Kyle Smith

Like its star, the movie is too short and a little thin but just about perfect.

The movie is more a situation than a narrative, and it's repetitive and depressing. One interrupter -- a murderer who did 14 years in prison -- says of the program, "In essence, it's just a Band-Aid." At best: One of his colleagues gets shot in the back for his peacekeeping effort.

The film does a poor job of illuminating human frailty because everything in it is so transparently contrived, so clumsily aimed at your tear ducts.

With Philomena, British producer-writer-star Steve Coogan and director Stephen Frears hit double blackjack, finding a true-life tale that would enable them to simultaneously attack Catholics and Republicans. There’s no other purpose to the movie, so if 90 minutes of organized hate brings you joy, go and buy your ticket now.

Phoenix, who was so subtle in “Her” and brilliantly tortured in “The Master,” has lapsed back into the shouty bombast style of his “Gladiator” days, but his efforts to make the character seem layered are to little avail, especially given that Gray waits until the end to try to make him a tragic figure instead of merely a sleazy one.

It’s a captivating throwback that promises to lead the genre away from sci-fi flash and trickery. I’d rank it beside “X-Men: Days of Future Past” among the best X-Men entries.

Mr. Boyle has made more than his share of memorable films, but he has also delivered some stinkers and unfortunately his new one carries the fragrance of a zombie underarm.

The movie amounts to an extended short story that progresses slowly and fades away with key questions unanswered. Ambiguity isn't necessarily interesting.

Even if you overlooked the production values from a 1986 porno and special effects like something your nephew cooked up on his Mac, the movie's "Yay, money!" zingers are just a big bag of sad.

A dizzying lowlife saga that’s fast, smart, wicked, sort of ambitious and blazingly ironic. It’s as unpredictable as a Lindsay Lohan drive to the grocery store, as overstuffed as the pictures on Anthony Weiner’s Twitter feed and as hilarious as me on the bench press.

Blue Caprice takes a minimalist, documentary-style approach that proves harrowingly effective.

The details are true and funny, played brilliantly.

Every Little Step shows only this: It hurts to flunk an audition, and it's nice to get hired. Everything it has to say about Broadway was said better in Bob Fosse's movie "All That Jazz" -- in its opening five minutes.

The film is elegantly done, mainly because it wisely expends most of its energy on Alicia Vikander’s face.

Low-key indie dramas sometimes overstate the understatement to a degree that becomes dull or even exasperating, but The Quiet Girl is consistently fascinating throughout its 90-minute runtime.

Has the aroma of an autobiographical confession by someone for whom life hasn’t been overly difficult.

Sensitive as the film is, it might be most effective to those who haven’t sat through scores of iterations of what has come to be known as the Sundance Film.

A bit more context about some of the topics the witnesses discuss would have been welcome, but Whitaker's stark, unshowy style is probably the most effective way to approach 9/11.

Guardians of the Galaxy brings to mind some of the most unforgettable sci-fi event movies of the last 30 years. Alas, those films are “Howard the Duck” and “Green Lantern.”

If it’s an extravagant demand of time it’s an even more extravagant pleasure, the rare film worth a trip out to the cinema for full immersion.

As a document of Liza’s triumphs, talent and temperament, though, “Liza” is, like its subject, disarmingly sweet and completely lovable.

An interesting failure, not a fascinating one.

The laziness of this filmmaking (which assumes you know that Gray killed himself in 2004) is of a piece with the emphatically uninteresting tales told by a classic dinner-party bore who once referred to his ramblings as "creative narcissism." He was half-right.

Proves that what might be (but probably isn't) worth five minutes of your time while you're passing through the Times Square subway station really isn't worth a 1 1/2-hour movie.

There might be a great movie to be made out of the financial crisis, but 99 Homes, which is like being shouted at by a man with bad breath while he grips your collar with both hands, isn’t it.

Heart and soul—those two concepts beaten to death by lyricists—suffuse every scene of this modest, perfect picture.

A clever setup that harkens back to “You’ve Got Mail” and “The Shop Around the Corner” doesn’t quite pay off in India’s warm-hearted comedy-drama The Lunchbox.

The movie's prideful silliness makes it semi-watchable in the manner of Saturday afternoon cable flicks like "Delta Force."

Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones "documentary" (i.e. concert film) is a first: the only Scorsese film that does not feature the Stones' "Gimme Shelter." Really. I think the Dalai Lama even hummed the guitar solo in "Kundun."

Looking at the Mexican drug wars from both sides of the border, Cartel Land is punchy and vital but not particularly informative.

As this frequently lyrical and touching portrait of youth reminds us, for many thousands of people over the years, Cabrini-Green was simply home.

Despite Gibney’s best efforts to put a halo on Manning, the enormity of what the soldier did towers over what has been done to him.

Rich, evocative, crafty and exciting, it’s one of the few standout movies of the year.

In Listen Up Philip, the tiny fury of Jason Schwartzman suggests his “Rushmore” character is now 15 years older and a middling Brooklyn novelist. His deadpan misanthropy is good for some acerbic laughs in a movie that starts appealingly but gradually comes to seem closed and stuck.

Amrum is a stirring example of how childhood reminiscence can stand for so much more.

The age when such images held firm positions in the culture may be over, but Mr. Corbijn’s film has given it a glorious and stirring elegy.

A film I admired, but didn’t especially like, The Revenant is a master class in craftsmanship, marrying the ethos of 1970s Hollywood, with its beaten-dog heroes forever roughed up by a brutal system, to the technological prowess of today’s digitally obsessed blockbusters.

September 5 is tough, rough, messy and gritty, in the tradition of American cinema from the decade in which it takes place.

No, this film by director/co-writer Gillian Robespierre just isn’t funny, and the mismatched leads aren’t even interesting together.

Most of the best gags are in the early going and the film seems ever more stretched and thin as it goes on. It would have made a brilliant eight-minute sketch, though.

It contains no poetry. It simply conjures up a horrible feeling -- and then sits back awaiting congratulation.

We tend to think of gangland tales as exhibiting clear demarcations between those who are and are not “in the game.” La Civil catapults us into a considerably more disturbing environment, a sort of toxic sinkhole that pulls everyone into its horrors.

Sony Pictures is positioning “The Woman King” as not only a rousing action film but also an important one: At the screening I attended, a marketing slide read, “Join the conversation.” I’ll start: Is there any limit to Hollywood shamelessness?

Asteroid City may be infused with the powers of the Atomic Age, but no Anderson movie except “The Darjeeling Limited” runs so low on energy.

The only thing that's shocking about Death of a President is how boring it is.

The excruciating and the hilarious mingle nearly to perfection in this marvelously visualized and deeply felt British film.

Sly, wry, adorable and deplorable, Guillaume Marbeck is priceless as the endlessly irritating and yet frustratingly charismatic Godard in one of the year’s brightest pictures, a rare standout in a sea of multiplex mediocrity.

Mr. Malek is incapable of providing the audience with an emotional hook.

To really pull off Greenberg would require a lead performance from a master actor. The actor it stars is . . . Ben Stiller.

Like warriors themselves, you will be left to sort through a jumble of emotions: pride and sorrow, bitterness and gratitude. [09 Feb 2007, p.43]

Cinema Sabaya, a quietly affecting little film about unexpected connections and unseen sorrows, shimmers with a bright optimism about how people might overlook one another’s differences if only they took a little time to learn about each other.

Mr. Birney’s exotically low-fi imagination makes for a freaky and feverish trip.

Caper movies rely heavily on how well they build plausibility into the doings of professional scam artists, but Emily the Criminal scores poorly on that front.

Gritty visuals and a strong central performance elevate the routine crime story at the heart of Sweden's Easy Money, a sort of mash-up of "Goodfellas" and "The Great Gatsby."

Porno plus Parkinson's don't quite add up to sexy fun.

Just Before I Go is a “Garden State” retread in which filthy jokes gradually cede ground to sentimental slush.

In these days when flat-out comedy features are scarce, it’s one of the most welcome tenants at the summer multiplex. A mid-movie snowman gag puts the new one over the top, bestowing on it the honor of being mentionable alongside its predecessors. It sets the lunacy level to “inspired.”

The bad news about the Ennio Morricone documentary Ennio is its length: 2 1/2 hours. Far too short!

Unfortunately, the script by Zach Baylin doesn’t do an adequate job of making either side of these cat-and-mouse games thrilling.

This small movie carries great allegorical weight as it echoes the Manson Family, the long list of failed utopian communes that culminated in Bolshevism and the one-child policy that in China has prevented the births of untold numbers of girls.

It’s photographically yummy, heaving with sun-dappled vistas and four-star dining. The boys float around a bit in the sea and enjoy homemade pasta while trundling out their impressions of, say, Marlon Brando.

Mr. Hausmann-Stokes hopes to keep the movie darkly comic until pivoting to a final, emotional payoff, but the mawkish late scenes are even more inept than the supposedly funny ones, as the director stages tearful hugs accompanied by soapy attempts at emotional dialogue.

Shot through with ’60s London energy, illuminating on several fronts and featuring bits of many great Who tracks, the film is nevertheless a mess that should be taught in film schools to illustrate how not to edit a documentary.

Calls to mind Grandpa taking out his dentures and trying to put on a comedy monster show for little kids at Halloween: When he tries to be scary, he's goofy, but when he tries to be goofy, he's scary.

"Dark World” is low-stakes, low-emotion, lowbrow.

The climate-change documentary Time To Choose makes the disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow” look like a model of judiciousness and restraint.

Everything plays out exactly as you'd expect in a cheerful, well-meaning movie in the style of something made for the Disney channel.

There are several adorable musical numbers that make excellent use of Adams. Segel's dancing is . . . well, he reminded me of a huge star: Big Bird.

Alas, “sad case” is not how we want to see McCarthy; it’s frustrating to see her spend more than half the movie being the pathetic target of jokes rather than the dominating figure she was in “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat,” both of which are far funnier than this one.

So why does the Democratic Party hate him so much? The answer, as this valuable (if blatantly pro-Nader) documentary makes clear, is hypocrisy.

The second half, though, is chilling, as the trio’s actions come into sharp, painful focus. Too bad Reichardt has no ending.

Like its subject, a lawsuit that is expected to go on for another 10 years, Crude has no ending. This is the perfect ending for this Goliath versus Goliath documentary about powerful personal-injury lawyers taking on a powerful corporation.

The first “John Wick” was taut and nasty, a potent slug of B-movie. This one is so enamored of its own extravagance that, on more than one occasion, I was reminded of “Zoolander 2.”

You could say the 3-D animated kidpic How To Train Your Dragon is "Avatar" for simpletons. But that title is already taken, by "Avatar."

Civil War is superficially silly—Mr. Garland writes himself into a trap in one tense scene and gets out of it with an absurd moment of action-hero gusto that is, as presented, not possible—but it’s also deeply silly. It’s a statement movie that contains no insights at all.

The movie could -- should -- be a symphony, and it frequently makes excellent use of spare classical music. When Brosnan pipes up, he is as welcome as a car alarm.

It’s a small movie, but in his third feature, indie writer-director Chad Hartigan proves he is a major talent, imbuing the interactions with wit and warmth and charm.

Frustrating, at times agonizing, the film is nonetheless dappled with a sad beauty. It’s one of the best documentaries of the year.

After the first two “Captain America” entries, the finest comic-book movies of the last five years, this one is disappointing. The story doesn’t make sense.

Spits out enough scares and twists to maintain our interest, but the film's psycho-sociological layer is almost as cheesy and unconvincing as its low-rent action scenes.

Poison Friends deftly sketches the fine line - is there one? - between "critic" and "loser."

Nutty as The Lego Batman Movie is in conception, it’s nifty in execution.

As with "Capturing the Friedmans," the documentary is grueling to sit through. Yet the greasy, guilty thrill of being privy to your neighbors' most intimate dramas makes it impossible to stop watching.

For those who can tolerate—or better yet, relish—extreme violence, The Equalizer 3 is diverting enough. If the script is so-so, the beautiful Italian locations, Mr. Washington’s still-world-class charm and an eerie, frightening musical score by Marcelo Zarvos lift it (slightly) above average for the action-thriller genre.

A film such as this one ought to present a portrait that feels in some sense true and also make viewers so engaged that they’re hungry to learn more about the subject. Suffused with youthful passion and a deepening sensation of onrushing doom, Ms. O’Connor’s film heartily succeeds on both counts.

Even those who find Ms. Wilkerson’s thesis convincing are likely to concede that it is more at home in the library than at the multiplex. Many others will find Origin confusing and dry.

Though Ms. Bigelow includes a few humanizing and even humorous touches . . . she is not interested in the imperatives of the action movie or the moral lesson. She simply lays out one nauseatingly possible future, which means A House of Dynamite is one of the most terrifying movies ever made, but not in a fun way.

Even at a supposed celebration, the well-bred and well-off aren't really happy at all. So the title is ironic. Thanks for that profound insight.

Neither bad enough to be a complete waste of time nor good enough to remember past next Tuesday, the film co-written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie staples together one routine action piece after another with cutesy dialogue and lots of merciless pounding away at iPad screens.

Mr. Bellocchio, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Susanna Nicchiarelli, has crafted a weighty, suspenseful family drama that touches on the eternal conflicts of religion but widens into a consideration of law, personal development and power politics.

A great big snowy pleasure with an emotionally gripping core, brilliant Broadway-style songs and a crafty plot.

Life, Animated oversimplifies the situation, contriving to use endless clips from Disney movies to make a case that movie magic really can better people’s lives. Unfortunately, by the end of the movie it’s clear that Disney can’t help Owen negotiate sex, breakups or many other challenges he faces as an adult.

The movie is trying to do far too much and doesn't do anything well. "Ambitious" isn't the word here; "random" is more like it.

A combination of whimsy and devastation.

The silliness of Moore's oeuvre is so self-evident that being able to spot it is not liberal or conservative, either; it's a basic intelligence test, like the ability to match square peg with square hole. His documentaries are political slapstick that could have been made by a third Farrelly brother or a fourth Stooge.

The documentary Tabloid shows that an oddball lead character and a smirky style do not necessarily add up to a complete movie.

It’s a hefty, substantial, at times dizzying experience despite lacking some elements that might have elevated it to the highest levels of its form.

This is a fine idea for a PSA TV commercial, but (a) they already did it back in the ’70s and (b) it goes on well past the 30-second mark.