Frank Lovece

A lovely soundtrack by Irish balladeers the Saw Doctors can't make up for the rest of this belabored labor of love.

The non-action scenes are so pedestrian that one suspects the good stuff is less due to workmanlike director Lee Tamahori than to one of the best second-unit crews in the biz.

Some brilliant human moments do emerge, and there's nothing wrong with a reminder to live life in harmony, and not to beat yourself up.

It differs from American films about the period in its evocation of day-to-day passion. The power of beauty is often dealt with in films, but not so often its powerful curse.

Photographed as harsh spectacle in brown and gray with unfailingly overcast skies, the story is affecting and suspenseful enough when focusing on Vassili, the humble peasant youth, and his patrician adversary playing a chess-like game of cat-and-mouse.

This exquisitely mounted sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) skims past any narrative shortcomings through the complete and convincing totality of the wizarding world it creates, drawing you into another reality with perhaps more verisimilitude than any film in the Harry Potter canon.

The character designs, however, are much less impressive. Except for the oddly naturalistic Sinclair, the rest look like cartoony characters from one of Disney's '60s films.

The glammed-up Kinski looks the same age throughout and only has three expressions: angry, wistful, and someone's-killed-my-dog.

The characters may be one-dimensional ciphers with nothing much to say, but boy, do they not say it with style.

The filmmakers believe they have better emotional beats at the end than what that hack Dr. Seuss came up with—and in the process make the Grinch pathetic and practically groveling.

Collapsed into the black hole of its own mythology.

In the end the film has absolutely nothing to say.

Deftly tweaking the tropes of rock biopics, this drama of singer Freddie Mercury and British hitmakers Queen dazzlingly captures an era, a man and the universal quest for identity.

Overall it's a funny film, but parents should decide if the anti-gay and misogynist elements are worth the laughs.

The latest offender in the odd "let's see what the cute and funny mentally ill can teach us" genre, this mystery/domestic drama commits all the usual sins and clichés.

The film's one saving grace is 18-year-old Ellen Muth, who gives one of the screen's most natural, non-Hollywood portrayals of a child.

Relentless parade of tragedy.

This ORANGE is a lemon.

That rare film aimed at teenage girls that's still enjoyable for grownup viewers.

Inconsistency of tone and internal logic plagues the film throughout.

Essentially a feature-length episode of the popular Nickelodeon animated series, this faithful expansion is savvy enough to stay put.

It would have been nice if Hardwick had a bigger budget for retakes to work out some of the supporting actors' stiffness, but he does keep the story moving, finding the humor in characters caught up in their own machinations rather than cheap wisecracks.

It's a classic fantasy scenario, overflowing with creative possibilities, but Carrey's Nolan isn't charmingly misguided or comically loathsome enough to deserve the lesson; he's just a big, inconsequential crybaby.

This lively and nicely timed comedy has plenty enough, farce, slapstick and even drawing-room humor.

The movie's uninspired animation (including primitive, blocky computer imagery) doesn't help, nor do its astonishingly stereotyped characters.

They STILL didn't get it right this TIME.

The movie's physical violence isn't gratuitous -- it's the emotional violence that makes this a movie for grown-ups, not kids.

Most of the film's imagination and energy seem to have gone into the clever casting and flamboyant costume and set design.