Lawrence Toppman

Once every couple of years, a movie comes along to remind us how satisfyingly complex the genre can be. Christopher Nolan’s reimagining of the “Batman” saga did that masterfully. On a slightly less ambitious scale, so does X-Men: Days of Future Past.

It's a pleasant but insubstantial excuse for a film.

The technical side of Baadasssss! far surpasses that of "Sweetback," and re-created scenes from the 1971 film look much better in the son's hands than they did in the father's.

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

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

[I] enjoyed McQuarrie’s ingenuity in construction, smiled occasionally at the jokes and admired Ferguson’s performance as the most interesting femme fatale in the series.

This may be yet another variation on the usual coming-of-age/sisterhood themes so familiar in Disney movies, but who does those better?

The film remains sadly profound and profoundly sad, yet it holds just enough humor to lighten a weighty subject without trivializing it.

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

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

Nothing in the longer Frankenweenie is new.

The most sophisticated and satisfying ghost story on film since "The Sixth Sense."

Nolan’s tale is not only a trip through mental labyrinths but a reminder that memories may cripple us, unless we learn to let them go.

Whedon wants to make a Serenity trilogy, and I suspect the actors will grow on me if he does. In this case, familiarity would breed not contempt but comfort.

Besides its title, the movie has retained the book's outline...But the film throws away the point of the book completely.

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.

This is a game of numbers, not personalities, and a shrewd man wants the bigger numbers on his side when historians pick up their pens.

By the end, you'll be chilled and disturbed by what you've seen -- and, rare as this is in a horror movie, touched to the heart.

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.

Except for moments of labored symbolism and a too cozy ending, the movie stays sharply focused on its well-chosen targets.

Proves eye-opening in two ways: Sweeping, bloody battles will make your orbs pop, and you'll re-evaluate this supposedly “uncivilized” man who unified quarrelsome Central Asian tribes to create one of the largest empires in history.

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.

Starts as sweetly impossible and ends as impossibly sweet.

Examines Muslim family's religious warfare.

Goes down easily enough.

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.

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.

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