Steve Persall

Garland's original screenplay brims with intelligence, unafraid to let characters speak over our heads. Yet it remains a pulpy delight, due largely to its uniquely mad scientist.

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.

Much Ado About Nothing is simply a fun time among Whedon and his friends, and for the most part it's contagious.

For all its eccentricity Logan Lucky too often reminds us of movies Soderbergh or someone else made before.

The mortal in me is increasingly certain I'll never live to see cinema's most astounding achievements. The kid in me is happy to be alive right now. [13 Apr 1996, p.5]

The reclamation project that Ben Affleck calls a career continues with The Town, his second directing effort that would impress more if the first try weren't so terrific and visually similar.

Finding Dory is a good sequel to a great film, and perhaps that's all fans could hope for.

The Gift is B-movie melodrama at its lurid finest, and worth a look.

Forget the last hour of Pearl Harbor. LeRoy's depiction of Jimmy Doolittle's air raid has all the excitement and patriotism that Disney's publicity machine couldn't buy. [13 Sep 2001, p.13W]

Personal Shopper is wildly imperfect, wandering like Maureen through surroundings matching her dark, curious mood. Dead ends abound with scenes running long then abruptly dropping their subjects. Thrills aren't part of the bargain unless Stewart's intense vulnerability counts. Now more than ever, it should.

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]

If he made The Ghost Writer under a pseudonym, it might be roundly hailed as the classy white-knuckler it is. But it's Polanski's name above the title, with his own ghosts haunting each frame.

The Jungle Book could use better lighting and less of John Debney's musical score insisting each moment be melodically underlined twice. Still, it's a movie to thrill and perhaps inspire kids to play Mowgli games again. Not outside, of course. Now there's an app for that.

This is a story to make blood boil and change demanded, so future waves of incoming freshmen — even that term is male-centric — won't have their dreams ruined.

What is off limits to steal when everything is available, not only in a digital age but clacking through a projector? Isn't fame always at someone else's expense? Even Baumbach borrows, notably from Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors. Fair, and funny enough.

Director Jean-Marc Vallee dutifully progresses from one obvious scene to the next. Solid work but unspectacular, perhaps figuring the boldness of his characters' words and actions can be artistic enough. And it is, in the hands of a temporarily reformed sex symbol and his unexpected leading lady.

What lifts Equity above ordinary corporate melodrama is its staunchly feminine perspective, and not only in its lead character.

Craig Gillespie’s hysterically accurate biopic I, Tonya sets up the punchline she became. Harding’s spiteful rise and spectacular fall would make fine comedy even if they weren’t true. I, Tonya scores on higher degrees of difficulty, making these tabloid antics relatable and strangely sympathetic.

Nunez handles Ruby's fragile personal growth with a loving concern that might escape most male filmmakers.

Hercules isn't likely to be revered 30 years from now like other Disney classics, but it's smart, safe family entertainment. [27 June 1997, p.3]

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.

Philomena is simply one of those small, true stories that astonish in print and inspire good movies.

Get Low is a pleasant yarn, well-acted and dutifully mounted with period designs. There isn't a false note among the actors.

We are "there" although Detroit squanders that sensation on revulsion, a gut punch needing to take more shots at our heads.

James Mangold's Logan is an uncommonly mature comic book movie, practically from another universe unto itself. It's a movie demanding and deserving to be taken seriously, an elegy for a mutant.

The relevant question now isn't who John Galt is, but how much demand there will be for what the producers supply.

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.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is how to make a sequel, when it gets its head out of the clouds.

Whatever Career Girls lacks in polish or ambition, it compensates with three memorable performances and an unwavering filmmaker working on nobody's terms except his own. [5 Sep. 1997, p.3]

Franco doesn’t ask viewers to reconsider bad art but to respect the artist behind it. Sage advice from someone who, after a few career disasters, can still shape a movie this good.

Guardians of the Galaxy is fun but forgettable, or perhaps Gunn crams so much onto the screen that memory is crowded out. Definitely worth a second look, just to figure out what in the name of Buckaroo Banzai is going on.

The images captured by cinematographer Adam Arkapaw are more dreamy than nightmarish as if his camera — like the children — doesn't fully understand the dangers.

Eastwood keeps the tension humming from his director's chair and contributes a little too much comic relief, but gives Costner an eye-opening, image-shattering showcase that adds a sheen to his often-criticized acting career. [24 Nov 1993, p.6B]

J.A. Bayona's exquisite A Monster Calls blends pathos and sophistication, fairy tales and harsh realities into a small masterpiece.

Buck is a movie to be revisited again and again, like passages from a satisfying self-help book. Riding experience isn't necessary to realize how extraordinary this man and his calling are.

99 Homes combines the insight of documentary filmmaking with a thriller's urgency, opening our eyes to a complex, real-life tragedy while keeping it entertaining.

Kaur and Khan, who was robbed of a IIFA nod, scarcely share a frame of The Lunchbox, yet the emotional connection of their characters is palpable.

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

Jeff Nichols fashions three-quarters of a terrific movie with Midnight Special, a slow burn science fiction thriller. The rest is merely gripping, which isn't a bad problem to have.

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.

While the villains are standard issue evil, Wonder Woman is remarkable in the genre for its early 20th century setting and Gadot's galvanizing performance.

The Revenant is an action blockbuster with an art house soul, a headlong rush of motion with meaning. Pure cinema from Iñárritu and Lubezki, two undisputed masters working at their peaks.

Green studies characters, allowing scenes more time to expand personalities and usually knowing when to cut. Stronger is his most conventional, audience-friendly material ever but is still a movie of such quiet intimacies.

Robespierre does a nice job of balancing the seriousness of this situation with the no-boundaries irreverence of Donna's comedy background.

A Dangerous Method is a movie believing the most formidable sex organ really is the brain.

Sounds depressing, although Rabbit Hole isn't, with David Lindsay-Abaire presenting a perceptive, subtly dark-humored adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

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

The movie has a caffeinated spirit worthy of its graveyard shift milieu, a darkness artfully breached by cinematographer Robert Elswit, who previously framed L.A.'s unstill life in Magnolia and Boogie Nights.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is movie escapism made with intelligence, and that doesn't come around often enough. As I sensed this movie ending I wished it wouldn't, and when it did I wanted the next one now. Take that, Bilbo.

This is a performance without ego or modesty, for a character without self-respect, played by Witherspoon as unvarnished as any pampered movie star can be expected.

Nothing much happens in Greenberg, yet Stiller and co-star Greta Gerwig make inconsequence tolerable with solid performances.

Rapace is a magnetic presence in a far-ranging mystery requiring such a solid character to orbit around.

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.

Mistress America is certainly funnier and sunnier than While We're Young, mostly thanks to Gerwig, America's dizzy, dazzling new girl on the side.

Rango is wild, woolly and weird, and the first movie of 2011 that I must see again.

The weight of Carlos' world shows on his rugged face, even with rare half-smiles. This is a masterfully understated performance that should be remembered during awards season.

Tangled would be a satisfying adventure on plot and 3D sensations alone.

The movie always fascinates thanks to Olsen, who'll never be just a semifamous sister again.

For all of its carnal frivolity, The Wolf of Wall Street lacks passion and purpose, qualities Scorsese at his best has in abundance.

The standout in Win Win is Alex Shaffer, a former New Jersey state champion cast as Kyle.

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.

It's a nice movie, and can certainly be inspirational for the proper audiences.

Bridesmaids is a bit of a groundbreaker... Not exactly a banner for feminism but equal time is overdue.

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.

I'll See You in My Dreams is a disarming romantic dramedy, constructed from "geezer flick" cliches, to be sure, yet lifted to another level by the performances, top-to-bottom.

This movie's balletic brutality, its relentless pacing and practical stunt work are breathtaking.

There's much more to the adventure, a deft balance of fantasy and teen angst that never loses its contemporary sense of humor.

More than any previous Marvel adaptation, Civil War conveys the comics' light touch amid somber circumstances. In a bold stroke, those circumstances are of the heroes' own making.

X-Men: Days of Future Past effectively passes the torch from one generation of socially segregated mutants to the next.

The pleasures of The LEGO Batman Movie are plentiful, especially its cockeyed reverence for the Dark Knight's past.

Appropriately, the best jokes in Trainwreck are unprintable, or too winding to describe. Schumer's sexual vocabulary and observational skills get a workout, surrounded by an occasionally surprising cast of foils.

The man is a movie star, underline it twice. Cruise is this young century's personification of what it takes to earn that title, a perfect storm of personality, drive and talent on delivery, incapable of irrelevance.

Frozen impresses by conveying coldness in all its frostbitten beauty, from northern lights and blizzards, to ice magnifying, refracting and reflecting light. The movie is a lovely example for animation enthusiasts to study.

This is among the funnier entries in the cancer-kid genre, flawed yet affable, with no fault in its dweebly charismatic stars.

Frankenweenie is stitched together with love and a bit raggedy, like Sparky the dog in question.

A bit dated in its feminism, making some jokes even funnier. [08 Mar 2001, p.17W]

Even if their names were John and Mary, the two people soon to be a couple at the center of Southside With You could make viewers swoon. Richard Tanne's walk-and-talk slice of budding romantic life is that good at expressing those small moments when love begins taking hold.

A sensory and intellectual overload from start to finish, a brawny, brainy summer movie that may infuriate as many viewers as it enraptures.

Farewell is a solid telling of an obscure story and nothing more. The most effective scenes aren't cloak and dagger stuff but passages like Igor daydreaming of becoming a rock star like his idol Freddie Mercury of Queen.

The movie's finest performance is Daniel Bruhl's unapologetic bluntness as Lauda, and his subtle conveyance of jealousy the driver — whose resemblance to a rat is often noted — must have felt about Hunt's popularity and handsomeness.

Bully is no more incisive than a Dateline NBC segment on the subject, although with a PG-13 rating it now can be a classroom tool for discussion.

It's a lesson that African-American culture offers more inspiring stories than Hollywood has chosen to tell.

It's a quiet story, without many emotional outbursts and no villains. Parts of Higher Ground are dull, honestly. But the movie always feels honest about its subject.

At times the sewer dwellers don't appear worth saving, except for Socha's profiting. This can't be the filmmaker's intention but it's there.