Lawrence Toppman

The film’s well-paced and well-acted, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it most of the way. I faltered as projectile followed projectile and explosion topped explosion, yet even then the excitement held up.

It offers razor-sharp editing, first-rate performances, direction that yields maximum emotional effect and a flabby, unconvincing screenplay.

Exactly the right length. That sounds like faint praise, but isn't it rare? Many movies drag past the points where they should stop; others end abruptly, leaving you to wonder at things unexplained or unconcluded.

Wheeler and director Lasse Hallstrom don't want us to take anything too seriously.

The honesty of the performances more than makes up for slight amounts of hokiness in the telling.

Hanna's a memorable creation, a girl who carries danger with her like a plague.

Cash made some untamed, exhilarating sounds in its formative days. Walk the Line is strongest when it shows him in love with either his music or his muse.

It plucks ceaselessly at our heartstrings to play a sad song indeed.

People talk non-stop at lightning speed, often while walking. The action sequences, underpinned by a loud and soppy symphonic score, actually provide a sense of respite, as Gojira methodically levels buildings and patiently releases streams of fire from his crimson throat.

Blanchett is riveting.

The two leads don't have sexual chemistry together, but that's part of the point.

What could have been an all-occasion Hallmark card turns out to be an emotionally genuine love letter to a young man who transformed the town of Anderson, S.C., in the 1970s.

This combination of tightly controlled farce and gross-out comedy works unexpectedly well, until the filmmakers lose their nerve at last and settle for cozy homilies. Still, four-fifths of a rarity is about twice as much as studios deliver nowadays.

The results have the Coens' usual tartness most of the way, before turning soft and gooey at the center.

It really gets gloomy.

I never thought I'd crack up watching a family mourn the death of a beloved daughter. But I've never seen a film quite like The Host, and that's far from the most bizarre thing in it.

Carrey rolls his eyes and waggles his arms, and Leoni keeps up with him while pushing less hard. He externalizes, she internalizes, and the balance works as it might in a good marriage.

As usual, Almodovar finds unusual camera angles to break up the straightforward storytelling. But for the first time I recall, not a single male character is crucial to his story, and no actor has a leading role. You won't miss them.

The movie indicts exclusion and racial hierarchy without finding villains inside that system.

The energy never lets up, and two committed, unfussy leading actors are an improvement over other summer flicks.

This good-humored bonding story emphasizes the actresses’ gifts, rather than their gender.

Most of the movie feels like a loose, sometimes improvised lark among friends.

One of the rare action films that needed to be longer. Then changes in mood wouldn't be so abrupt, and director Peter Berg and writers Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan would've had more time to reveal things we want to know.

Ang Lee adds to the mythology with the sweet, gentle Taking Woodstock.

So wild an approach demands straightforward performances that don't draw attention to themselves, and that's what the actors supply.

Watching them, you realize how far computers still have to go in accurately depicting the play of muscles as beasts run, crouch and leap. Though Annaud doesn't cut to them for cute reaction shots, as weak directors do, the tigers show near-human fears and affections.

The 23-year-old Evans has been acting just four years, and his near-anonymity makes him well-cast: He's an Everyslacker breezing through life in Santa Monica, the kind of guy who could turn into a hero under the right circumstances or remain a zero the rest of his life.

The Son's Room refers to every room this family will inhabit for a long time -- he's an unseen, ubiquitous presence -- but they may learn to lead ordinary, even joyful lives again.

Muschietti does an excellent job of revealing just enough about Mama as we go along (and just enough of Mama herself) to show he's in control of this genre.

The real surprise is not that the high-strung Key and grounded Peele have rapport – their sketches demonstrate that – but that it can be used to anchor a full-length comedy.

The film isn't quite as striking as its star, but it's just as honest.

The whole movie has a matter-of-factness that extends not just to the final photographic montage but the last line of dialogue. We can’t ask for more from this genre, and we often get much less.

A thriller that's frequently implausible but almost always thoughtful. It asks us to rethink the way we see Muslims

The big names in the cast add atmosphere in small doses, especially when Haysbert and Glover combine.

This fairy-tale quality gives director Clooney, who's making his debut behind the camera, his stylistic clue. He's in perfect sync with writer Kaufman; they treat even the most "serious" scenes like Monty Python routines.

Without Essel, this might have been a run-of-the-mill dark comedy. With the 86-year-old British thespian, it's a wickedly funny and audacious movie in which she puts her capable co-stars in the shade.

This is one of the few recent westerns that requires you to keep your eyes open and memory engaged.

Most of Meet the Robinsons plays like a movie made by ADD adults for ADD children.

Soderbergh and writer Ted Griffin added plot twists that will catch you off-guard, dumped the clever ending and worked in a love story that's as superfluous as elevator shoes on Shaquille O'Neal.

The picture's consistently entertaining and, though it has few brilliant comic peaks, it never plunges into boring valleys.

Whedon has made a superb template of an action film.

The lack of attacks lets us concentrate on emotions rather than explosions.

Jackson imposes a sense of grandeur but mostly loses Tolkien's sense of fun.

Plusses and minuses work out about evenly, if you compare the sequel to "Sorcerer's Stone." The three young leads act with more assurance; Radcliffe emerges as a leader, rather than one leg of a triangle. (Too bad he no longer expects to make all seven of the proposed pictures.)

Gilbert sets up a rhythm, telling the story in short scenes that proceed at a relaxed pace. The film never hurries, but it moves forward constantly. [26 Jun 1998, p.10E]

Bay's movie couldn't be more timely; whatever you think about this subject, you might admire his attempt to come to grips with it in a summer blockbuster.

Mottola also wrote the screenplay, which is most fresh and honest when dealing with supporting characters.

Only in the last half-hour do the usual Emmerich absurdities pile up: I laughed outright at the character who, past 65 and diagnosed with a massive brain tumor that will kill him within months, cannot be stopped by a ferocious beating, being stabbed in the neck with a sharp implement, then being crushed against a wall by an SUV moving at a minimum of 30 mph.

Would you feel anxiety or remorse if you pulled the trigger on Osama bin Laden, however satisfying or even necessary it might be? Munich argues that finding him in our rifle sights would leave any of us a different person.

A Kafkaesque series of interwoven stories that depict the hopeless lives half the populace there (Iran) must lead.

A smooth, often funny, occasionally thoughtful romantic comedy.

Director Christopher Nolan, who wrote the script with brother Jonathan, gets so many of the big things right that I wished they had taken more time with the little ones.

Director Guy Ritchie, who wasn’t born when the TV show debuted in 1964, cleverly captures the elements that made it a success.

Like the story, Kline builds in intensity: He has no flowery speeches that would be untrue to his character, but he leaves a clear impression of a man who values knowledge and the imparting of it above all else.

“Blood” may carry us into the past, but the unhappy effects linger today, like pollution darkening a sky that never turned completely blue.

Worthwhile IMAX look at the ways nations cooperated to build Space Station Destiny, and what they hope to achieve.

The casting of Daniels, Tyson and Saint, all of whom underplay effortlessly, was shrewd.

Defies logic, the laws of physics and almost anyone's willingness to believe in it. But darned if it doesn't also keep us riveted to our seats.

Like virtually all fish stories, it's discursive, funny, full of boasting, a suspect mix of truth and lies with an emphasis on the latter.

Lawrence plus latex equals laughs.

It takes place on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and it offers an undeniable argument that life without love is unpalatable on either side.

For all the silliness, Kaufman is posing a serious question: Are we better off forgetting things that brought us pain, especially if we didn't change or grow as a result? You may not agree with his conclusion, but who else in Hollywood would pose this query at all, or explore it in such a daffy, gratifyingly inventive way?

I can’t think of a single situation where Kelly Fremon Craig, who makes her feature debut as a writer-director, takes us to a place we haven’t often been. Yet she lays out her heroine’s dilemmas with good humor and understanding.

Eisele and Washington lacked faith in their material. So they've made the big debate opponent not USC but Harvard, a more clear-cut epitome of the white world of privilege that has to face the hard truths of racial equality.

Despite juggled storytelling, the movie's compelling.

Slight, enjoyable comedy.

The most radical thing about the movie, the thing that may make it most appealing to modern audiences, is that the filmmakers say both sides are right.

You'll respect him more as an actor if you see this film – and you should, even if you haven't enjoyed the action movies he's made over two decades.

To enjoy it, you have to make a leap of faith wide enough to sail over a Grand Canyon of disbelief.

Grant handles the slapstick humor gracefully and speaks his lines with sincerity and warmth.

The actors do well, with Brosnan playing a kind of James Bond who has fallen into seediness and shady dealings. Bell carries her weight in the emotional scenes and the battles, and Wilson proves (as he occasionally has) that he can do more than be a laid-back comic foil.

Formulaic, yes. Settled with as many reconciliations and promises of happiness as “A Christmas Carol,” absolutely. But a familiar pleasure, nonetheless.

Edward Norton's a more evocative actor than Eric Bana, and he supplies all the emotions required by Leterrier and writer Zak Penn.

The film’s fast, amusing, good-looking and not overlong, which is all sensible non-geeks ask of such movies.

Has its own peculiar, loose-knit kind of charm.

Overlong, entertaining, sense-assaulting drama.

Vaughn delivers every line with his usual deadpan glibness, which suits the part. But I smiled as I watched the big-bellied, multi-chinned actor connecting with the porcelain, model-thin Witherspoon.

Heartfelt, if rather repetitive, documentary.

Remains gripping until the final 15 minutes, when a series of sudden, unjustified plot twists leave us shaking our heads.

State-of-the-art.

Lee pulled me into this coming-of-age story as if it were mine; there's a universal quality to his nostalgia that might satisfy anybody, whether you grew up hearing Beethoven or "Boogie Oogie Oogie."

An unrepentantly rude, anti-seasonal dish of malice and mischief. Director Terry Zwigoff works from a story that originated with the Coen brothers and passed through at least four writers, including him...The results may leave you aghast or breathless with laughter, but you won't be neutral.

A middlebrow hybrid that should satisfy most fans of spy movies without blowing them away.

The Coen brothers have never really accepted the idea that a movie has to have a plot. Offbeat characters, sure. Oblique dialogue that sounds meaningful and occasionally is so, absolutely. Eye-catching cinematography and a subtle, mood-reinforcing soundtrack, no question. Irony layered on thickly as cheese in good lasagna, yes. But a narrative that makes sense from end to end? Well, one doesn't have room for everything.

It's funny, in a can't-look-away-from-the-train-wreck way, and it's brutally honest. But it's not pretty.

The movie has entertaining cameos, too, especially one by Holly Robinson Peete. At 23, she played Officer Judy Hoffs on the TV show. At 48, she plays … Officer Judy Hoffs, the oldest undercover cop on Jump Street. Absurd? Of course. But pretty funny, too.

Historians at Ellis Island estimate nearly half of all Americans had at least one ancestor pass through there between 1892 and 1954.

However much Underworld recycles elements from other films, it carries us into a well-constructed, convincingly scary world worth visiting.

Writer-director Patty Jenkins makes an impressive debut, showing savvy that often eludes old pros.

Director Ken Kwapis uses those monster infants perfectly, down to a funny final outtake.

For once, I didn't feel cheated by an unresolved ending, but let's hope this is the end. Robert Ludlum wrote three Bourne novels, and this is one series that ought not to be dishonored by inferior sequels.

[A] warmhearted, conventional and irresistible dramedy.

The comedy, which verges on farce from time to time, also has the smilingly cynical approach to romance that we identify with the French.

Fiennes isn’t naturally an outgoing performer, and he’s playing the most extroverted author in English history. So he does his best work in intimate moments, when Dickens finds himself at a loss for words.

On first acquaintance, Seabiscuit seems to be about anything but horse racing: the disappearance of the American frontier after 1910, our love affair with automotive speed, the passing of a rural way of life, homelessness during the Depression.

De Palma makes us sweat; slow, quiet scenes are as nerve-bending as occasional explosions and the final, frantic battle. He calls himself a director for hire on projects such as this and "The Untouchables," where he has little input before shooting. But his skill at maintaining tension is his main asset, and he uses it to the max here. [24 May 1996, p.1E]

The movie has four significant virtues, principally its cast.

One of the best things about real Americans is that we can stand criticism. Informed or idiotic, scholarly or superficial, it's all welcome.

If you want a glimpse of a damaged mind and a thorough look at an artist’s healthier psyche, you’ll be satisfied.

The Witch is a horrifying film, one unique in my experience.

By the end, Wilbur becomes an unusually complicated character: We empathize with his suffering, find his selfishness appalling, enjoy his gloomy wit and frank self-appraisal.

The first two-thirds are classic science fiction, technologically plausible and emotionally resonant. It's only when God enters the picture that things slide downhill.

Kasdan ends up with an intellectually dishonest movie about intellectual dishonesty.

The first movie I'd have enjoyed more asleep. That's not because it put me to sleep, but because it may be the most dreamlike film I've ever seen.

That's why Forgetting Sarah Marshall, shorter than "Knocked Up" and more focused than "Superbad," tops all other Apatow productions so far.

The Soloist does have the courage to be true to the real Ayers' fate at last, after the exaggerations end. And the smart, hard-working Foxx and Downey ensure that their scenes all stay grittily honest.

If movies were still silent, Girl With a Pearl Earring would be a near-masterpiece.

His (Branagh) Thor has more complex characters than the usual "Transformers"-style melee; though that may not be what the readers of Marvel comics now want, it satisfied me most of the time.

(Ford and Thomas) give Random Hearts muscle when the story turns flabby, spine where it sags, wings where it threatens to stay earthbound.

I felt depressed when I realized all 87 minutes had passed without one word about forgiving sin or reaching out to the image of God in neighbors who don't think as you do.

Another whirling crime caper that leaves you shocked and chuckling at the same time.

Three-fourths of a terrific thriller, which in this dreary run of winter movies seemed like clear spring water to this parched traveler. The setup is so riveting, the suspense so carefully prolonged, that I didn't mind when it unraveled into lunacy near the end.

Nair and screenwriters Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet and Julian Fellowes have faithfully carried most of the main characters over from the novel but have changed its point of view.

Pattison grows on us as he grows on Bella: His weird mannerisms and nervous delivery stop seeming like quirks and acquire an intensity that's hard to resist by the end.

Reminds me of the golden retriever that lived next door long ago: endearing, consistently sweet-natured, ready for a brisk turn around familiar territory as long as no strenuous intellectual demands are ever made.

The film works best among the beasts. Their training is impeccable, their emotions are palpable, and almost all of their behavior is credible. One "Jaws"-like encounter sends a carnivorous leopard seal after a fleeing canine, and it's as tense as anything I hope to see this spring.

As warm and reassuring as grandma's hugs.

Malcolm Lee's brilliant documentary about American race relations.

The filmmakers do everything they can to balance levity and leavening. The subject says "drama," and the three supporting women deliver well-shaded, understated performances. (Howard shows us how weakness can be just as destructive as malice.)

Watchmen is a fitting tribute to Alan Moore's fascinating graphic novel, even if he refused to let his name be used in the credits.

The film contains the usual Moore plusses and minuses, now familiar to anyone who's watched even one of his films.

Because the tale is straightforward and conventional, it needed and got terrific acting.

Part of the film's failure to arouse real horror is the languid direction; not enough seems to be at stake emotionally.

Characters in Breillat's movies often make sex their god, lose faith in it, then find their lives hollow and grim. Bergman wouldn't have been so concerned with bodily woes, but he'd have understood.

A handsome tribute to an era as quaintly distant as tail-fin Chevrolets and A-bomb scares.

I predict Northfork will give you food for reflection or a case of the hives. I stopped scratching 20 minutes into the movie, settled into its lulling rhythm and floated away into the Polish brothers' flaky, austere dreamworld.

Pavich gives the Chilean-born Jodorowski his full say in the documentary, partly in Spanish and partly in expressive if slightly fractured English.

Mangold has been smart or fortunate in casting, and personalities sustain interest even when the narrative flags.

Sitting through Source Code is like watching a chef coax a beautiful soufflé into perfect shape for 80 minutes, then drop a bowling ball on it.

Chuck and Buck: A fungus among us.

For certain movies, the adjectives "formulaic" and "predictable" are complimentary. War Horse is one of them.

Here’s a paradox: The millions of people who have read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are the panting target audience for the Swedish-language film adaptation. Yet they’re also likeliest to be disappointed by this carefully crafted drama, while people who haven’t read the book are likely to enjoy the movie and wonder what the literary fuss is about.

Denzel Washington doesn’t demonstrate how great he is with first-rate scripts such as “Flight.” He does it by elevating sophisticated pulp like The Equalizer to a higher level.

Wes Anderson's movies taste that way to me. They're dryly funny, well-acted, never less than quirkily entertaining. But they're never more, either.

By the end, a Zen-like calm that might be mistaken for stasis settles over the story. But these lives move forward slowly, inexorably, and they move us, too.

Most importantly, Shut Up & Sing is about what happens in the music industry to people who won't.

300 is a huge step forward in visually sophisticated storytelling.

There may not be much meat in Hodges' stew, but the sauce was so tasty I felt satisfied after the light meal.

Director Fede Alvarez (who did the “Evil Dead” remake) masterfully sustains a little more than an hour of shocks. Eventually, though, he resorts to the ideas lazy or unobservant filmmakers employ.

The documentary stays entirely within the corporate world of record sales, which may seem an airless atmosphere to someone who never haunted such joints. Yet the movie gradually expands to give us a somewhat larger picture of the music business.

The story might have worked as well without that stick-in-the-craw coincidence, which was inserted to maximize the horrors of Nawal's past.

Neuwirth vamps up a storm: She's like some silent-screen hellion sending lust rays out of bemused eyes.

It's a thoughtful, multi-layered film that falls a bit short of its goals on all fronts. Fans of intellectually challenging science fiction and/or Robin Williams will make up most of its market.

Fans expecting horror won't want a thought-provoking, well-acted courtroom drama about the intersection of religious belief and the law.

If the spate of action movies must continue, especially at Christmas, let more be like "Daylight." [6 Dec 1996, p.13E]

At the heart of the film, beyond the human/crawler conflict, is the suppressed tension between Sarah and Juno. That Marshall bothered to include such a fillip sets him apart from run-of-the-mill scaremongers; it makes me want to see what else he's done and will do.

Though the movie short-changes us emotionally, it delivers a credible, disheartening picture of greed and panic.

The best vampire movie I've seen in years.

What Levine does have is a gently gruesome way of amusing us, converting the uneasiness of a wooer from another species into the everyday anxieties of a young man around a girl he likes.

This coming-of-age portion is the less interesting half, though it has the more interesting Michael. We have seen Fiennes play an emotionally detached introvert so often that he brings nothing new to the role, apt though he is.

Lynch does "explain" what's happening via a plot twist two-thirds of the way through "Drive," which will satisfy you (as it did me) or leave you asking, "Is that all there is?"

A scathing, scurrilous, sometimes silly but often searching comedy about the nature of faith in the 21st century.

Mirren simply is, and she takes Hitchcock up a notch with every look and line.

Fans of their grossest stuff needn't fear: The Farrellys are still the guys who put the last three letters in "crass," and their potty humor was too extreme for me once or twice.

Juuso, who made her film debut at 22 in this movie, is spunky and funny. The two guys play off each other like bickering old pals, and so they are: They and the director have worked together on three movies and a TV show over the last decade.

This isn’t a history lesson. It’s pure entertainment, an excuse for good actors to romp through a twisting, well-told tale.

The British actor, best known as Loki in the “Thor” and “Avengers” series, disappears into the character’s skinny body and twangy voice.

Hollywood hardly ever pays attention to such people, and the average moviegoer won't either. But Leigh makes an irrefutable claim that their lives matter, and that attention must be paid.

One of those documentaries about a family train wreck that makes you wonder how people consented to have their tawdry laundry washed so publicly.

Carrera directs with a light touch, letting the screenplay speak for itself.

The sunshine in Sunshine comes from women around him (Fiennes).

It's gay in the old-fashioned sense, a giddy whirl for the senses, from chilly English drawing rooms to lush Neverland jungle. It's innocent in believing love banishes all ills, even physical ones, and inspires unthinkable heroism.

This picture won't attract white audiences. I doubt that blacks would flock to a Jerry Seinfeld concert film. But we'd all get along better if we realized we had the right to laugh at each other's foibles

There’s not much new to The Infiltrator – perhaps nothing, except the setting of the climax – but the vintage stuff is satisfying.

The film doesn't lose its way emotionally; it's full of great monologues about loss and responsibility.

The movie doesn't need to preach a "we're all equal" message. When we watch the boys bond with their new kin over food or music, then see the lines of Palestinians plodding through armed checkpoints to reach jobs or visit Israeli friends, we get the point.

The Rookie is "Rudy" in a baseball uniform.

Greenwood, whose range has carried him from the lonely widower of "The Sweet Hereafter" to the creepy husband of "Double Jeopardy," gives a star-making performance.

A clever blend of the high school comedy and the superhero genre.

The film's not really a whodunit or even a whoizzit, so learning his identity matters less than what happens after he reveals it. The film becomes truly French in its attitudes toward thwarted ambition and emotion, right down to an ending that may strike Americans as melodramatic.

It's made with seriousness, intelligence and craft, and filmgoers who aren't put off by the slow pace of life in 1380 should see it.

At its best, The Mist just wants to make you jump.

John Hancock must be the best filmmaker working in LaPorte County, Ind.

The movie should come with the tag line “Don't try this at home,” because the method has near-fatal pitfalls. Yet the characters' clumsy emotional growth shows us there's hope even for a stumbling father and two sons groping toward peace.

The unspoken heroes of the project are cinematographer Peter Biziou, who finds all the beauty in Cornwall's landscapes, and U.S. violinist Joshua Bell, who extracts beauty without schmaltz from every violin solo.

Whatever you feel about Truman Capote, you won't be able to turn away from him here.

Ryan Gosling's riveting as a neo-Nazi who was raised in Jewish faith

In its design, at least, Mindhunters"surpasses all other Christie knockoffs.

The planets aligned favorably, and this "Music" is sweet without cloying the appetite. It follows the meetcute-kissyface-breakup-reunion pattern of most of its kind, but the behavior seems more genuine and the situations less forced.

The movie may best be appreciated by people who know the references. All five monsters come from low-budget science fiction films of the 1950s.

These veterans realize they’re all playing cogs in the director’s plot-twisting machine.

Anyhow, I believe you would probably like this movie if you let your mind drift during the slow parts. That is easier for some of us than others, and I was thinking about my next runway project about half of the time.

Did anybody expect it to be a metaphor for modern America?

It's a smooth journey across familiar territory to a safe emotional harbor, always professional and occasionally delightful.

Ferrell's ideally suited to man-boy characters, and that's what Phil Weston is in "Kicking."

For much of the film, Jérémie comes off as sullen, then unsettled, then just creepy. Yet at the end, as he struggles to start over, he engages our pity.

Emphasizes the best element of the first one -- the half-kidding, insult-filled conversations around the shop -- and doesn't need to spend time introducing us to the characters.

Director Peter Berg and first-time writer Matthew Michael Carnahan do a smooth, efficient job of storytelling most of the way.

t’s possible to laugh at Marguerite and with her at the same time. Cover your ears at key moments, and you may even fall in love with her.

One of the opening scenes of The Accountant consists of puzzle pieces being dumped on a table, and that’s a fine metaphor for the film.... A few pieces can’t be made to fit, and two of those are big ones. (More on that in a minute.) But the rest of the story has been well-constructed, and the picture it gradually reveals keeps you guessing up to the final scene.

It's visually surrealistic, acted with integrity, so brutal in spots that I averted my eyes.

The fact that I didn't understand a film, that its ending can be interpreted at least two ways and maybe three – all likely to be "true" – usually sends me growling in disgust from the theater. But The Life Before Her Eyes has grown on me in memory.

Van Sant moves easily from dreamy, impressionistic narratives to conventional, less stylized storytelling, and he does the latter job well in Promised Land.

The book's emotional passages have the power to move us on film, while the one ridiculous coincidence near the end is still ridiculous.

Statham fans weaned on the adrenaline flowing through "The Transporter" and "Crank" may feel short-changed, but the rest of us can appreciate the unassuming, old-fashioned craftsmanship of The Bank Job, which is based on a true-life heist.

The Hulk has a split personality: Two-thirds come from director Ang Lee, one-third from '60s comic book creator Stan Lee.

The movie leaves a bunch of questions unanswered but rockets ahead in such entertaining style that I scarcely minded.

This is an extremely simple but likeable film.

Last week, the American Film Institute named "It's a Wonderful Life" the most inspiring movie in the history of the English language. The film was initially a flop, but it's now considered so perfect that nobody would dare remake it - under that title. Folks who see Click will have no trouble connecting the dots.

Seeing Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is like having a second date with the woman who made you fall in love at first sight.

The movie is based on the life of California high school teacher Erin Gruwell, played with captivating honesty by Hilary Swank, yet it feels like the usual Hollywood exaggerations.

Focus begins so elegantly, wittily and quickly that it sets up expectations it can’t quite fulfill. Yet if not every coincidence can be explained, if not every improbability gets addressed, it’s a satisfying diversion in a winter which, as usual, has too few of them.

Eastwood thrusts us into the period with an understated piano score (which he composed) and authentic production design by Henry Bumstead, who died last May after working on the film at 90. (He collaborated with Eastwood on 11 films, including the Oscar-winning "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby," and he's a dedicatee of "Flags.")

[Director Patricia Riggen] has made an old-fashioned film about brotherhood. “Old-fashioned” remains mainly a compliment here; it refers to efficient storytelling, a victory of some kind for each character (except one minor player), and English-language stars who put on accents with mixed success to play South Americans.

The movie is not credible, even in an inner-city setting. At the same time, it's touching.

Christian Bale loves to suffer on-screen. Werner Herzog loves to make people suffer on-screen. Rescue Dawn is proof they were made for each other.

Comedy comes from an exaggeration of reality, not reality itself -- and on that score, Diablo Cody's first screenplay gets high marks.

On the scale of summer action films, this is to the “Transformers” sequel what an Andy Warhol print is to a first-grader’s refrigerator painting.

The middle 90 minutes, which put Hanks alone on an island without voice-over narration or even a musical background, is as risky as anything Hollywood did this year.

For the first time in memory, the film ends not just with the promise of more Bonds but without a firm conclusion.

It's different from the usual fare in one obvious way -- most of the cast are African Americans -- and, more importantly, in its willingness to leave some problems unsolved and volatile or unhappy people unchanged.

Don't be misled by the chopsticks and cherry blossoms: Memoirs of a Geisha, for all its exotic casting and locale, is our friend "Cinderella" in a kimono.

The Martian celebrates both the indomitable human spirit and the belief that our species can, with patience and common sense, think its way out of almost any problem. If the film occasionally preaches, its message strikes home.

The presence of Robert Redford gives the character weight, if not depth, because we bring to the film everything we know about the actor from other movies. Redford’s characters have seemed unflappable for more than 40 years: sometimes cool, sometimes cocky, but almost always master of a situation. To see him beginning to flounder is to see a new Redford, one who catches us off guard.

It’s like an amusement park ride that drags inexplicably for the last hundred feet – but until then, it’s a joltingly fine journey.

Button has a wide-eyed innocence that almost never palls. It strays far from the mind of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but often enough it came near to my heart.

A rarely honest, funny movie.

The film soars in the right places, especially when powerful newcomer Jennifer Hudson sings, and the charismatic supporting cast keeps it chugging forward.

It's packed with such passion, humor, fine acting in small roles - there are no big ones - and vitality in the storytelling that the lesson comes across entertainingly.

About a guy who stood on the brink of greatness but, because of one flaw he could never overcome, had to settle for being pretty good before he faded away. Strange, then, that the movie works exactly the same way.

They've made a thrilling traditional nautical picture from untraditional books.

I knew blues music can make you feel you're not alone when your woman has gone, and rock your soul when you're on top of the world. But until I saw Black Snake Moan, I didn't know it could also cure nymphomania.

The honesty outweighs the hokiness by a fair margin.

It's mostly a disturbingly believable portrait of a psychopath whose true depths of rage are buried where none but he can see. The ironically named Plainview does not come into plain view until the last scene, and the lupine, scowling Day-Lewis is mesmerizing in the role.

It's wise, funny, honest right up to its last sadly dishonest scene, doesn't mock us more than we deserve and offers attractive women in various stages of undress.

If you liked "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," you're on safe ground here -- Next time, I'd like to see Gedeck serve up a hearty meal instead of a tasty but unfilling appetizer.

If this story has a moral -- though unlike many horror films, it doesn't seem to -- it's that humans are likelier to destroy themselves than help each other.

Melissa Leo is one of America's most underrated character actresses, and Frozen River confirms that opinion.

Deep as a Canadian lake: Below the placid surface, menacing creatures swim around unseen.

An almost perfect example of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking at its most expensive, well-calculated and safe: opulent production values, solid acting from its name star, distinguished performances from people surrounding him, Big Themes concerning sacrifice and honor, and a ridiculous finale full of superhuman achievements.

A peaceful, unforced film, and it inspires a feeling of relief and joy that's hard to describe.

Finding Dory can be described in exactly the same way as its title character: good-natured, funny, optimistic, darting from place to place, ranging from anxious to frenzied in tone, and unable to sustain an idea for more than a few moments.

All are watchable, attractive people who haven't worn out their welcomes. But if they continue to go round and round like this, they may. Aren't more African -American actors waiting in the wings to play romantic leads?

Satrapi and Parronnaud give us clues but no solution. The fun, for those of us who like fairy tales, is in guessing.

I think Foy simply wants to deliver well-gauged terror and make a few points about personal responsibility and the need to overcome our fears. That he does quite well.

The three leads all played these characters over multiple seasons on the TV show; they're comfortable in these skins, and they show that. (Confusingly, all three appeared in "City of God" under other characters' names.)

The movie feels operatic at times. Tempestuous arias play on the soundtrack, and Puccini figures directly.

Treadaway gives a restrained performance that never begs for pity but earns plenty; he shows the day-to-day difficulty of living without simple necessities while retaining hope and dignity.

A summer action movie that has a brain and doesn't let it atrophy? Fan me, I'm fainting!

This is his (Kutcher) most relaxed and sensitive work on film.

Nobody puts the "angst" in "gangster" like a European director. When the director's a Dane, you can count on gloomy, chilly visuals and deliberate pacing. And when the director is Nicolas Winding Refn, who made the "Pusher" series in his native country and "Bronson" in England, you can expect intense, often brutal spurts of violence.

It's overwrought and overplotted, but it's plenty of fun.

When "Hedge" clicks on all cylinders, Chuck Jones smiles down from heaven.

Though all but two students look too old, their interpretations are unanimously fine.

Many critics will complain about emotional manipulation, but I share Roger Ebert’s view: “Some people like to be emotionally manipulated. I do, when it’s done well.” I think “Beauty” does it well.

Its sensibility stays true to Gaiman's style: heroic, wryly funny, but bloodthirsty as great fairy tales can often be.

What makes this film appealingly honest are its details, not its grand events.

The movie holds no clear answers. Every time you think you know where it’s going, it veers. And at the end, I’m pretty sure even Tommie and Lamb – who alternately thinks he’s enriching her life or ruining it – don’t quite know what they’ve been through. But the journey seems to have been worthwhile for them and us.

Fading Gigolo, a movie as slight and tender as its leading character, leaves you feeling you’ve just seen one of the few Woody Allen movies Allen didn’t write or direct.

Its crass good humor makes it an enjoyable, reasonably faithful but over-the-top successor to the original.

If the brothers Weitzes) don't yet have a defined style, they do seem at ease with this more sophisticated material.

City Hall is more Cusack's movie than Pacino's, and he gives a more interesting performance. Cusack never reveals himself right away: With his watchful eyes and tight lips, he seems to be deciding whether he can trust the audience with his deepest thoughts. He warms up thoroughly in this Jimmy Stewart-like role, though he never gets a handle on a Louisiana accent. (Calhoun couldn't have come from Chicago, like Cusack?)[16 Feb 1996, p.1E]

Auteuil does an excellent job. He's like Marcello Mastroianni, whose naturalness also deluded people into thinking for a while that he wasn't a versatile actor.

The best movie I've seen about the Revolutionary War.

In the end, Leatherheads recalls the gloriously dated sentiments of Grantland Rice, one of that era's beloved sportswriters, expressed 17 years earlier in the poem "Alumnus Football."

Like an impressionist painting. Scrutinize it closely, and the details don't make sense individually. Step back from it to study the big picture, and it will make a sweeping effect.

And in the end, maybe the question of Dennis' origin is irrelevant. He tells David he's come to Earth to try to understand human beings, and that quest is worth a lifetime's effort -- whatever planet you call home.

A diverting and loosely connected series of episodes about the most bizarre screen family of 2004.

Guy Pearce isn’t as physically formidable as Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson in Leone’s classics, but he’s just as determined and dangerous.

If you wanted to, you could see this movie as an allegory about people who love each other but can never connect. Or maybe it’s a warning to parents who turn a blind eye to children’s failings until the family self-destructs.

Lawrence gives the same committed, heart-rending performance, and she’s even more saintly than before: The script never lets her fire an arrow except in self-defense, and she stubbornly defies Snow in public, though she knows the probable consequence is death. Hutcherson has more personality this time, yet Peeta doesn’t deepen as a character.

Writer-director Pedro Almodóvar crammed actors he’s worked with over the years into a movie so wacky it defies analysis.

A pleasant, snappy, by-the-numbers buddy comedy.

McFarlane’s at his best when he breaks new ground.... Yet too many things get repeated from “Ted.”

Just as I was starting to think of it as a “motiveless psychos terrorize rich family” movie (a la “The Purge”), it gave me good reasons to watch.