Peter Travers

Smash acting debut of Combs, who brings ease and charm to a crime lord.

There are times when Skin can seem naïve and manipulative, almost in the same breath, which takes the film perhaps too long to get its bearings. But Bell is the binding force that locks us into Widner’s tumultuous journey.

They turn what could have been an acting stunt into an intimate and compelling study of bruised emotions.

The wow factor of Ready or Not helps you jump the hurdles of any plot predictability.

Jordan, working from a script he conjured up with Ray Wright, is in it for suspense tinged with laughs. But with these two dynamo actresses front and center, this nail-biter keeps you riveted.

Who needs iambic pentameter when you have Jet Li around?

Near the end, Hill boxes himself into a sentimental corner that takes a little off the film’s edge. But before that, Mid90s bristles with fun, feeling and the exhilaration that comes with risking life’s hairpin turns.

It's visual magic, and director Barry Sonnenfeld, who followed his MIB high with the lows of "Wild Wild West" and "Big Trouble," revels in it. He doesn't so much direct MIBII as load it with cool stuff and flit around to whatever takes his fancy. As summer escapism goes, you could do worse.

The new Count moves with the smooth, plastic efficiency of a TV miniseries. Inspiration and originality may be in short supply, but the movie gets the job done.

Spain’s legendary director Pedro Almodóvar freights his first full-length feature in English with tangled subplots, but nothing can dim the artistry of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore who make this death-fixated tale of old friends in crisis feel thrillingly alive.

A sense of injustice runs like a toxic river through Everett’s film, an affront to homophobia through the ages, even our enlightened one. In the end, The Happy Prince makes its strongest mark as a heartfelt salute to Wilde from an actor and filmmaker who was born to play him.

It's all part of the joke. Soderbergh may have created a bit of a mess with Full Frontal, but it's a playful and scrappy mess.

The idea of the boiler room as a Y2K gladiator ring for disenfranchised youth provides a proactive new twist.

Blethyn's solid-gold charm turns Saving Grace into a comic high.

This is Kidman’s show. She neatly negotiates every twist the script throws at her, even when the plot slams into too many dead ends. This is a movie star who knows how to stay the course, no matter how twisty, tangled or down and dirty it gets. She’s dynamite.

Call it RBG: The Early Years.

What takes Arctic to the next level is Mikkelsen’s stirringly expressive face. Known for playing villains — the dead-eyed 007 nemesis Le Chiffre in "Casino Royale" and the title killer in the TV series "Hannibal" (2013-2015) — Mikkelsen invests Overgård with a bracing humanity that you root for every step of the way.

This English-language horror remake can’t touch the 2022 Danish original, but it gets in its scarefest licks thanks to a smiling devil of a lead performance from James McAvoy that will creep you out big time and fry your never to a frazzle.

Ronan (Lady Bird) and Robbie (I, Tonya) were both nominated for a Best Actress Oscar last award season, and even when the pace of the film falters, these two performers hold you in thrall. That’s royalty.

Imagine "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" for the age of antidepressants — that’s Little Joe, the seventh feature (and first in English) from Austrian provocateur Jessica Hausner (Lourdes, Amour Fou).

Kudos to Wilson (how has she not won an Emmy for her brilliant work on The Affair?), who builds what seems at first like a peripheral character into the defiant soul of the movie.

The plot is too implausible to rank with "Unforgiven," but, oh, what a fun ride.

Rey deserves credit for comic observations that sting.

Relic marks an auspicious debut for Japanese-Australian director Natalie Erika James, who wants her slow-building thriller to seep into your bones rather than pound you with cheap scares.

It’s a big role, written with dimensions of sainthood that might defeat a lesser actor. But Erivo is up to every challenge, never losing Harriet’s compassionate humanity even as the film moves to the Civil War and pumps up the action at the expense of characterization.

The battle, expertly shot by Dean Semler, captures the chaos of guerrilla warfare paralleled in "Black Hawk Down" and gives the film a scarring documentary realism.

Sergio is not a film about a saint or a sinner, but an attempt that succeeds more often than not to create a portrait of a man in full. Yes, it also occasionally puts him on a pedestal — but in these dark days, advocating for hope and idealism feels exactly right.

Keep your eye on Kidman, whose kinky, kittenish performance turns unexpected emotional corners that pull you up short.

Tyrnauer’s flashes of compassion for this self-hating Jew and homosexual — taught from childhood to feel ashamed of what he was and who he was — remind us that his subject’s toxic, insidious amorality did not go to the grave with him. It’s all around us, among opportunists still looking for their own Roy Cohn — just one of several reasons why Tyrnauer’s doc hits you like a punch in the gut.

As long as Green is onscreen, which is not nearly enough, Road Trip is easy to get revved up about.

Stodgy? Maybe. But the sincerity of this old-fashioned crowdpleaser starring Ralph Fiennes as wartime choirmaster is a refreshing alternative to the glut of computer-generated junk that crowds our movie houses.

Though Macdonald offers the sight and sound of Whitney in interviews and home movies, she is never heard grappling with the grave issues the film raises.

The result is often chaos, but it’s also a euphoric blast of pulse-quickening adventure, laced with humor and heart.

The time shifting raises questions the movie never answers, but it's hard not to enjoy the ride.

Get our your handkerchiefs for this live-action take from Italy on the Disney animated classic, starring Oscar winner Roberto Benigni as Geppetto, the woodcutter who builds a puppet to replace the son he never had.

You don’t expect director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer — partners on such benign jokefests as Splash! and Parenthood — to catch the mad-dog anarchy of the newsroom. But they nail it...What’s missing is the bite.

The show belongs to Geoffrey Rush in a note-perfect performance as Harry Pendel, the tailor.

Even when it goes off the rails, this epic take on the notorious French emperor boasts state-of-the-art battle scenes from master tactician Ridley Scott, 85, and a big acting swing from Joaquin Phoenix in a beast of a role that will keep you riveted.

The seventh chapter in the creepy-crawly franchise shamelessly feeds off the DNA of the first two sci-fi space classics. But new director Fede Alvarez dishes out serviceable funhouse horrors with the gory enthusiasm of the alien fanboy he most truly is.

Even when Greta Gerwig trips up on her ambition to make this pretty-in-pink fantasia more than the fun party of summer, you cheer her refusal to play it safe as she turns Margot Robbie’s doubt-plagued Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s clueless Ken into a match made in movie heaven.

Amid the jumble of fake Italian accents and overall too-muchness, an Oscar-ready Lady Gaga is flat-out fabulous. Is this ravishing soap opera of high fashion and higher crimes outrageous camp or “The Godfather” in designer duds? I’m calling a tossup.

Movie junkies, rejoice. Director Peter Medak has made an instructive and nightmarishly funny documentary about how actor Peter Sellers drove him crazy and nearly trashed his career.

For all its backsliding into bleak—what’s with torturing Bradley Cooper’s talking raccoon—this spirited summer kickoff delivers the requisite thrill ride and ends the GOTG trilogy with the sweet sorrow of saying goodbye to Star Lord and his wacky space dorks. It’s been a trip.

Forgive the exposition dump in the convoluted plot and go for a clash of the titans that is spectacular in every sense of the word.

The vigorous young cast enhances the excitement of the flight sequences, which are spectacular. Movie rah-rah has rarely been this entertaining.

But fantasy elements aside, this Disney movie has the one essential that makes a nature documentary fly: a thrilling sense of wonder.

Draws an electric performance from Peter Mullan.

The Mule is more character study than "Dirty Harry: The Emeritus Years." It’s the detours on the road — the stops along the way that show an old man dealing with the dim possibilities of change near the end of his life — that reveal this drug-mule-in-winter drama as a deeply personal reckoning.

Extending its litany of horrors to nearly three hours, the film is certainly an endurance test. Yet its potent presentation, notably Vladimir Smutny’s striking monochromatic cinematography, gives the film the raw impact of a documentary.

Karmel delivers feminist fun even a guy can get.

What The Replacements does have is energy.

It's not a pretty picture, but it is a pretty funny one when Gene Hackman shows up as William B. Tensy, a Palm Beach tobacco tycoon.

Ryan Reynolds leads an A-list cast in this ‘Back to the Future’ nostalgia trip that coasts down well-worn roads instead of paving new ones with fresh imagination. But there are still laughs and tears to be had this cynicism-free throwback to ‘80s family entertainment.

A qualified thumbs up for this sequel that can’t match the Oscar-winning best picture that spawned it, but the crowd will roar nonetheless thanks to expert razzle-dazzle from director Ridley Scott and a sensational, scene-stealing Denzel Washington as a villain worth cheering.

Why is the sequel never the equal? Mostly because the surprise goes poof, along with the kick of originality. This followup to the animated Oscar-winning 2015 original can't do much about that, except deliver charm in sweet abundance. So why resist?

The movie honors King by raising fresh hell for a new generation. It will make you jump out of your seat, but what matters are the provocations you take home and can’t shake. That’s the stuff of nightmares.

Pfeiffer is a knockout; she’s the sexiest presence in movies today and an exceptional comic and dramatic actress, to boot.

A lighter-than-air comedy than runs on pure fizz.

Until an ending that flies ruinously off the rails, A Simple Favor is raunchy fun that offers an unexpected take on the twists and turns of female friendship.

This by-the-numbers Aretha Franklin biopic is all about Jennifer Hudson doing Aretha proud. And does she ever. As the legendary Queen of Soul, Hudson does not, will not, cannot hit a wrong note, creating a respectful tribute to both their radiant talents.

Nothing new here except model-turned-actress Bellucci. To call her noteworthy would be an understatement.

No narrator, no talking heads feeding you insights, just the lady letting it rip on stage and off. What Volf, a French photographer now working on his third book about the acclaimed soprano, misses in perspective he gains in intimacy. His film fawns shamelessly and fumbles a few salient points, but it’s indisputably up close and personal.

Branagh’s performance is a triumph of ferocity and feeling that shuns Shakespeare the literary rock star to find the flawed, touchingly human man inside.

Joaquin Phoenix and director Gus Van Sant raise the bar when they use roguish humor and bruising pain to color outside the box.

Eyes sees what it wants to see, but it's a riveting glimpse.

Baz Luhrmann’s bejeweled battering ram of a biopic is all over the place, which can be distracting, but the grit and grace of Austin Butler’s performance as The King is a thing of beauty. A star is born right here.

Friedkin turns on the juice and Jones and Jackson let it rip.

It's not the identity of the killer that gives Seven its kick -- it's the way Fincher raises mystery to the level of moral provocation.

Charmer of a comedy.

The grand becomes grandiose and the lyrical turns bombastic.

This two-hour film wrap-up of the unjustly cancelled crime series may feel patchy and uneven, but it still gives Liev Schreiber’s iconic Ray—a hardcase-for-hire who can fix anything but the nightmare of his past— the send-off he and we deserve.

That the movie itself is a treat, beyond its good intentions, is icing on the cake, though clichés and ethnic stereotyping still sneak in.

It's a tall order that Tucci is not up to filling. But don't discount the pleasure of watching him try.

This expertly-done B movie plunges breakout star Meghann Fahy into one of the scariest situations ever—a first date. The dude (Brandon Sklenar) is a charmer, yet her phone keeps buzzing with text messages to kill him. Hang on for a nerve-jangling ride.

There’s no contrived digital sleight-of-hand in Spider-Man: Far From Home that can match what Holland does: He makes the MCU feel new again.

It's frustrating that a movie about a woman who dares so much has a script that dares so little. But Annette Bening’s body-and-soul acting as marathon swimmer Diana Nyad and Jodie Foster’s brilliance as her dynamo of a coach will have you cheering.

More trifling lark than a new Pixar landmark, this toon hits the sweet spot as the story of astronaut Buzz Lightyear before he became a toy. Chris Evans voices the Buzz bluster, but it's breakthrough star Sox the cat who steals scenes to infinity and beyond.

Alternately terrific and tepid, Bill Condon’s swirl of song, dance and Technicolor keeps the musical alive on screen with the help of Jennifer Lopez, a star who can hold the camera and bend it to her will.

Tarsem uses the dramatically shallow plot to create a dream world densely packed with images of beauty and terror that cling to the memory even if you don't want them to.

Still, the moments that hit hardest concern Leo’s relationship with Ahd (a very fine Eric Bernard), another male hustler who claims he’s only “gay 4 pay.”

Hackman and Freeman will pin you to your seat.

It’s a tough, achingly tender film that refuses to trade in false hopes or cheap sentiment. That truth is what makes Beautiful Boy hard to take and impossible to forget.

Director Doug Liman -- the hip skipper of "Swingers" and "Go" -- makes all the familiar dirty business seem fun and almost human. In these dog days, Bourne earns what passes as high praise: It doesn't suck.

There’s no doubting its power. This film will take a piece out of you.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry — sometimes at the same time. But love or hate Jojo Rabbit, it’s damn near impossible to shake.

OK, the plot is inane, Val-gal-speak is a clichT, and Heckerling was more incisive covering similar hormonal ground 13 years ago in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." But there's still wicked good fun to be had.

The result is a gleefully retro and raunchy funfest that walks a minefield of sexist traps it can’t always dodge. That the rom and the com both land is a tribute to Theron and Rogen.

Tom Hanks saddles up for his first western and teams with a firebrand costar in 10-year-old Helena Zengel, but despite the film's visual grit and grace, it could have risked more and cut deeper.

Ignore the many problems in this violent revenge thriller and focus on the power and charisma of Denzel Washington who ends the third and final chapter in his Equalizer trilogy on a euphoric high. He’s a star, baby, and him you don’t want to miss.

The tragic loss of RBG, makes this biopic of women’s-rights icon Gloria Steinem more relevant than ever. It took Julianne Moore and three other actresses to play this feminist trailblazer through the ages and they all do her proud.

The dark fantasist in Lucas makes a comeback after years of once-over-lightly.

Though the formulaic result comes up short as cinema, it’ll make you laugh you ass off. There are worse trade-offs.

You’ll want to see this for Zellweger’s bravura turn alone. It’s one of the best performances of the year.

There’s even a new song called “Catchy Song” that you can’t get out of your head no matter how hard you try. (And you will try.) Another tune, “Super Cool,” plays over the end credits simply to extol the coolness of end credits. Lego 2 never stops, which is part of the problem. Can there really be too much of a good thing? [Pause.] Nah.

In the context this documentary provides for the cult classic, it makes you want to see "Showgirls" again regardless of whether you belong to that cult or not.

Unfortunately, it’s those same feelings that stick in the memory when López Estrada overdoes the melodrama and lets the plot fire off in too many directions. No worries. Diggs and Casal will keep you riveted.

Ben Is Back ends up becoming into a penetrating look at how addiction wrecks lives from both sides of the parent-child equation. It’s unflinching and unforgettable.

River may not be high art, but it is the perfect high old time for audiences in the mood to be tossed into the spin cycle for a pulse-pounding thrill ride.

Never mind the curveballs that Radioactive throws audiences on its defiantly unconventional journey into a defiantly unconventional life. Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie has been done proud.

This all-over-the-place, all-silly, all-star (Bullock, Tatum, Radcliffe, Pitt) throwback to 1980’s escapism—think “Romancing the Stone”—radiates such a puppy-dog eagerness to please that you want to pet it instead of pointing out its faults.

The funny and touching result is worth cheering for.

It's Bettany's portrait of the monster as a young man that rivets attention. So remember the name, or don't. Just watch Bettany strut his stuff. You'll know a star when you see one.

The art that The Kindergarten Teacher is scanning can be found in Gyllenhaal’s eyes, hungry for a life of the mind and one starved of meaning. Jimmy is not the only one who has something to say. For the filmmaker and her star, this movie is their poem.

It’s an irresistible romantic romp that turns the familiar into something sweet, sassy and laugh-out-loud funny.

Old master Eric Rohmer, 82, uses new tricks in the form of painted backdrops inserted digitally to create a virtual reality. Rohmer goes Lucas - who could have guessed?

A striking film that frustratingly never coheres but still holds you in thrall.

A feast of a film done on a low budget with a menu featuring top-grade acting, writing and direction.

Singer Andra Day’s breakout star performance as jazz legend Billie Holiday raises this chaotic film above its faults by showing how Holiday used her voice as a starting gun for the civil-rights movement despite a relentless FBI campaign to destroy her.

Baldwin is a marvel in a casting surprise that pays off.

Though the third screen go-round can't top the magic of the first two Paddington gems, it’s still an exuberant gift of family fun that takes our bear home to Peru for new adventures and a tangle with a sinister singing nun played to the hilarious hilt by Olivia Colman

Whether audiences are pleased or vexed, very vexed, by A.I., any movie buff worth his salt will want to sift through this fascinating wreck of a movie.

Crowe's tantalizing film sticks with you.

Bosworth is a star in the making, but even she can't outshine the surfing footage, which is flat-out spectacular.

Anything for Halloween? You bet. Lock up the children—the Sanderson Sisters are back in a bewitching sequel that returns Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy to the roles they created in 1993 just in time to put a funny-scary spell on you.

With Brando around, The Freshman has a snappy madness that’s hard to resist.

The film’s most powerful asset is Thompson (Sorry to Bother You, Thor: Ragnarok) in a performance that cuts through the script’s cliches to find the heart of a character that reflects the plight of a woman alone in a man’s world.

Is the movie any good? At the dawn of the twenty-first century, when art is defined by commerce, this question is beside the point.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web, directed with gun-to-the-head urgency by Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe), settles for being a tension-packed, go-go-go thriller that will pump adrenaline into your nervous system for nearly all of its suspenseful if implausible 117 minutes.

It's Vincent D'Onofrio as Pooh-Bear, a drug lord who's snorted so much meth his nose had to be replaced by a plastic one, who kicks ass.

While it can’t match the effortless charm of the 1989 animated classic, this faint but overstuffed live-action echo fills the title role with shining new star Halle Bailey who gives this musical fable just the oomph it needs—a heart that sings and a spirit that soars.

Yesterday has its heart firmly in the right place. It’s the challenge to take it to the next level that’s missing.

In short, this is a genre mash-up has no agenda except providing escapist fun. Mission accomplished.

It's a dumb summer movie done with smarts.

Everett, whose scenes with Firth are a droll delight, nails every sly laugh. And Witherspoon adds her own legally blond American sparkle to this British party.

So what if this sequel plays like a mashup of random story threads. Thanks to Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, Santa and the missus have never been this cool.

Forget the thin membrane of a soap opera plot— Timothée Chalamet acts and sings the young Bob Dylan to showstopping perfection, catching the famously withholding troubadour in the exhilarating act of inventing himself as multitudes, always creating and always in the wind.

No one will ever play the bright comic exterior and dark soul of Willy Wonka like Gene Wilder did in 1971. But Timothée Chalamet takes a charming shot at it in this wispy, wobbly musical origin story that still earns a pass for offering much needed family fun for the holidays

The film belongs to Blanchett -- this hellcat Virgin Queen is something to see.

The fifth and final chapter for our whip-cracking archaeologist suffers from the absence of Steven Spielberg and a workable script, but Harrison Ford—80 and still working deep and true—makes sure that Indy goes out in blaze of glory. One word: Respect.

It’s the same old tornado twaddle, but the destructive power of weather has never been more timely, the sparking star charisma of Glen Powell never more evident and the tenderness director Lee Isaac Chung shows for the land and its people never more appreciated.

Gia Coppola’s film has no more than a sketch of a plot, but soars on the quietly devastating performance of former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson as an aging Vegas showgirl who learns her hopelessly outdated dance revue has been given the hook after 30 years.

The jokes are repetitive and the action is strictly formula, but the old-school star power of George Clooney and Brad Pitt having a laugh as lone wolf fixers stuck working the same job in New York gets by on the pleasure of their company.

This big-screen prequel to ‘The Sopranos,’ with a touching Michael Gandolfini playing the teen version of the role created by his late father, is good, but not good enough to score as a great mob epic in its own right.

The impossibly magnetic Idris Elba brings his iconic series TV character, London copper John Luther, to thunderous life on the big screen and suddenly all is right with the world. So what if the serial-killer plot can’t get a grip, Elba is pure pow.

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson bring a bracing charge to the premise of turning a romcom about wedding jitters into a deep-dish think piece about the limits of condoning violence, real or imagined. The ending doesn’t work, but oh the drama!

This romantic fantasy from visionary director George Miller is all over the place structurally, but odds are you won't be too bothered given the sparks ignited by Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba as a magical djinn hellbent on granting her three wishes.

Not every joke or jolt hits the mark. But thanks to a go-for-broke Vince Vaughn as a hulking serial killer who body swaps with a teen girl, you won’t find a better way to LOL while being scared senseless than with this ‘Freaky’ Friday the 13th.

Miller's wake-up call is meant to be ours. Too little and too late? Maybe. But even in this Bourne Zone, Damon and Greengrass haven't shirked their duty to enlighten and entertain.

Scream queen Samara Weaving is back in this horror comedy as a bride who takes her vow of “till death do us part” way too seriously. There’s more of everything this time, except for the irreplaceable shock of the new.

Susan Minot’s resplendent novel of a dying woman…stumbles on its way to the screen.

Headland can write zingers that would make the cruelest bridezilla blush. And Caplan's treatise on the art of the blow job is time-capsule worthy. Sadly, Bachelorette is a comic cocktail that goes heavy on the bitters. That's no way to end a wedding.

At best diverting, at worst drearily conventional, The Rum Diary is pre-gonzo Thompson, before the fusion of fact and trippy fantasy that flowered into a brilliant delirium.

Tom Cruise starring in the fact-based story of a plot to kill Hitler by Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg sounds like Oscar bait. It isn't. And the sooner you accept it, the more fun you'll have at this satisfying B movie.

Rozema's minimalist approach pays dividends until a final third hobbled by overdone effects and a thrashing musical score. Too bad. The story being told on the faces of Page and Wood had eloquence and power enough to hold us rapt.

Just when you're ready to puke, the old Bill Conti theme ("Gonna Fly Now") kicks in -- are you feeling it? -- Stallone steps in the ring and every day is Christmas. All together now: Rock-ee! Rock-ee!

The film is most riveting in its early scenes, when Soderbergh's digital cameras locate germs everywhere – don't touch those peanuts!

Allen, who stays behind the camera, brings too little wit and too much contrivance to material that quickly dissolves into warmed-over Dostoevski.

A ghost story in which superior camerawork, costumes and production design work together to put the audience in a trance. It's tough on actors not to get swallowed up in the scenery.

But, oh, that dragon. I'd endure another slog through Middle-Earth just to spend more time with Smaug.

Lucky for us, Dench and Frears pick up the slack and turn slim pickings into a fun time at the movies. But Victoria & Abdul could have been oh so much more.

Director Andrew Currie is better at laughs than scares, but he can’t sustain either as Fido runs out of steam in the final stretch. Till then, it’s fiendish fun.

The film, which is literary to a fault, includes an earthquake, but if the earth moves at all, thank Hayek, who gives the tale a smoldering life that finally lifts it from the page.

Whatever Works feels like something out of time and, worse, out of step. Hell, Allen wrote the script back in the 1970s for Zero Mostel.

Is Knoxville going soft on us? Nah. Bad Grandpa is still the f***ed-up family movie of choice, especially if your family has done jail time.

It's the spirit that Biggie Smalls, born Christopher Wallace, put into inventing himself and his music that ignites Notorious, a biopic that sees the flaws in the man but can't help accentuating the positive.

Director Bryan Singer, who started the whole thing in high style with 2000's "X-Men," returns for a fourth time. Singer shows a lot of energy, but he and screenwriter Simon Kinberg (Fantastic Four, yuck) let the movie get way overcrowded.

The movie is marred by overkill, especially in the brutal and bloated allegorical ending, which feels lifted, clumsily, from The Godfather. State of Grace is most powerful and gripping when it stays true to the emotions of its characters.

Li is action poetry in motion. Damn them for spoiling our popcorn fun with salty tear-jerking.

Stay in your seat for the end credits, in which Murray waters a dying plant and karaokes to Bob Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm." That alone is worth double the price of admission.

In this muddled but marvelous blend of documentary and concert film, director Lian Lunson takes you down to a place where it's possible to look closely at the life and art of cult troubadour Leonard Cohen.

The voice work is exceptional, with a special nod to Maggie Gyllenhaal as a toxic-tongued baby sitter and Jason Lee as her raunchy-to-the-point-of-depraved boyfriend. Kenan is a talent to watch, even in a flick that doesn't know when to quit.

The intensity of Leto and Hayek goes deeper than the script into revealing what makes these two sociopaths in heat impervious to bloody murder. When Hayek and Leto are onscreen, you do not look away.

Now that the fanboy hype has cleared, we can see Cloverfield for what it is: borrowed inspiration, trite screenwriting and amateurish acting all in the service of a ballsy idea -- that a horror movie could maybe, just maybe, have a soul.

Homer even jokes that it takes a sucker to pay for a show you can get for free on TV. D'oh! That hurts.

Say what you will about the Runaways – they never played it safe. The movie does.

Though Poison Ivy is more than whoopee, audiences may find the movie easier to get off on than to get into. But why settle for the usual walk around the exploitation block when Shea offers a wild ride with the top down into uncharted territory?

Starting at infantile and regressing hysterically from there, Step Brothers flies on the comic chemistry of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.

Go Ahead And Scoff. But This cheap-jack sequel to the 1982 cult favorite about a hunky scientist (Dick Durock) turned talking plant delivers more tacky hit-and-miss hilarity than a Cineplex-ful of teen-sex comedies.

Special kudos to Freeman, who kills it on the dance floor and later while drunk off his ass on vodka and Red Bull. You'll groan as much as howl at the jokes, but the veteran stars have a ball acting their age. Even when all else fails them, they're good company.

Coscarelli junkies won't be bothered by the film's herky-jerky rhythms. Go for the freaky fun of it, though a little soy sauce on the side sure wouldn't hurt.

Like "Born To Be Blue," Miles Ahead is allergic to all things biopic, especially the cheap psychology and the effort to tie up a complex life with a neat bow.

With this cast, you are guaranteed moments of inspired lunacy. It's still fun watching Cleese get caught with his pants down. But the material seems familiar and overworked.

The heavy plot sauce weighs down the movie. Director Lasse Hallstrom had similar buoyancy problems in 2000's bewilderingly Oscar-nominated "Chocolat." Here he lucks out big time with Mirren and Puri, two pros who know how to lift an audience over plot hurdles and turn a merely digestable diversion into a treat.

Eastwood and Adams are just so much damn fun to watch.

It's clear that Beatty, who has studied Hughes for decades, has an instinctive understanding of the man, from getting stuck on phrases he repeats endlessly to making deals he can't wait to run away from. No kids. No roots. Sex, movies and aviation are the only constants. Why? Beatty hints, but never tells us. But his performance, filled with comic bite and aching confusion, teases a much deeper portrait.

A tart, terrific comedy that gives Harrison Ford his best and funniest role in years.

For all the clanking armies of iron knights on display to dazzle the eager kid in each of us, this summer epic rings hollow. There's no one home inside the suit.

The Dictator leaves you laughing helplessly. It starts at outrageous and rockets on from there. Screw the occasional sputter.

Predictable stuff, energized by some spiffy scare effects from cinematographer Marc Spicer who works wonders with underlighting. But the on/off tricks would grow tiring without actors who perform well beyond the call of fright-house duty.

Here's a hit-and-miss farce that leaves you wishing it was funnier than it is. Why? Because it wussies out on a sharp premise.

Tusk is a mesmerizing mess that will make Joe Popcorn yak. Jay and Silent Bob will love it.

Even at its hokiest, Far and Away is never less than heartfelt.

It didn't grab me. Not at first. A documentary that tracks the winner of a reality show -- in this case Bravo's Project Runway -- after his victory. Huh? But Eleven Minutes busts a few fresh moves.

The pleasures here come almost exclusively from Schumer and Hawn playing off each other like the rock stars of comedy they are.

Vaughn and Favreau are so money, just like they were in "Swingers."

End of Watch gives you the savage whoosh of being on a job that can get you killed. Sins of cop clichés can be forgiven when a movie pays honest tribute to police on the line.

Saunders and Lumley are all about keeping the party going. So grab your Bolly, darlings, and party on.

Audiences looking for emotional resonance in Indy 4 are doomed to the temple of disappointment. Spielberg and Lucas aren't upping their creative game -- they're taking care of business.

Exodus is a biblical epic that comes at you at maximum velocity but stays stirringly, inspiringly human.

Pine is driven and touchingly vulnerable. And Banks, heartbreakingly good, nails every nuance in a raw wound of a role. Thanks to their teamwork, we believe we are watching people like us.

Only landlubbers would resist the rousing action of man versus leviathan. Sure it's old-school. So what. Howard puts heart, soul and every computerized whale trick in the book into crafting a seafaring adventure to rock your boat.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has no personality of its own. It's a product constructed out of spare parts and assembled with computerized precision. It's hard to care when Jack turns operational and becomes a CIA robocop. The movie feels untouched by human hands.

It's the Mob connection that allows Eastwood to add shading and a sharper edge.

The film rambles, but rambling with the mischievous Roos is still a tricky and winning proposition.

The subplot involving a tragic romance between a soldier and one of the living statues (the lovely Kelly Reilly) is hell on the humor and on a movie that stays content to do the trite thing.

The movie is full of possibilities. Frustratingly, only a few of them are realized.

It would be easy to write off Before I Fall as the Groundhog Day of teen weepies – but something raw keeps breaking through the formula to pull us in.

Working from a deft script by Delia Ephron, director Ken Kwapis labors hard so that guys won't cringe (too much) as four teen girls, of different body types, pass along the same pair of lucky jeans during a summer of love and loss.

The laughs come and go, but Ferrell makes NASCAR his bitch funny. Funnier. And more fun. And then the fun skids to a stop. You know how it goes: Plot gets in the way.

Black is expectedly hilarious, but the beauty part of his performance is that, instead of exaggerating or patronizing this Instagram princess, he finds her vulnerable heart.

It's rowdy fun with a dash of sweetness.

Piranha 3D ends the summer on a note of shamelessly entertaining B movie bottomfeeding.

You have to admire Nakata's skill at letting the dead run free while hinting that we may have more to fear from the living. With a braver step in that direction, this middling movie would ring more than box-office bells.

Missed opportunities hobble the film as a whole, but Harrelson is in there pitching his best game. That alone is a sight to see.

Drags and sags at 124 minutes. Luckily, the movie never runs on sitcom empty. How could it, with a terrific cast.

It's the bruised history of these brothers that gives Out of the Furnace its beating heart and the power to grip you hard.

It's Bell – riding high with the Disney-animated "Frozen" and Showtime's carnal-fixated "House of Lies" – you want to follow anywhere. Bell is irresistible, and she makes us care.

It's a fun ride. What's missing is the excitement of a new interpretation.

Bad Influence will do in a pinch if you're starved for intrigue. For a while, it's nasty fun watching Michael sink into depravity. Erotic and spine tingling, this thriller has undeniable allure. But Bad Influence lacks daring, moral ambiguity and the pleasures of the unexpected, the elements that might give it distinction.

Gilroy stages two riveting shootouts involving Marta at work and home. And there's a killer chase scene in Manila as the bad guys try to knock Aaron and Marta off their speeding motorcycle. It's all sound and fury signifying nothing except a desperate need to feed a franchise.

It's all true – but so what? American Made may be fact-based but that doesn't stop it from feeling monumentally generic, like you've seen it all before (Blow, Sicario, The Infiltrator, War Dogs, TV's Narcos ... the list goes on).

The jokes never go deep, the toothless bites at the system leave no marks. It's only the wild-card energy of Ferrell and Galifianakis that keeps you on the ticket.

Affleck's provocative, postmodern take on JP as half-joke, half-victim is the damnedest plunge into the dark heart of our "reality" culture since Sacha Baron Cohen invented Borat.

Forgive the airhead plot that hinges on a spaceship crash-landing in the swimming pool of a Valley-girl manicurist, played by Geena Davis. The fun comes from Temple's protean visual wit and the irresistible charm of Davis, who just won an Oscar for her role in The Accidental Tourist. The agreeably tacky Earth Girls earns points for warmth, color and high spirits.

The Rain Man-Dying Young elements in Tom Sierchio’s script are pitfalls that Slater dodges with a wonderfully appealing performance. His love scenes with the dazzling Tomei have an uncommon delicacy. But it’s Tomei and Perez who give Untamed Heart its bouyant wit. Their friendship could have sustained an entire movie. It’s certainly the best part of this one.

Delpy is boundlessly appealing. And Rock is acerbic fun, notably in the imaginary debates he stages with Obama. But the frenzied cross-cultural gags take the piss out of the real subject: how blood ties can turn love into a battlefield.

Lawless is a solid outlaw adventure, but you can feel it straining for a greatness that stays out of reach. There's even a prologue and an epilogue, arty tropes signifying an attempt to make a Godfather-style epic out of these moonshine wars. Not happening.

Still, even Disney and a PG rating can't bury Burton's subversive wit. Like Carroll, he's a master at dressing up psychic wounds in fantasy.

Here's a better than average spook-house movie, mostly because Insidious decides it can haunt an audience without spraying it with blood.

In a rare instance of truth in advertising, the movie actually is a good time.

She's glorious, as she always is. But even Ronan can't totally cut through the academic stuffiness that comes with this posh literary adaptation.

Sadly, Lumet's skill at bringing out the juice in actors isn't enough to save the film from overkill.

John Carter bites off more than even Woola can chew, but it's built on something rare: wonder instead of Hollywood cynicism.

This Brooks is a comedian who forgets the golden rule of "know your audience." He thinks he'll get his laughs if he keeps doing the same act with better lighting.

Van Sant, following "Gerry" and the superb "Elephant," is on the same elliptical quest. His journey is labored but undeniably hypnotic.

This hot mess got booed by the snobs at Cannes, but there's no denying its profane energy.

What saves Point Break from wipeout is Kathryn Bigelow's direction. Though the film lacks the formal beauty and allure of her Near Dark and Blue Steel, Bigelow keeps the action percolating in high style.

"Paranormal Activity" has been here before, of course, but Silent House springs tangy new tricks, and Olsen is a primo scream queen.

Ah-nuld’s swollen belly is the joke — the only one — but director Ivan Reitman (Dave) takes it for a few deft spins.

What makes the film worthwhile, despite its flaws, are those scenes of human and animal desperation that encapsulate the horrors of war.

Knoxville and his boys seem to be saying goodbye. To which I can't help thinking, fondly, it's time.

Props to Kutcher for going to surprising, painful places. There's something haunted in his portrayal that hits hard and sticks.

When Leguizamo lets go, this cautious crowd pleaser of a film takes on a defiant shine that shows just where the rest of Wong went wrong.

Until Richard Wenk's script drives the characters into a brick wall of pukey sentiment, it's a wild ride.

Sam Rockwell has yet to find a movie as good as he is (Moon comes closest). He's still looking.

Any resemblance between this Bad Lieutenant and the 1992 Abel Ferrara landmark is purely in the head of the dude who thought up the title.

Director Barry Levinson and screenwriter Mitch Glazer lucked out getting Bill Murray to play Richie Lanz, a loser who makes losing hilarious. Murray just kills it.

The Saint leaves star Val Kilmer and director Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games) fighting to enliven an exhausted character.

Which one of these women is the most irredeemable? Coming to grips with that question is what gives the flawed but fascinating Every Secret Thing its power to haunt.

A recent showing of Burton's artwork at New York's Museum of Modern Art attracted long lines and critical brickbats. Maybe that's why Big Eyes, for all its tonal shifts and erratic pacing, seems like Burton's most personal and heartfelt film in years, a tribute to the yearning that drives even the most marginalized artist to self expression no matter what the hell anyone thinks.

In Portman's dynamic performance you can see strength and vulnerability warring for Anne's soul. In this bedroom view of history, it's that image that sticks.

Given Helgeland's rep as a screenwriter (including an Oscar for 1997's L.A. Confidential), it rankles that 42 settles for the official story. The private Robinson, who died of a heart attack at 53 in 1972, stays private. We stay on the outside looking in. Let it be.

It's all in the telling. Gruen provided grit and pungent detail. The movie settles for gloss.

Daybreakers, despite the star presence of Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe, is a B movie, with all the disreputable low rent, lowbrow pleasures that implies. I'll take that over pompous any day.

If you're ready to go with the hit-and-miss flow, you'll laugh your ass off.

The effects are cheese-whizzy fun, but it's the unexpected spark between Smith and Brolin that makes MiB3 primo summer fun. Way cool.

Only near the end, when MacArthur and Hirohito meet in person, do we get fireworks. And that's thanks to Jones, who makes sure this old soldier will never die in our memory. As for this tepid movie, it just fades away.

A brightly-colored, dizzying pinwheel of 3D animation in which nothing much happens. Sounds like summer is here early.

Sy and Cluzet are superb actors who demolish stereotypes about race and social class by finding a common humanity in their characters. Acting this good forgives a lot of sins.

If it's hip to be square, then this racehorse movie is the ultimate in cornball cool.

I'm a sucker for caper movies in which impossibly clever con artists do impossibly dangerous things while looking impossibly gorgeous. I could feel Focus trying to be that caper. I'm not asking for nirvana, such as Hitchcock's "Notorious" or David O. Russell's "American Hustle," just a taste of sexy escapism. A taste is all you get in Focus, but it'll do till the whole enchilada comes along.

Rogen and Byrne are crazy fun company.

There are even times when Black seems to be letting Crowe and Gosling make the whole thing up as they go along. Not a bad thing.

Bahrani is a gifted filmmaker. But he shoots himself in the foot by throwing in a contrived plot device that creates drama at the expense of credibility. Suddenly, we're isolated from a film that had made us believe. It's a breach of trust that comes at too high a price.

The dialogue is witty and spiked with delicious malice. At least it is when Pierce delivers it.

Race is at its best when it fills in the corners of a story we only thought we knew.

Chastain (a nifty match-up with Mirren) is a live wire, and her scenes with Csokas and Worthington have a spark the later scenes lack. No matter. The Debt holds you in its grip.

After the delicious treat of 2011's "The Muppets," with Jason Segel and Amy Adams joining Kermit, Miss Piggy and the gang, Muppets Most Wanted feels like tasteless leftovers.

Snow White and the Huntsman is definitely a missed opportunity. Sanders was on to something in taking the Snow White tale to its most menacing extreme.

Gondry and the gifted indie cinematographer Ellen Kuras have fun with the amateur versions of the likes of "RoboCop," "Rush Hour," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "King Kong" and "Driving Miss Daisy." These snippets are fun but frustratingly brief.

It ain't fact, but it is damn entertaining fiction.

From him (Fincher), we get – what? – a faithful adaptation that brings the dazzle but shortchanges on the daring.

This PG-rated movie feels safe and constricted in a way the story never does on the page. It leaves out the deep magic of a good movie, or a good sermon: the feeling that something vital is at stake.

If Freeheld cuts corners to get its point across, Moore and Page never do. You'll be with them all the way.

The material shows its age when McCall goes all "Taxi Driver" to save a teen hooker (a scrappy Chloë Grace Moretz) from her pimps. But Washington and director Antoine Fuqua, who teamed for the actor's Oscar-winning role in 2001's "Training Day," keep the action humming.

Yes, the sets and costumes elicit swoons, but it's the peerless Sondheim score, however truncated, that makes this Woods a prime destination.

The surprise is how effective Wingard is at keeping the atmosphere jumpy and tense. And you can't help rooting for Erin, who could win Survivor if she went on the show. Vinson's take-charge performance is the life of this badass party. When you're ducking in your seat, it's nice to have someone to root for.

If you're looking for wicked fun this Halloween, Paranormal Activity 2 is the best goosebump game in town.

Brosnan, on a roll with this film and "The Ghost Writer," vividly etches the emotional fissures in a man coming apart. The Greatest takes a piece out of you.

Here's the funny thing: Despite all the Captain America rah-rah in costume and indestructible shield, the movie is at its best when the story sticks with skinny Steve.

At first it's a kick to watch Clint Eastwood play Steve Everett, a horn-dog newsman...Is Clint being Clinton-esque? Even if he's not, these scenes are the liveliest part of this dog-tired movie.

While this nailbiter sure as hell ain't swimming in the same classic waters as "Jaws," it gets the jolting job done.

Though the movie ups the TV ante on nudity, language and violence, Lynch's control falters. But if inspiration is lacking, talent is not.

Byrne is sensational, finding the broken places under Justine's rebellious hot-mom surface. Nothing groundbreaking here, but there's something to be said for a fun time that won't let the laughs go down too easy.

Gibson's acting has deepened. Too bad his comeback vehicle springs so many leaks.

Hot Tub Time Machine should have been better than this. It could have been poignant.

We get bracing bro banter, pectoral flexing and the whole gang going wild on Molly. Good times.

The movie cops out by going soft in the end, but it's still hardcore hilarity for stressed moms looking for a girls night out. Guys should also check out Bad Moms — you just might learn something.