Mick LaSalle

There’s also a lightness in the tone that yet allows for real emotion and impressive performances. Maggie’s Plan doesn’t quite transcend the limits of the romantic comedy genre, but it pushes at them.

Easily could have been mildly funny and phony but instead is really funny and true to life.

If you can find a better time at the movies this year than this wild comic thriller, let me in on it.

This is an excellent comedy, and the fact that it's made by a filmmaker with even better movies on his resume is nothing to hold against it.

With Desplechin, it doesn't ever feel as though he's straining to show us things. It's more like we're just hanging out. We're in this house, and by some strange coincidence, every time we turn around, something interesting is happening.

It’s a somber, serious experience that won’t appeal to everybody, but it’s quite smart and will keep you guessing until its last seconds.

Snags on the fact that neither story depicted -- not Kaufman's and especially not Orlean's -- is enough to sustain more than an incidental interest.

An amusing bauble.

Deep Cover is a sleazy crime picture and a peculiar and twisted moral journey. It's also a terrific movie, and once you trace its lineage you begin to see why.[15 Apr 1992, p.E1]

The film holds us rapt not through narrative suspense but through the eerie and demanding spectacle of profound moral courage, of a powerless good person in collision with absolute evil.

The Instigators is unremarkable but consistently amusing, and makes you feel like everyone showed up at the set expecting a party.

A nonstop action picture with a fair amount of laughs, car chases and exploding buildings. [15 May 1992]

This is an important movie, but it’s not a perfect one. It has one enormous flaw, and it’s a testament to the smartness of the writing and the inherent fascination of its viewpoint that it doesn’t wreck the experience: Director Justin Simien doesn’t know how to shape scenes or pull performances from his actors.

"Alita” is an action movie, and some of that is who-cares. But the bigger thing about this film is that it makes us think about humanness, what it means, what it is, and what it might be in the future.

A smooth, elegiac mood piece.

The Devil All the Time is really a portrait of a place, told through the lives of several people across a span of about a dozen years, and the thing that makes it interesting — from start to finish — is that this place is so brutal and appalling and unexpected in its various cruelties that we cannot stop watching.

Salma Hayek stands out in a comic role as the hitman’s impossibly vulgar, assertive wife. It’s also worth noting that there are lots of car chases here, and they actually aren’t boring. That qualifies as a rare achievement.

It's nothing you'd ever want to put yourself through twice, and yet it's effective in the moment. Shrewdly prefabricated and yet lovingly assembled, it is, in short, the most beautifully made cynical thing I've ever seen.

Underlying the story is sadness, a sense of mystery and a quality of pain. Enjoy the movie for its surface pleasures, but when it's over, it's those subterranean qualities that will keep it lingering in the mind.

War Game is one of the more timely and disturbing movies of recent months.

It would be nice if there were more movies like this, but few have the talent to make them this well — to take a human scale story and make it feel, not bigger than life, but as grand-scale as life actually is.

Though Craven satirizes horror cliches, he also knows how to cut through them and do new things. Throughout, the action comes unexpectedly and quickly.

As is appropriate in a well-crafted and meticulous movie, the acting is strong down the line.

The result is a gutsy little picture and a nice slice of life.

There is plenty that’s wrong with it, and there’s plenty that’s right with it. But the truth is, in the moment, no one is balancing pros and cons. I just loved it. It’s a film that combines an overall feeling of modernity and relevance with the glow of old-time glamour.

As played by Douglas, he is a man with a free flow from his spirit through the instrument. It's instinctive. He becomes involved with two women, and this is where the movie could become hokey, but it doesn't. [12 Jun 2005]

The important thing is that Clark has found a new way to be creepy, which isn't easy. In the process he has created something irresistibly watchable, the kind of original piece that might mean less but reveal more than its creator intended.

Here and there, there are moments when the energy dips, but what carries the film from scene to scene are the truthful performances and the genuineness of the storytelling.

It’s also a film with horrific shots of open graves. By all means see it if you have the inclination, but do be aware of the experience you’re letting yourself in for.

Pike’s Colvin is brave, but she’s not tough, and, scene by scene, she reveals more and gives more than she probably means to.

The Rodriguez segment is terrific; the Tarantino one long-winded and juvenile.

It's hard to sell people on a movie about grief, but A Single Man deserves recognition for being about something real that usually goes unexplored: The grief from which there really can be no return.

Because Gyllenhaal is a more complicated actor than Swayze, and more comically adept, the new “Road House” has more humor and more attention to the peculiarities of the central character.

By the time it ends, Mendes has built within the audience an intense desire to see the men’s message successfully delivered, and like a true dramatist, Mendes milks it for every drop of tension. He does not blow his big finish.

I might be tempted to vote DiCaprio best actor — or at least to propose a new category be inaugurated, the acting equivalent of the Purple Heart.

Has a lot going for it -- but too much going against it to be a clear-cut winner.

It's dreary and self-indulgent but has its crystalline moments.

To see Perfect Stranger is to wish for a more sophisticated vehicle for a film actress this good, but actors -- and audiences -- take what they can get. This is better than most.

A particularly strong family drama, and the Icelandic setting helps, adding a touch of the exotic.

Leaf applies a documentarian’s dispassion to the telling of this fictional story, and to a large extent that works. One of the virtues of documentaries is also a virtue of this narrative feature — it depicts a kind of person who usually doesn’t get movies made about her and tells the world her story with respect and empathy.

This is Baumbach's best yet.

This is the most realistic film about teaching that you're ever likely to see.

If anything is better about the sequel than the original, it's Leslie Nielsen, as deadpan as ever, but looking more relaxed than before, mugging and playing up his jokes with the subtlety and timing of an accomplished comedian -- which, at this point, I suppose he is. [28 June 1991, p.F1]

An ideal vehicle for Aubrey Plaza, in that it taps into everything we know she can do and challenges her to do other things that she hasn’t done before.

Taken as a whole, Bandits is a success, a two-hour entertainment that floats along, stumbling into various genres, discovering its moments.

Uncharted isn’t a classic, but for an action movie coming out in the doldrums of February, it’s practically Citizen Kane.

Earns its emotional moments, and it takes the audience along.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One may not be a great movie, but it’s a special movie deserving of its own kind of event and worth appreciating. Only Tom Cruise makes movies like this, and you either understand why this is pretty wonderful or you should give yourself the chance to find out why.

An appealing Hollywood satire.

It's original and poetic, and if you see it you will probably remember scenes from it a year from now, because it's not really like anything else. It's very much its own thing.

All Hollywood and no Homer, but within its limits, it's a vigorous, entertaining movie.

With any other actor, All of Us Strangers was bound to be an emotional film, but Scott has a way of going down to the nerve endings. He makes the movie into something raw and deep.

A risky, foolish, intelligent comedy.

An unusual and imaginative romantic comedy that takes the central idea of “Groundhog Day” and builds on it.

Oh, Hi! is that rare case, a movie that’s engaging and interesting moment by moment, but everything else is wrong with it.

A rare reminder from movies that the grand emotions are not only for the young and the middle-aged. They're the sweetness and torment of life until the last light goes out.

It’s fascinating to return to this movie after many years. [2024 Restored Version]

Pure fun and worth seeing if you want to laugh.

So here’s the case of a movie that is, in every way, nothing special — except for the way it’s made and how it’s done.

Basically, The Gunman is a movie that asks audiences to sympathize with the equivalent of Lee Harvey Oswald — that is, an Oswald who definitely did it. Oddly enough, it succeeds, partly because the moral climate it presents seems so confused, but mainly because of Penn’s particular aura of irascible integrity. He’s the most irritated action hero since Harrison Ford.

A superior sports movie, dealing honestly with a great American story.

200 Cigarettes doesn't have a bad scene or a false note. The picture is a succession of pointed little moments, nicely written by Shana Larsen and acted with comic assurance and sensitivity.

It’s not a movie that will make you tired, but lack of ambition can sometimes be a strength. This is a comedy-thriller made simply to please in the moment, and it does, for almost every minute of its 100-minute running time.

The Green Knight is a strange film — so out of step with current trends, so original in its conception, so willing to take its time and follow its own course — that it must be counted among the better films of 2021.

CODA is lovely. If you want to see a movie that will make you feel good, this is it.

The Lady is a portrait in moral and physical courage, a sort of analysis of what constitutes greatness.

Sexy, peculiar and always entertaining.

Though Hauser and Sweeney can’t exactly save the movie, they keep it from derailing.

It's a compelling minimalist drama about spiritual evolution, with strong performances and exotic locations.

It's no masterpiece. In fact, it's not even all that good. But it has that great character in it -- Falstaff, or in this case, a thinly veiled Vito Corleone -- so it's something to see. [27 July 1990, p.E1]

For a little while The Client seems as though it's going to be a battle of wits between the two lawyers played by Sarandon and Jones. The interplay between the two is the best thing about the movie. [20 July 1994, p.E1]

In a way, the new Carrie is almost too easy to enjoy. Everything discordant and all the nagging weirdness and strange feelings surrounding the original have been smoothed down, and what we're left with is a well-made, highly satisfying and not particularly deep high school revenge movie.

While Dark Blue may not be easy to watch, it's exceptionally well made.

Amour is also unforgettable and one of a kind, two hours of torment that, in the end, you will probably not regret.

It has nothing going for it but a terrific story and an amazing performance by Judith Ivey, who plays an enigmatic Good Samaritan.

Field is at her best, downtrodden and determined as ever, and Sheila Rosenthal as Mahtob, Betty and Moody's little daughter, is adorable. [11 Jan 1991, p.E1]

L’Attesa — also known as “The Wait” — is atmospheric and moody, serious and full of portent; and if it weren’t so good, it would probably be unbearable.

One's enjoyment of The Fairy depends a lot on knowing why it's worth seeing. It's a comedy with two or three big laughs, but it's not side-splitting. Nor does it have a particularly compelling story. Its appeal is rather in watching people who have devised their own original style of comic performance and have taken it to a rare level of refinement.

Again like Chabrol, Fontaine has a way of making you laugh, on and off, for 90 minutes, before leaving you feeling a little queasy from too much truth.

The Well Digger's Daughter is old-fashioned in the best sense, almost cozy in its conventions.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League may not be a great film, but it has the madness, strangeness and obsessiveness of a real work of art.

Has some great movie moments but also boring stretches.

Funny how there are fans of Jennifer Lawrence who will never see her in Serena. It’s not her best film, but it contains one of her best performances, in a role that challenges her more than any other.

It’s not a combination most of us would’ve thought of, but Stewart and Binoche bring out the best in each other.

Wicked Little Letters is for people who like British comedy, but also for people who think British comedies are too refined for their taste. This one isn’t. It’s crude and outrageous enough to appeal to modern American audiences.

It’s a school shooting movie for this particular moment and plays like a dispatch from the front lines. It’s past trying to figure out what these tragedies mean. It just wants to explore how a person might assimilate such a trauma and go forward in life.

There's no attempt at greatness here, just a fabulously successful attempt at a good crime movie. The Oscar-bait self-consciousness of "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator" is gone. In its place is a buoyancy, an impish delight in telling a harsh urban story in the most effective terms possible.

Like the best love stories, funny or otherwise, this movie also recognizes that being in love is an education, and that, if people are lucky, they choose the right teacher.

Coco Chanel is not the most lovable of heroines, but it's a strength of the film that director Anne Fontaine allows Tautou to make Coco as cold and ungiving as she does.

Most of life is melodramatic — emotional, involving and lacking the dignity of straight drama. 3 Hearts is life as felt from the inside.

The film is a fascinating look at how a true event can become a media event — and how courting the media can have good and bad results so mixed up that it’s hard to know where the good influence stops and the corrupting influence starts.

The result is a worthy woman's film and Jolie's best showcase to date.

The movie captures something that we missed on this side of the Atlantic. The British public’s obsession with Diana was unrelenting. Every move she made became occasion for analysis — most of it idiotic — on the endless string of talk shows they have over there.

It matches up two comic actors and instead of clashing or canceling each other out, they bring in the best possible result: A comedy with twice the laughs.

A complicated and stylish Korean thriller that will make viewers' skin crawl.

The details feel authentic: The empty Paris streets, the profanation of German anti-aircraft guns atop belle epoque buildings. And Devaivre's adventures provide high tension.

Uncut Gems remains, from start to finish, a tale told about an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. By the time it’s all over, nothing is exactly what you might feel. But Sandler and Fox give it the humanity the Safdies wanted there. The movie needed it and got it from the actors.

Though The Concert swerves and skids, it never goes off the road, and when the moment counts, when things really make a difference, the film comes through beautifully.

The lively setting helps, but the main attration here is the familiar story, which has been around forever and yet never gets old.

Maggie Q has been in good movies before, but The Protégé is the first movie that’s good because she’s in it.

A sci-fi movie that actually has intelligent things to say about science — that’s all too rare. It’s what we get in Ex Machina.

The Social Dilemma should be mandatory viewing for everyone who has a social media account. After seeing it, you may look at your phone differently, as something that isn’t really your friend.

Rarely has a movie ever captured the importance of a writer’s having unbroken concentration in order to work.

It's a movie filled with surprises, including one outright kick in the head that qualifies as one of the biggest movie moments of 1992. [18 Dec 1992]

The right mix of humor and horror and with not even a shred of sentimentality.

The film is notable as the first English-language role of Peter Lorre, who is creepily appealing as the leader of the conspiracy. [03 Feb 2013, p.Q19]

By the way, Danny Collins is inspired by the true story of Steve Tilston, a British musician who received a 1971 letter from John Lennon some 30 years after it was written. The gist of the letter was about the same, but all the characters and circumstances are creations of the filmmaker.

Family Business has star power going for it, and all three names above the title get the job done. [15 Dec 1989, p.E1]

At times, Harriet is a little too romantic — never quite schmaltzy — but it feels like a movie perhaps a bit more than it should. Still, it’s effective and, at times, moving, and it has a major asset in Erivo.

As entertaining an action movie as you're going to find. [13 Apr 1991, p.C3]

Under the subdued, dignified surface, this movie - about the 24 hours after a one-night stand - churns with a filmmaker's fascination and wonder, sadness and longing.

An engaging romantic comedy that's deeper, smarter and more pessimistic than it appears at first glance, a film with shrewd insight into the mysteries of human attraction.

As in “The Wrestler,” Aronofsky presents us with a protagonist whose physical appearance is forbidding, and then shows us their delicacy of spirit. He films Charlie’s home with just a hint of the macabre, which serves as a counterbalance to any whiff of sentimentality in the script. The Whale doesn’t make a lunge for your emotions. It earns them.

So this is a very worthy movie, not that this will hold any sway with illness-phobes, who’d rather stare at the wall for 105 minutes than see a good movie about sickness.

Green Border has the directness and truth of a documentary and the emotional immediacy of a narrative feature.

It's a likable action picture that's fun and entertaining even when it's a bit silly. [16 Mar 1990, p.E1]

Charlotte Rampling goes for broke as a sexually rapacious older woman. So does Ally Sheedy as a rich woman. They're memorable, and yet equally satisfying is Ciaran Hinds' sadness and restraint as a paroled sex offender with deviancy in the blood.

A good French film that was inspired by an American classic.

Lights Out presents actual characters that are interesting, that have rough edges, that act like real people, not victims in waiting.

Under the cover of what seems like a charmingly slapdash style, the Duplass brothers have created a disarmingly shrewd movie.

Pacino and Crowe are at their best, but the supporting cast also shines.

If “Remarkably Bright Creatures” only had that magnificent octopus going for it, it would be halfway to a good movie. But the human characters are interesting, as well, showing the stresses of the different stages of life.

In dramatic terms, Spiderhead is mostly a face-off between Hemsworth’s irresistible force and Teller’s immovable object. It offers the pleasure of watching two actors, just coming into their full powers, going at it full-bore, moment by moment. And each makes the other’s performance better.

Taps into the same emotional current that sustains the entire "buddy picture" genre, but does so with feeling and unmistakable insight.

An enjoyable movie with an entertaining angle on a hard-to-resist period of history.

A rambling documentary that freely moves back and forth through time but maintains interest and cohesion by virtue of its subject. The more you watch Lewis, the more fascinating he gets.

To see this film is to understand — not in an intellectual way, but in a direct, visceral way — why the British ignored the threat of Adolf Hitler for so long.

The complicated truth is that the Internet’s dangers are entwined with its pleasures, the allure of instant fame, the illusion of contact with masses of people. Nerve is the first movie to capture all that, and the result is a successful and memorable thriller.

Dead-on hilarious.

Object to the picture on ideological grounds, if you like, but that's no way to watch movies. Better to appreciate the rare spectacle of a filmmaker leading from his gut.

The magnificence of Weisz’s performance — yes, it’s another magnificent performance from Rachel Weisz — is that she is never hiding anything, beyond what a 19th century woman might conceal out of polite reserve. In her every moment on screen, she is an open book. We’re just not seeing all her pages.

It isn’t exciting, because such movies never are. Rather, it is consistently, calmly and compellingly interesting, not the story of a crime but about the process of revealing it.

It’s funnier than most Austen adaptations and more visually beautiful, and then there’s the movie’s odd tone, which combines a rigorous attention to period detail with an arch and seemingly modern sensibility.

Both curious from a cultural perspective and refreshing.

Call Jane doesn’t depict a radical transformation, just a deepening. And Banks makes it worth watching.

The film is filled with unintentional laughs and with other moments that are simply jaw-droppingly absurd, either for the histrionic acting, the dated style of writing, the pseudo-science or just the spectacle of evil in pigtails. One could easily make the case that the movie is simply awful. Yet everything dated and peculiar about it is fascinating and does not detract -- it may even enhance -- the fun of the central premise. [05 Sep 2004, p.28]

It’s maybe not one of the best movies of 2022, but it was certainly one of my favorites.

An entertaining slice of American political and cultural history.

This summer's comic gem.

Yes, eventually, after about 100 minutes, it does default back to the usual nonsense, of protracted superhero battles in which no one can get hurt, and of commotion that makes a movie screen seem like a very big computer monitor. But until then, Shazam! is sensitive, imaginative and funny, with a good story and a smart premise.

A very funny French comedy of a variety that usually doesn't make its way here.

It tells a simple story - an almost archetypal story - but it does so with a lot of passion and technical sophistication.

A fairly wonderful movie about fathers and sons and the mystery of time.

An audacious film, set in contemporary Marseille.

This is a superior and assured action movie, a quality product that makes the case for a franchise.

Creed II can’t be new this time out, but it does prove that the characters and relationships introduced in the first movie have staying power. People can keep making these movies and no one will mind.

Like “It Ends with Us,” which was also based on a Colleen Hoover novel, “Reminders of Him” is a movie whose willingness to be deeply unpleasant saves it from becoming a soap opera.

Even good stories are never quite like a movie, and to its credit McFarland, USA doesn’t try hard to be like a movie. It tries to be something like life.

The movie is alive from beginning to end, and it's a pleasure to see at least one big-name director get out of the prison of his own reputation.

At times The Game is frustrating to watch, but that's just a measure of how well Fincher succeeds in putting us in his hero's shoes.

If you have any fear of heights, The Aeronauts is one of the most excruciating movie experiences since “The Walk” (2015), which replicated Philippe Petit’s high-wire stunt between the World Trade Center towers in 1974.

In every kids' picture, there are going to be sections that only kids will enjoy. Fortunately, 102 Dalmatians has enough for the adults, too.

If The Square has a point — and it probably has several — it’s that the visceral aspect of life cannot be fully suppressed and shouldn’t be denied.

Even when it's hard to follow, it looks good. The undersea action is visually convincing, and Ramius' submarine, with all its rooms and compartments, is always believable. The moonlit photography in the picture's final scene is stunning. [2 Mar 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

What audiences want when they go to a suspense thriller.

Unless you're a fan of Fishbone, Everyday Sunshine is probably just a documentary about a band you've never heard of, whose music you probably will not like. But there's a bigger and more interesting subject at work in this film. It's a movie about what it's like to almost make it in the music business, but not really, not quite. It's about coming close and watching it slip away.

Funny throughout, but with a handful of really hilarious moments.

An inspired and funny vampire comedy, one that’s more than just a smart premise but that remains fun and inventive from beginning to end.

Edge of Tomorrow covers familiar ground with unexpected wit and economy, and the result is a thoroughly entertaining sci-fi fantasy.

Remains exciting, even as we laugh at the amateur-night antics of the women.

A rich and elegant film, full of sly, devious characters with complicated motives.

Taking place mostly over the course of a single day, it’s a smart and languorous film that finds time to luxuriate in conversations and to create a feeling for small-town American life.

As a work of art, the movie is merely on the bright side of OK. But as a vehicle for an emerging star, as a platform to show one actress in a variety of modes and moods, within a sympathetic and glamorous context, it couldn’t be better.

Ultimately lacks the narrative muscle that could have made it great. But it does have McDormand, who is great in this, her best showcase since "Fargo."

An action sci-fi blockbuster extravaganza that provides cartoon thrills for thinking people. It's the best movie of its kind since the second "Spider-Man" movie four years ago.

The possibilities of Jenna's confusion are exploited for full comic effect. Garner, who turns out to be a charming, abandoned comedian, makes Jenna's incredulousness and innocence very funny and occasionally even touching.

Audiences looking for a nonstop laugh riot may be disappointed, but the big laughs are there, and they benefit from the movie's underlying sincerity.

The only weakness of the movie is that, because it’s a true story, it can’t rearrange the order of events for maximum drama. Thus, what is essentially the climax of the film comes about three quarters in, and the rest of it, while never less than interesting, feels like falling action. The good news is that Sweeney and Kirby get their best scenes, respectively, in this last section of the movie.

(Washington) raises it to the level of importance with an acting job that's one unbroken chain of intense emotion.

A funny and appropriately skewed comedy.

A real surprise. It seems to promise an exploitative genre movie, about gangsters and drug deals, and it delivers on that, but it’s something more. Director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocet have taken a Mexican thriller, with a female victim at its center, and have turned it into an intelligent feminist film.

Visceral and strong.

It’s a funny movie, but it’s also one in which Schumer becomes truly legible, as someone who could be headlining comedies for the next decade or more.

Harry Brown has more to say, about aging, about old-school courtesy in collision with blind stupid violence, and about how sometimes pensioners on a fixed income get stuck in neighborhoods that turn dangerous.

The best glimpse yet of what it's like to be in Iraq.

Bergman has not gone soft, not emotionally, philosophically and certainly not artistically. This is as tough a film as he has ever made.

Either Shelton knows this world well, or he's such a great bluffer it doesn't matter.

One of the most original thrillers of the 1980s. It's a lurid, twisted film that brings you into its world and completely works you over.

A smart and literate effort with a few weaknesses.

The resulting film has some wrong notes and touches of preciousness, but mostly it's a moving and effective presentation of life under Nazism, as seen from an unusual angle.

At heart this is a thoughtful, well-made movie about something serious.

Don't believe the weak coming-attractions trailer. The inspired pairing of Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy makes for a successful action comedy.

A smart, nicely paced crime drama, with colorful characters, compelling situations and an assured style. [17 Apr 1993, p.C3]

Audiences watch Summer Hours and then, a week later, remember it as though they've lived it.

By tossing out all these voices and opinions, Lee and screenwriter Reggie Rock Blythewood have created both a time capsule and a movie audiences will talk about.

With Pavarotti, director Ron Howard serves up a straightforward documentary about the great tenor’s life and career. It’s just a birth-to-death saga, featuring interviews with colleagues and loved ones and a catalogue of greatest hits, so nothing fancy here. But if you can find a better way to spend two hours, take it — I’ll stick with this.

There's just nothing artful about it, and it's Greengrass who deserves the credit. These nonactors don't act the way most people do when playing themselves. They act the way people do when they're being themselves.

The tribute to an aging parent is moving and gives this routine comedy an extra something.

Truth is a journalism horror story, something like “All the President’s Men” but with the wrong ending and plenty of blame on all sides. It is one of the most frustrating speak-truth-to-power tales ever put onscreen, because it dares to show how that usually works out: Power wins. Big.

The Lost Boys is a horror movie that's funny without making fun of itself and scary without trying to make you sick. [31 Jul 1987, p.86]

Less subtle than its predecessor, Tomboy is like a pint-size "Boys Don't Cry," and as such, it's practically unique.

[Streep] isa pleasure to watch -- and to marvel at -- every second she's onscreen.

Capable of astonishing even the already cynical.

In terms of story and atmosphere and overall feeling, Cars 2 is a brand-new experience - and a distinct improvement.

Suffice it to say, the issues here are bigger than one woman's story.

Transamerica provides the frame and the occasion for one of the year's best performances, Felicity Huffman's as a woman trapped in a man's body who's passing for female while awaiting a sex-change operation.

It’s a satisfying drama that inverts the usual way of building interest and suspense. Instead of wondering what’s going to happen, we sit with the knowledge and wait for every character to react to what we already know.

Despite the fact that both protagonists are equally appalling, the screenplay seems to have a soft spot for the woman. However, this doesn't take away from the fun of watching the two characters tear each other to pieces.

Though an estimable success overall, The Return of the King has several scenes too many and too great a concentration on battles.

All [Tarantino] has to do is trim a full hour out of "Vol. 1" and a half hour out of Vol. 2, combine what's left and he'll have something not just amusing and idiosyncratic, but outstanding.

In a sense, Jacobs has made a movie about sex that’s not about sex at all. We often hear about “sexual sublimation,” but The Lovers depicts the reverse, which is probably more common, in which sexual adventure becomes the most available substitute for cherished lost dreams.

If there's one big difference between this version and the old, it's in the attitude toward violence. The new version may be more graphic, but it doesn't present violence as inevitable or necessary, just ugly.

From its first minutes, Mid-August Lunch establishes a special tone and quality that could only be Italian. It's a mixture of warmth and gentle farce, tender observation and absurdity.

Bottaro finds ways to dramatize chess, and the environments are fascinating throughout.

Has a high-gloss, heightened style reminiscent of that of the film's executive producer, Joel Schumacher.

If you went by the coming attractions and the advertisements, you might expect a predictable romance pitched on the level of a TV sitcom. But Untamed Heart is a movie of rare sweetness. [12 Feb 1993, p.D1]

Quartet is buoyed by the Scottish charm of Billy Connolly, as a lovable flirt and extrovert - he is a delight and also a locus of truth in every scene he's in.

The good news about Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of the Fitzgerald masterpiece is that he doesn't use the novel as a mere pretext for his own visual invention, but genuinely tries to capture the Fitzgeraldian spirit, and for the most part, despite some vulgar lapses, he succeeds.

That the movie succeeds as thoroughly as it does -- getting deeper and creepier as it goes along -- is evidence of a far-seeing creative imagination. Nolan is a compelling new talent.

The documentary shows Buck over the course of a year, as he travels and teaches. Along the way, Robert Redford is interviewed about Buck's contribution to "The Horse Whisperer" (1998). Redford likes him, so he can't be a phony.

As it stands, her music gets under your skin and makes you feel good - and the movie makes you feel good about Katy Perry.

Juror #2 is very much the work of an engaged, sensitive director — a series of tight, focused scenes informed by strong performances. There’s something classical about it, old-fashioned in the best way, like a 1974 Coupe de Ville or a 1962 Buick Electra. It’s a smooth, solid ride.

A warm comic story that's fairly engaging even when no one is singing.

Sirens is affectionate toward its characters without getting gushy or softheaded. [11 March 1994, p.C5]

In the new film, War for the Planet of the Apes — the best of the series, by far — the series’ viewpoint comes into focus, and it’s a lot more intricate and enlightened than some unthinking death wish.

Seeing his life from the inside, the impulse to judge him fades. You would not want to trade places.

It's a winning little movie about two people who get together, though they have no business getting together.

The across-the-board strong performances indicate a sure directorial hand. Everyone is made vivid, down to the smallest roles.

Sparks' strengths include not just a powerful voice but also a radiant niceness, and that becomes part of the story.

Ultimately, the con we witness in the movie is almost as beautiful as the con that is the movie -- believable in the moment, too irresistible to question upon reflection and executed with invigorating confidence.

To be sure, Steve Jobs has its own integrity as the story of the young innovator, but it’s a little like making a movie about Thomas Edison and stopping somewhere between the phonograph and the lightbulb.

Our Friend is both a tribute to a friend and to those rare people that are too humble to realize their own wisdom.

There’s a mood, a feeling about life, that pervades Nocturnal Animals, one that’s expressed in visual terms.

The Substitute is a guilty pleasure, but it's not garbage. Berenger brings to the role an appealing ruggedness and world-weariness, and Ernie Hudson, as the corrupt principal, is sleazy and elegant. The script isn't bad, either.

A sly comedy starring Henry Kendall and Joan Barry, about a newly rich couple who go a little crazy on an ocean liner. The witty script was co-written by Alma Reville, Hitchcock's wife and lifelong collaborator. [18 Feb 2007, p.26]

Whatever the intention, Somewhere, in its odd, detached way, is compelling viewing.

At all times, the audience believes that it's watching something that really could happen.

This may be hard to believe, but Bride of Chucky is a smart little horror movie. The fourth installment in the "Child's Play" series has a sense of its own silliness -- and a tight plot that provides a clothesline for a string of funny, macabre murders.

Even more nihilistic and confused than "Narc," and yet a lot better. It's better for some specific and interesting reasons.

Mamma Mia! is fun, the music's terrific and the cast is appealing.

Harrowing but compassionate.

The Wolverine shows that, while originality would be nice, a little novelty and enthusiasm in the presentation of the familiar can be quite enough.

Prisoner’s Daughter is, in a way, a simple movie. It’s also a cleverly (perhaps unconsciously) disguised version of John Wayne’s swan song, “The Shootist.” It’s one of those movies that you’ll enjoy as it goes along, only to realize, a day or two later, that it was even better than you thought.

Sympathy for the Devil does the two things that every good Nicolas Cage movie must do: It gives him license to be manic, but it also gives him a realistic context in which his mania can delight and surprise.

The movie’s one flaw, a notable one, is that the first hour is better than the second. The first is jaw-dropping. In the second half, the film slow downs somewhat, but by then, the audience is hooked into the movie’s reality, so there’s no turning away.

There are too many somber interludes with nothing going on but an acoustic guitar echoing over the soundtrack, the spareness of the score suggesting the emptiness of the characters' lives.

The phrase "lesbian comedy" is not exactly an oxymoron, but April's Shower is still a rarity, an expansive, talky and often zany romantic farce, with lesbian characters at its center.

What truly propels the film is the growing realization, through both the script and Sweeney’s performance, that Christy isn’t an ordinary person blessed with an extraordinary gift. Rather, she’s an extraordinary person whose very life force is awe-inspiring.

The world here is so ugly that only beautiful tracking shots, rich close-ups and adroit handheld work could make it bearable.

Neeson’s last few action flicks may have been just for fans, but Retribution is for everybody.

This is responsive, engaged filmmaking, the kind of movie they say Americans don't make.

The best we can hope to get from a movie of this kind is an interesting story, a hint of the artist’s work, some factual accuracy and surfaces that make sense. We get that from Mapplethorpe. And while Smith can’t show us Mapplethorpe’s depths, he can suggest them, enough so that, if anyone wants to know more, they can consult the ultimate source — Mapplethorpe’s own work.

Intends to inspire outrage, and to an extent it succeeds.

In “France,” Dumont has not created a commentary on modern life, so don’t approach the movie looking for that. He’s made a movie about the consequences of modern life for one person, a portrait of contemporary mores as seen from the inside.

This is one light comedy whose seriousness, hours later, lingers in the mind.

It is a satisfying but thoroughly idiotic film, in which relationships make no sense, character motivations change on a dime, and Tom Hanks has weird hair. But brainless as it is, it’s artful. It is a well-made bit of silliness, a piece of construction optimally designed to maintain audience interest while garnering absolutely no one’s respect.

A personal story with broad implications for the culture as a whole.

Harris saw this brave new world more than a decade ago - and liked what he saw. To watch We Live in Public is to wonder if the world we live in is just a reflection of one man's neurosis - if Harris's mix of emotional distance and rabid self-promotion has simply gone viral.

To the extent that it's original, The Mechanic is insane, bordering on gloriously insane.

Has some hilarious moments and still succeeds in dramatic terms.

In the most extreme moments, Thomas hits her career pinnacle.

Here's the thing: This movie would be easy to mock as maudlin and self-important, but there's something about it that can't be dismissed. The monologues may be theatrical and presentational - director Anne Emond made this film when she was 29 and too young to be subtle.

The young actresses are superb, and they make an appealing, believable group of friends.

It's a buoyant comedy with more warmth and generosity of spirit than anything else in theaters right now.

This is a solid, three-star movie, but its premise is brilliant and unforgettable. [21 May 2017, p.Q45]

As Zimbardo, Billy Crudup adopts an implacable facade, and for a while we don’t know what we’re seeing — a humanitarian on the brink of discovery, an ambitious monster who has found the winning ticket, or a young professor in way over his head.

After devising a sturdy frame for Neeson’s special brand of sorrowful mayhem, the filmmakers expertly fill in Run All Night with a series of charged action scenes, including a rare one in which Neeson chases after a cop car, instead of the other way around.

Barely 20 years old at the time of filming, Pugh has a surface poise and an inner turbulence, a capacity to command the screen with the spectacle of her watching and thinking. The last time something like Pugh happened, she was called Kate Winslet, and the movie was “Heavenly Creatures.”

It’s giving away nothing to say that the answers here are a mix of good news and bad news.

An inventive, black comedy.

It's as if he has been trying to express something, or to make his own particular kind of good movie, for 10 whole years. Now he has.

A powerful document of cruelty and sadism.

Clever and enjoyable.

While Wilde captures its subject's singular charm, it ultimately doesn't do justice to his complexity.

The story is on the weak side, and many of the jokes are just a bit flat. And yet there are enough cute bits and special-effects surprises that it will probably be worth people's while, especially if they intended to see the movie in the first place. [22 Nov 1991, p.C1]

So much love went into Hustle & Flow that it almost glows with it.