Love Is All You Need (2012)

Oscar-winning filmmaker Susanne Bier collaborates once again with screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen (In a Better World, After the Wedding) for their first attempt at romantic comedy, but, unfortunately, the Danish duo sticks with their heavy-handed formula of contrived situations and characters that overreact or exist merely to drop emotional bombs. Read the rest of the review here.

After Earth (2013)

Under a seeming studio-marketing embargo, a subdued M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, The Last Airbender) directs After Earth. The Draconian post-apocalyptic sci-fi brainchild of triple-threat — story, actor, producer — Will Smith provides an elaborate and labored backdrop for Smith to show off a forced sobriety and to showcase his son Jaden's (2010's The Karate Kid) acting skills, now greatly thinned by adolescence's awkwardness. Read the rest of the review here.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

For all its sweeping panorama, frenzied edits and confetti-gun and fireworks CGI, director Baz Luhrmann's (Romeo and Juliet, Moulin Rouge) 3D spectacle The Great Gatsby feels surprisingly claustrophobic and plodding. The script, co-written by Australians Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, tends to all the major events of F. Scott Fitzgerald's great American novel without attention to character, structure or pacing. Read the rest of the review on KCActive.com.

The Big Wedding (2013)

With The Big Wedding, writer/director Justin Zackham (The Bucket Listscreenplay), brings the Americanized version of the 2006 French/Swiss movieMon frère se marie to theaters. Without the dark, grounding effects of a European sensibility, the farcical elements balloon to sub-sitcom proportions, forcing the members of the film’s all-star cast to play along with its countless embarrassing indignities. Read the rest of the review here.

The Company You Keep (2012)

In defter hands, the concept behind The Company You Keep could be extremely affecting and relevant, particularly following the recent events in Boston. But Robert Redford’s plodding direction and acting, and Lem Dobbs’ tacky screenplay stubbornly uphold the hackneyed nostalgia of delusional Baby Boomers. Read my review of The Company You Keep here.

Trance (2013)

Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle's (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) latest film, Trance, seamlessly blends gritty heist film with psychological thriller. That is, until final expository revelations drag the film into a quagmire of cheap, disappointing answers. No amount of fancy photography, editing and set design can make up for the problematic script by John Hodge and Joe Ahearne, who originally wrote the story for the 2001 British television movie. Read the rest of the review here.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

For his latest film, The Place Beyond the Pines, director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), working from a script he co-wrote with Ben Coccio, offers an ambitious look at fathers and sons for two generations. Notwithstanding a strong start, featuring a dynamic heist storyline, Cianfrance's aspirations to create an epic make for dull viewing where each time a transition fails to end the movie feels like another level of despair. Read the rest of the review here.

Evil Dead (2013)

Before Scream bludgeoned the slasher film with its simplified, blunt self-awareness, writer/director Sam Raimi's 1981 cult classic The Evil Dead offered a non-ironic post-modern take on the horror genre. For its remake, Evil Dead, Raimi handpicked Uruguayan visual effects specialist Fede Alvarez. The result is a feature-film directorial debut that sacrifices genuine suspense for prolonged jump scenes and over-the-top gore that is more a pastiche than homage to the gross-out tradition of Grand Guignol. Read the rest of the review here.

The Host (2013)

Adapted from the novel by Stephenie Meyer (Twilight), The Host offers a shallow teen romantic triangle wrapped up as laughable science fiction. But director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, In Time), who also wrote the screenplay, adds a moody thoughtfulness, extended through nostalgia-inducing allusions and imparted by Saoirse Ronan's strong performance. Read the rest of my review here.

Spring Breakers (2012)

Harmony Korine, the former enfant terrible who divided audiences with the purposely shocking portrayal of New York’s teen skater culture in his screenplay Kids and his visually off-putting directorial debut Gummo, has returned with his first full-length feature film since 2009. Spring Breakers, which features a bevy of bikini-clad Disney Channel ingénues trying to lose their luster, proves that, in his middle age, the writer/director still enjoys riding the line between affected realism and a Diane Arbus-type endearing exploitation. The only difference is that this time Spring Breakers offers some genuinely funny and touching moments, and the cast, led by a bedazzling James Franco, is in on the joke. 

Read the rest of the review on About.com.

The Croods (2013)

The Croods, the new 3D animated feature from writers/directors Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon) and Kirk De Micco (Space Chimps) relies on obsolete archetypes and familiar storytelling. Still, it contains enough stunning visuals of an imaginary biodiversity to make it fun to watch.

Read the rest of the review on KCActive.com.

Admission (2013)

There’s a hurtful truth about Admission, the new comedy-drama from director Paul Weitz (American Pie, About a Boy). Because it finally pairs the two sweethearts of contemporary screwball comedy, Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, viewers are going to be willing to cut it lots of slack in order to like it. But its mish-mash of storylines and broadly drawn characters from the script, adapted by Karen Croner from a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, won’t let them, no matter how hard they try.

Read the rest of the review on KCActive.com.