Peter Travers

If Singleton, 25, stumbles, it is over ambition and not the complacency of a new Hollywood hotshot riding a trend.

The acting styles of Streep and Roberts, both Golden Globe nominees, don’t exactly mesh, but they’re a hoot.

The film's major sin of omission: the music.

Documentarian Alexandra Lipsitz believes that air-guitar competitions are worth a whole feature-length movie. She's wrong, of course. But the fun lasts longer than you might think.

The jokes are hit-and-miss. But Stone is one sassy babe and a breakout star who nails every zinger and brings genuine warmth to her scenes with her parents, played by the priceless Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci. You mean girls can eat it.

Goldthwait's movie, shot on video that makes it look dragged through puppy poop, is an unholy mess. But it also possesses a quick wit and an endearing tenderness toward Amy as honesty wrecks her life. It's sweet, doggone it.

As an action fix to hold you before the summer explosions start, you could do worse than The Losers. It’s no more than an efficient time-killer.

The big surprise here is McKinnon, also an SNL MVP (her Hillary is already iconic). She's a live-wire whose every gesture, reaction and line-reading seems fresh and off-the-wall — a spontaneous eruption of hellfire hilarity.

Gore is kept to a minimum, a fact likely to disappoint audiences out for blood. It's a changed Schwarzenegger on view in Maggie, and the change becomes him.

Equals is really about possibility in a world gone cold from insisting that things can't change. Sound like any place you know?

There's not much to say about a jerry-built caper comedy, except that this one has timeliness on it side, and some first-rate clowns.

Thanks for Sharing is all over the place trying to find a tone, but it knows where its heart is.

It's all about the ride, the relentless wallop and whoosh. But, hey, sometimes that's all a cine-junkie needs for a fix.

Vikander, the sexbot in "Ex Machina," is having a hell of a year. And you can see why. Gaby isn't much of a part, but Vikander makes her a live wire. Her impromptu dance with Kuryakin that ends in a wrestling match is, well, something to see.

I only wish this richly imaginative movie had stayed truer to the dark heart of its visuals.

Offers dumb fun without apology.

What pulls us in are the performances of Franco and Hill, who know how to hold and reward the camera's tight scrutiny. They play a riveting game of cat-and-mouse.

Seeing the scaly dude side with Mother Nature against the freaks is almost worth enduring the blather that precedes it. I said "almost."

The actors, especially Binoche, do their damnedest to bring urgency to their roles. But despite Minghella's admirable attempt to tackle major themes on an intimate scale, the film goes down like weak tea. There's no kick in it.

Hamm is first-rate, his nuanced portrayal lifting the movie to the winner's circle.

The result this time is just as hit and miss. But when it hits, yowsa.

What 12 Strong does deliver, however, is a rousing tribute to the bravery of soldiers whose contributions went unheralded for years. That impact cannot be denied.

The movie ride delivered by Solo: A Star Wars Story is more mild than wild, a pleasant way to pass the time instead of a game-changer.

It's big, loud, ludicrous and edited into visual incomprehension. But pity the fool who lets that stand in the way of enjoying The A-Team.

Inspiration is what The 33 is selling. And it's hard not to get caught up in the rescue. You forgive the movie its faults, or most of them, because its heart is firmly in the right place.

Binoche never falters. She's the film's fire and grieving heart.

You don't have to feel guilty for lapping up this froth. Just don't expect nourishment.

Foster is electrifying as ego and id clash and the movie fires up with genuine provocation.

Spacey holds center. He's a bonfire.

The star is unstoppable and spectacular to see in motion. Watch her fly.

Menace and mirth can cancel each other out. But the combo clicked in 1985's Fright Night (banish the 1988 sequel), and it clicks again in this frisky 3D remake.

For starters, the follow-up to 2016's Sicario is not in the same essential-viewing category as the original – that's what happens when you remove inspired director Denis Villeneuve from the equation.

At times, Jolie rises to the pulpit when she should stay on the ground. Her theme is too complex for her scattered screenplay to encompass. It's as a director that Jolie shines.

So it's a shame that in the end Madden can't keep the tear-jerking from drowning this delicate cinematic flower. The book knew how to hang tough. The movie, not so much.

Don't look for the originality and grit that distinguished Weir's Australian films Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli, Green Card has all the heft of a potato chip. But Depardieu's charm recognizes no language barriers, and MacDowell, the revelation of sex, lies, and videotape, proves a fine, sexy foil.

Adventureland throws a lot at us, but not enough of it sticks.

Amazingly, Gyllenhaal never cheats on his character's sense of dignity. Against the odds, he keeps you in Billy's corner. That's a champ.

Solidly crafted, impeccably acted and self-important in the way that Oscar loves, Extremely Loud is also incredibly close to exploitation.

It's a bitch telling a coming-of-age story minus clichés and sappiness. So Youth in Revolt, with Michael Cera in his best performance yet, is a small miracle.

Howard struggles with the role Kidman nailed. And the graphic nude scene in which "proudy slave" Timothy (Isaach De Bankole) puts a towel over Grace's head before ravishing her pale body is as rugged on the audience as it is on the actors.

Critics will score Semi-Pro on its missed shots. My guess is that audiences will do what they always do with Ferrell: remember when he killed them laughing.

Most teen flicks just fake being fueled by anarchy. But the gut-bustingly funny Project X is the real deal. It's raunchy, reckless and ready to party. What's not to like?

Landline never finds its emotional footing. Amid all the shouting – and these folks really go at it – there's a void where a soulful core should be.

What the film, based on books by Felt and John D. O'Connor, lacks in narrative drive it strives to make up for with psychological probing.

Drugstore Cowboy improves. Not much, but in provocative ways.

This unholy mess replaces the artful ambition of "The American" with torture, blood spray, kinky sex, twisted fun and a bizarro critique of U.S. policy on illegal immigration.

No spoilers, except to say that cheap thrills can still be a blast. Not enough to make up for Shyamalan's awful "After Earth," but it's a start.

It's a tale so used, abused and broken you can hear it wheezing.

Here, you can feel De Niro's full engagement in a character that echoes his roles in "Taxi Driver" and "Awakenings." It's a great wreck of a performance that feels bruisingly true. At its best, when it keeps sentimentality at bay, so does Being Flynn.

Here's Spike Lee at his ballsiest. Who else would take Aristophanes' Lysistrata, set in ancient Greece, and prop it up in present-day Englewood, Chicago, where violence is so prevalent the locals call it Chi-Raq, a mash-up of "Chicago" and "Iraq."

If you can't see where this is going, you've probably never seen a movie before. But the script plods on, complete with an ending that futilely tries to tidy up the scenario strands. Miraculously, Aniston maintains our rooting interest.

Macdonald uses the "Das Boot"-like claustrophobia for maximum tension, then deadens the thrills with flashbacks to Robinson and his estranged wife. Ah, jeez. Law and the scrappy cast work best when submerged and going at one another like beasts.

Younger jacks up the action in the last third, but the air goes out of a fight movie when you can see the next jab coming.

Inspired by a true story (translation: a lot of it is made up), the movie shucks its corn straight from the cob. But it's no less engaging for that, thanks to the enthusiasm of the young cast and the fusion of classic dance with hip-hop moves courtesy of Rich and Tone Talauega.

This Thor sequel is way funnier than any movie subtitled The Dark World has a right to be (thanks, Hiddleston). And the blowout climax pitting Thor against Malekith and the elves is excitingly staged. It's just that waiting for the good stuff can be a real mood-killer.

The choice for the uninitiated is simple: Take the ride for its fitful thrills and dark elements, or just say the hell with it.

The Fifth Estate is stuck running in place.

A long slog of a movie that insists on hitting the high spots like a Wiki page, which leaves little room to investigate the political and personal changes that altered Mandela's thoughts about violence and its uses.

Amirpour dips into an seemingly bottomless supply of signs and symbols to show us an imploding society all too recognizable as our own, and you'll marvel at hallucinatory brilliance of her images. Yet The Bad Batch never finds a way to fuse its scattered intentions into a cohesive whole.

Brad Bird's Tomorrowland, a noble failure about trying to succeed, is written and directed with such open-hearted optimism that you cheer it on even as it stumbles.

To call it trippy would be an understatement. Your head might explode. Just don't accuse Taymor of playing it safe.

The film's technical achievements are indisputable (a military salute to camera wiz John Toll). But Billy Lynn comes off as artificial when we most need it to be natural, organic and whisper-close. Maybe there's a future film that will use size and sharpness to express an epic and intimate truth. Not this time.

This pissed-off man of Adamantium claws is stalking new ground (Japan), and his fight with yakuza on top of Tokyo's speeding bullet train is a wowser.

The Book of Eli isn't as exciting or funny or inspiring as it wants and needs to be, and its preachy ending is an ordeal. But Washington, a movie star who can act, is one cool dude who is worth following anywhere.

Look, it's fun to watch Shepherd hate on bratty children, classical music and liberal pieties. Smith's acid tongue makes any line sound better. But the subplot about a blackmailer (Jim Broadbent) who terrorizes Shepherd in the dead of night adds nothing, least of all a purpose.

Gorgeously shot by Enrique Chediak, American Assassin may be too slick for its own good, but O'Brien cuts deep enough to make you root for a Rapp franchise. That's saying something.

Chastain digs deep, going beyond the call of scream-queen duty to find the passion that gives horror a pulse.

For its first stingingly funny half hour, The Invention of Lying had me thinking that Ricky Gervais had finally found a way to bring his indisputable brilliance at TV comedy (The Office, Extras) to the big screen. Then the air went out of the balloon. What a shame.

If you survive that wrenching plot curve (some won't), you're in for an emotional workout. Knowing you've never seen anything like this, Moss and Duplass let it rip. You've been warned.

Zoolander 2 sweats its silly ass off to please. The results are scattershot. But when it works — oh, baby. There's a bit with Justin Bieber and a selfie that, well, no spoilers.

Spends too much time covering ground well known from the headlines. But the scenes of the couple at home with their children and friends are uniquely fascinating, if not, in Wilson's words, "very 007-ish."

The pleasures of Dark Shadows are frustratingly hit-and-miss. In the end, it all collapses into a spectacularly gorgeous heap.

It's watching Cecil open his eyes, in Whitaker's reflective, powerfully understated performance, that fills this flawed film with potency and purpose. Striving really does bring its own glory.

The final confrontation between the Hulk and Blonsky, now the roaring Abomination, is like the clash of Downey and Bridges in "Iron Man," only not as exciting.

The tricky thing about parody movies is that the jokes get old fast and they're hit-and-miss. Walk Hard, a spoof of every musical biopic from "Ray" to "Walk the Line," is guilty on both counts. How lucky that when the jokes do hit, they kick major ass.

Stumbles and sometimes falls on its top-heavy ambitions. But there are also flashes of visual brilliance and performances, especially from Haley and Crudup, that drill deep into the novel's haunted soul.

Does the script by William Nicholson sometimes hit the sentiment pedal too hard? It does. But look at the tale it's telling.

Clooney is too talented and committed a filmmaker not to get in his licks. But with Suburbicon, he's made a movie that is tonally at war with itself.

Forrest Gump lives in spirit in this overbearing tear-jerker that takes two and a half hours to cover three baby-boom decades in an effort to prove that nice guys finish first, at least in the hearts of academy voters.

It's easy to overlook the failings in The Last Five Years. Let it in and it knocks you back on your heels. Just like love.

Spacey's deft directing can't offset a script that wants to be Chinatown and ends up as indigestible chop suey.

I don't know if 3-D could improve all movies (nothing could make "The Love Guru" funny) but it sure works here.

When Hollywood decides to remake French farce by Francis Veber, the result can be a champagne cocktail (La Cage Aux Folles spawning The Birdcage) or pâté de merde (Les Compères degenerating into Father's Day). Dinner for Schmucks, adapted from Veber's Le Dîner De Cons, falls somewhere in the middle.

Bummer. The vampires have no fangs. The humans are humdrum. The special effects and makeup define cheeseball. And the movie crowds in so many characters from Stephenie Meyer’s book that Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) is less a director than a traffic cop. But there’s a reason that Twilight has already become the movie equivalent of a bestseller: The love story has teeth.

Fleischer isn't much on details. It's all about the zigzagging rush of the ride. Fair trade.

Call this cowpoke comedy "Blazing Saddles" for millennials. Or just call it icky.

In the case of Una, the play's the thing, with the stage production coming at you in a rush that doesn't allow the characters or the audience to take a breath. In this personal hell of Harrower's creation, there is no exit. The movie, however, keeps opening the door and letting the air in.

Junkies for dark humor should prep for going cold turkey, despite the efforts of director Andrew Adamson to spice things up with combat and a rivalry between Caspian and Peter (good on Moseley for showing some backbone) that Lewis never imagined.

Director Peter Segal ups the ante on the action, aiming for Bourne more than Bond, but the stunts grow frenzied and increasingly flat.

Kendrick is terrific, taking a role that could have slid by on snide and building it into something uniquely funny and touching.

I'm OK with Entourage onscreen because it's really a victory lap for a cast that once earned our DVR-ready affection. To echo Perry Farrell: "Yeah! Oh, yeah!" As for the haters? Hug it out, bitches.

The film's most pleasing surprise is the beautifully nuanced portrait of Capote's confidante, "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee, by Sandra Bullock. You heard me. Bullock gives the film what it otherwise lacks: the ring of truth.

Suspended over a deep gully of disbelief, where logic takes more bullets than the bad guys, Shooter still makes the grade as hard-ass action escapism.

Luckily, Non-Stop has a way-above-average cast for this kind of nonsense.

It’s kickass trash that never pretends to be more. Bonus points for that.

Purists may object to the cuts the filmmakers have made to Chekhov's text in the name of pacing. (And nuts to that tricked-up ending!) But The Seagull still flies on the wings of humor and heartbreak that made it a Chekhov classic in the first place.

The laughs that do achieve liftoff are killer. But the real kick is seeing the old gang back and ready to party.

The lack of`cheeseball overload is refreshing. I could tell the good lie and say the movie is perfect. It's not. It's often earnest to a fault and fearful of its deeper, darker implications. Still, you won't leave The Good Lie unmoved. Its heart really is in the right place.

It delivers the popcorn goods, but it ignores the poison eating at Bond's insides. Killer mistake.

Premium Rush features fearless stunt work that shames most computer trickery. Too bad I didn't believe a minute of it.

A decent thriller that should have been dazzling, is nothing if not topical.

Don't worry. It just sounds like another bad Sharon Stone movie. Kinky Boots trips on its contrived plot, but this blend of trash and sass is a comfy fit.

The 25-year-old supernova (Lawrence) again proves she can do anything, moving from comic to tragic without missing a beat.

Is there anything less shocking than a movie that thinks it's shocking? See White Girl and discuss — and you should see it, if only for the all-stops-out performance of Morgan Saylor.

Too much manic energy runs the movie off the rails.

A rowdy blast because the spiky young cast treats the played-out script like virgin territory. That's acting!

What holds us are the actors, including Terrence Howard as a cop who grew up with the brothers.

Justice League is a decent crowdpleaser, preferable in every way to the candy-assed cynicism of Suicide Squad. But sometimes shadows need to fall to show us what to be scared of. In the end, this all-star team-up is too afraid of the dark to work its way into our dreams.

Gets the action job done and you better believe that Bruce is still the man.

The film goes slack when its screws most need to tighten. Luckily, Smith — flawless in accent and commitment to Omalu's worthy cause — grips you from first to last.

What saves the day is the spidery, schizoid Gollum, again performed by the great Andy Serkis through the craft of motion capture.

In the doldrums of January, the movie pulls out every trick in the suspense-thriller book to keep us grinning at each new absurdity. Silly? You bet. Irresistible? Totally.

The heart of the movie is really in Jasira's moments with her father, a mass of contradictions that Macdissi plays with comic ferocity and genuine feeling.

At moments, especially in the conflicted intimacy between Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern as Bliss' parents, Barrymore shows real directing chops. But in Whip It she's painting inside the box.

"GoodFellas" Oscar winner Pesci, who hasn't appeared onscreen in a major role since 1998's "Lethal Weapon 4," is a dynamo of conflicting emotions. And Mirren, bawdy in ways that erase all memory of her award-winning role as Elizabeth II in "The Queen," is magnificent.

Rango is like nothing you've ever seen.

The complex movie that might have been is still on the drawing board, teasing us with a deeper story that's disappointingly out of reach.

The Woman in Black doesn't break new ground, but in its suggestions of fine film ghost stories, from "The Innocents" to "The Others" and "The Orphanage," it works you over with riveting restraint.

This is a breakthrough star performance from a terrific actor getting a chance to let it rip.

Flaws aside, Kill the Messenger inspires a moral outrage that feels disconcertingly timely.

Given the assault of devilishly clever plot twists that buzz-bomb your brain like a two-hour binge of quad-shot lattes, Duplicity goes down as too smart for its own good.

Murder on the Orient Express offers audiences a deluxe journey to the past, but this pokey train goes off the rails about the time all the characters, except for Poirot, cease to matter.

Luckily, Trumbo has a powerhouse Bryan Cranston to light a fire under the moldier clichés in John McNamara's script.

Even when the film fails her, Field never loses her focus.

It's a heavy thematic load for a single movie to handle — especially this one, which nearly collapses from its burden. But it's hard to fault director David Yates, who captained the last four Harry Potter movies, for having ambition.

Best of all, Jason Mewes is out of rehab to play Jay and spar with Smith as Silent Bob, his dope-dealing partner.

The film swings from melodrama to sermonizing, both blunting the human drama that needs to come to the fore.

Glen Powell runs for his life to win a reality TV jackpot in a remake of a dystopian Stephen King thriller that comes on like gangbusters—until it loses steam.

An almost-there comedy with diverting compensations.

Hart is a comic fireball. Don't leave till after the final credits when he and Hall bust a few more hilarious improv moves.

The boat nearly sinks from character overload, and Curtis brakes when you most want him to gun it. But there’s no denying the comic energy of the cast.

Director Tom McGrath keeps the action spinning and trips lightly over the bummer spectacle of watching a bad boy go good.

But the bad boys achieve something a budget can't buy: an easy, natural rapport that makes you root for them. For comedy and thrills, Lawrence and Smith are a dream team.

It also doesn't grapple deeply enough with the core questions it raises, settling for telling a sob story that will go down easy at the box office. Still, you can't blame audiences too much for being seduced by two shining young stars in a movie romance that hits the spot, bitter and sweet.

Niccol is too good a screenwriter (The Truman Show, Gattaca) not to know that Hollywood cliches are hell on a film's political bite. They muzzle it.

Anderson packs the film with atmosphere spiked with intrigue. And Hamm gives his role a James Bond-meets-Don Draper appeal, tossing off one-liners with a weary insouciance. His scenes with Pike give the movie a resonant power it wouldn't otherwise have.

The Green Hornet doesn't suck. But don't expect it to hang together either, what with the clashing tones and melting logic.

To call the animation crude would be high praise. But they succeed enough of the time to make a perversely entertaining movie.

Kramer takes on a hot, unwieldy topic in Crossing Over -- the dream that immigrants have of U.S. citizenship and the nightmare of achieving it, especially with shortcuts. I'm sure Kramer will be picked to pieces for trying something while Hollywood crap climbs the box office ladder. There are all kinds of nightmares.

Writer-director Michael Patrick King, the creative force behind the show's later seasons, can't disguise the fact that the movie is basically five TV episodes strung together (only three hit the mark). But his script is more honest about aging than anything in "Indy 4."

Some actors don't need top-shelf material. Just the pleasure of their company is enough. And so Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin turn the insubstantial Stand Up Guys into solid entertainment.

Luckily, Ferrell is at his funniest being serious. Casa de Mi Padre, shot in 24 days for $6 million, is really an SNL-ish sketch stretched to feature length. But Ferrell is an hombre loco. Mi gusta.

Rosamund Pike is perfection as Barney's true love, and Dustin Hoffman makes magic as Barney's randy dad. It's acting heaven.

The film feels overstuffed and way too familiar, with Burton repeating tricks from his greatest hits (think Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands). And the fun runs out much before the film ends. But stick with it just for those times when Burton flies high on his own peculiar genius.

Wasikowska, from "Alice in Wonderland" to "Jane Eyre," is an actress of translucent expressiveness. And Hopper has his father's brooding intensity and a quicksilver humor all his own. They are both so good, I suggest you dive into the story unfolding in their eyes rather than the banal one in the script.

As a movie, Gold is slim pickings. But McConaughey keeps you riveted.

McCarthy is a force of comic nature. And she and Bullock mix it up like pros. In this dead-battery of a movie, these live-wires miraculously ignite sparks.

Bale even cedes the juiciest part to Aussie newcomer Sam Worthington, who is star material as a machine with a conscience. T4 is a mixed bag, but it's not f***ing amateur.

"WALL-E" had more charm, more soul, more everything. But there's enough merry mischief here to satisfy, even if you’re way past puberty.

The Siege is not a documentary but a glossy Hollywood entertainment that is prey to all the exaggerations, simplifications and acting histrionics that come with the genre.

By showing signs of intelligent life in a universe of diseased, digital drivel, Assassin's Creed stands above the herd of movies based on video games by default.

As Alien, a gun-crazy Florida drug dealer with tats, beaded cornrows and a grill any rapper would envy, Franco is a bug-f--k blast. Too bad the movie itself is rarely as outrageous as he is.

Stay for the outtakes – they’re improv delights, suggesting the movie that might have been if they had just left it all to Carell and Fey.

It's not much of a movie. But raging bull Robert De Niro, suited up to play for humor and heart, proves he can be a world-class charmer.

Leave it to Hilary Swank. Even when her film's pace lags behind its cliches, she sparks this true story, about a California teacher who sparks her students, with the passion the subject demands.

It's a bummer that the jokes don't land often enough, especially in the final third when the tone takes a turn for the tame. WTF!?!

The scenery is glorious; you can almost feel the sunshine and smell the wine. But Crowe and Scott are bulls in Mayle's china shop. Like an assertive Burgundy served with a delicate fish, they're a classic wrong pairing.

Before it goes off the rails in the final stretch, 99 Homes is a riveting rabble-rouser that thinks it can make a difference. In these days when Hollywood typically dulls our wits, Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes has a fire in its belly. It's spoiling to be heard.

Sadly, Furman keeps shoving the movie into the box of clichés he thinks the audience wants. We don't, and you can tell that Cranston doesn't want it either.

Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a mesmerizing portrait of the artist as a young, old and middle-aged man.

It's a shallow, melodramatic device that would sink most actors. But Lewis is not most actors. In fact, despite age and illness, he remains a mesmerizing star in front of the camera, compelling to watch even (and especially) when sitting perfectly still.

For all the spectacular settings and visionary designs, Cloud Atlas left me feeling disconnected. Sad. But that's the true true.

Until the end, when Robinson allows the lunacy to run into rant, the provocative Advertising adds up to frightful good fun. That is, if you’re not put off by accepting a preening pocket of pus as a leading man.

What's missing in Prince of Persia is a sense that all the running, jumping, climbing and fighting is leading to something. The best video games challenge you to reach the next level. Prince of Persia is content to skim the surface.

Webb never loses touch with the film's emotional through line. And he allows time and space for Garfield and Stone, both stellar, to turn a high-flying adventure into something impassioned and moving. A Spider-Man that touches the heart. Now that really is amazing.

Sing doesn't have the grit or the grace notes of Zootopia, which it resembles only in its concept of an animal kingdom.

Radnor and Olsen are so funny and touching you want to say happythankyoumoreplease. What you get is frustratingly less. Still, to the movie's refreshingly uncynical credit, you feel for them.

Wonder is an emotional wipeout, that's for sure, but Chbosky handles it with such tenderness and delicacy, you won't hate yourself (too much) for giving in.

The movie is often tremendously exciting.

For all the film's flaws, this is a war story told with passion about a band of brothers that still has the power to inspire.

Seven Years in Tibet, however flawed, has feeling and purpose. It bears witness.

If you tamp down your expectations -- those gaping plot holes are dangerous! -- there is a storm of scary fun to be had in this Scandinavian splatterfest.

Recipe for nutso fun: Mix Zach Galifianakis with Robert Downey Jr. Apply the same mold John Hughes used for "Planes, Trains and Automobiles." Have Todd Phillips stir with wack-ass abandon. Don't worry about missing ingredients, like plot. Serve to an audience ready to lap it up.

As a movie, Tag is all over the place, with gags too hit-and-miss to cohere into anything truly memorable. But the partytime atmosphere – as if "Dodgeball" mated with "Game Night" – might be just what you're looking for on a hot summer night. With these actors, there’s no downside to watching them let it rip.

There are times when this mindbending bromance actually achieves a twisted tenderness. There are also times when you'd like to ride Manny's farts to the nearest exit. It's your call.

When the script sags, Wain and producer Judd Apatow rely on a top team of actors to keep you laughing.

Prom has its modest delights, chiefly its young cast.

Helgeland's script is hit-and-miss, not on the Oscar-winning level of his L.A. Confidential. Still, Hardy is a show all by himself, an actor flying without a net and having a ball. You will too.

Run, Fat Boy, Run stays out of sitcom quicksand long enough to make you think that Schwimmer has a knack for this comedy-directing thing.

RocknRolla is a kickass crime drama that just doesn't know to quit while it's ahead.

Thanks to the fleet direction of Niki Caro and no-bull performances by the boys, notably Carlos Pratts as the team's best runner and Ramiro Rodriguez as the worst. Along the way, McFarland, USA gives us a vital sense of hardscrabble lives and dreams of glory deferred. All cheers here are fully earned.

This movie, with its flashbacks to past sins and traumas, rests squarely on Berry, a mesmerizer who makes every moment count.

Fast Five will push all your action buttons, and some you haven't thought of. So what if you hate yourself in the morning.

It’s the Mattfleck starshine, plus the indisputable action bonafides of director Joe Carnahan, that sell this cop thriller when formula threatens to overtake it.

Shepherd wants to say something profound about the effect of a deceitful government on human values. But it's tough to slog through a movie that has no pulse.

When Short is onscreen, a movie that provides only fitful laughter bubbles over into bliss.

Soul Men is a chance to salute these masters of mirth and music. Take it.

Dench and Nighy are class personified. The secret here is merely to luxuriate in the pleasure of their company.

Jodie Foster speaks French with elan, but even her indisputable star power and fun bond with costar Daniel Auteuil can’t keep the lights burning in this frothy bauble.

Whatever you think of Dubya, he has balls. The movie doesn't.

In telling a tale of love across time, Aronofsky is sometimes guilty of creating arty, pretentious psychobabble. But in visual terms, he's trying to expose his own raw, romantic heart. Folly? Maybe. But a risk worth taking.

On the waves, The Finest Hours finally finds its sea legs and delivers an old-school adventure based on a heroic deliverance that deserves its day in the sun.

It’s barely half as funny, fierce, romantic and thrilling as 2017's incomparable Thor: Ragnarok, but director Taika Waititi and sweetly self-mocking star Chris Hemsworth get such goofball jollies sending up the usual Marvel bloat that resistance is futile.

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.