Richard Roeper

[Del Toro] carries this sometimes convoluted and derivative thriller into three-star territory with an absolutely mesmerizing and authentic performance that conjures up memories of past anti-hero greats such as Bogart and Mitchum, Robert Ryan and Sterling Hayden. It’s authentic, grounded, stunning work.

Some of the resolutions of this myriad of conflicts and issues are perhaps a bit too tidy, but this is a richly layered and truly moving set piece, with a smart and insightful screenplay and great performances from the ensemble cast.

Thanks to the subtle brilliance of Reilly and Coogan, even someone who’s never heard of Laurel and Hardy would likely see how magical these two were together.

Nanette Burstein...provides steady, no-frills direction that includes snippets of Taylor’s movies, a myriad of behind-the-scenes photos and newsreel footage; there’s a nearly endless supply of material, given Taylor starred in some 80 films and offscreen was one of the most photographed and filmed people ever.

Scorsese tells the Wolf’s story almost strictly from the Wolf’s point of view. We never see his victims. It’s actually an effective technique, because the Wolf certainly never really saw his victims either — not as actual human beings who could be hurt by his financial hocus-pocus.

The Two Popes is the kind of well-made but flawed release you can wait to catch on home video.

At times Thor: The Dark World does fire on all cylinders, with fine work from the returning cast, a handful of hilarious sight gags and some cool action sequences. But it’s also more than a little bit silly and quite ponderous and overly reliant on special effects that are more confusing than exhilarating.

At times this is a beautifully shot film — but the Safdies never glamorize Harley’s world or turn her character into some gloriously tragic heroine. We feel for Harley and we like her, but only a fool would want to spend five seconds in her tattered shoes.

As Fyre makes painfully clear, just about everyone involved with the project — including the co-founders — had to have known they were tumbling down a mountain at rapid speed and headed for almost guaranteed scandal and disaster, yet everyone kept on working, as if the denial would somehow soften the blow.

In the home stretch, Fifty Shades Freed leaves the sexy stuff behind and turns into a combo platter of a cheesy, easily solved mystery-thriller and an overwrought, daytime soap opera melodrama.

The French Dispatch is filled with a sense of wistful longing, delivered from the perspectives of creative and observant strangers in a wonderfully strange land.

Despite an intriguing premise, it ultimately falls apart as the gimmick wears thin and the plot veers into ludicrous territory, with the heroine making a series of increasingly rash and idiotic decisions.

Felicity Jones gives a fierce and moving performance as Nelly.

The final chapters of Tully take us to a place I certainly didn’t anticipate, causing us to re-examine everything we’ve seen from the outset. It might not be a perfectly constructed journey, but it’s pretty close.

The Darkest Hour is filled with authentic touches, large and small. Most authentic of all is Oldman’s performance.

Bill Condon’s take on Beauty and the Beast is almost overwhelmingly lavish, beautifully staged and performed with exquisite timing and grace by the outstanding cast.

Director Olson and her team have done an amazing job of weaving together the cell phone footage into a cohesive timeline of a stunning crisis in the nascent days of the pandemic that shook the world.

Spy is a foul-mouthed, often hilariously disgusting, slightly padded comedy that soars on the strengths of writer-director Paul Feig’s wonderfully idiotic script and nimble camerawork, and the bountiful comedic talents of Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne and Jason Statham.

This is a quietly gripping gem.

Just when we thought Keanu Reeves was destined for a career of mostly forgettable films piling up in our straight-to-video cues, the guy is headlining a bona fide, first-class action franchise. Whoa.

The screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift is sharp and funny, and contains knowing insights about misogyny in the workplace and the shifting dynamic between a toxic male boss and an overlooked and mistreated female employee. Mostly, though, “Send Help” is about paying your ticket for an R-rated, Sam Raimi thrill ride with projectile vomiting, flying ropes of blood, and a handful of scenes that fly so off the rails that you wonder if we’re in the middle of a dream sequence, or the mayhem is real.

Belfast is deserving of double-digit Oscar nominations, from the picture itself to Branagh’s directing and writing to the editing and cinematography to any number of the performances, with Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench near locks in the supporting categories. This is the best movie I’ve seen so far in 2021.

With horrific wars raging in other parts of the world, and with politically charged violence part of the fabric of this country, “Civil War” will hit home no matter where you live.

Blindspotting moves at a brisk pace and raises the dramatic stakes with each scene; director Estrada has a masterful touch for pacing.

Director Tedesco employs some clever animation to capture certain moments, and also delivers a bounty of memorable moments when various musicians play a familiar drumbeat or guitar riff or piano intro in present day, e.g., Russ Kunkel playing brushes to hit the tom fills on “Fire and Rain.”

Despite the occasional moment where the depiction of newsroom procedures doesn’t quite ring true, or a supporting character delivers a line that’s a little too perfect and succinct for the moment, most of what transpires feels grimly authentic and true to the real-life characters and events.

Captain America: Civil War is a classic example of what the big-ticket summer movie experience is all about.

Despite a game performance by Lively, The Rhythm Section is a junk pile of missteps, from the convoluted screenplay that hops from locale to locale in Advil-inducing fashion to the overly stylized directing to the self-consciously “cool” oldies pop music selections.