Peter Sobczynski

If it lacks the operatic excesses of this particular subgenre, it does an interesting job of recasting those elements into something closer to an intimate chamber piece.

It has a reasonably solid, if not blazingly original, premise, a more-than-solid cast, made with enough style to make for a reasonably diverting 100 minutes, but it never quite manages to be anything more than that.

Passenger is a fairly solid bit of genre craftwork that is a lot more impressive than its desultory release might suggest.

The problem with “Deep Water” is not that it is a bad movie (which it is), but it’s a gratingly familiar one that doesn’t have a single point of interest to call its own. Instead, it prefers to spend two hours rehashing elements that even newbies to shark-based cinema will find devoid of any real inspiration.

I found it compelling for its depiction of the mechanics of the current athletic scene and the triumphs and tragedies that occur along the way. It may not leave you cheering in the end, but it will give you something to think about the next time the Olympics come around.

On a basic level, the film is entertaining enough, but anyone hoping for a particularly fresh or innovative take on the show or its creator is probably going to come away feeling a bit let down.

Ghost Elephants is a portrait of obsession that, while gentler than some of Herzog’s other works, is mesmerizing from the first moment to the last, yet another title of note in what remains one of the most incredible filmographies of our time.

On paper, this sounds like a potentially fascinating combination but the film emerging from it proves to be anything but that. Instead, it proves to be such an overly ponderous exercise that, by the time it finally comes to an end, you may feel so sapped of energy that find yourself struggling to get up out of your seat.

A by-the-numbers sequel that mostly ignores the stuff that made its predecessor stand out in exchange for formulaic would-be thrills.

It ends up being little more than a rambling, undisciplined clip show that misfires as both history and entertainment.