Dan Rubins

This is a fairly paint-by-numbers exercise in updating a quintessential but unquestionably quaint property for modern consumption.

Wicked’s frequent patches of sluggishness are particularly frustrating because so much of the film—especially the songs—is glorious.

It’s only the winking malice of Ian McKellen’s title character that prevents the film from imploding entirely, dirigible-like, as the haywire plot begins to nosedive.

If this Mean Girls thrives too much on its relationship to the original, more tribute with songs than independent adaptation, its enjoyability is also a testament to the original’s staying power, as well as to Fey’s decades-long faith in the recyclability of her own material.

The film accomplishes its principal goal of capturing Sara Bareilles’s spectacular take on Jenna Hunterson, especially in its close-ups of the singer-songwriter.

For devotees of the franchise, Nia Vardalos's film will be a surprisingly emotional trip home.

Elemental does a whole lot of huffing and puffing but, at its core, feels no more grounded than a gentle wisp of air.

With this film, nuance seems to have disapparated from the wizarding world altogether.

Once things get moving, it’s smooth sailing to the double-shocker of a denouement.

tick, tick… BOOM! never quite resolves that tension between well-attended wake and intimate memoir.

Steven Spielberg's West Side Story is at its best when it zooms in and settles down into character study.

The film works harder to fix the problems with its source material than to establish itself as an independent piece of art.

Consistently surprising and creatively fearless, John C. Chu’s film brings monumentality to a work of infinite heart.

Andy Goddard’s film clumsily superimposes a frenzied, completely fictional spy adventure onto a fascinating fragment of pre-war history.

If the SpongeBob franchise has finally gone on the run, it seems like it’s left the audience that matters most in the dust.

The film finds its purpose most pointedly when it zeroes in on the unambiguous relationship between Holiday and “Strange Fruit.”

The Dig clearly relishes in having found so many fascinating real people arriving at one place at once.

Katrine Philp’s documentary boldly argues for a clear-eyed frankness in talking to bereaved children about loss.

Matteo Garrone’s adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s story trembles with corporeal strangeness and unpredictability.

Ryan Murphy’s vibrant film adaptation makes a closer-to-seamless whole of the story’s disparate parts.

While most Pixar films pride themselves on presenting rich, fantastical responses to real-world wonderings, Soul keeps conjuring up visions that don’t correspond precisely enough to anything in the real world.

In his final role, Chadwick Boseman meticulously charts the breakdown of a man discovering, within the mirages of 1920s blackness, that pursuit and escape, fleeing from and running toward, are inextricably intertwined.

The film can’t seem to decide whether it’s fantasy or allegory and whether its characters are fan fiction or flesh and blood.

The greatest gift offered by the film is an empowering world that looks less like invention and more like real life.

Despite a searing performance from Diane Lane, writer-director Thomas Bezucha’s film ultimately self-immolates.

The storyline’s edges are frayed just enough to give it the gentle distance of a tale recalled though the gauze of myth and memory.

Only when left to their own devices do the film’s stars enter the less manic, more heartfelt realm of the book.

Because its focus is so split, the film lacks the pervasive sense of danger one expects from a spy thriller.