Lawrence Toppman

Anonymous is fun – if you take the anti-Shakespearean tale as events set in an unreal, alternate universe.

Bogdanovich adds touches to appeal to serious film fans.

Will Ferrell strides through Elf like a crazily cheerful wind-up toy: arms swinging, legs stiff, mouth fixed in an impossibly happy grin, eyes wide with wonder. He's the Christmas gift nobody thought to ask for but everybody will want to play with.

This loose, slightly lazy sequel is both funnier than the original and more bizarre.

Nobody smells of sagebrush, campfire coffee, tobacco (smoked or chewed) and saddle soap like Duvall.

Bardem delivers the kind of performance the director might have given himself: subdued, thoughtful, wry, sometimes a bit too detached.

Hanks gives one of his least showy and most credible performances.

The movie comes off as Zootopia without social commentary or nearly as much imagination.

One of those rare action comedies that actually delivers action and comedy.

The film whirls by in a satisfying torrent of chases, escapes and discoveries.

It warms the heart in the hands of such sensitive storytellers.

He presides over the picture with such assurance that even longtime Denzel-watchers gape.

If it were 10 minutes shorter, it would've been just the right length and almost wholly honest.

MacDowell gives an uneven performance, as she often does, but Strathairn is ideally cast as the conflicted husband.

Stallone doesn't pander to audiences with unearned sentiment. He believes in his story, in the inspirational element that has sent thousands of folks running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art over 30 years.

It pays homage to the genre's most glorious days.

All his facets come through: the satirist, the prankster, the self-described political conservative with libertarian leanings, the anti-authoritarian who urged people to vote, the man tolerant of anything except intolerance.

That dragon represents the best and worst things about the film. He’s terrifying yet slightly droll.

If you don’t confuse this with history – or with the French film “Marguerite,” a fictional piece loosely based on FFJ – you’ll come away touched. That’s mostly because of Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant.

I was a little disappointed by the cop-out ending, in which debut director Gil Kenan gives up the film's frightening elements and comforts the audience with comedy and superficial emotion.

This installment substitutes psychological action for physical thrills.

The balance between human interaction and mechanical mayhem works well until the end, when flying suits and exploding bodies fill the screen.

The movie remains quiet and deliberate, a synonym for “boring” in some minds (though not mine). In the end, it becomes an allegory for the times in which we live.

If the cast were less likeable, the predictability of the story might become wearisome. (Of course, it’s not likely to be predictable if you’re 9.) But all the actors, especially young Fegley and Laurence, engage us.

Someone in most Farrelly movies deserves the Good Sport Award; here it's split between Meryl Streep, who befriends Walt in a long cameo as herself, and Eva Mendes, who plays Walt's galpal in a way that mocks perceptions of her as a well-endowed ninny. Cher should get a share of this prize.

Director Michael William Gordon and writer Jim Davis give us a hopeful feeling about Logan without insisting on solving all his problems – or insisting that God will solve them for him.

The grandest presence here is Eastwood. His directing, like his acting, is minimal: unhurried, spare, unforced, rather somber.

The filmmakers fall back on melodrama fairly often.... Yet there’s freshness in the storytelling.

Bullock and Reeves have an unusual kind of charisma, one that works best when they're apart. Though the filmmakers sometimes put them in the same frame for visual ease, they mostly occupy different times.

Elvis & Nixon offers an entertaining meditation on the how and the why leading up to this famously strange photo.

The movie gives actors many chances to shine, and they do. But I went away most impressed with Verbinski.

One of those movies that sticks to your mind like a briar to wool slacks. It has no revelations, no high drama, no heartbreaking tragedy. What it does have is bone-deep honesty, and that's enough for once.

Could pass for any serial killer movie except for some pertinent philosophizing about the nature of evil and the operations of the soul.

Hoffman and Harwood aren't afraid to show us old people who are rude, demanding, unreasonable and foolish, though the final overall mood remains blissful. Hoffman might have more to say as a director, if anyone in Hollywood cares to find out.

The acting is so exact and the timing so crisp that it delivers precisely the satisfaction you'd anticipate.

Intermission is like a creme brulee, invigoratingly grainy when you bite into it but sweet and soft underneath. Director John Crowley and writer Mark O'Rowe infuse this Irish crime drama with such adrenaline that you don't realize how lightweight it is until after it's over.

You'll depart with memories of a well-crafted study in quiet horror, and with ideas whirling in your head about the nature of evil and what happens to children caught in its grip.

A sweet, innocent look at an impossibly idealized high school world.

Given a choice between this and the navel-gazing of the novel, I'll take the short ride on a fast machine.

It honors the tone of that wonderful comedy while setting it in present-day New York City.

Foggy allegories and misty metaphors.

[Jarmusch's] most accessible film after "Night on Earth," yet it's still elliptical and enigmatic.

It's about black athletes, and they swim. It's as reassuringly uplifting as its predecessors, but the African-American and aquatic elements set it pleasantly apart.

The director is a cinematic equivalent of his subject, but a man who was able to reach middle age and examine that culture's good and bad points with a clear, detached mind.

The director mixes the colors of his palette carefully. He uses (but never overuses) slow-motion, aerial shots, extreme close-ups and quick cuts, avoiding any self-consciously “stylish” display. He varies the pace of scenes and the angle of shots enough to keep the movie flowing, but we never feel we’re watching someone show us how clever he is.

Gripping, improbable plot marked by exciting sequences of action.

The Fords give us old-fashioned predators: Zombies shuffle slowly, silently, patiently forward, as implacably destructive as Time itself. Meanwhile, the Fords play off our memories from books, TV news and other movies.

Blessedly, the kernel of the writing remains undisturbed, and its arguments are still powerful.

Like waves lapping quietly at a beach, After Life makes its subtle effect, as we wonder which memory we'd choose. [8 Oct 1999, p.7E]

The movie Night Watch is - oh hell, I don't know what it is. Imaginative. A mess. A small miracle, if really filmed for $5 million. (Although in rubles, that's probably a huge budget.) The first Russian horror movie I've seen. The first horror movie I've seen of any kind with subtitles.

The story has overtones of “On the Waterfront.”

A wild, self-indulgent but completely captivating extravagance.

Even if you don’t get the references, you can enjoy the ripely robust acting – especially Russell, Jackson and Leigh – and Tarantino’s storytelling skill. I could have done without the bad-boy excesses, which always seem like the mark of his immaturity, but the rest of the film comes from a mature and capable artist.

The movie takes countless liberties, including the addition of the 13-year-old girl. But authenticity doesn't matter much; we're watching a fairy tale about trust, maturity and beating the odds, and those plot threads are woven tightly together. [13 Sep 1996, p.6E]

Stuff yourself with popcorn, let the gray matter rest and enjoy what may be the best two hours of nonsense you'll see this year.

Fire shows what happens when a government systematically denies rights to one racial group for decades, but its message is more current.

At the center of the film lies a moral question, not a literary one: Should Ginsberg abandon the potentially visionary Carr when he turns out to be a liar, an exploiter and an emotional traitor? Should he, in fact, “kill his darling” when Carr commits a heinous act and asks Ginsberg to lie for him?

A pretty good movie. It just isn't a very good "Sleuth," exactly.

Watchable family films are so rare these days that we shouldn't put a stake through one with so much heart.

Both the good and bad remind us that the most special thing about "Skull" is the man wearing the fedora and the rakish grin. He has never worn out his welcome, and this valedictory – it can be nothing else – is a fitting one.

A picture that gallops forward as soon as it breaks out of the gate. Anyone with an open mind and curiosity about history might enjoy it.

Alfred Molina makes an excellent foil as the easygoing, philandering Rivera, whose public murals were the exact opposite of Frida's private canvases.

A movie that's smarter than its trailer - in fact, totally different in tone and content? That's news, and it's why The Break-Up is a pleasant surprise to the open-minded.

The filmmakers have a vision of the way Shakespeare can be made vibrant and vital to modern viewers, with or without the lofty original dialogue.

Wandering, atmospheric, episodic yet strangely appealing story of love.

Atmosphere is the main virtue with which this "Devil" can tempt us.

It mocks folk musicians of the 1960s, who could sometimes be full of hot air. It also acknowledges that protests 40 years ago, often spearheaded by bards and balladeers, blew much-needed fresh air into post-Eisenhower society.

This isn't a film noir, but it hovers in the shadows of that genre of discontent and disillusionment.

Ides can't be said to enlighten any but the naive, and it's not likely to shock us into positive political action So what pleasure can we get from this movie? Quite a bit, as it happens.

The new version of The Ladykillers is like an able forger's copy of a masterpiece. The brushstrokes are broader, the colors are a little less subtle, and one or two portions of the canvas were finished in a hurry. But it's well worth a look if you're passing by.

The cheesier it got, the more I liked it.

Smith dominates the film. He captures the upright stance, slightly stiff movements and lilting accent of a highly educated African who realizes he doesn’t understand America, and America doesn’t understand him.

A perverse kind of payback for every terrorizing cabbie, bullying streetwalker, insulting bike messenger and screaming corner grocer in Manhattan.

Director David Yates, who did the last four “Harry Potter” films, delivers both big thrills at the climax and small, spooky ones when Tarzan and the others move through a world of beauty, terror and mystery.

As in “Restrepo,” we never have the sense that Junger makes judgments. Near the end, soldiers in their 20s say their bonds with other servicemen run immeasurably deep, and they never expect to have relationships this meaningful with anyone else again.

A terrific thriller...until it turns into yet another Wes Craven movie.

Brice stops his story just before it becomes redundant – most filmmakers these days can’t say that – and although I didn’t believe the outrageous next-to-last scene, he caps it with a laugh-out-loud joke.

For the first time since "Chasing Amy," I realized why people like Ben Affleck.

Unlike its subject, "Henderson" breaks no new ground. But like its reliable star, it's a welcome exponent of a valued tradition.

Fuqua and his writers, Alex Lasker and Patrick Cirillo, have delivered not only the most satisfying and plausible action movie in months but one that's accidentally timely.

It's as pitiless and brutal as any of their pictures and funnier than any except "Raising Arizona."

16 Blocks is a burger movie, served by an old pro: 76-year-old director Richard Donner, who hasn't done work this interesting since the other Bush was president but who knows his way around a thriller.

Call it "Talladega Ice," and you can be nearly certain whether or not you want to see it.

Any critic likes to predict the rise of a star, so let me introduce you to Gina Prince-Bythewood.

The movie has been shot with love and wisdom, and its implausible premise doesn't get in the way of a sweetness and honesty too rarely seen.

At its best, the movie powerfully indicts our violent history. A montage of bloody U.S. interventions in foreign affairs over the last half-century, most overthrowing elected governments we didn't like, left me shaken.

The temptation to soften Grandma, to sentimentalize her character or sweeten her encounters with people she has cast aside over a long life, must have been almost irresistible. Luckily, writer-director Paul Weitz resisted it.

An honest, basic story set forth with brevity, skill, care and intelligence.

The best thing about the picture is Harry's new maturity: For the first time, he dominates a picture named for him.

Another surefire sports biography from Disney.

If you’re worried that the re-teaming of Clooney and Cate Blanchett in a World War II movie signals something like “The Good German,” fear not: She’s better here, playing a French art historian who worries the Americans will “rescue” the art in order to steal it for their own country.

Don Cheadle dominates Miles Ahead.

Martin Scorsese understands one character better than any other American director: the man who rises in the world to wealth or prominence without attaining what he wants most. That's why Howard Hughes is an ideal subject for this director.

Laughter trumps logic here, and the laughs flow freely.

The two actors are at their best when Emma and Dexter get emotionally naked. It's mildly enjoyable to listen to the self-deprecating banter people use to conceal anxieties, but we connect to them most deeply when they bare their souls.

The deliberate editing and quirky cinematography (both done by Cahill) sometimes seem at odds with each other but never get in the way of the story's honesty.

Scafaria doesn’t solve everyone’s problems or end with a miraculous change of mind or heart. She writes credible situations...and characters in whom we can believe.

An unforced, sweet-natured story about people who find small ways to touch others and rediscover the good in themselves.