Shawn Levy

Even as Inarritu has matured as a craftsman, he has stood perhaps one beat too long in the same place as a storyteller. In ways, Babel is his best work, but it's time to move on.

You don't often hear critics gripe that a movie isn't long or explicit enough, but Sorkin and Nichols could have gone the extra lap or so to show that Wilson's saga is more than just a story of a good ol' boy accidentally pulling off a remarkable coup; it's a sobering account of the geopolitical hijinks that gave shape to our current world.

It isn't perversely genre-busting like "Drive." Instead, it feels like somebody turned down the volume on a hard rock album so as to hear the details better -- for which relief, much thanks.

The result is a newly revived spy movie franchise -- and the best big-budget action film of the summer.

It's a fascinating patchwork.

If you've got the stomach for it, it's a treat.

So rich, moving and surprising that a familiar story starts to feel new again. The details, the personalities and the final twist grab you until you're left truly shaken and inspired.

Three impeccably cast actors are fully engaged in something like a psychological thriller that has much of the crushing weight and lingering pain of grown-up life on this Earth.

Rodriguez, who never acted before auditioning for the director, is utterly convincing, fluid and determined and jaded and wild like any teen-ager, but with a bracing spirit and a shocking store of ferocity.

The most compelling question dangling at its end is, "Didn't Steven Spielberg used to know how to bring a movie to an end?"

If film is an art, it's because it's possible for somebody to make films like this.

Even as the film sometimes veers into unproductive sidebars, there's a masterful tension to it, Alcazar is wonderful, and the final shot is a stunner.

Pina, so exquisitely made and filled with such powerful beauty, suggests thrilling new possibilities for the marriage of movies and dance.

Kong is brilliant in many, many places. But it overwhelms its own best qualities with its sheer, punishing size. It is, literally, too much of a good thing.

Entertaining and informative.

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.

Invigorating, blistering and chilling.

It's a tiny story, told on an intimate scale, and it is rich in emotion, specificity and care.

A work of gentle, continual hilarity that feels far more ordinary than other Coen works and yet has every bit of the originality and exactness that makes the brothers' best films so wonderful.

The film is enthralling, even as the tale becomes more and more dire, with scores of millions dead and societal upheaval imminent. The circumstances depicted in Contagion are terrifying, but the power with which the film is made blends the horror, as only the best art can, with beauty.

It's a fine debut, far more grounded, plausible and engrossing than most Hollywood thrillers.

Such a powerful sincerity and goodness flows through Paper Clips.

A stylish and unnerving thriller that sucks you into surreal scenes of horror with the chilly confidence of a nightmare.

Alas, while the verbiage bubbles, the plot slogs. You feel that there's a big pile of deleted scenes waiting to appear on the DVD -- and that a good bit of what's here should have joined it. Funny is good, but it requires sharp if it's to rise to true greatness.

Richly frightening film.

It's a film for those people -- and they are legion -- who recoil in horror from the very notion of Christmas cheer. If you're in that crowd, and you know who you are, you'll love it.

Genre movies are often mere excuses for shows of gore and tricked-up suspense, and while The Grey should satisfy anyone who seeks only that there's something more profound and pure at its heart, making it a genuinely entertaining thriller that puts a chill through you in more ways than one.

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