Stephen Whitty

With standout performances by stars Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, expert imagery and striking production design, Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth is hardly a tale told by an idiot. But it could actually use a little more sound and fury – and a better idea of what it’s supposed to be signifying.

A warm gathering of Scandinavian artists, with Sweden’s Skarsgård and Norway’s Hovig both excelling under Norwegian director Maria Sødahl’s attentive care.

Rather than including people with their politics, the filmmakers depend on flashy sleight-of-hand, distracting us with a deceptive narrative trick that isn’t nearly as fresh as they think.

As a brief, brightly-coloured, virtual babysitter – lasting just long enough to keep the children diverted while you check in and out of that last Zoom meeting, and get dinner on the table – it dutifully fulfills its obligations. But anyone looking for much beyond that in this tale of a flying squirrel – well, they’d have to be nuts.

Even for a film about time loops, everything feels overly familiar. (Note to filmmakers: Simply referencing the film you’re stealing from doesn’t excuse the theft). And unlike Mark and Margaret’s do-over day, in the end the whole thing slips by without leaving any impression at all.

Despite the constant effort and genuine warmth of star Melissa McCarthy, the film’s stitched-together stories come apart early on.

Evan Morgan’s sometimes weird, sometimes whimsical thriller delivers a grown-up blend of film-noir tropes and deadpan humor, for a comedy-drama which starts off lighthearted and then deftly darkens.

Spun mostly of sugar and air, this film is a lightweight, but mostly sweet, treat – and a lovely reminder of when pictures could just be low-key amusements, and the pandemic hadn’t yet turned cities into ghost towns.

In a way, the film is its own genre – the found-footage documentary. There are no interviews with other people, no self-described experts. Just Hoon, who – adding to the film’s melancholy sense of waste – comes across as an unspoiled, charismatic and mostly amiable young man.

Although the story’s point is clear, the plotting is thin, and it can be easy at times for viewers to feel as confined as the prisoners. But the production design – all grey cement walls, with that platform cutting through the center of the screen like an infernal dumbwaiter – is superb.

Its quiet humanism and painstaking attention to detail are sure to appeal to the core audience which has faithfully followed her for more than a decade.

Built on a potent mixture of quiet bravery and hard-won access, David France’s new documentary, Welcome to Chechnya, puts audiences in the middle of the literally life-or-death struggle of an already endangered minority.

The Painter and the Thief suggests, human relationships are complex and multidimensional things. And whenever you foolishly start to try to contain them in a simple frame, they stubbornly burst out.

Instead of intriguing ambiguity, this updated version – which had a long and bumpy development – offers only maddening confusion...With false endings within false endings, it’s the sort of movie whose final fade-out will leave audiences groaning in frustration.

Lit like a Rembrandt, acted like a neo-Realist classic and with all the searing social conscience of a new Dardenne brothers film, Vitalina Varela is both richly familiar and profoundly unique; if occasionally a challenge to watch.

Badly cast, broadly directed, and hampered by a book that hasn’t aged well since the musical’s 1981 West End debut, it’s hard to imagine just who this film’s target audience is.

The Irishman is vintage Scorsese, with an often sinuously moving camera, occasional break-the-fourth-wall monologues, wicked wise-guy humour, and explosions of sudden tenderness and casual violence. And its final half-hour pulls something even deeper from the filmmaker – moments of reflection, twinges of regret, worries about chances thrown away.

An artful, deeply felt documentary, Always in Season has its own, sadly necessary reasons for being.

Like the sequinned, simpering erotic dancers it spotlights, Hustlers is a lot smarter than it initially looks. Given a story about a gang of larcenous strippers, audiences might expect little more than dirty jokes and steamy sex. But this slyly feminist movie pushes empowerment, too; it’s a film about being in control, not losing it.

The result is a careful chronicle that, while staying true to its observational ethos, nonetheless, leaves plenty of questions – and, occasionally, its audience – behind.

The script takes forever to get started, and once it’s going, labours to create a single plausible character. Nor can Taylor, who last handled the dreary The Girl On The Train, wring any suspense from his scenes.

Like the first film, The Secret Life of Pets 2 is at its best when it concentrates on the unconditional love offered by mankind’s best friends, or gently mocks familiar situations.

Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but Domino dishes it up as a sloppy mess of warmed-over clichés. Instead of his old high style and kinky violence, director Brian De Palma delivers only crude thrills and ugly stereotypes, a soggy bag of junk-food snacks.

17 Blocks ... is packed with gritty realism, and at times its uncensored honesty almost makes you want to look away.

Carefully made and perfectly acted.

It takes more than simply celebrating rural life and marveling at nature to make someone the next David Gordon Green, let alone the next Terrence Malick. While Yeomans inarguably finds something significant in the slow pace of small towns, the power of narration and the jolt of handheld cinematography, exactly what that is isn’t always clear. In fact, sometimes it’s literally unclear; shots slip out of focus, and some close-ups are so poorly lit the characters’ features disappear.

At its core, The Kill Team has one great performance, and some important things to say – about the dangerous appeal of the strong, and the easy malleability of the young. It’s well worth watching, and thinking on. It’s just a shame that that great performance isn’t matched by all the others – and that what the film has to say is said in such a dutifully by-the-book way.

This is a small, carefully crafted film that tries hard to pierce the protective armor of a recluse known to be difficult and domineering. In the end, Stokes still remains slightly unknowable, as she’d undoubtedly prefer. Yet the documentary’s deep dive into her extraordinary archives, and the grainy video treasures it unearths, make for fascinating viewing.

Come to Daddy starts out like a nasty drama, ends up as a gruesomely gory, coldly comic revenge thriller – and desperately loses its way somewhere in-between.

With authentic spaces like this around them, Ahn’s actors relax into the realism.

Watergate is a fascinating film that both draws disturbing parallels and offers the opposition encouragement.

Anchored by standout performances by Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer and young Kelvin Harrison Jr., it’s a strong indie film about race, family and trust that should connect with fans of smart, provocative cinema.

For a movie that’s supposed to be about a modern-day Geppetto bringing his dolls to life, the wooden Welcome to Marwen never makes it out of the toy box.

Jordan really commits, and his scenes with Thompson have genuine warmth and intimacy.

The smartest kind of sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet remembers what you liked about the first film. And then, not only gives you more of the same, but something different.

The switch between moods—obvious comedy and sermonizing message—comes often, and clumsily.

The Front Runner works hard to accommodate all points of view.

In the end, perhaps, von Trotta’s search for Bergman never quite finds him. But did he ever quite find himself? All he knew was that he was an artist.

Foy and Alvarez have still spun the old and new elements together in an effective web. If this is a trap, it’s one you won’t hurry to escape from—or even fear being caught in again.

For fans of this goofy sort of comedy, or of Atkinson’s similarly loopy “Mr. Bean,” it may be a gentle treat.

The first-time filmmakers have little idea of pace, or imagery. Flatly lit, squarely staged, the scenes just plod on.

There are no surprises, and the addition of a supposedly mysterious killer fails to add any mystery.

Why is she attracted to him? For that matter, why are we watching?

This is a simple, macho morality tale—of the oppressors and the oppressed, of good and evil, and of the one man who sets out to settle the scales of justice. And the level on which it works is primal—and frighteningly effective.

although it’s far too fannish—this is not a movie that wants to dig deep into anything uncomfortable—it does give the rocker her props, while reminding fans of some modern rock history.

Even if you disagree with Moore, it’s hard not to admire his bravura filmmaking.

A few minutes into The House with a Clock in Its Walls, you realize Eli Roth knows what he’s doing—and that means carefully mixing the scares and stillness for a horror comedy that’s made-to-order for certain monster-loving 10-year-olds.

The film—Weitz’s first since 2015’s indie Grandma—feels a little cheap and shortchanged.

Too much of Kursk revolves around scenes of sodden sailors sitting around wondering why someone doesn’t just hurry up and rescue them. A sentiment likely to be shared by some audiences, as well.

This is a film with the logic of a dream, which is to say, no logic at all. But it also has the power of a nightmare. And, like some of them, it lingers.

Slim movies like this live or die based on their personal charm, and the sour Destination Wedding soon wheezes its way into the ICU.

It’s not a great movie, but it’s a good reminder of why Rockwell’s admirers have happily stuck with him for decades.

The movie...is a visual feast, one of the rare 3D films which was clearly designed with that extra dimension in mind.

It’s a raunchy, rollicking story of movie legends off the set and between the sheets.

It’s a movie made with an insider’s knowledge (directors Ben and Orson Cummings are both proud graduates of the school) and affection (Shaquille O’Neal is one of the producers, as is art-world titan Larry Gagosian). And yet, while it has heartwarming moments, it’s not a predictable, eager-to-please entertainment.

It’s a deliriously silly, often preposterous movie...but director Susanna Fogel keeps things moving too quickly to leave much time for complaints.

It’s not just “Impossible,” it’s irresistible.

Casal and Diggs have both lived these roles for years, so it’s not surprising that they never deliver a false moment.

Despite its novel plot, and some lovely music and incidental artwork—the title fireworks, the rugged seaside and that glittery magic ball are all beautifully rendered—the film quickly drags.

As much as you might want to look away from Dark River, you can’t. The direction is assured, inventive, precise. The performances are compelling. And while the writing is often a little too deliberately obscure, once it becomes clear where the story is heading, it moves forward with the force of classic tragedy.

Director Stefano Sollima, who cut his teeth on Italian TV mob dramas, is good at building suspense. He fills the screen with striking images, too -- night-vision raids, heat-signature tracking, eye-in-the-sky surveillance.

Admittedly, Travolta, who produced, is sure having fun. What ham wouldn’t? Chewing on the scenery like it was a meatball hero, he swaggers around in shiny suits and silver wigs, barking orders.

The special effects remain startling, and in your face. But there's nothing new here, and what's old feels like less. The corporate villains seem to have wandered over from "Rampage." The humor has vanished.

Both charmingly retro (dig that swingin’ score!) and confidently modern (girls run the world!) it’s a hip heist movie with a few laughs and some lovely fun.

Right now, he's the perfect "Avengers" antidote.

The script is surprisingly smart, pulling together all the subplots and cutting among all the locations. Chris Pratt’s Star Lord has some clever lines. Thanos is a far more complex villain than we usually get. And the movie ends on a stark and shocking note.

Some movies are feasts. Some films are desserts. This picture is cheese in a can, and if it only accepted that, it would be a lot more fun — like “Alligator,” the tongue-in-cheek classic that had a toothy terror climbing out of a city sewer.

Pike is terrific, and Hamm has a credibly bleary, weary look. The movie’s ambitions are worthy. But it rarely turns its action into real excitement, or moves past cynicism into insight. It’s the spy movie that leaves us in the cold.

This may be a sci-fi fantasy about giant man-eating bugs, but it’s grounded in human facts and folly. Little here is safe. Nothing is predictable. It’s surprising how effectively the silence increases the scares, too.

The movie is crammed with excitement and good humor.

Too bad the new actress doesn’t bring much to the party, and this “origin story” feels like leftovers.

Director Ava DuVernay’s version of the beloved children’s classic has a big cast and the best of intentions. It’s socially progressive, racially diverse and packed with positive messages. It’s just not much fun.

But the real problem is that the picture feels padded. There are endless, and pointless, scenes of radio hosts debating the vigilante violence. And the wildly mismatched shoot-outs — every criminal Kersey goes up against is slow, stupid and a lousy shot — waters down the thrills.

People who crave a movie about a secret agent with her own sexual agency — and a mission to give male predators exactly what they deserve — are going to want front-row seats. And a sequel.

A lot of the jokes are surprising, and one gag...pays off terrifically. The two top stars are delightful, and a couple of cameos are nice surprises.

Luckily the latest episode to arrive, dubbed Fifty Shades Freed, is also the last. And good thing, too, because by now we’ve definitely gone 100 shades too far.

Grumpy T'Challa may be on the throne, but it’s the women who rule. And Michael B. Jordan adds fire as Killmonger.

Compared to a really great poker game, sometimes “Molly’s” comes up a little short. It definitely keeps you too long at the table. And there are times — like every Sorkin script — where it won’t stop talking. Really, buddy, shut up and deal...But when the chips are down, its stars come through. And in the end, we all walk away winners.

True, sometimes director Steven Spielberg lays it on so thick you think he has a trowel. Inspiring scenes are flooded with sunshine. John Williams’ score swells and kvells. (Of course, Spielberg didn’t become America's most popular director by being its subtlest.)

It’s not top Woody, perhaps. What is, anymore? But on a cold day, it’s as welcome as the familiar smell of greasy fries, the feel of gritty sand, the winking of those far-off colored lights.

Washington is terrific as Roman. The character may be unclear, but the actor’s commitment is focused, and his anger and indignation are sharp and painful.

The new Murder on the Orient Express isn’t a whodunit. It’s a why’d-they-do-it. Why make a new version of a perfectly good old movie if you’re not going to do anything new?

Inside the endlessly dull, oh-so-serious All I See Is You there’s a short, fun, trashy movie dying to get out. And dying. And dying.

Marshall makes a good case for its hero as one of the brightest, boldest lawyers to ever walk into a courtroom. So why is it sometimes such a trial?

A film based on a true story should have three things — strong characters, fierce conflict and a fresh angle. Battle of the Sexes serves up all of them.

The cast is a hoot, too. Tatum is full of easy charm but Adam Driver is even better as his brooding brother (clearly they’re sons of different mothers). There’s also a nice, out-of-character appearance by Katie Holmes, playing Logan’s hair-sprayed, hard-edged ex.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard is a movie for anyone who just wants to see Samuel L. Jackson curse, Ryan Reynolds smirk and Salma Hayek kick butt while looking absolutely incredible. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The Dark Tower is simply dim.

To its credit, even the film realizes how ridiculous it is. After one over-the-top hand-to-hand bout, Lorraine and her Boris Badenov opponent are left literally punch-drunk, swinging wild like a couple of stumblebums.

Let other directors play with toy soldiers and computer effects. This is big-time, old-school filmmaking. Dunkirk isn’t overdone. It’s simply done epically...But it’s also human. It has room for small acts of heroism, of kindness, of forgiveness. And for a single, simple important, timeless message of resilience: Take what comes. Do what you can. Never surrender.

It never stops for a minute, yet it never goes anywhere. And much as it promises to take you to a thousand planets, it can’t find one sign of intelligent life.

No, this web-slinging crime fighter isn’t quite of world-saving, world-weary Avenger caliber yet. But that’s OK. In fact it’s better, because he’s something we’ve really been missing for a long time. Our old friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.

The film has to rush at the end, to wrap up all these different stories, and it still leaves one of them open-ended. It’s possible that they ran out of time. But it’s more likely that another sequel is already planned.

The cast is all top-notch. Harrelson can peel and eat scenery like a bunch of bananas, but he’s mostly in control here. Andy Serkis is beautifully intense as Caesar, and Steve Zahn a welcome addition as the scaredy-cat Bad Ape.

Still, there is plenty of erotic tension here, as the days drift by and the nights drag on. Kirsten Dunst is terrific as a slightly sad teacher with her own designs on the Yank. And Elle Fanning is a landmine in lace as the school flirt.

There’s a new “Cars” pulling into theaters, but the series is out of gas.

Sure it’s got big, blurry action scenes, a plane crash, and an army of dusty, mindless zombies. But I think some of them may have been the screenwriters, because the movie’s practically lifeless.

We get it, and DC finally should, too: Superhero movies can be fun. And Wonder Woman is a movie that'd send even the Suicide Squad home smiling.

After a sharp, satiric opening, though, Baywatch slowly sinks. The scenery is pretty, including the actors, but Johnson and Efron are better at making fun of themselves than landing zingers.

Director James Ponsoldt — who did the very good "The Spectacular Now" and "Smashed" — is great at visuals, peppering the screen with glowing tweets and comments. He overplays the comedy, though, and underplays the mystery — there's never a feeling that Mae is in real danger.

Unforgettable isn't.

Going in Style has gone a little soft. The geezers-go-gangsta story is back, but in a remake that lacks the edge that made the 1979 original memorable. It’s cuddly when it should be cranky, nice when it needs to be a little nasty.

The Assignment is a movie about a heartless assassin, a mad doctor and a forced surgery. But it’s the movie that should be sued for malpractice.

Sequels are tricky things, and decades-late followups are the trickiest. T2 Trainspotting almost pulls it off, too, bringing back the original’s hallucinatory style, jolting musical choices and charismatic cast.

The new Kong: Skull Island really gets it right — the exotic adventure, the spectacular special effects, the towering terrors. It’s a big hunk of nostalgic fun, reminding us of the 1933 original even as it monkeys around with the classic story.

In a nice bit of sorcery, Disney’s taken their 1991 animated classic — and their 1993 Broadway hit — and combined them into a groundbreaking delight, anchored by a breakthrough performance by Emma Watson.

A stand-alone adventure, it’s also a salute to a series, a character and a quietly committed actor.

Since Dornan is as dull as a catalog model anyway — he wanders through the movie like an Abercrombie searching for his Fitch — the shopping-list look of the movie makes sense. But Dakota Johnson deserves better.

Robert De Niro is back doing standup in The Comedian, and it's a movie made to be heckled. Full of gross jokes (and an even grosser love story), it deserves the hook — and fast.

True, the movie's intense, and Jovovich is certainly in fighting shape. But after 15 years of this franchise, it's getting hard to tell Alice from the things she's fighting. It's all squint and grunt, slash and groan.

Diesel is the star (as well as a producer), in every scene. And he drags the film down with him.

The details of how the McDonalds literally invented the fast-food concept are fascinating. The period details feel right. All in all, the film's a slick, good-looking package. But it still feels empty. Where's the message? Where's the meaning? Where's the beef?

Kind of like all the other characters Annette Bening plays, year after year - never to nearly enough applause.

Although Affleck's been a decent director - capturing real local color in "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town," building tension nicely in "Argo" - his work here is dim and dull. Live by Night may be about rum, but the pacing is like molasses.

It loses some of its warmth, and most of its charm. And it ends up as nearly as cold and creepy as the space it takes us through.

Washington isn't a visionary director, something he's proved before in "The Great Debaters" and "Antwone Fisher." But he is a fine actor, and if nothing else Fences preserves his career-best performance, as a loving, bullying, wounded, roaring bull of a man.

Hidden Figures is an earnest movie, but not a very exciting one. The screenplay feels as engineered as a Gemini rocket launch, with every scene and line carefully calculated.

Silence is a slowly unfolding, deeply thoughtful film about questioning yourself. About questioning authority. About taking stock of where you've failed as a human being, and wondering how you can make amends — to yourself, to others, and to God.

Whenever the movie begins to falter — it cuts, sometimes confusingly, among at least three different timelines — Portman pulls it back together, and sets it back on course.

Jessica Chastain plays Sloane, and she's the kind of Washington power-player who'd scare off half the cast of "Scandal" — towering heels, pulled-back hair and a taste for the kill.

The movie's no knockout, but at least it gives us one good performance, and one great one.

It sounds a little too clever, but it's not. It's just clever enough.

Despite his draw to tragic subjects, Lonergan holds onto a sharp, dark, Irish sense of humor, and a feel for the absurd that comes out at the most unexpected times. A playwright's sense of what actors do, too. Affleck gives a career-best performance here.

Real films breathe, alive with imperfections, accidents, with everything that Lee's worked so carefully to guard against. Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk is long, all right, but only half-alive — as careful as a diagram, as chilly as a statue.

It's a tough, understated part to play, and Edgerton does a terrific job.

It's fun to have new version of an old Marvel favorite, and a storyline which adds some genuine mysticism to this ever-expanding franchise. But "Strange" is too often only odd when it needs to be truly magical, and Hollywood-safe when it needs to be brave.

Even when the storytelling falters - several crucial scenes take place in between the various segments, with major events happening off-screen - Jenkins' sharp eye and his film's beautiful cinematography keeps us watching.

Director Kelly Reichardt, who made the great "Wendy and Lucy," likes stories that unfold slowly and simply. Sometimes she'll just let the camera run, making us watch the awkwardness of people who can't connect.

Directed with calm passion and controlled outrage, the movie — named after the amendment which outlawed slavery, but left a significant loophole when it came to criminal convictions — is a study in profits. And power.

There is nothing safe about The Birth of a Nation.

The action inside the courtroom is compelling. This is a place where people duel with words, not swords, but the wounds can be just as deep and permanent.

It's an impressive achievement, and even Berg's taste for the obvious — like shots of Old Glory, still waving through the worst of it — can't overwhelm the humanity behind the drama. Real people, real danger — and real self-sacrifice.

Although the script is a little flat — just because the story is true doesn't mean it should feel so predictable — Nair gives the film tons of energy and joy.

Instead of ever getting truly "Magnificent," these multicultural gunslingers remain largely a meh seven.

The film barely lasts an hour-and-a-half. Maybe that’s the problem with the movie. There’s not enough movie.

It's fun for a while, on a simple, single-shooter, video-game level. And for a change, the movie's stunts plug into Statham's pre-Hollywood career as a champion diver; this may be the most watery thriller since "Thunderball."

All the flash and sizzle of modern movie effects can't make up for a once spectacular tale that feels not just scaled-down, but shrunk.

The terrific Hell or High Water is like a gritty new retelling of the Frank and Jesse James story — only with getaway cars instead of horses, and assault rifles replacing six-shooters.

It's a pleasure seeing Grant in a great part again, playing the sort of almost-cad he's best at. And Streep - who, in real life, can belt anything from Broadway to Bruce - is clearly having a ball singing badly.

Once the story drags Bourne out of retirement, it's just a bunch of fights and chase scenes, only occasionally interrupted by a few lines of dialogue.

It's not only filled with the usual special-effects eye candy, but smart, fan-focused writing.

The all-new, mostly female Ghostbusters reboot is in theaters, full of terrific special effects, icky green slime, a horribly haunted Manhattan and, yes, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But the big laughs you’d expect from a "Bridesmaids" reunion of director Paul Feig and stars Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy never materialize.

Gorgeously photographed, and as loosey-goosey as its hero, Captain Fantastic takes some unexpected turns. Is Ben eccentric or irresponsible? Is he raising free-thinking iconoclasts — or training a new generation of Unabombers?

Alexander Skarsgard is more abs than actor as the ape man, and Margot Robbie's Jane looks about as 19th-Century as an Aussie surfer girl. Together, they produce all the real-life passion of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.

While the first "Independence Day" was genuinely big, dumb fun, its sequel only manages to be a bigger, dumber bore.

Swiss Army Man's greatest challenge is to its audience. Just, exactly, how much will we sit still for? Endless scenes of Dano in role-playing drag, sporting a rag-mop wig and giving dating tips to a corpse? Frequent closeups of Radcliffe's furry flatulent buttocks?

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is a seriously ridiculous put-on. And in this summer of overheated special-effects movies, it’s a cool blast of fresh air.

Hugely expensive and extravagantly stupid, Alice Through the Looking Glass is just one more silly Hollywood mashup, an innocent fantasy morphed into a noisy would-be blockbuster.

The Angry Birds Movie is just fowl.

The Lobster is a love story for the unloved. Dark-hearted and brutally sour - and imaginative, and sometimes very funny - it's set in an alternative world where relationships are mandatory.

Director Jodie Foster's Money Monster runs a trim 98 minutes, but it's still not quite worth the investment.

To be fair, Being Charlie has some action and a few good jokes. It's not completely unwatchable. It's certainly better than Reiner's last few awful movies.

Sometimes, more is less. Although it’s called Captain America: Civil War, the latest Marvel movie is actually a supersized “Avengers” picture -- overstuffed to bursting.

A Mother’s Day movie full of flat jokes, reheated clichés and two hours spent staring at your watch.

The Family Fang has a nasty little bite to it — and thank heavens for that.

It is sweet, and funny and quietly upbeat. Take a chance on it — and take your mom.

This Simone film hits all the wrong notes early. What is it trying to say about this enraged, iconic singer? Why does it want to say it? Since screenwriter Cynthia Mort apparently never asked those questions, director Cynthia Mort can't offer any answers.

The film borrows plenty, but it brings nothing new.

Quick, what do you call it when a movie takes both of the year’s biggest breakout action stars and wastes them in a bad Kevin Costner movie? Criminal.

Has the bare necessities, but not much more.

Stupid as a bag of hammers and twice as loud, Hardcore Henry sounds like the title of the worst Kissinger bio ever. Actually, it's an action movie that feels more like you are trapped in a video game. A really, really bad video game.

A quiet, restrained drama, Louder Than Bombs works a little like a photographer itself, changing its focus, showcasing scenes from different points of view, rearranging the order of the images.

Demolition is a wreck.

Directed by, and starring, Don Cheadle, it's more about truth than facts. Did this all happen just the way it's laid out? Definitely not. But if the notes are wrong, the themes are right.

There's never an emotional moment here to compete, or even compare, with his last film, "Boyhood." But there's not supposed to be. Everybody Wants Some!! is as laid-back and low-pressure as a Saturday afternoon at someone's dorm room.

It's all angst and no adventure, a lot of fury and little fun.

The only thing that's revolting is how dull the series has gotten.

See Remember. You won't regret it — or forget it.

As the colonel, Mirren is terrific — a fierce warrior willing to bend as many rules of engagement as it takes. As her commanding officer, the late Alan Rickman is just as dedicated but a little tired of bloodshed.

It's tasty at times, but feels like a very special episode of "30 Rock." Halfway in, you're still expecting Kenneth the Page to show up.

Remember “Olympus Has Fallen”? This one is worse.

Director Alex Proyas’ movie feels like a bad video game.

Hugh Jackman doesn't play Wolverine in Eddie the Eagle, which is too bad. The film deserves to be slashed to bits.

Backtrack eventually moves beyond its shamelessly borrowed set-up to create a few chills of its own.

When the story does wrap up, it's all too little, too late, and far too long. Which given everything stuffed into it, just leaves the super-sized Triple 9 triply disappointing.

In the end, you get a Sunday morning sermon when what you really want is a Saturday midnight screening.

A movie that really mined that story would be worth the gold. This one barely doesn’t even capture the bronze.

This smart, raunchy comedy is a movie aimed at women. Full of frank, just-us-girls talk about men and wicked gags about drunken sex and intimate "landscaping," it's probably a poor choice for date night. But it's a great pick for girl's night out.

This isn't a movie, it's a rapsheet, a series of assaults committed against its cast and its viewers.

There's noise and movement, an all-out war, and the usual happy ending, but no real blood, no real life. And not much fun.

Despite some great effects, and one good performance, it never quite gets underway.

This movie has almost nothing redeeming. And it’s flat out gross.

Moonwalkers is supposedly a comedy. So its clever conspiracy quickly goes disastrously wrong.

Director de Aranoa keeps things moving, though, with a firm sense of pace and a rough, punk-edged soundtrack.

Old silver-fox Gere looks great. He’s almost embarrassingly charming — which is the point — but there’s not much else here.

Pretty as Bratt and Munn are, they're not distracting enough to cover up for the screaming Hart and grating Jeong, who seem to be in a race to see who can play a more annoying character. In the end, it's a tie — they both win.

That grim realism sometimes makes The Revenant about as appetizing as a three-course meal of turkey jerky — but also serious enough to remind you of classics like "Jeremiah Johnson" and "Little Big Man." It's a gruesome adventure story that rarely lets up.

This movie has Chris Hemsworth, in between "Avengers" movies, and a lot of computer-generated sea life. It uses a lot of fancy lures, but it never hooks you.

No one has been too naughty to be subjected to this reindeer poop.

Jackson is terrific, of course, although he's the spice here, not the main meal. As Lysistrata, Teyonah Parris is a fierce, finger-snapping leader while, as her man Chi-Raq, a cast-against-type Nick Cannon, is surprisingly tough and moody.

Youth is fleeting. "Youth" is not. In fact, you may feel yourself getting older just watching it.

It's really a movie about love at first sight, about the dizzying early days of a relationship, about a passion so strong it can't be described, or denied. And that's something everyone can identify with. If they're lucky.

Give Lawrence credit for a seriously emotional performance, at least, and thanks to supporting actors Moore, Sutherland and a sly Woody Harrelson for adding color and comedy.

Got your holiday turkey yet? Well, don't worry, Diane Keaton and John Goodman have one waiting for you at the movie theater.

So, Bobby, seriously, what the hell is happening? You got a new movie, or what you’re billing as a movie, except it's already on cable and I figure a month from now it'll be in one of those Redbox things. And it's called Heist, I guess because it wants to separate me from my money.

Craig is cruelly efficient. Dave Bautista makes a good, Oddjob-like assassin. And while Lea Seydoux doesn’t leave a huge impression as this film’s “Bond girl,” perhaps it’s because we’ve already met — far too briefly — the hypnotic Monica Bellucci, as the first real “Bond woman” since Diana Rigg.

Gradually the film turns its very specific story of one immigrant into a moving group portrait.

For a movie about purpose, Captive never finds its own.

A refreshingly offbeat noir, one that spices its murder-mystery thrills with a good bit of feminist empowerment.