Kyle Smith

This movie is to funny what Exxon is to Greenpeace.

Dedicating the film to his ballroom-dancer mother, Mr. Wladyka has crafted something that is, like so much in Japanese culture, modest and delicate but exquisite. Gripping her emotions tightly, Ha-Chan nevertheless is a study in how difficult it is to rebuild a life after someone’s passing.

The value of Heart of the Beast is in its quiet, measured observation of Belmont’s calm answer to each severely dangerous situation.

The filmmakers have lashed together as many ideas as possible from Filipino mythology without worrying too much about the overall effect, which is akin to stumbling through a toy store full of freaky stuffed animals that are too weird to be sold.

It’s the ideal midnight movie, an adroit balance of the funny and the macabre, the frightening and the ridiculous.

[An] engrossing but hard to watch documentary.

Mr. Greengrass has worked with some top screenwriters, yet unwisely assigned himself sole screenplay duties here. He isn’t really a word man and the deficiency is evident in the prosaic dialogue and barely imagined characters.

Death scenes meant to be tearjerkers seem hokey instead; the tension surrounding the prospect of love leading to death never feels genuine; and the jokes are terrible.

Civil-rights dramas tend to be preachy and self-congratulatory, painting halos on the white saviors and the black victims, but the rousing By Any Means takes a literally punchy approach.

Ms. Arjona, who is petite and not particularly imposing, does her best to glower and rage, but apart from the camp value of that German baddie played by Mr. Stevens, the movie is short on amusement value. Moreover, the occasional stabs at quotable mom-power dialogue feel patronizing, not that the audience for ultraviolent action pictures typically includes a lot of moms.