Steve Persall

Stylish to a fault and straying from the source, Guy Ritchie's The Man From U.N.C.L.E. revives a 1960s television hit for the short attention spans of today's youth-skewing movie audience.

The End of the Tour asks viewers to lean in, listen well and be rewarded with an uncommonly intelligent and relatable movie experience.

As an actor, Meryl Streep is incapable of making false moves. That doesn't mean she's incapable of making false movies.

The stop-motion technique never ceases to fascinate, but the episodic structure of Shaun the Sheep Movie hinders any true emotional buildup and payoff.

Fantastic Four is so mediocre that its title seems like a violation of truth in advertising laws.

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

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.

Vacation is a Gen X comedy franchise rebooted exactly how audiences can expect in 2015, bawdier and less likable than whatever classic inspires it.

Forbes' screenplay is fuller of humor than the topic might suggest, and Ruffalo as usual is imminently watchable, in a uniquely feel-good movie.

For the most part, however, Southpaw is a terrific boxing movie, with choreographed violence emphasizing the sport's speed rather than its poetry in slow motion.

Basically it's Ghostbusters meets Wreck-It Ralph, without the sustained charm or wit of either.

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.

Never thought I'd type this about a comic book movie, but Ant-Man needs to take itself more seriously.

In some moments, Amy feels like another intrusion on the singer's privacy, like the gossip vultures circling her drug and alcohol binges, awaiting her 2011 death. Those uncomfortable moments are far outweighed by sympathetic ones.

At times the screenplay by brothers David and Alex Pastor strikes the proper tone for claptrap.... Mostly, though, the dialogue thuds in circles.

Comedy and narrative demand more rhythm than simply scamper, jabber, fall but that's what Minions bring to the table.

Will they, won't they? A bolder movie wouldn't settle for maybe.

Someone describes the T-800 as "nothing but a relic from a deleted timeline." Too harsh to lay on Schwarzenegger yet, but certainly it applies to the Terminator franchise.

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

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

Ted 2 isn't cinematically special; the plot structure and shot framing is identical to MacFarlane's animated TV shows. But my god, is it funny. Trashy, nasty as it wants to be funny. Wake up the next day still giggling funny. Yes, that funny.

Whatever definition of "dope" you prefer, it applies to Rick Famuyiwa's movie of the same name.

The surprises are plentiful and seamlessly connected.

Trevorrow hits all the right, respectful beats, as a protege should; you can sense a desire to please his mentor, with several amusing references to Spielberg's 1993 original, and a climactic, triumphant nod to another of his works.

It's a remarkable movie, the first of 2015 that I can't wait to see and hear again.

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

All Crowe's movie has going for it is casting, a lineup of favored actors wasted in a screenplay unsure of what it wants to be. Aloha is by turns a love quadrangle that never materializes, an ode to Hawaiian sovereignty, an opposites-attract cliche and an outer-space weapons caper, all of which is clumsily executed.

Starting with a mountainside rescue setting up Ray's bravery, through cities ruined and a tsunami leveling San Francisco, San Andreas is gnaw-your-knuckle fun. Which is the roller coaster conflict that comes with the disaster movie genre, the closeness to horrific reality that attracts millions yet repels a sensitive few.

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.

There's a surprising number of salient, even revolutionary notions about human nature and intelligence throughout, none fully explored but enough to make the running time at least 20 minutes too long.

For those viewers who've watched Stewart's recent progression in offbeat films like Camp X-Ray and Still Alice — when she held her own opposite Academy Award winner Julianne Moore — it shouldn't be a surprise. Clouds of Sils Maria matches Stewart with another Oscar honoree, Juliette Binoche, with equally impressive results.

It's all more extravagant yet less charming then before.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a relentless marvel of sense-pummeling stunts and gargoyle horror that needs to take a breather once in a while.

The movie is as quietly assured as its heroine, Bathsheba Everdene, gracefully played by Carey Mulligan.

Black's performance is the key to making The D-Train more than just another sophomoric bromance. The wild-eyed mania is still evident, but channeled through a filter of pity.

What really offends about Hot Pursuit is its lazy approach to comedy, and so many short cuts making bad jokes possible.

As usual, psychological anguish is a key element of Marvel heroes. Age of Ultron boasts a cast of actors that "serious" filmmakers would kill for, so the gravitas they're capable of conveying amid such outlandish fantasy is the franchise's stealth advantage.

In the end, this is a pleasant parable, brimming with Rockwellian visuals and homespun decency. Harder hearts will dismiss it as corny and manipulative, which it is. Sometimes there's nothing wrong with that.

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

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.

True Story may someday be used in both acting and journalism classes, the former for what students should do, and the latter for what they shouldn't.

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.

Furious 7 is so entertaining that you don't notice Dwayne Johnson is missing from action much of the time, only that he kills it when he shows up.

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.

Danny Collins isn't the most artistic or surprising movie, and Fogelman's appropriation of Lennon's music to explain what's obvious gets stale. But it does contain a wonderful performance by Pacino, when it was debatable if we'd ever say that again.

It Follows has an impressively sustained sense of dread, less explicit gore than measured tension. Mitchell slyly inverts the conventions of dead-meat teenager flicks, although not with wink-wink comedy like the Scream series. This movie is serious about creeping out viewers, and Mitchell is just artistic enough about it to create a minor masterpiece.

A drab dream with squirmy-cuddly aliens, floating space bubbles and too many Rihanna musical interludes.

Get Hard becomes an increasingly unpleasant comedy, wasting two very funny stars in a barrage of prison rape gags, lazy stereotypes, toilet stall indignities and insincere acceptance of people already marginalized in movies.

Flawed as it is, The Cobbler retains interest throughout, chiefly because Sandler isn't bad in a rare semi-dramatic performance.

The Gunman becomes a highly capable shoot-em-up but not much else.

Schwentke keeps things lively and loud, with a mildly alarming body count, smashing glass and gunfire.

Gabe Polsky's movie about the dynastic Soviet Union hockey team is surprisingly light on its skates, despite being a Cold War history lesson and conventional sports documentary.

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

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a downgrade from the first, doing lots of thing wrong that 2012's sleeper hit did right.

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.

In spite of its incessant piling on of double-crosses and triple dog dares, Focus is a pleasant change from Academy Award seriousness. It's reassuring to see Smith resurrect the charisma that After Earth stripped away, and nice to see Robbie do anything, anytime.

Kingsman is as violently kinetic as anything Vaughn has made, a list including Kick-Ass (the good one) and Craig's U.S. breakthrough, Layer Cake. But Kingsman is also wildly uneven, often slowing its roll to stiff-upper-lip pacing necessary (or not) to create a new British secret agent movie mythology.

Two Days, One Night is deceptively slight of drama; it's simply a procession of real moments encountered by a simple character deserving more happiness than life allows, fleshed out by an extraordinary actor.

Fifty Shades of Grey isn't the howling pornucopia it could be, but it's sexy enough, spank you very much.

For all of its movie-of-the-week mechanics, this is a deeply moving dramatization of what Alzheimer's does to mind and spirit, anchored by the finest performance, male or female, from any 2014 movie release.

The only thing Black or White adds to the discussion of race relations is another one-sided argument.

A Most Violent Year has its share of wham-bam moments — a car-truck-foot chase into the city's bowels is superb — but the action never speaks louder than Chandor's hard-boiled words.

An affably crude bromantic comedy with an appealing set of bros.

Miller unravels this story with the grim inevitability of a death row vigil, but not without flashes of sly humor.

Unlike many post 9/11 war movies, American Sniper goes easier on the gung ho, with a third act leavened by Chris' depressed denial, his "hurt locker" of stored regret. Eastwood is less concerned with action heroism than the consequences of deadly action, how it chips away at the living.

This is a modest film with towering potential to make a difference, looking back to move forward.

Cumberbatch radiates such intelligence — with Sherlock and this, egghead Benedict is his speciality — that gaps are easily excused. From sets and costumes to Alexandre Desplat's musical score, The Imitation Game is everything classy that Hollywood wishes it could be.

There is a genuinely epic quality to Unbroken, cribbed from masters and capably traced. That's really all this inspiring story needs.

Director Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) doesn't match the feverish nature of Karel Reisz's original, and the gambling sequences convey the sameness of a habit but not as much tension to it.

Big Eyes is an entertaining take on a pop culture footnote, short on the bizarre flourishes Burton typically employs.

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.

In a holiday season when family movie entertainment is in short supply, Annie is bubbly enough to suit the purpose while irritating purists wonder where their orphan went. At times it's actually a lot of fun, and leapin' lizards the sun really does come out tomorrow. Right after the helicopter chase.

On the plus side, Scott's plagues are cool. But it's a long slog to crocodile rocking, pestilence and Proactiv-proof sores.

Top Five is the funniest movie I've seen this year, and the calendar's running out. No matter whose movie Rock's resembles, it is completely his, and a brash start to being taken seriously as an artist.

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.

The sequel is merely crude for crudeness' sake, lazy as they come.

Penguins of Madagascar is fun while it lasts, and then mostly forgettable except for whatever shake-your-head lunacy sticks.

With Mock 1, the Hunger Games franchise continues to entertain and evolve, not perfectly but smartly, so we can't wait to see what's next. That's what counts when all is said, done and deposited in the bank.

Well-acted and lovingly designed, Marsh's movie falls far short of the genius it attempts to celebrate.

Teller plays notes all over the emotional chart, dovetailing into a divine riff on ambition. And he does nearly all of Andrew's drumming, aggressively and impressively so.

The Farrellys whip up a miss-or-hit affair, the best jokes coming without much set-up, just non sequiturs and malapropisms.

Everything about Birdman is a bold cinematic stretch, from its snare-jazz soundtrack to a climax regrettably stretched too far. The line between Iñárritu's genius and Riggan's madness gets crossed once too many, but no matter. Birdman has 99 virtues and ignorance isn't one.

Big Hero 6 is second-tier Disney/Marvel entertainment, fine for a day out with the children yet doesn't seem enough, after the creative advances of Wreck-It Ralph and the emotional heft of Frozen.

Thankfully in space, no one can hear you yawn.

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.

This is first and foremost Murray's show, and the shortcomings in Melfi's script and direction are strangely appreciated. They give this singular comedian, who doesn't do it often enough these days, the room to let his buffalo heart roam.

Director Chad Stahelski — Reeves' stunt double for Point Break and The Matrix — aims only for a kinetic revenge yarn with wrinkles drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs might appreciate, like martial arts moves at point blank bullet range; what he'd call gun fu.

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

With everything it's doing all over again, The Book of Life often finds fresh ways to do it. That's all it takes.

The reason this overstuffed movie remains tolerable is the inspired casting of Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr. as a combative father and son, and their determination to out-thespian each other.

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

There are cheesy pleasures found in Left Behind's ineptness.

Movies about cooperating Africans and Americans often take a condescending risk of great white saviors making everything better for poor black folks. The Good Lie isn't that sort of movie, except in its marketing.

Gone Girl is a terrific movie, everything the book and its fans deserve.

It's easy to see why neither Home Depot nor Lowe's chose to go the product placement route. Too many cleanups in the power tool department.

The Boxtrolls is a visually repellent pile of stop-motion animation, populated by grotesques and filmed in the palette of an exhumed casket's interior. It can frighten small children and bore anyone, with its cracked, cackled British wit.

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

There are strange, midnight movie pleasures found in Smith's movie.