Jeff Baker

True Story, made with obvious seriousness by talented professionals, never establishes itself.

Baumbach loses his grip a little in the third act and gives Stiller too much babbling and ranting. The denouement at a tribute dinner for Leslie is unsatisfying for all concerned but is redeemed by a coda that assures everyone that happiness is possible in this crazy world.

Bier's direction seems tentative, unsure whether to go all-in on the pulpier aspects of the story or play it straight. She gets mixed results from her leads: Cooper is game but not fierce or conflicted enough; Lawrence doesn't get deep enough to pull anyone along on her spiral into madness.

There's too much head-butting between human battering rams Diesel and Jason Statham, too many noisy explosions and generic special effects, and not enough car races and chases.

It's OK to rip off/pay homage to a better movie, but the idea is to improve on it, and ideas one thing that's completely missing from Get Hard.

The writer-director has done a lot of opera, onstage and on film, and he sure is fond of the dramatic gesture. His leading man, Poelvoorde, is not at first glance the type of guy who'd captivate two such stunning women, but this is France, and his desire and anguish is real.

The 82-year-old director has a light, assured touch and wrote a script that gives his actors space to shine.

If you think you've seen this movie, you have. Once it had a male protagonist and was called "Harry Potter." Then it starred Jennifer Lawrence and was called "The Hunger Games." Now it stars Shailene Woodley and goes by "The Divergent Series." Same thing, only worse.

Harris, crinkly and laser-eyed, has enough gravity to hang with Neeson. Their scenes together anchor a movie that gets away from itself at times and relies on the tired family-in-jeopardy final act.

Also effective is the romance between Gere and Lillete Dubey, an Indian actor who play's Patel's mother.

Fetisov is a jovial, imperious guide through an era of Cold War politics, when sports were a battleground between East and West and no sport was more important to the Soviets than hockey.

A genre movie like this one depends on pacing, and Focus hits at least three dead spots in the final act. Writer-directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra get so much right -- the sleek look, the plot set-ups, those montages in New Orleans, the supporting cast -- that it's painful when they can't maintain Focus and land it, before and after the big reveal.

It's a comedy with an easy message, and it's sort of sweet. Not too raunchy, not too challenging. A good date movie for sophomores.

OK, got it. It's a spy movie spoof, "Austin Powers" with more violence and less camp, a Bond parody that zeroes in on the Roger Moore era, when the sets and gadgets got bigger and the stories got dumber.

The movie isn't a complete disaster -- it's got a strong performance at its core from Dakota Johnson, and it looks sleek and modern, like a Beyonce video or a Calvin Klein commercial -- but it's an unpleasant experience with a sleazy stench that sticks in a way that E.L. James' novel doesn't.

The creators of Jupiter Ascending spent $175 million on special effects and 25 cents on a story. Audiences do not get their money's worth.

The camera tricks, the pacing, and the superbly choreographed set pieces are all there, in the right order, primed and timed like a string of fireworks. But what's holding Blackhat together is a dopey, ham-fisted script that plays like it's plucked from the bottom of the James Bond slush pile.

The problem with Inherent Vice, and what keeps it a step below "The Master" and "There Will Be Blood" and Anderson's best movies, is that all the Pynchon threads and dead ends come apart in the middle and aren't really pulled back together.

Wahlberg's The Gambler is California Lite.

Ultimately, it is nothing more than a souped-up, intermittently interesting take on some familiar material. [24 Oct 1997, p.22]