Penguins of Madagascar

Somehow, someway Horrible Bosses 2 finds a way to meander towards success. There are signature bits sprinkled throughout, including a glorious gag with a car, a gate and surprisingly resilient chain-link fence, while the cast continually enliven things to a point I can’t help but smile recollecting on them now.

A dour, hardscrabble elegiac Western filled with grit, grime and grotesquerie, [The Homesman] embraces the contradictions inherent to both the tale and to the characters inhabiting it, achieving a level of shattering intimacy that refuses to provide easy answers and leaves the viewer in a state of uncomforting uncertainty that fits the narrative perfectly.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I is still skillfully made and Jennifer Lawrence is as good as ever as the young woman who must transform herself into a hero whether she wants to or not. Unlike the first two, though, this one feels far more engineered by a corporate committee than either of its predecessors did, diluting the emotional impact of all that’s transpiring for Katniss and her followers in the process.

But it’s awfully entertaining, delivering on its premise while building to a blood-splattered, rip-roaring finale that sees Ambrose understand what it really is he’s fighting for and thus finding the inner strength to do so in the process overcoming his obvious handicap. While not a great werewolf movie, [Late Phases is] still a very good one, and having already watched it twice I almost can’t wait until the opportunity arises to see it again.

Considering my disdain for the first film coupled with my usual dislike of scattershot comedies of this sort, this one was going to have a tough time impressing me long before the Universal Studios’ logo even appeared on the screen. Be that as it may, I hold to my assertion that this is a bad sequel and an even worse comedy.

As strong as many of the individual pieces might be, as impressive as certain sequences are, there is an oddly distant aura permeating Rosewater that’s difficult to get past.

The Theory of Everything is a wondrous, startlingly effective drama. Marsh once again shows a talent for narrative dramatics that’s exceptional, using his skills as a master documentarian to give things a bristling, conspicuously enthralling legitimacy that’s undeniable. Stephen and Jane see their story told with a vital enthusiasm that’s both breathtaking and timeless, their brief history together without question a tale of teamwork, heartache, compromise, commitment, love and achievement that’s as particular to them as it is universal to us all.

I can’t work up much energy to argue for anyone to skip Big Hero 6 and see something else. For what it is, the film is hardly a bore, and more than a few of the more grandiose moments are suitably spectacular.