Peter Travers

You can kill the vibe of Minghella’s film with nitpicking, but Fanning rides the movie home to glory. She is simply sensational.

The rousing life that Malek brings to this extraordinary recreation deserves all the cheers it gets. Screw the film’s flaws — you don’t want to miss his performance.

Thanks to the comic tornado at its center, Isn’t It Romantic is still your best bet for a Valentine’s date at the movies. You could do worse.

Flawed? You bet, but the film of the Broadway musical about teen suicide is not the crime against humanity some claim. Yes, Ben Platt, 27 is playing a high school kid, but he inhabits the role he created on stage with every fiber of his being and hits you like a shot in the heart.

What does matter, besides the collection of deranged characters who can’t escape their limitations, is the southern-fried atmosphere so resonantly captured by DP Steven Meizler (Contagion).

The British author's wickedly twisted children's book is transferred to the Deep South in the 1960s to provide a racial diversity meant to speak to a 2020 audience with a pertinent understatement that is otherwise in short supply.

But this is Washington's show, his Scarface, if you will, and his smiling, seductive monster is a thrilling creation that gives Training Day all the bite it needs.

At 134 minutes, Grindelwald can feel like an overload of homework on which we’ll we tested later. Fine for Pottermores, but a trial for us Muggles.

Levinson wants nothing less than to capture the hope and despair of the American dream through the saga of one family — his family. It’s a grand ambition. But the film, though exquisitely crafted, lacks the political, spiritual and sociological depth to realize it. What Avalon does offer are rich period details, abundant scenes of humor and heartbreak and outstanding performances.

Witherspoon -- though miles from the keen satire of "Election" -- stays one sharp cookie even as her film crumbles.

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. But first you have to cut through the noise.

Too crude for the kids and not crude enough for connoisseurs of the "Something About Mary" school of hair jism and balls caught in zippers, Osmosis Jones seems doomed to fall between the cracks.

This psychological thriller about a demonic hand puppet only works in fits and starts. But watching virtuoso actors John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush let their freak flags fly as nursing home patients in a fight to the death is a blast of fun and fright to make you squirm.

Official Secrets remains a compelling tale of injustice on an individual and global level. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been told better, but give it points for being told at all.

The fans show up for this kind of movie to watch Neeson knock heads with bad guys, and Moland lets him rip. There’s no dawdling over sentiment. If you want to see a snowplow used as a weapon of mass destruction, you’ve come to the right movie.

A charming Elizabeth Olsen must choose between two men in the afterlife. The trouble with this often-beguiling romp is that it takes an eternity to wrap up. Too bad no one ever learns how to quit while they’re ahead.

There’s not a twist you can’t see coming, but thanks to Kiefer Sutherland and a cast of up-for-anything actors, this trifle goes down easy and leaves a smile on your face for the holidays that might just last all season long.

This Minions prequel would have to go some to make it as flimsy, but Steve Carell is pricelessly funny doing the voice of a pre-teen wannabe villain wrangling an army of goggle-wearing little buggers and you could do worse in a search for animated family fun

Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel are dynamite in a pop rock opera from director David Lowery that wins points for visuals and suffers from a terminal case of grandiosity

Noah Baumbach thonors Don DeLillo’s virtuoso 1985 novel about the comic-absurdist chaos of consumerism with a too cautious respect. The result is his most constricted film which only breaks free when he allows costars Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig to fly on their own wings.

I could have done more with the edgy humor of "Diner" and "Tin Men" and less of the mythmaking of "Avalon."

You could do way worse if you’re looking for a comic blast for the holidays.

A Marvel epic that values personal connections over spectacle? Sorry adrenaline junkies, but that’s what Oscar-winning, indie director Chloe Zhao brings to her first superhero blockbuster. The slow-paced result is uneven, but memorably inclusive and unique.

In Seberg, Kristen Stewart gives a fully-inhabited, body-and-soul performance as a Hollywood casualty pushed beyond the limit. It’s such a stellar turn that she almost redeems this well-meaning but wobbly biopic — which earns points for trying to do her justice.

Set against the German bombing of London, Steve McQueen stirring WW2 epic misses greatness by failing to fully engage with the starker, deeper implications of seeing war through the eyes of a mixed-race child facing an evil that’s scarily close to home

The something extra comes with watching Black and Blanchett match wits, especially the former; he radiates his signature comic moxie with glimmers of the dramatic chops he demonstrated in movies like "Bernie" (2011) and this year’s "Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot."

The script by William Goldman (Misery) is based on fact, and when the movie sticks to fact (in an unprecedented bout of man-eating, the lions took just a few months to slaughter 130 bridge builders), the result is a hypnotic spectacle. The natives fear that the lions are unkillable demons. The hunters — Douglas and Kilmer spar splendidly in their roles — aim to prove them wrong. Hopkins, unfortunately, won’t leave well enough alone.

The script hits rough patches, especially when Phoebe and Wolf get it on, but the sisters cut to the heart.

It bristles with the brute force he brought to 1986's underrated "52 Pick-Up."

What to do when a great actor is stuck in a not-so-great movie? You bite the bullet and watch anyway for Russell Crowe at his cunning, commanding best as Hermann Göring, a Nazi whose soft-pedaled narcissism gives him gobs of unearned confidence. Enough to fool his shrink (Rami Malek) and the tribunal judges at Nuremberg? That’s the idea.

Enough Burns pungency remains for She’s the One to qualify as a setback, not a drop into quicksand.

Toothless satire relatively inoffensive and relentlessly mediocre.

So what’s the problem? For starters, It: Chapter Two is an ass-numbing two hours and 50 minutes. That’s a good half-hour longer than Chapter One, proving the adage that less is definitely more. The dragging pace diminishes the film’s ability to hold us in its grip.

Sure it repeats everything it did the last three times, but thanks to Steve Carell’s lovable grump of a Gru and those wild and crazy Minions, the random lunacy remains hard to resist.

Harmless girlie trifle. Or at least it means to be.

The actors have a ball with the fun and games. And you will, too, unless — as noted — you and the TV series have never crossed paths.

An uneven blend of mirth and malice.

The third and weakest chapter in the hit "Conjuring" series messes with the facts about a real-life case of demonic possession as a legal defense, but Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as married demonologists know how to rally nerve-rattling chills to scare us senseless.

Papillon pushes too hard with diminishing returns. Though Hunnam and Malek give it everything they’ve got, they’re denied the chance to make their characters as indelible as McQueen and Hoffman did.

The desert outpost, mostly shot in Morocco by the gifted cinematographer Chris Menges (a two-time Oscar winner for his camera work on The Killing Fields and The Mission), becomes a powerful symbol of human decency trying to hold out under the brutal siege of alleged law and order. It’s thuddingly obvious who the real barbarians are.

Never adds up to anything more substantial than shrewd observations. There's no dramatic core.

Malick has created a war film without a single scene of war, of Jewish persecution, of the thought process that helped Franz hold steadfast. It’s one thing to fashion a film about one man’s blind faith; it’s another to keep audiences in the dark about the fundamentals that made him human.

The thrills in the first Latino superhero epic from DC Comics are mostly generic but the personal relationships between protagonist Jaime Reyes (a charming Xolo Maridueña) and his irresistibly rowdy and resilient relatives make all the difference. Viva la familia!

You'd have to be a real Grinch to hate on a blockbuster sequelthat's so puppy-eager to please. But despite the fem power of star Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins, all the CGI huffing and puffing over 2 1/2 hours can deflate momentum and audience endurance..

Though this horror sequel about a coven of teen witches wastes time on delivering scares instead of developing character, the feminist fire of filmmaker Zoe Lister-Jones sees to it that there’s more here than a Halloween throwaway.

Before it reverts to moldy zombie tropes, this low-budget, no-frills survival thriller puts a fresh spin on the familiar thanks to Daisy Ridley as a human living among the walking dead.

Cillian Murphy’s gangster icon Tommy Shelby makes his big-screen debut in a standalone film that can’t stand up against the great series that spawned it. For all its entertaining fan service, it’s an unnecessary coda to an unforgettable TV classic.

There are times when The Good Girl is so low-key it damn near flatlines. Luckily, White creates compelling characters with a few deft brush strokes. The actors fill in the rest.

What was once riveting now feels rote. What once made us want more of the same now makes us eager for the shock of the new.

Way fiercer and funnier than a fourth sequel has any right to be. Here's ‘Scream’ for a new generation – so self-aware that it mocks itself for relying on borrowed inspiration (the 1996 Wes Craven original) while squeezing the golden goose for one last payoff.

The mostly improvised drama about a trans man reuniting with his family can feel clumsy and contrived, but it soars on waves of raw feeling thanks to the deeply felt, deeply moving performance of Elliot Page in a role he wears like a second skin.

As usual the plot is stupid beyond saving, but the vehicular action is insanely entertaining. That’s a fair tradeoff for the adrenaline junkie in all of us who only wants Vroom cranked up to 11. Consider it done.

Not even Jackman, one of the most persuasive actors around, can sell the argument that personal weakness doesn’t stain public character in the era of #MeToo.

Polarizing is too tame a word to describe reactions to Luca Guadagnino’s radical rethinking of Suspiria. Either you’ll dig in or bolt for the exit — no in between.

Doctor Sleep relies way too much on borrowed inspiration and eventually runs out of — pardon the word — steam. But this flawed hybrid and King and Kubrick still has the stuff to keep you up nights.

August keeps a discreet distance from the harsher realities, making The Best Intentions must viewing only if you find diluted Bergman better than no Bergman at all.

When Blunt and Miranda cut through the film’s glucose overload and take off into the wild blue of their own unique and extraordinary talents, Mary Poppins Returns shows it has the power to leave you deliriously happy.

There’s nothing new about this queer romance between a president’s son and a prince of England except the way it skips the sorrow to favor the joy. Wishful thinking? Maybe. But for audiences eager to connect instead of divide at the movies, it's about time.

The proceedings are raised when Hodge is onscreen, using every nuanced look and gesture to jump the hurdles of a banal script and reveal the pain tearing up Banks. Having made a mark in films like "Straight Outta Compton" and "Hidden Figures," and on TV in "City on a Hill," Hodge hits new heights of commitment.

Whatever this eye-popping head trip lacks in plausibility, it makes up for in flash and a sense of a world spinning off its axis.

Stylish entertainment and smartass fun when director John Dahl ("The Last Seduction") plays his strong suit (a gifted cast) instead of his weakest (a derivative plot).

Turitz keeps it comic and romantic in just the right doses. Looking for a fun date flick? You found it.

It’s a bumpy ride for sure, but Smith and Lawrence haven’t lost their irresistible mojo and Bad Boys For Life plays like a blast of retro ’90s action. It’s like they never left.

Margot Robbie and Jacob Eloridi get steamy in Emerald Fennell’s overheated but undercooked take on Emily Brontë’s classic Gothic romance in which they suck each other’s faces with a wild, porny abandon that would shock Victorians. No complaints here.

This hoop dreams animation romp from producer Steph Curry isn’t NBA quality, but it gets the job done for family fun. The inclusivity messaging abut teamwork is laid on thick, but still worthwhile for immature audiences of all ages.

The Aeronauts is hobbled time and again by the attempt to add the juice of fiction to a story that could and should have stood on its own. The truth, in Hollywood terms, is never enough.

Aussie director Anthony Maras, in his feature debut, brings a Hitchcockian feel for suspense and a documentarian’s eye for detail to the brutal events that transpired over three days in November 2008 when the Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba initiated an attack on the city of Mumbai.

Neither a filmed play nor an actual movie, the muddled screen version of August Wilson’s great drama about systemic wrongs against Black America is a mixed bag but also a stirring promise from producer Denzel Washington and his family to preserve the work of a theatrical master.

The Lodge strains credulity beyond the breaking point; “contrived” is the mildest word you could use to describe the plot. Luckily, Franz and Fiala are masters of setting a mood that makes your skin crawl. And Keough — she’s Elvis’s eldest granddaughter — is a subtle sensation.

Fighting their way out of the flowery tearjerking in the film version of Colleen Hoover’s mega-bestseller are a timely movie and a stellar Blake Lively performance that both take measure of domestic violence and the women who get to decide when enough is enough.

The Equalizer 2 feels uneven and off balance. But not Washington. Despite his trashy trappings, there’s no one cooler to watch in action.

Ryan Reynolds piles on the charm as a bland bank teller who discovers he’s just a pixelated extra in a violent video game. The comedy could have been sharper, spikier and riskier—like ‘The Truman Show’— but this summer funfest goes down easy, even for non-gamers.

Big, loud and lurid, but no less entertaining for that.

What these guys do for revenge during one hellish day in the Big Apple makes the panic room look like Barney's toy box. The film itself goes off the deep end way before the end credits.

There's nothing ground-breaking about this backstage murder mystery in 1953 London. Dig under the froth and you'll only find more froth. But thanks to the inspired lunacy of Rockwell and Ronan, it's a wicked fun whodunit that goes down easy.

Brought to the screen awkwardly but ardently by Mamet-actor supreme Joe Mantegna in his feature-directing debut.

Until predictability seeps in from the edges, first-time director James McEvoy offers an invitation to a rap party that’s hard to resist as two Scottish MCs fake their way to the hip-hop top as Americans.

With the Bard’s words, Henry roused his soldiers to action: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” With this mediocrity, it’s more a case of how the war was wan.

Director Brian Robbins ("Good Burger") and screenwriter W. Peter Iliff ("Prayer of the Rollerboys") have wrapped their moral fable in a glossy package of hard football action and towel-slapping, hard-body fun that might seem exciting if you've never seen a movie before.

Even when the laughs evaporate in the final stretch, Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone know how to breathe comic life into a stoner buddy comedy that’s high on its own shitfaced supply.

Veering on the maudlin, the film ultimately succeeds by striking a universal chord on the subject of inconsolable loss. It's a stirring, humane testament from a surprising source.

Mad trippy or catastrophic? This DC superhero epic is actually a mix of both, dragged down by exhausting multiverse hopping but flashy fun on the wings of captivating star Ezra Miller and the grumpy comic perfection of Michael Keaton as a Batman on the ropes.

Compared with ("The Sixth Sense"), there's no contest. Stir of Echoes has been outrun and outclassed.

There's not that much that's new in screenwriter Marshall Karp's sitcom-ish memoir, but Alexander keeps the laughs coming.

Velvet Buzzsaw is never less than a feast for the eyes even when it reduces the plot to B-level butchery. What’s missing is the potent provocation that Gilroy seemed to be developing at the start.

But just watch Hanks, with the effortless grace of a Jimmy Stewart, turn the loony into something sweetly logical. Now that is magic.

Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst find the heart but not the soul in a true-life crime drama that should have cut deeper and hurt more.

This lively mess proves that when Toback loses his head, he does it with style.

Juliet, Naked is annoyingly hit and miss. But when Annie and Tucker connect with the gob-smacked Duncan, the movie substitutes the hard sell for grace notes and wins us over.

Mean tweets 1920 version: The incomparable Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley turn a flimsy script about poison pen letters that turn friends against each other into irresistible fun. Any resemblance to today’s internet trolling is purely intentional.

Leigh’s visceral staging, especially in the climactic moments — brilliantly shot by his longtime collaborator/cinematographer Dick Pope — brings home the significance of a 200-year-old bloodbath that still speaks urgently to the disenfranchised.

The tightly-focused origin story of Ruth, played with ferocity and feeling by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, is still one hell of a heroic odyssey.

Ethan Coen’s lesbian road movie, cowritten with his wife Tricia Cooke who identifies as queer, is raucously funny when it doesn’t go slack and make you wish he’d reunite soonest with his sibling Joel for a bit of the old Coen brothers magic that fails to materialize here.

Carter can't sidestep the script's cliches, so he wisely cuts to the fancy footwork whenever possible.

Whatever this is, it’s not a movie — it’s a product more deserving of a road test than a review.

It’s not that Robert Getchell’s script is any less crackbrained than Besson’s. This kind of kink just works better with a French accent.

Here’s the thing about Bad Times at the El Royale: When it’s good, it’s very, very good — and when it’s bad, this retro whatsit is a whole lot of awful.

The trouble does not emerge from the movie’s noble intentions, but from the stodgy manner in which they play out.