Q: 1. The truth is, they're boring now.
2. Perhaps they should have called it X and the City.
3. Though the mood of The X Files: I Want to Believe remains consistently funereal, the storytelling is all over the place.
4. Was this stuff always this bad? Or is this simply the fabled 'worst episode ever?'
5. David Duchovny's Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson's Dana Scully are still chastely in love, the world is as dark and doomy as ever, and Billy Connolly, as a scurvy priest who may or may not be a visionary, steals the acting honors.
6. This is it?
7. The truth is, indeed, still out there. And when Carter finds it, may he heed its wisdom: Let go.
8. [S]cience fiction drama with the emphasis on the drama... [T]here are no monsters [here] except the all-too-human kind, and no demons except the all-too-familiar ones that plague us all.
9. The X-Files: I Want to Believe resembles those TV-series reunions that bring the cast of a hit together for a not-so-special occasion.
10. A complete waste of theater space.
Based on these individual reviews, what is the critic consensus?

A: Consensus: The chemistry between leads David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson do live up to The X-Files' televised legacy, but the roving plot and droning routines make it hard to identify just what we're meant to believe in.


Q: 1. Fanning and Stewart, playing the two leads, are timid and lifeless much of the time.
2. The drop of menstrual blood that hits the pavement in the first shot signals that this flashy, colorful film will offer a particularly female take on the cautionary blood-and-thunder passion play that audiences expect from their rock-and-roll biographies.
3. While Jett and Currie emerge as blurry, half-formed characters, Shannon's Fowley brings the contradictions the Runaways embodied into sharp, biting focus.
4. Music video director Floria Sigismondi shot this fascinating story on Super 16, giving the film a beautifully gritty 70's look. Fanning and Shannon are phenomenal.
5. It might sound square to suggest that making a movie about someone who didn't lose his mind on drugs, or cheat on his wife, would be a welcome change, but in truth, any change in approach would be welcome at this point.
6. Enjoyable, stylishly directed rock biopic with terrific performances from Fanning, Stewart and Shannon, though the fact that it's adapted from Currie's book means that only Cherie's story is explored in any depth.
7. Floria Sigismondi's flawed account of the rise and fall of short-lived, all-girl rock band The Runaways captures a genuine sense of the 1970s... the real '70s, not the wacky sitcom version.
8. For the most part it works, thanks to painstaking recreations of hazy disco-era dive bars, faded roller rinks and seedy motels, plus a ballsy performance by Kristen Stewart.
9. Parental Content Review
10. Okay, so it's not quite as rock'n'roll as what Garbage's Shirley Manson did to her boyfriend's corn flakes. But give the girls a chance, man.
Based on these individual reviews, what is the critic consensus?

A: Consensus: Viewers expecting an in-depth biopic will be disappointed, but The Runaways is as electric as the band's music, largely thanks to strong performances from Michael Shannon, Dakota Fanning, and Kristen Stewart.


Q: 1. A seminal horror movie, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was hailed upon its initial release as the first film to elevate the cinema from the realm of popular entertainment to that of high art.
2. The influence of Robert Wiene's Caligari is so great that it threatens to obscure the work itself.
3. Even if taken as social or Freudian statement, Caligari's real star attraction is in the visuals.
4. Pre-dating even early genre landmarks Nosferatu (1922) and Metropolis (1926) by some distance, Robert Wiene's silent film is both influential and one of a kind.
5. A classic. Visually stunning and more experimental than anything coming out today.
6. still creepy good entertainment on a rainy day
7. A foundational nightmare vision
8. This film has madness running all the way through it, a madness that seeps from story into reality and back again.
9. With its unusual look and neatly folding method of storytelling "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is an artistically uninhibited silent horror film that still sends chills.
10. A case can be made that Caligari was the first true horror film.
Based on these individual reviews, what is the critic consensus?

A: Consensus: Arguably the first true horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari set a brilliantly high bar for the genre -- and remains terrifying nearly a century after it first stalked the screen.


Q: 1. It's strong work that's not always satisfying, but its silent power registers as intended, creating a hypnotic atmosphere of unrest that fuels several sensational scenes and a decidedly unsettling conclusion.
2. From its chamber-piece delicacy and bureaucratic detail to a grandeur and implacable pessimism that seem as ancient as the land itself, "Leviathan" is a distinctly Russian tragedy.
3. Zvyagintsev builds to a crescendo with the force of an ocean storm..."Leviathan" is a great, literary work of existential despair, as magnificent as its titular creature.
4. The film you expect it to be by the one-fifth mark is pretty much exactly the film it proves to be. But it's a stellar execution of that movie.
5. This is a portrait of people living under constant duress, trying to drown their sorrows in a bottle and sometimes behaving in misguided ways that will free them, if only temporarily, from their grim reality.
6. Enormously captivating, a study of oppression, human nature and the effect of the two things upon each other.
7. As harshly beautiful as the Barents Sea coastline where it is set, this parable inspired in part by the biblical tale of Job dumps more misfortune than one hapless man should ever have to endure.
8. Andrey Zvyagintsev's Oscar-nominated and vodka-soaked satire of modern Russia, which plays more like tragedy.
9. It's early in the year, but I suspect it's still not a stretch to say that the geography in Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan are some of the most quietly evocative landscapes of the year.
10. Call it what you like - a modern Russian epic, a crime drama, a black comedy or a scream in the dark - Leviathan is a shaggy masterpiece.
Based on these individual reviews, what is the critic consensus?

A:
Consensus: Leviathan lives up to its title, offering trenchant, well-crafted social satire on a suitably grand scale.