino's notorious pedantry that would result in an unemotional exercise in pastiche. Read the rest of the review here.

The Impossible (2012)

Based on the real-life account of surviving the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami by Maria Belon, The Impossible is an entirely different type of horror story. Brought to the screen by director Juan Antonio Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sanchez (the Spanish filmmakers behind 2007's dark, paranormal award-winner The Orphanage ), the film achieves a terrifyingly visceral realism through a combination of visual effects, miniatures and water tanks, as well as a standout performance by Naomi Watts as Maria Belon. Yet, in its portrayal of the aftermath of the natural disaster-intent on reducing the event to the trite message of the triumph of the human spirit-The Impossible lacks emotional verisimilitude and loses its sense of authenticity. Read the rest of the review here.

Les Misérables (2012)

For fans of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s musical Les Miserables, the most recent film adaption by Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) offers an unprecedented intimacy with its characters. Hooper liberally uses wide-angle closeups with shallow depth of field to keep focus on his actors' faces as they perform their songs, captured live with orchestra added later. This could prove thrilling to those previously confined to seats far from the stage, but otherwise provides a static, monotonous movie-going experience. Read the rest of the review here.

The Hobbit (2012)

It’s been almost a decade since Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy came to a close. Now, the special effects devotee has brought the first episode of The Hobbit to the big screen. Adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien’s children’s fantasy novel by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson and Guillermo del Toro — who was initially signed on as director but resigned due to scheduling delays — the story, ruthlessly dragged out to fill three protracted episodes, takes a back seat to experimentation with visual effects, including 3D and the controversial decision to film at a rate that doubles the usual 24 frames-per-second film speed. Read the rest of the review on About.com.