Steve Persall

Kechiche's doting on entwined limbs, thrusting pelvises and oral stimulation, all carefully posed and continued longer than necessary to get his point across, races beyond titillation to creepy voyeurism.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread is passionless window-shop cinema, each static tableau lovingly arranged for display and easy dusting. Its centerpiece is a mannequin, albeit played by Daniel Day-Lewis, whose gift for keeping anything interesting is seldom so necessary.

Leigh's characters merely act in a goofy and irritating fashion until their dramatic pay-off scenes. This uneven style cheats fine actors out of the chance to shade their roles rather than rely upon black-and-white emotions. [6 Mar. 1992, p.10]

Every fallen-star cliche director/co-writer Brett Haley employs goes down smoother with Elliott's baritone and unforced cool. He has deserved a spotlight role for years and now deserves a finer one.

Kubo and the Two Strings is lovely to behold, if viewers manage to keep their eyes open. It's an animated doozy and drowser at once, an uncomfortable mix of Miyazaki-style imagination and generic dullness.

Brand is amusing, in a nutty "Get Him to the Greek" sort of way, while Moore delivered one of the funniest performances ever.

A terrible title for a not-much-better movie, missing a grammatically correct question mark and most of the point with romantic comedies.

Wright is an insanely funny filmmaker (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) yet only the front half of that description carries over to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Out to Sea is nothing more than a puffed-up Love Boat episode sailing on risque gags that wouldn't be amusing at all if they weren't recited by old folks. [02 July 1997, p.1D]

Steven Spielberg’s The Post is a fake news movie, a true story told phony to further an agenda.

Like its heroine, The Age of Adaline is afraid of its emotions, and stuck flat-footed in time.

It’s so respectful that vibrancy suffers. Coco is a bright pinata of a movie that breaks and nothing falls out.

McKay's frustration about the financial crisis is obvious, his instinct of how to engage viewers less so. Buyer beware.

MacLaine keeps things interesting, snapping off one-liners with precision that comes only through experience.

Fifty Shades Darker is what you'd expect from encoring a regrettable one-night stand. Not a keeper, but nothing to gnaw off your arm about.

It Comes at Night lays down a heavy layer of dreadful promise and doesn't follow through. Edgerton's fine performance is overshadowed by a title and ad campaign springing a bait-and-switch scam on horror fans.

Chungking Express essentially tells two muted love stories set in a bustling locale, without fully involving the audience in either. [3 May 1996, p.5]

Good intentions don't always make for good movies. Case in point: Zootopia, a Disney film with more on its mind than animated fun and fuzzies. So much, in fact, that it loses track of what audiences expect, what they're being sold.

Sugar Hill is a movie that manages to be as self-destructive as its two central characters, Harlem drug-runners Roemello and Raynathan Skuggs. Like those two desperate (and disparate) brothers, Leon Ichaso's film ultimately wastes its potential and our time. [26 Feb 1994, p.7B]

Calvary becomes a lurid Agatha Christie yarn with something important to say about the church and Ireland that McDonagh can't fully articulate. Pulp keeps getting in the way.

The movie's best performance — and worst defamation — belongs to Tony Shalhoub, playing the first victim as a conniving, egotistical jerk who deserves to be kidnapped, maimed and ruined financially.

A comedy that moves as slow and uncertain as a bill through Congress. [07 May 1993, p.8]

At least the latest movie about the financial meltdown doesn't make the same mistake as the last one. It also doesn't prove that a fictional film can explain the downturn's causes and effects better than a documentary.

Field's eager-to-please performance makes [Showalter's] shovelfuls of sugar go down easier.

Man on a Ledge makes bigger leaps of logic than Nick will if he fails a gravity test. If the transparent sting springing him from Sing Sing doesn't roll your eyes, then wait for the climax when Nick becomes a kind of plainclothes Spider-Man.

Poor Thor. Dude can't even hold center stage in his own movie. He's the Asgardian god of stolen thunder, upstaged at each ab turn by Loki, malarkey and Odin's eyepatch.

There is nowhere logical for the story to go since it wasn’t intended to run this long. Sex is everything in this movie because nothing emotional or thrilling registers beyond the moment.

Gary Oldman may finally get that Oscar he has long deserved for Darkest Hour, a movie that seems constructed to do little else.

With each musical reprise and imitated frame, Condon continues a fight of comparisons he can't win. Either imitate a classic faithfully or leave out the songs and make your own version. Or just leave perfection alone.

Hanks keeps things interesting with an array of concerned expressions and distant gazes. But there's no tension in faked suffering. The actor and Eastwood's movie are limited by the goodness of their subject, the flawlessness of his actions.

Thankfully in space, no one can hear you yawn.

There's no disputing Streep's brilliance, which this time feels more calculated than usual, in a movie demanding only an impersonation.

The third act sustains a fevered level of absurdity and everything prior is stylish, well-acted yet off-putting.Art without any noticeable heart.

John Frankenheimer weaves a tidy sense of dread until he reveals what should scare us in The Island of Dr. Moreau. Then the movie degenerates into the equivalent of a roadshow tour of Cats gone horribly wrong. [23 Aug 1996, p.8]

The strategy deserves to self-destruct in five seconds.

Nothing to skip school over but at least it's not in 3-D. No sense in paying an extra ticket charge for something belonging on TV, anyway.

The Host doesn't strive for social allegory, as previous body snatcher flicks have done with the Red Scare, civil rights and Watergate. If anything it's merely a teenage girl's fantasy checklist for prom.

There might be a great movie about any of Hoover's triumphs and secrets, but not all at once.

Everything plays out brutally, and the acting's not bad. But it's unsettling for external reasons beyond its control.

Egoyan's self-importance mars every frame of his film. [24 Mar 1995, p.9]

Safe is the operative word here, since One Fine Day wouldn't think of messing with its casting chemistry to take any comedic risks. Clooney is as benign here as he was dangerous in From Dusk Til Dawn. Somewhere in the middle, I bet he'll make a terrific Batman next summer. [20 Dec 1996, p.10]

Hail, Caesar! is maddeningly hit-and-miss.

It's enough to make Kim Jong ill.

There are too many convenient romances, trumped-up crises and reversals of conscience to clear up while those poor whales suffer. Big Miracle isn't an entirely bad movie but a wholly misguided one.

Shame smears the lines between daring and taunting, and art versus indulgence. When it ends there's the urge to take a shower, and not a cold one.

If you prefer hipster romantic comedies that are unromantic and not too funny, Lee Toland Krieger's movie may be your grande half-caf caramel mocha frappe.

The movie's glaring problem is the design and execution of Chappie, whose look is unremarkable except for a pair of polymer rabbit ears ready for meme posterity.

The first half is nothing but silly setups for a stretch run that admittedly has its moments of wacky pandemonium, just not enough.

Everything is fine and fantastic while the children are allowed to play out their outlaw games with innocent abandon. It's when adults interfere that Into the West limps off into the sunset. [17 Sep 1993, p.8]

It is well acted bunk, led by Hugh Jackman's righteous raging as the father of a missing girl, abducting a suspect (Paul Dano) to pummel and scald a confession from him. If only solving the case and ending this movie sooner was that simple.

Almodóvar dives into perversity, practically daring the audience not to follow. The Skin I Live In is a mediocre addition to his resume, yet for fans, even bad Almodóvar is better than none at all.

Imagine a stuffy Merchant Ivory production blended with muted Michael Crichton sci-fi and you have Never Let Me Go, at least as it plays on screen.

Unstoppable isn't unwatchable, but it is a letdown after "Speed" and some of the Speed-on-a-(fill in the blank with a vehicle) flicks that followed. Forget missing Hopper; even Keanu Reeves might make this movie more entertaining.

Hark's visual style occasionally strays from standard operating procedure with an arty camera effect or an odd angle. Those flashes of inspiration only serve to make the cliches - such as a coliseum showdown complete with land mines, snipers and a tiger - clunk a little louder. In the big game of entertainment, Double Team barely gets off the bench. [5 Apr 1997, p.2B]

I expected, even wanted to cry at The Fault in Our Stars, or at least choke up a little. Yet the transparent eagerness of this movie to break hearts, through means not entirely justifying that end, always pulled me back.

The problem isn't entirely Lehane's script... It's the way Belgian director Michael R. Roskam, making his English language debut, is so visually uninspired by all this meanness.

Pig in the City is a blatant, heartless attempt to turn a surprise hit into a cash cow. That simply won't do, pig. [25 Nov 1998, p.1D]

The Homesman isn't as confident with balancing madness and dark humor as Jones' only previous directing job, 2005's border odyssey The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. This movie's switchback plotting ambles from crisis to comical, threatening to maintain a tone but not for long.

By all accounts, Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger was a monster. That's exactly how Johnny Depp plays him in Black Mass, a dark blob of underworld cliches and bad contact lenses.

Feels like half of a good movie, much of it revealed in admittedly thrilling trailers.

My Cousin Vinny is a mildly entertaining courtroom comedy that ultimately must be judged guilty of disappointment. Lynn and Launer's pop-movie mentality wastes a great idea and some terrific performances. [13 Mar 1992, p.10]

Soderbergh doesn't always match his pacing to Mallory's fury.

Closed Circuit is a shaggy paranoid thriller in which conversations aren't the shorthand of people who know each other but wordy exposition for those strangers in theater seats.

This Cinderella is achingly old-fashioned, with scant humor, a regressive heroine and godmother effects that aren't special.

Coppola's movie has a sense of indie vitality, although the energy feels wasted by running in place.

Carlito's Way isn't a bad movie, just one that could be much better with more of the subversiveness that Pacino and De Palma wrought in Scarface. [12 Nov 1993, p.8]

Despite another charismatic turn by Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood, Marshall gradually feels less like his movie.

Not even J.K. Rowling can say abracadabra and make a worthwhile movie franchise appear. The lightning that struck Harry Potter once merely grazes Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, turning the sorcerer's mentor into a fantasy apprentice.

The Conjuring 2 is serviceable horror, heavy on the audio stings yet smarter than the average gorefest.

Pawn Sacrifice tells a fascinating story in unspectacular fashion, resulting in a draw.

Salt is a movie constantly painting itself into corners then tromping out with arbitrary twists and action distractions.

Bale operates in full brood throughout. Studi is a strong presence stymied by the movie’s misplaced priorities. Hostiles is another Western in which Indian characters are props for white man problems.

At least This Means War is an equal opportunity misfire, with as much appeal for men as women, compared to a one-sided weeper like "The Vow."

The Rover fascinates and frustrates in equal measure, with Michod withholding details of plot and character so thoroughly that a nihilistic fog sets in.

This is certainly the talkiest of the seven films in the series and Craven never comes close to convincing us this could all be true. [14 Oct 1994, p.10]

Alexander Payne has a great idea with Downsizing and doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

Fury reeks of self-importance, a strange arrogance for a fictional World War II drama drenched in more blood than ideas.

Chastain plows through this tangled scenario with an icy ferocity that's entertaining. You get the feeling that Miss Sloane would work better as a streaming or cable series, allowing more time to explore characters and issues, giving actors more room for dense dialogue. Maybe come up with a better way out of that corner.

It’s a theme park ride but not the rollercoaster Spielberg hopes. More like It’s a Small Virtual World, careening through gamer nirvana, jerking viewers to and fro among everything Gen X retro.

Buying a ticket to see It Could Happen to You is like purchasing a Lotto ticket with three matching numbers; you get back a little more than you paid for it, but the thrill is quickly replaced by nagging thoughts of what might have been.

Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is superb, casting gauzy glows and sensual silhouettes against impressively designed sets. Allen drops a few philo-cynical lines worthy of his reputation but not nearly enough.

Kids isn't a cure, it's a symptom of mercenary moviemaking. Some will call it heroic, but that's just a smug synonym for exploitation. [25 Aug 1995, p.9]

Atomic Blonde is a rare case of a woman toplining an action flick, but it hardly feels revolutionary.

At some juncture — much earlier than director Gareth Edwards intends — Godzilla needs to stop being an extra in his own movie.

Kong: Skull Island strips the beauty from a legendary beast, reducing a classic movie star to soulless monster mechanics. Kong smashes, but not much else. Whoever dies doesn't matter. Whoever lives has a sequel promised by the end credits.

Veronica Mars, the movie, plays like a two-parter without commercials. Its uninspired framing and static action suits a TV screen better than a multiplex's.

That epilogue suspiciously looks tacked-on by Warner Bros., who did the same thing with Roberts in The Pelican Brief when the climax was too downbeat. Just one more anti-climactic chance to see Roberts flash that halogen-bulb smile, even though it thoroughly contradicts what preceded it. It leaves a bad taste, and one realizes that it's the same old tainted salmon Hollywood has been serving for years. Somewhere, Thelma and Louise are gagging. [4 Aug 1995, p.8]

Entourage the movie operates like Vince's pals, making itself feel important solely through who's famous nearby.

Despite its haunted house setting, the movie's most visible cobwebs are found in Jane Goldman's screenplay, adapted from Susan Hill's novel.

Apatow hates leaving anything on the cutting room floor. You could excise entire chunks of The Five-Year Engagement - the donut experiments at college, a couple of wise soliloquies, most of the stuff involving Violet's sister (Alison Brie) - and never miss a beat.

The junk in Lucy doesn't entirely eclipse the moments when weird is fun.

Broadbent carries the movie with signature ease, making Tony easy to dislike while wishing him an overdue peace. Despite its time-flip fixation, The Sense of an Ending finds emotional focus in Broadbent's wilting gaze and discoveries in character with the simplest line deliveries.

Magic Mike XXL is darker, and between money-rain showers, duller. It's the movie many feared the original would be.

The actors are so good that you wish Collyer offered them a richer arc to play, rather than just a topic.

It's Lane who's saddled with dragging this nag over the finish line, with her cliched portrayal of another single-minded woman beating men at their own game.

Watching Spectre unfold, lumbering and slumbering, on the heels of a franchise high is a shock, so much talent coasting this time.

Any resemblance between Allied and a much better movie on the subject isn't coincidental but unfortunate.

Cool Runnings is enormously unfaithful to its subject, piling on one sports cliche after another with shallow characterizations...Regardless of those faults, Cool Runnings has an agreeable goofiness to it that brushes aside any picky complaints. It isn't art, but it surely is disposable fun. [1 Oct 1993, p.6B]