Keith Phipps

If Fury Road were only interested in action, it would still be a stunning achievement, but the film has more on its mind.

One’s uptight. The other’s flamboyant. Put them together and… Well, not much happens, except the desperation Hot Pursuit brings to its attempts to wring laughs out of the contrast.

The D Train hangs some inspired ideas and winning comic moments on material that’s not strong enough to support them.

Whedon’s handling of the personal material is what makes Age Of Ultron extraordinary. Remarkably for a film so overstuffed, no character gets neglected.

Welcome To Me never develops much momentum, doesn’t always know what to do with supporting players like Leigh, and builds toward a finale that plays as a bit too neat. Yet even this doesn’t betray the character’s cracked integrity.

In some ways it takes the right approach, attempting to mix moral lessons into a narrative rather than hit audiences over the head with them. But the lessons are so pat that every moment in which Pepper makes a good moral choice feels like an act of self-congratulation.

However misguided, it’s clearly one from the heart, a movie that should never have happened, and one that’s hard to believe actually exists. Roar is one of a kind. With any luck, it always will be.

For everything here that’s new and exciting, there’s much that’s way too familiar. The kids are so one-dimensional and unpleasant, it’s hard to care once they start dying off.... Unfriended is often more innovative than scary, too, with some memorable but not particularly chilling and hilariously foreshadowed death scenes.

It’s the choice to put the voices of the main players front and center that saves Lambert & Stamp from taking the rise-and-fall shape so familiar from Behind The Music and similar projects.

While Driver and Seyfried are both quite good, there’s nothing specific enough about their characters to avoid making the film feel like a blanket condemnation of a whole generation and their new ways of doing things.

The result is a relentlessly dour film livened up only by Bardem’s shameless scenery-chewing and the occasional jolt of action. Otherwise, it’s an endless frown of a movie that does little but confirm that Penn’s talents, while impressive, aren’t limitless.

If there’s a real person beneath Danny’s over-the-top showbiz-lifer persona, Pacino never finds him. Pacino probably still has it in him to do measured, subtle performances, but this isn’t one of them. He’s more mannerism than man, even in some otherwise-relaxed scenes with Bening.

Alternating interviews, observational passages, and conversations with past students, Hawke’s low-key film never pushes too hard for effect and lets any drama emerge slowly.

Where the first film kept insisting that drama and liveliness need not disappear in the golden years, its sequel feels almost like a rebuttal. Hopefully everyone involved will find something better to do before this unexpected franchise opens up a third location.

Stearns directs with a slow-burning intensity that becomes more unsettling the deeper Ansel goes into his task, and the more it becomes apparent he doesn’t have an easy way out.

Despite an intriguing opening and an overqualified cast, The Lazarus Effect can’t shake a been-there/resurrected-that vibe left over from Flatliners, Pet Sematary, and countless other films stretching back to Frankenstein.

Shooting on 35mm, Jody Lee Lipes makes the harshness look beautiful and unforgiving, and in a film filled with strong performances, Morton’s work stands out.

Some of the gags Bruce Wagner’s script lands about the business of Hollywood and the insanity it breeds call out for rimshots that Cronenberg never supplies. The silence can be awkward, but it’s just as often fascinating.

The film never entirely figures out what it wants to do with the myth of the superspy, but at least it has fun along the way.

If Project Almanac didn’t bungle it all with a shrug of an ending, it would be easier to recommend. Maybe someone with a time machine should go back and give the movie a do-over.

Starr and Shihabi, a charming newcomer, play off each other beautifully, and even when the film becomes a little too heavy-handed...their relationship keeps it grounded.

Strange Magic certainly isn’t an ordinary sort of mess, and the personal nature of the project is still evident in the finished film.

The film refreshingly portrays its kids as part of a diverse group trying to succeed in a country in which they can never find secure footing. That’s the big-picture story here, and one even the occasional underdog cliché can’t obscure.

Paddington is a charmer, portrayed as a little guy whose unflagging goodness makes it easy to forgive his clumsiness. That’s the one detail from Bond’s book any adaptation has to get right, and this one nails it.

Despite the sharp dialogue...and carefully managed dramatic rhythms, Match still can’t help but seem a bit cramped, particularly once the plot starts to take some predictable turns and the shouting starts. It’s a fine line that divides the intimate from the claustrophobic.

Even Neeson can’t rescue this halfhearted shrug of a movie.

It’s a handsome disappointment, fast food masquerading as fine dining.

Chandor’s film suggests more than it can explore, and a contrived climax makes the film seem like less than the sum of what’s preceded it.