Joshua Rothkopf

Lacking a single serious scare or sly idea, the movie dies in ways that merely mediocre horror films can't even dream of.

Tuschi leans too far into an admiring position, and you thirst for some commonsense critique. It's all a bit rich.

Forgive this film its marvelous moodiness — someone needs to go there once in a while.

A taut kidnapping drama, this ferocious Australian export leaves no doubt about the limitless potential of a handful of characters in close quarters.

Amazingly, Gere keeps it all together, via a kind of seething anti-rage that speaks reams to the character's survival instincts.

Sheridan can’t quite shake a hint of Silence of the Lambs–esque familiarity, but that’s a wonderful standard to be reaching for. More to his credit, he fills his thriller with sharp observations among his Native American characters (not merely paid lip service), as well as the sudden crack of gunfire. You learn to look for tracks and clues; it’s a film that makes you a better viewer.

We’re here for the rigorously conceived, blessedly coherent action showdowns, the work of director Chad Stahelski.

Make room for the modest but affecting pleasures of veteran actors tearing into the subject of golden-years resignation.

Something, Anything doesn’t really engage with issues of faith or materialism.

As a piece of gore, Train to Busan takes the swiftest path from A to Z.

Maybe this is a good time to mention that the director is Richard Linklater, usually a lot more versatile. Try to imagine a version of Linklater’s "School of Rock" that didn’t pivot on the manic music teacher played by Jack Black but instead, perhaps, on his boring roommate.

American Sniper is a superbly subtle critique made by an especially young 84-year-old.

Still a mystery: Harlan’s own sense of guilt. But there’s plenty to go around.

The movie isn’t particularly scary--not a crime when your goal is laughs. More egregious is the niggling fact that this simply isn’t as witty as "Shaun of the Dead," forever the yuks-meet-yucks standard.

No matter how sincere, Marston's effort also suffers from the lack of a burning lead as he had in Maria's Catalina Sandino Moreno. Fierce acting is a virtue you don't have to travel the world to find - or to lose sight of.

Prince Avalanche — Green has admitted that the unrelated title came to him in a dream — evaporates after a while, although it’s never less than quizzical and charming.

The Grandmaster, five years in the making, feels like a waste of Wong’s talents.

The Killer is an opportunity for America’s most stylish director to reboot, to get back to basics, to come in under two hours.

The spirit of the movie is nonjudgmental, an observational intimacy that, in turn, becomes inspiring.

There's too much going on here - of a winning, thoughtful nature - to dismiss Josh Radnor's back-to-college romance as the nostalgia bath it mainly is.

Union's sour presence suggests the tougher film that could have been, bookending the movie with a double dose of viciousness; theirs is a relationship that won't be solved by a crisp uniform. If this is Bratton's calling card — and it should be — her scenes are the ones that suggest the real promise to come.

Of course we all hate insidious environmental destruction; it’s valuable to have movies about that. This one works fine enough. But let the other less-talented filmmakers make them.

There's a more courageous profile waiting to be made by someone who understands the man better.

The pieces here are wonderful, even if the documentary fails to make any kind of overall analytical point.

If you remember Larry Clark’s downbeat 1995 "Kids," a vastly more adventurous movie, you’ll feel a depressing sense of indie sellout.

It’s definitely a horror movie but a wonderfully witty one, not for gentle souls.

Pfeiffer is nothing short of heartbreaking in a part that requires her to be completely unvarnished.

Didn't Soderbergh notice there was pathos enough in Matthew McConaughey's beefcake proprietor, an ab-slapping, spandexed Peter Pan? Between this role and his owlish DA in the subversively sly "Bernie," the actor has finally found a way to subvert his six-pack. He's the magic here.