Frank Scheck

To say that this effort written and directed by Jeremy Garelick (The Wedding Ringer, Murder Mystery 2) — who is modestly described in the film’s press notes as “reinventing Hollywood comedy with brain, heart, and guts” — comes across as tone-deaf is an understatement.

Despite the best efforts of the performers Murderous feels more like an actors’ exercise than an organically plotted thriller. It never transcends its air of narrative claustrophobia and, considering its thin premise, would have benefited from a sharp cutting of its overlong 107-minute running time.

Heart of the Beast is actually a love story, and one of the most moving to come along in a long time. That it’s a love story between a man and his dog doesn’t at all detract from its emotional impact.

The convoluted story is told with so much wit, humor, energy and visual invention that it becomes easy to get swept up in the fantastical proceedings, and the film’s touching portraits of the relationship between the two girls and lovable Lola, and with each other, provide genuine emotion.

Co-screenwriters Lewen and Jacob Kaplan have written some very funny lines and also inject a surprising level of sweetness into the proceedings, even making Knoxville’s character ultimately far more sympathetic and likable than he initially appears.

Filled with baroque gore and wildly imaginative set pieces delivered at a feverish pace, Resident Evil transcends its simplistic premise with the sort of cinematic wit and flair for which the filmmaker has been justly acclaimed.

It’s all sheer silliness, of course, and that’s the point, with the dialogue-free storyline providing the possibilities not only for endless cuteness — these painstakingly moved puppets, representing both human and animal characters, are truly adorable — but also a series of witty visual and sound gags that will please children and adults alike.

This is a filmmaker who simply doesn’t know when to stop, as also evidenced by the film’s bloated 142-minute running time that lets narrative tedium set in.

In typical Greengrassian fashion, The Uprising proves intense from first minute to last, the director utilizing his familiar handheld camera and frenetic editing style to an at times exhausting degree. The stylistic approach works well enough during the many and extremely bloody action sequences, but eventually proves so relentless and lacking in modulation that the film becomes a grueling and sometimes tedious experience.

Depicting a murder/kidnapping investigation conducted by the older cop partnered with, you guessed it, a younger rookie colleague, this is a movie you’ll swear you’ve seen before.