Shawn Levy

It's a handsome film, and Bridges is back, but little has been done to deepen the story into a saga, and the leading man, Garrett Hedlund, rivals Bit for inexpressivity.

Although there is some gimmickry, this is one of the most straightforward versions of the Tempest ever filmed, making it edifying as well as -- when Taymor hits a groove -- dazzling.

It's a film possessed of its own force, wit and style, and it builds to a rousing climax that absolutely pays off in crowd-pleasing fashion. It knows what it is, doesn't try to be what it's not, and hits you with drop-dead force. In short, it's terrific.

Monsters is a tiny sci-fi thriller that makes up what it lacks in big effects with a fine photographic eye, a low-key sense of scale, and a genuine (if not always well-performed) human drama.

Moves with lightness, verve and charm, which Magnetic Fields fans might find amusing, given Merritt's well-known morosity. But there is more than a suggestion here that his persona is just that, and that those sweet melodies he sings so dryly arise from a truly sweet core.

Whether your tastes are delicate or coarse, whether you prefer the ballet or horror movies, there is plenty in the film for you.

Tangled is a lively, funny, deft and delicious musical in the vein of Disney's 1989 classic "The Little Mermaid."

Before it traps Ralston, 127 Hours gives us ample evidence of his energy, zest and boyish charm and wit.

A dense, sharp, hilarious and unflinching film about a group of British Muslims who seek to shock the world with an apocalyptic act of jihad but are too dumb, contentious and accident-prone to succeed at anything much more audacious than ringing a doorbell and running.

Fair Game, a murky potboiler based on memoirs by both Plame and Wilson, makes a hash of these piquant ingredients.

As a film, Inside Job is polished enough, and fueled by piquant indignation, but it's also often scattershot and meandering.

There's little that's conventionally pleasant about the experience, save the satisfaction of having witnessed the novel and the extreme. But that sensation is at the heart of a lot of great art, from Poe to Stravinsky to Picasso to Diane Arbus to NWA. Nöe would likely, with a black-hearted grin, appreciate being ranked with such company.

If it can seem like there's no end of films about the Holocaust, it might be because there is no bottom to the well of crime, inhumanity and evil described by that ghastly event.

There are hints lately that De Niro is trying to build a fourth, restorative act to his wayward film career, and he brings some real fire, without which Stone would be helpless.

It may not be a great movie, but the acting in it is amazing.

Thirty-five years since its debut, The Conformist is still a stunning, challenging, transporting film.

The acting is so persuasive as to be transparent.

It's as sullying and disheartening an experience as the movies can offer .

The acting is the strongest thing about the film. Pitt nicely balances the dashing and wounded sides of Tristan's character. [13 Jan 1995]

It may be mindless and sexless and humorless, but Jumper jumps.

It's a wonderfully crafted work, handsome, lively, stirring and utterly convincing in its depiction of the perils and thrills of sea life. But I'm not sure that my personal enthusiasm for it will translate entirely for viewers whose favorite movie about the high seas is, for perfectly good reasons, "Pirates of the Caribbean."

The film manages the rare trick of improving as it unrolls from the utterly putrid to the barely tolerable. And, friends, I wish to say that sometimes that is as good as you can hope for in this racket.

Apparently it’s the second film of a trilogy Demme intends on Young -- and the middles are always the hardest parts to get right, yeah?

There's drama here, and moments of genuine tension, but there's fun, too, which is the point of a movie like this. To Ratliff's credit, he never lets the considerable craft get in the way.

Tt is a comeback, and if it leads the director to better work, it can be forgiven as a warm-up.

Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, a veteran of low-tech Dogme films, work wonders with a digital camera, pausing to take in the beauty of the countryside or an eerily empty London…It's virtuosic without ever quite being showy.

Though serious, well-crafted and handsome, lacks most of the pungency of the epitome of the genre, "Lawrence of Arabia."

As cinema, it's polenta, but it's made palatable by the piquant sauce with which these two great stars season it.

How the mighty (De Niro and Hoffman) have fallen? More like how the mighty have pile-driven themselves into the solid mass of rock at the core of the Earth. . . .

This fascinating and occasionally transporting film never quite transforms into something really great.

It's a lively, charming film, and if it gave us a little more of the band's history, it would be perfect. As it is, it's a perfect introduction to some great songs and fascinating characters.

It's a celebration of American female screen acting, it's a study of early feminism that feels relevant today, it's a carefully mounted exercise in period filmmaking and it's a beloved novel come to life for the fourth time. [23 Dec 1994]

It ends on a random note, making an awkward plea for better ecological stewardship of the Earth, which looked so small and frail to the astronauts regarding it from the moon. But otherwise it's a satisfying and heartening reminder of what a glorious thing a small group of men once contrived to do.

Indeed, Green Zone plays a little bit like a video game version of the Oscar-winning film (The Hurt Locker)-- which should tell you right off whether it's for you or not.

Credit the great Bruno Ganz with creating a vivid Hitler: furious, unsteady, crushed and frankly cracking up.

A near-perfect movie.

A frustrating, pedantic, cacophonous jumble of a picture, peopled with as many straw men and caricatures as living, breathing humans.

It's energetic and occasionally inspired. Its gritty, sweaty, shiny feel deepens the case that there's a vital new essence to Brazilian cinema.

Despite the stories' brief running times, they don't manage to generate much interest or make much sense.

So good at what it does that it can exhaust you: In the later going, one big number follows on the heels of another so quickly that it feels more like an opera than a regular musical.

Malle, only 25 when the film was released, bounces confidently among several threads -- classic French policier, juvenile delinquent film, doomy tale of tragic love, clock-ticking thriller.

In a way, the film is a kind of experiment: Can you lop off the bulk of a classic work and still have something worth seeing? On this evidence, the answer is, despite the best intentions and some fine work, sadly no.

The stifling piety of this film -- which regards anything old and vaguely arty as next to sacred -- needs some serious airing out.

The film drags and lingers and goes more or less nowhere, imitating its protagonists' lives so exactly that you want to give them both a good smack.

The film has a spry quality, but the jokes are neither funny nor dark enough, the quirky roadside episodes aren't sufficiently outlandish or imaginative, the romantic sparks don't convince and the plotting becomes increasingly silly and tedious. Dukic conjures an air of play and naughtiness, but that's about as deep as he cuts.

It's not Allen's weakest work, not by far. But its impact is shockingly superficial.

Isn't profound or dazzling or groundbreaking. But it's a pleasant, clever and sincere little romp, proof that you don't need to harbor heroic ambitions to create something satisfying.

Price of Glory won't make anyone forget "Raging Bull" or "Rocky."

It's a justifiably G-rated film, but parents may have some 'splainin' to do.

The single most impressive thing about the film, in fact, is the taste that this shotgun technique gives of the mass simultaneity of the race.

The timing and cutting of the film are terrific, the build-up to an absurdly hilarious climax is just right, and the performances are near perfect.

Stardust in a nutshell: hardly great shakes, but better and more satisfying than it first seems.

Transcends politics and forces us to consider just what it is we ask of young people who answer the call to duty.

The film always teaches and entertains in equal, ample measure. It's a treat -- and it's good for you.

One of those should-I-laugh-or-cry satires.

The result is minor Gilliam: still more engaging than most moviemaking, but nonetheless a letdown after such a long wait.

It is affecting, accomplished, witty, poignant and memorable.... Unstrung Heroes is one of the year's best films. [22 Sep 1995]

Can a movie about such a fellow and such a fate be lovely? And can it uplift? Control is and, in its artfulness, does.

Fact is, Starting Out is pretty dry stuff as a movie, even as it's enlivened by vivid acting.

The opportunity to give Jolie the room to swagger like the "Charlie's Angels" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" ladies is utterly squandered, and a video game franchise that might've resulted in a hoot of a film -- has been blown to dust.

The film, bleeding its central character of all shades but black and darkest gray, fails as both biographical chronicle and filmed narrative.

You find yourself wishing that Apatow had managed a script that was either really funny or about real people instead of this half-baked pseudo-memoir that's neither.

One of those undeniably beautiful things. The film is, in fact, an encyclopedia of beauty -- the beauty of desire, the beauty of nostalgia, the beauty of music and clothing and smoke and pain, and, chiefly, the beauty of women.

You're likelier to shrink in astonished horror from it than laugh.

You wouldn't want to be Daniel Johnston, or even know him too well. But see this film and you won't forget him.

The stories don't resonate, the film has a drab look and feel, and it lacks the passionate zing with which the least of Almodovar's works teems.

When the picture's good, it's really something; when it's bad, you grit your teeth and pray it will end.

There's a wonderful chemistry between them -- though the film wisely allows Duplass and Delmore an equally intimate connection. Choices like that enable the modest Humpday to capture the lives of its protagonists more credibly than any Hollywood-manufactured comedy of recent vintage.

A new political thriller, has an ending so egregiously stupid that not to reveal it would be a disservice to moviegoers.