Peter Travers

Harington and Vikander provide the spark the film needs to get us through the tribulations and tragedies that pile on with numbing regularity. You leave Testament of Youth feeling some of the impact that Brittain’s book must have had at the time.

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.

All the actors come up aces. And let's bottle the delicious byplay between McCarthy and Byrne, whose comic timing is bitchy perfection.

Musically, the film is a miracle, right and riveting in every detail.

It gives me no pleasure to report that Aloha is still a mess, a handful of stories struggling for a unifying tone.

There's nothing to keep the pulse alive after the first quake. Peyton throws in a second quake and a tsunami, but after a while buildings tumbling into the ocean are just a bunch of pixels turning everything into visual mush and leaving audiences in a digital stupor.

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.

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.

Writer-director Andrew Niccol, who worked impressively with Hawke on the topic of genetic modification in 1997's "Gattaca," puts a lot out there.

The sequel is more musically varied, though Kay Cannon's script amps the sass at the expense of structure. But the MVP here is Elizabeth Banks.

Mad Max: Fury Road kicked my ass hard. It'll kick yours. So get prepped for a new action classic. You won't know what hit you.

Screenwriters Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel, in an auspicious directing debut, are attempting to tackle emotional areas that can't be glibly resolved. Sure, they trip up a few times. But it's exhilarating watching them aim high.

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.

It's all stupefyingly unfunny. Hot Pursuit is one hot mess.

Vinterberg may rush the final act, but he gets pitch-perfect performances from Schoenaerts, Sheen and Sturridge and brings out the wild side in Mulligan, who can hold a close-up like nobody's business. She's a live wire in a movie that knows how to stir up a classic for the here and now.

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.

In The Water Diviner, Crowe strives to strike a universal chord about the futility of war. Simplistic? Maybe. But in crafting a film about the pain a parent feels after losing a child in battle, Crowe transcends borders and politics. It's not war being honored here, it's sacrifice and inconsolable loss. I'd call that a substantial achievement.

A whole summer of fireworks packed into one movie. It doesn't just go to 11, it starts there.

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.

What kind of a movie takes place entirely on one screwed-up teen's computer screen? That would be Unfriended, a creep-you-out experiment in terror that damn near pulls off every trick up its cyber sleeve.

Ida is an art film in the finest sense of the term — it is austere technique counterbalanced by emotions that bleed.

Recalling the best movies about actors, from "All About Eve" to "Birdman," Clouds of Sils Maria is a bonbon spiked with wit and malice. It's also a penetrating look into the female psyche, a specialty of critic-turned-filmmaker Olivier Assayas, who wrote Juliette Binoche her first starring role, as a young actress in 1985's "Rendez-vous."

Isaac's brilliant take on this bearded, buzz-cut and barefoot Dr. Frankenstein is a tour de force of shock and awe. Ex Machina springs surprises that will haunt you for a good long time.

Furious 7 is the best F&F by far, two hours of pure pow fueled by dedication and passionate heart.

Audiences forced to endure the 109 coma-inducing minutes of Serena should bring an e-book or a soft pillow.

Comedy really is hard. So it's a kick when a filmmaker gets it right, as Noah Baumbach does in this stingingly funny take on aging.

It's not easy hanging talents like Ferrell and Hart out to dry. But Get Hard gets the job done. It's one limp noodle.

The Gunman degenerates into dreary setups for guns and gore. Penn merits more. So do we.

Pacino is irresistible. Whether strutting onstage or wrestling with his drug-fueled demons, he doesn't skimp on Danny's human limits. With nine Lennon tunes on the soundtrack and a new song for Danny to express his creative reinvention, this hilarious and heartfelt movie is an exuberant gift.

Surprise is lacking. Ditto humor, though Miles Teller (Whiplash), as a thorn in Four's side, gets in a few fun licks by not staying on the film's draggy tempo. Otherwise, Insurgent stubbornly fails to surge.

The twice Oscar-nominated actor appears onscreen only briefly. Hawke knows where the spotlight belongs. Believe me, the 81 minutes spent in Bernstein's funny, touching and vital presence is something you don't want to miss.

Bad things can happen to talented people. Take Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed "The Station Agent," "The Visitor" and "Win Win." All gems. His fourth film, The Cobbler, is a failure on every level.

Count Cinderella as a dazzling dream of a movie from director Kenneth Branagh, who can leap from the Bard (Henry V) to the boffo (Thor) with no apparent sweat.

Mitchell has his own twisted gift for letting atmosphere help define character. It Follows creeps you out big-time in that cool way that freezes the blood.

Blomkamp and his wife and co-writer, Terri Tatchell, stack the deck. Instead of awe, we get "E.T." - aww.

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

As the cases mount and institutional reps succeed best by playing dumb, The Hunting Ground becomes a energizing call to action, a potent provocation that’s been too long coming.

You can laugh with Maps to the Stars, but you can't laugh it off. Prepare to be knocked for a loop.

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.

Demange's film, spiked by an outstanding, all-stops-out O'Connell, makes politics unnervingly personal. Too much? What else do you expect of a cinematic knockout punch that sends you reeling?

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.

Writer-director Damián Szifron hasn't made one film — he's made six, stitched together under one title and sent out to a world that may not be ready. Screw the pussies. Wild Tales is gleefully out for blood.

Here's a vampire movie for people who don’t like vampire movies. What We Do in the Shadows is packed with laughs, almost all of them are intentional.

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.

Kingsman is all over the place, sometimes to its detriment. But you won’t want to miss the surprises it delights in springing.

The true audiences for Fifty Shades of Grey are gluttons for punishment — by boredom.

This kind of pandering FX padding, unnurtured by humor or heart, is what shifts Jupiter Ascending from a shambles to a fiasco. In an effort to win back audiences by lowering their standards and their daring, the Wachowskis wind up where you never expected to find them creatively: on the ropes.

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

First-time filmmaker Kate Barker-Froyland trusts the silences that occur when two people aren't talking. That's a good thing. What's not so good is when the talk grows enervating.

Writer-director Mike Binder, who worked beautifully with Costner on 2005's "The Upside of Anger," finds himself on the downside of juggling stereotypes.

The Humbling is a dark dazzler shot through with mirth and delicious malice. But be warned. It is not Roth's novel.

Here's the thing about Mommy: Even when Dolan gets self-indulgent and works his themes into the ground, he's a one-man fireworks display. His images jump off the screen and stick in your head.

Red Army deserves a big boo-yah from audiences for being illuminating and hugely entertaining. And if some of the talk is in Russian, live with it.

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.

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.

Moore shows us acting at its best, alive with ferocity and feeling and committed to truth.

It's funny. So is Nicole Kidman, very Cruella De Vil as Millicent Clyde, a taxidermist with an eye on adding Paddington to her stuffed collection. It's an excuse for some chase scenes and physical comedy (Paddington gets his head stuck in a toilet bowl) that manage to suggest both the Marx brothers and Wes Anderson. I mean that as a good thing.

Best of all is the excitement of watching Mann use his kinetic powers as a filmmaker to tackle the new face of 21st-century warfare.

To try and wrap your head around the plot of Predestination can only lead to madness. Don't get me wrong: The movie itself is a trip. Just jump off the cliff and go with the Spierig brothers, Peter and Michael, as they whoosh into the labyrinth of their own fervid imaginations.

Be warned, sequel fanboys: This thing sucks!

Wyatt keeps the action coming at a fast clip, but watching Jim repeatedly pursue a path of self-destruction for reasons never made clear grows wearying.

From the theme of global downsizing, the filmmakers wring humor, heartbreak, suspense and stirring social drama. Cotillard, a consummate actress, fits like a natural into the workaday world of the Dardennes (Rosetta, The Son, The Kid With a Bike).

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.

Evocatively shot by "Selma" wizard Bradford Young, A Most Violent Year reflects a world where nothing is held sacred. You watch with nerves clenched, holding on tight.

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

Jolie has an army of craftsmen in her corner, notably camera poet Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men). But it's her vision that gives Unbroken a spirit that soars. In honoring Louis' endurance, she does herself proud.

The sad fact is that racial injustice is timelier than ever. Righteous fury is in the air. And that fervor to stand up and be counted is all over Selma.

Eastwood, working from a script that Jason Hall adapted from Kyle's 2012 memoir, fuses the explosive and the sorrowful as only he can. That's why his film takes a piece out of you.

It's stupid. It's in bad taste. It impossible. I know all that. Look, Quentin Tarantino killed Hitler in "Inglourious Basterds" and the neo-Nazis stayed quiet. It's a farce, people.

Why should you suffer through a 140-minute Russian film that is basically a contemporary remake of The Book of Job? Because it's a stupendous piece of work, that's why, and because it represents the kind of challenging, intimate filmmaking that transcends language and borders.

Leigh embraces the contradictions in Turner. And in tandem with cinematographer Dick Pope, a master of light, he shows us the world as Turner sees it. The effect is harsh and ravishing. Leigh's beauty of a movie touches the heart not by sentimental gush but by the amplitude of its art.​

When a stage musical as beloved as Annie hits the big screen and falls ignominiously on its fat one, you might ask: WTF? For starters, updating the Depression-era tale to NYC 2014 is a really dumb idea. The strain of the shoehorning is evident in every scene.

Talk about beating a dead orc. In dutifully completing his prequel trilogy to his three-part Lord of the Rings triumph, director Peter Jackson has sadly saved the worst for last.

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

Top Five is Rock's best movie by a mile. It's authentically hilarious.

Inherent Vice is packed with shitfaced hilarity, soulful reveries, stylistic ingenuity and smashing performances that keep playing back in your head. It may not demand repeat viewings, but it sure as hell rewards them. It's the work of a major talent.

Under the keen-eyed direction of Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club), Wild emerges as an exciting, elemental adventure that takes you places you don't see coming.

Kent will have you climbing the walls simply by plumbing the violence of the mind. Brace yourself.

It's been a long time since intellectual sparring created such excitement onscreen. I've heard a few critics dismiss this mind-bender as hopelessly old-hat. Ha! If so, long live retro. ​

Delivers the dazzle without sacrificing the smarts. The suspense is killer. Ditto the thrill of the hunt. The film uses the extra time to, of all things, develop characters and give this dystopian fable a human scale.

The bad news isn’t that Carrey and Daniels got old, it's that the jokes did. The spirit is still willing in Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the original writer-directors, but the sagging flesh is weak from prolonged repetition.

The Homesman lacks the scope and depth of Jones' dynamite 2005 directorial debut, "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada." But Jones and Swank, walking the tightrope between comic and tragic, ignite combustibly.

There's enough plot here to sink a soap opera, but the actors prevail. Parker is a no-bull charmer. Driver leaves bite marks on her juicy role. And Mbatha-Raw, so good this year in "Belle", is dynamite.

Kudos to Stewart for making Rosewater more than an earnest plea for journalistic freedom. He makes it personal.

The hypnotic and haunting Foxcatcher can prove its worth as one of the year's very best films. Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo give the performances of their lives.

This one's a winner. And Baymax, baby, call your agent. You're about to be a household name.

The Theory of Everything, referring to Hawking's dream of finding an equation to explain all existence, is riveting science, emotional provocation and one-of-a-kind love story all rolled into one triumphant film.

What the neg-heads are missing about Interstellar is how enthralling it is, how gracefully it blends the cosmic and the intimate, how deftly it explores the infinite in the smallest human details.

Horns has style to burn, but there's no there there.

Nightcrawler curves and hisses its way into your head with demonic skill. When the laughs come, they stick in your throat. This is a deliciously twisted piece of work. And Gyllenhaal, coiled and ready to spring, is scarily brilliant. He truly is a monster for our time.

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

John Wick is the kind of fired-up, ferocious B-movie fun some of us can't get enough of. You know who you are.

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.

It's a wow of a thriller with a soul that isn't computer generated. Poitras may be guilty of taking Snowden at face value, but she succeeds brilliantly in evoking a shadow villain intent on world domination. Big Brother is back, baby, and he's gone digital.

Force Majeure is a jolt. You won't know what hit you.

In his third feature, following 2009's "Impolex" and 2011's "The Color Wheel," Perry, 30, offers a stinging portrait of writing as one of the bleeding arts. And he's bloody funny about it in the bargain.

Dear White People marks an auspicious debut for writer-director Justin Simien, an African-American who laces his satire with delicious mirth and malice.

Pitt is tremendous in the role, a conscience detectable even in Wardaddy's blinkered gaze. But it's Lerman who anchors the film with a shattering, unforgettable portrayal of corrupted innocence. Fury means to grab us hard from the first scene and never let go. Mission accomplished.

I'm jazzed by every tasty, daring, devastating, howlingly funny, how'd-they-do-that minute in Birdman. Like all movies that soar above the toxic clouds of Hollywood formula and defy death at the box office, Alejandro G. Iñárritu's cinematic whirlwind will bring out the haters. They can all go piss off. Birdman is a volcano of creative ideas in full eruption. Buy a ticket and brace yourself.

Beat the drums for a Simmons Oscar, and add a cymbal crash for Whiplash. It's electrifying.

How did talent like this conspire to pump out such bilge? I mean, really.

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.

Preacher Reitman won't be satisfied till we stomp our smartphones. LOL. WTF.

The movie has a tossed-off, caught-on-the-fly exuberance that works like a charm.

Mortensen and Isaac, expertly exchanging the faces of loyalty and betrayal, are both outstanding. Is the film too old-school for short attention spans? Maybe. Rest assured that Amini's shuddery endgame is well worth the wait.

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.

David Fincher's shockingly good film version of Gone Girl is the date-night movie of the decade for couples who dream of destroying one another.

Tracks is an exhilarating adventure that opens up an unknown world to most of us and does it so well that we feel we're living it too.

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

This comedy about a death is a funeral for the audience.

It's hellish good fun. Stevens is mesmerizing as the avenger, helping director Adam Wingard turn The Guest into a blast of wicked mirth and malice.

What raises the movie above the herd and rocks our settled ideas of pop entertainment is the way Hader and Wiig resist the script's pull to tidy things up.

Jessica Chastain is a shining star with acting skills that resonate beyond her beauty. She is at her fierce, unerring best, which is saying something, in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby.

Though The Drop covers familiar ground, it simmers with charged emotion. The image that lingers belongs to Gandolfini.

Pride naively thinks it can change the world with a single movie. Talk about fighting spirit. I couldn't have liked it more.

As I write these words, I feel myself experiencing a loss of consciousness, wondering how this recipe for sugar shock could interest any sentient being over the age of nine.

Teenagers, even non-ninjas and non-turtles, have been eating up this cinematic waste product for weeks now. In one way, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a triumph for producer Michael Bay in that it is equally as godawful as his "Transformers: Age of Extinction" and a hit nonetheless.

This no-bull spellbinder is allergic to sentiment. Unlike porn, Wetlands keeps its humanity intact. And if Oscar didn't have a stick up his ass, Juri would be a nominee for Best Actress. Yup, she's that good. Your move.

O'Connell, soon to head the cast of Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken," explodes onscreen in a star-is-born performance. Starred Up is a small indie film in danger of slipping through the cracks at the Hollywood-driven multiplex.

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.

Love Is Strange is, above all, a triumph for Lithgow and Molina, two consummate actors who bring decades of experience to artful performances that are as emotionally expressive in silence as they are in words. Acting doesn’t get better than this. Want to know what love is? Watch Lithgow and Molina and learn.

Miller's monochrome palette, splashed with color that shines like a whore's lip gloss, doesn't startle as it once did. It's like running into an ex-love and realizing that, damn, the thrill is gone.

You're in for something funny, touching and vital. Director Lenny Abrahamson knows his way around eccentrics; just see "Adam & Paul" or "Garage" or "What Richard Did." And he makes an ideal guide into a bizarro world where music is made on the margins.

Lowry took chances with her novel. The movie of The Giver takes none. It's safe, sorry and a crashing bore.

The Expendables 3, trading on our affection for action stars of the past, has officially worn out its already shaky welcome.

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.

What If doesn't break new ground. But it has charm to spare, and Radcliffe and Kazan are irresistible. No ifs about it.

This is ambitious, challenging filmmaking, elevated by Franco's compassion and Haze's revelatory acting. OK, the film trips up on its attempt to lace tragedy with gallows humor. But Franco is out there trying something, balancing literature and cinema in a tightrope act that is never less than exciting to watch.

When Boseman shows us Brown doing his thing onstage, the movie comes alive.

Director Brett Ratner could boast solid source material in the five-issue Radical Comics series Hercules: The Thracian Wars by the late Steve Moore. They had a shot at something here, and they blew it.

Guardians of the Galaxy does the impossible. Through dazzle and dumb luck, it turns the clichés of comic-book films on their idiot heads and hits you like an exhilarating blast of fun-fun-fun. It's insanely, shamelessly silly – just one reason to love it.

The movie does Thompson proud. It's a scorcher.

Every move Hoffman makes subtly rivets attention. There's the uncanny German accent, the boozing, the chain-smoking, the glances at his assistant (Nina Hoss), the secret life he keeps hidden and the betrayals even Günther can't see coming. Hoffman is simply magnificent. Face it. We won't see his like again.

Melancholy and doubt may seem like gloomy qualities to blend into an amorous romp. But that shot of gravity is what makes Magic in the Moonlight memorable and distinctively Woody Allen.

Remember "Limitless," the 2011 thriller in which Bradley Cooper becomes a whirling killer dervish from a drug that lets him access 100 percent of his brain? Well, Lucy is basically the same movie with Scarlett Johansson in the Cooper role. It's not a good trade-off.

Don't miss it. Though Life Itself is a warts-and-all portrait Ebert didn't live to review, my guess is his thumbs would be shooting upward. Mine sure are.

Want to know what it's like to be in on the discovery of a new American classic. Check out Boyhood. Richard Linklater's coming-of-age tale is the best movie of the year, a four-star game-changer that earns its place in the cultural time capsule.

Dawn is dynamite entertainment, especially in the rousing first hour.

A slambam sci-fi thriller with a brain, a heart and an artful sense of purpose. You're in for a wild whoosh of a ride.

It's rare to find a movie that uses music to define love without sentimentalizing it. But Begin Again, with songs by Glen Hansard and New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, is a wonderfully appealing exception.

The Bay-man has made the worst and most worthless Transformers movie yet. I know, hard to believe, right? How could any summer blockbuster be as dull, dumb and soul-sucking as the first three Transformers movies? Step right up.

I don't like this movie. I don't like how it walks, talks, struts and sells itself. I find it contrived, tortured, humorless, infuriating and interminable. And yet if you care anything about film and the creative drive that still exists in the people who make them, then Third Person needs to be seen.

If you laughed at Tim Story's first "Think," based on Steve Harvey's bestselling advice book for women, you'll probably ride along for this jacked-up, Vegas-set sequel in which dudes and dolls offer sexist approaches to throwing a bachelor party.

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

All you really need to know is that The Rover is a modern Western that explodes the terms good and evil; that its desolation is brilliantly rendered by Michôd and cinematographer Natasha Braier; that Pearce and Pattinson are a blazing pair of opposites.

It's thrilling, a soaring blend of 3D animation and spectacular storytelling that swerves daringly to honor the healing chaos of family, human and dragon.

Thanks to this team of merry pranksters, 22 Jump Street hurts so good.

Obvious Child is a romcom with a sting in its tail. And Slate is a dynamo, nailing every laugh while showing a true actor's gift for nuance.

Liman keeps the action and surprises coming nonstop. OK, the end is a head-scratcher. Until then, Cruise and Blunt make dying a hugely entertaining game of chance.

Green made the wise choice to be funny in telling his sad story.

Even when the film falls to pieces, McAvoy's bonkers brilliance will blow you away.

What we have here is an exhilarating blast of a movie, full of heart but still punk rock. So don’t get all pissy because it’s in Swedish (with English subtitles) and you never heard of anyone in it and coming-of-age movies about girls make you puke.

Haden Church gives the movie the joyous kick it needs. His flirty thrust-and-parry with Collette is beautifully played.

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

Jolie comes to this party ready to bite, but the movie muzzles her. Even at 97 minutes, Maleficent is still one long, laborious slog.

Get ready to squirm. Be sure to seek out this twisty and terrific sleeper in theaters or on VOD. It's a real find.

Step up, cynics, and see the summer 2014 blockbuster that gets damn near everything right.

What sounds like undiluted melodrama with the hounds forever nipping at Ewa's heels is transformed by Gray into a mesmerizing meditation on the broken American promise.

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

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

Buoyed by a Latin-flavored score and Favreau's knack for improv inspiration, Chef is the perfect antidote to Hollywood junk food. Like the best meals and movies, this irresistible concoction feels good for the soul.

Fed Up has a fire in its belly to change things. Naïve? Maybe. So what. I say, Godspeed. Here is something rare at the multiplex: a movie that matters.

A hypnotic movie of harsh truth and healing compassion. It sticks with you.

You expect hardcore hilarity from Neighbors, and you get it. It's the nuance that sneaks up on you.

Things go wrong quickly with Amazing 2. Am I the only one who hates the word Amazing to describe a movie that isn't? Just asking. If I had to pinpoint where this epic goes south, I'd start with the tonal shifts.

All I can cull is: don't mess with Mother Nature and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Fortune-cookie stuff. Erase All.

It's a powerhouse of claustrophobic suspense and fierce emotion, mostly because Tom Hardy, best known as Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises," is a blazing wonder as Locke.

Jarmusch, as ever, has the power to sneak up on you. He's a spellbinder. The same goes for his movie.

Sheridan, so good in "Mud" with Matthew McConaughey, excels here as a vulnerable sapling.

A brave experiment in cinema that richly rewards the demands it makes. The result is an amazement, a film of beauty and shocking gravity.

With raw shock and a riveting Uma Thurman absent this time, Nymphomaniac: Volume II is a metaphoric limp dick.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is every rousing, whup-ass thing you want in an escapist adventure.

The Raid 2 lets its warriors rip for two and a half thrilling hours. With the precision of dance and the punch of a KO champion, Evans keeps the action coming like nobody's business. The wow factor is off the charts.

Hold off on burning Aronofsky at the stake till you see Noah, a film of grit, grace and visual wonders that for all its tech-head modernity is built on a spiritual core.

Except for Kate Winslet's fearsome turn as a villain, the only terror Divergent roused in me was that the drag-ass thing would never end. Sorry, I'm a Candor.

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.

I refuse to render a final verdict on the latest cinematic outrage from Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier until Volume Two drops its undies on April 18th. But I will say this for Volume One: It's a mesmerizing mind game.

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.

There's nothing to distract you from a plot so tired there are tire tracks from other racing movies all over it.

Bad Words, starring Jason Bateman in a tour de force of comic wickedness, takes sinful pleasure in rubbing our noses in the toxic joys of revenge.

The ending is a TVish cop-out. But until then, watching Wood sweat emerges as a pulse-pounding experiment in terror.

His (Anderson) abiding love for a vanished past, real and imagined, is at the core of The Grand Budapest Hotel. The thrill comes in watching as this rare talent gives his movie wings.

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

So cheers to a movie as gloriously entertaining and bluntly honest as the lady herself. Everybody rise.

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

It's a big story, and in this landmark film Miyazaki is up to every demand. Sit back and behold.

Brazilian director José Padilha (Elite Squad, Bus 174) soldiers on stolidly, but lacks the Dutch Verheoeven's abiding sense of mischief.

Winter's Tale is preposterous twaddle.

This Endless Love is a photo shoot, not a movie. It'd play better as a slideshow of jpgs. Even nine-year-old girls ought to cry foul on this movie's endless blandness.

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

A wickedly smart and funny free-for-all, and sassy enough to shoot well-aimed darts at corporate branding.

One idea, mixed with lame jokes, and stretched beyond coherence. Vampire Academy doesn't need a review. It needs a stake in the heart.

A stimulating detective story that holds you in thrall.

The compensation comes in the three lead actors, all way too good for the material dished out by writer-director Tom Gormican.

The pie looks delicious, but Labor Day feels stale.

Who knew? The work of the Monuments Men is fresh territory for film, and Clooney builds the story with intriguing detail and scope.

Like his characters, Guiraudie is walking a tightrope, finding the point where sex and death exude a similar allure. You won't be able to look away.

Propaganda is a bitch to act. And this misguided movie leaves Hudgens buried in it.

A collection of moldy gags that director Tim Story tries to polish. Not with these turds, pal.

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.

Like the best war movies, Lone Survivor laces action with moral questions that haunt and provoke.

In his uniquely funny and unexpectedly tender movie, Stiller takes us on a personal journey of lingering resonance.

Watching De Niro and Stallone piss all over their most iconic roles provides no pleasure. It made me feel – Sad. Sad. Sad.

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

Bejo (The Artist) digs deep into the secrets and lies that have afflicted all her relationships, in a wonderfully affecting film that haunts you long after it ends.

Jonze is a visionary whose lyrical, soulful meditation on relationships of the future cuts to the heart of the way we live now.

When is a movie fall-down funny even when some scenes fall flat on their fat ones? When it's Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.

DiCaprio's swaggering, swinging-dick performance is the wildest damn thing he's ever put onscreen.

A tasty swig of holiday cheer.

For some, the silver linings in Russell’s movies represent a failure to embrace darkness. I see them as a humanist’s act of resistance. That’s why American Hustle ranks with the year’s best movies. It gets under your skin.

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

One thing's for sure about this raw provocation from the Coens: Like the music, the pain runs deep and true. You'll laugh till it hurts.

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

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.

The animation is pretty, the songs are tuneful, and Josh Gad gets big laughs as Olaf, a snowman with a sun fetish. It's the holidays, people, work with it.

What's onscreen feels squeezed, truncated and curiously embalmed. It's got no kick to it.

It could have been crazy-good trash.

It's Dench, showing how faith and hellraising can reside in the same woman, who makes Philomena moving and memorable.

Delivery Man is one joke stretched to the breaking point. Mine was reached.

Pop-culture escapism can be thrilling when dished out by experts. Katniss is a character worth a handful of sequels. And Lawrence lights up the screen. You'll follow her anywhere.

Just try to take your eyes off Dern. In his finest two hours onscreen, he gives a performance worth cheering. There's not an ounce of bullshit in it. Same goes for the movie.

With the help of Hamilton, Ross and Olmos, sublime actors who radiate grit and grace, Sayles has made Go for Sisters a movie that stays inside your head long after you see it. It's a keeper.

Hirsch opens his heart to the role. And Dorff, matching the depth of feeling he showed in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere," excels at digging deep into Jerry Lee's pain.

An idol had fallen, and Gibney and the superb director of photography Maryse Alberti were there to capture the descent, including a confessional interview in which Armstrong blames the corruption of the game far more than himself. The movie rambles at two-plus hours, but the provocation never stops.

The simplicity of Michael Petroni’s script seems a drawback at first. But skilled director Brian Percival (Downton Abbey) slowly, effectively tightens the vise as evil intrudes into the life of this child.

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.

Like a doggie in a window, this romcom relentlessly wags its tail so you'll fall in love and take it home. Not this time, puppy.

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.

McConaughey makes sure we feel his tenacity and triumphs in the treatment of AIDS. His explosive, unerring portrayal defines what makes an actor great, blazing commitment to a character and the range to make every nuance felt.

Blue Is the Warmest Color sweeps you up on waves of humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance.

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.

Oddly, the published screenplay – while far from McCarthy's top-drawer – reads better than it plays. What's onscreen recalls a line from No Country: "It's a mess, ain't it, Sheriff?"

Sex, lies, betrayal and murder set among the gods of the Beat Generation. That's Kill Your Darlings, a dark beauty of a film that gets inside your head and stays there.

Redford, who can play intelligence, wit and nuance to a camera like nobody's business, holds us in his grip. It's a master class in acting.

The Fifth Estate is stuck running in place.

Proving himself a world-class director, McQueen basically makes slaves of us all. It hurts to watch it. You won't be able to tuck this powder keg in the corner of your mind and forget it. What we have here is a blistering, brilliant, straight-up classic.

It might have all been another Hollywood-formula flick with American might taking on the alien other. But Greengrass gives Phillips and Muse the time, aboard a covered lifeboat, to discover shared beliefs and fears.

The actors hit the jackpot, but only in terms of their paychecks. The audience gets a tension-free, tight-assed, "Casino" ripoff that leaves them thoroughly fleeced.

Sadly, what Parkland becomes is a crying shame.

Sandra Bullock, in the performance of a lifetime, spends most of this wondrous wallop of a movie lost in space, alone where no one can hear her scream.

If you’re looking for an orgasmic trip to heavy-metal heaven, this is it.

Gordon-Levitt won't take safe for an answer. So Don Jon tends to stumble as it finds its feet. Still, you leave this movie feeling had at instead of had. The experience is elating.

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

Some will write off Prisoners as shameless exploitation. But like Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River," to which it's been compared, Prisoners is so artfully shaped and forcefully developed that objections fade.

It sounds like rom-com hell. And it would be if Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus weren't such an appealing pair of misfits. It's a pleasure just to watch them spar.

It's Morgan's core script, full of humor, heartache and verbal fireworks, that lifts Rush above the "Fast & Furious" herd.

Blue Caprice is a cinematic punch to the gut, a mind-bending meditation on how to mold a killer, and one of the most potent and provocative true-crime movies ever made.

Robert De Niro – wait for it – in the role of a mobster. Now there's an original idea.

Working from a script by the gifted Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, Atonement), who seems to have traded his wit for a paycheck, Fontaine manages the trick of making sex joyless. Like porn. Then she tops that by draining her film of variety, longing and feminist insight. Like farce. Ouch.

We also learn that five of his books, written in secret, will be published between 2015 and 2020. Can't wait to read them. Can't wait to forget this movie.

An alternately kick-ass and clumsy piece of sci-fi claptrap that puts its empty head down and gets the job done.

In fact, Bell the writer, director, producer and actress knows how to set a savvy trap. While we're laughing, she pulls the rug out, making us see Carol's world as a microcosm for the world every working woman lives in. That she does it with subtlety, humor and touching gravity marks Bell as a filmmaker to watch.

What's on screen in The Grandmaster is off-puttingly disjointed, but it's also dazzling in its startling action and ravishing romance.

Is a Brian DePalma movie that laughs at Brian De Palma movies still worth your time?

When Macbeth said, "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing," he must have had visions about Courtney Solomon's Getaway, a car chase thriller with zero thrills and a stench that all the perfumes of Arabia couldn't erase.

Rehab movies nearly always make me cringe, as if the audience needs to take medicine, as if hope needs to be force fed. Short Term 12, an exceptional film in every way, breaks the mold.

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.

It'll knock you on you ass from laughing when you're not rubbing your eyes in disbelief.

It galls me that Hollywood thinks we're shallow enough to swallow this swill. Or am I just being paranoid?

Jobs is a one-man show that needed to go for broke and doesn't. My guess is that Jobs would give it a swat.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints offers no glib answers or smooth resolution, but there's no question that Lowery is a filmmaker with a striking future.

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.

We pity Linda, but it's no substitute for understanding her.

Like District 9, an allegory of apartheid that took four Oscar nods and put Blomkamp on the map, Elysium delivers sci-fi without dumbing it down. It's a hell-raiser with a social conscience.

Stephen Rodrick's New York Times article about the making of The Canyons had humor, suspense and propulsion. They should have made that movie. What we have here is dead on arrival.

James Ponsoldt's funny and touching coming-of-age tale covers old ground with disarming freshness.

Hell, I really meant to at least like 2 Guns. But I couldn't. The movie just didn't make the extra effort.

Does Carey go too far? Duh. But why gripe when you can't stop laughing?

Want to see great acting, from comic to tragic and every electrifying stop in between? See Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine.

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.

Forget "The Conjuring," Blackfish may be the scariest movie around.

Where "Drive" shrewdly mystifies, Only God Forgives stupefies. You can see its gears grinding. But I'll always hang on for a rare talent like Refn. Even when he stumbles, he leaves you eager to see what he's up to next.

It scared the living crap out of me. Only at the movies is that a compliment.