Amy Nicholson

This is a soap opera that stands at a distance from its characters (that distance being the length of a lawyer's briefcase) and, though handsome and capable, feels as inert as mannequins in a shop window.

You'd expect more yucks from the country that bequeathed tentacle porn unto the world.

Actually witnessing the audience’s emotional connection to her lyrics makes “Hit Me Hard and Soft” feel like an epic coming-of-age movie as much as a concert film. Still, by the 50th mascara-smeared face, I needed fresh air.

Just because a film holds back the truth doesn't make the truth suspenseful. It merely shortchanges the filmmaker and the audience from exploring what that truth means.

Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz's script captures the girls' relationship in fine detail.

The film’s self-seriousness is as oppressive as its setting’s monotonous fog.

The cast keeps us invested in Filly's furious resurrection.

Karas showcases the actors' surprisingly good tennis skills, like the continuous volley they do while reciting the lyrics to "Bust a Move" and the deft way Sisto spins his racquet. But rather than develop these two as characters, Break Point tries to score too many points.

Once Encounter reveals its destination, there aren’t many places for the script to go, though there’s a savage little side trip to a rural militia during which it becomes clearer that this Ahmed acting showcase is also interested in touring the American psyche

The Maze Runner is so bleak that it almost convinces us to take it seriously.

Ford is hilarious and brooding, deeply wrinkled and deeply intimidating. He's got the best lines, courtesy of screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (of the repellent "27 Dresses" and the much better "The Devil Wears Prada").

Some might see the final act as body horror. To the director, it’s a metaphysical sacrament — and all along, his camera has hinted that mankind must commit to the planet before it’s too late.

While every image is as bright and colorful as a new box of crayons, the kids themselves never come across as artificial, thanks in part to Jamal Sims’ naturalistic but crisp choreography, which emphasizes stomps and leans and long-legged strides.

In the last act, Poulton and Savage’s long fuse explodes, and they get to prove they’ve made a hell of a picture.

Hedlund’s humble, hard-to-love performance makes the aptly named Burden work as both a portrait of one weak-minded man, and as a study of the ideas people carry without questioning why.

Phillips has made a copy of a copy, a brotastic toast to capitalism that steals from all the other movies that stole from Scarface and Goodfellas.

Whatever Gyllenhaal wants to do, she does, which becomes its own act of captivation and reckless empowerment. It helps that Buckley and Bale are terrific, as is the ensemble at large. The full force of Lawrence Sher’s cinematography, Karen Murphy’s production design and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s orchestral score is fabulous, combining to make something seedy, moody and extravagant.

This is a guaranteed blockbuster that nobody needed except studio accountants and parents. I’ll accept it on those terms because it’s a good thing when any kid-pleaser gets children in the habit of going to the movie theater.

Surprisingly, there’s emotional resonance in this slapstick flick about friends who are terrified to hug. Add that to the solid chemistry between the leads, and Tag is a fine callback to the sprawling ensemble comedies of the 1980s, back when the real-life tag team graduated high school. It’s a solid summer film that will melt away from memory by fall.

As startling as it is to see the beloved scientist hated in her time, that we’re able to see this headstrong legend as a sexual being at all is a credit to how much Pike gradually humanizes her as a woman, while never pleading for our pity.

It is clear from the offset which sibling will win both Paige’s affection and the obligatory climactic smooch. The journey there can drag. More fresh is the movie’s sex-positive empathy.

With the whole super-racket on the ropes, the cast of “Deadpool & Wolverine” seizes the opportunity to prove the power of their own charisma.

There's no honor among thieves, but there is dignity in Focus's ambition. And if the final film is more vodka ad than all-time classic, there's still no shame in pouring another cocktail and rewinding the tape.

There's freedom in facing the truth. There would be even more freedom in a heroine finishing the film in her favorite ugly overalls, but we haven't gotten there yet.

Jones delivers her line readings so robotically that even her truths sound like lies. She's got the look of a Hitchcock blonde, and the movements of a deer in the headlights. Even her kisses look fake.

With more actual grrrl power, Maleficent would be a bold redo. Instead, it's a beautiful snooze, a story that hints at the darkness underneath our fairy tales and tarnishes the idea of true love without quite daring to say what's really on its mind: that even the best of us might not live happily ever after.

The film’s early snark turns as cloying and insincere as the cultural doublespeak that it parodies. By the final act, its dialogue is so burdened by inspirational maxims about personal authenticity that it feels as though the script has been hijacked by yearbook quotes.

There’s little urgency or outrage. Instead of a funhouse mirror of what could be, it’s merely a smudged reflection of what is.