Steve Persall

This movie embraces its inner yokel.

Dragon: The Story of Bruce Lee is therefore one of those rarities, a biography as entertaining as it is informative. [7 May 1993, p.6]

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.

Carnage gives Polanski the best opportunity to express his devilish sense of humor in decades, proving again that comedy really is tragedy happening to someone else.

The stories might work better separately as uninterrupted short films. Combined, they lack cohesion but suggest that Coppola has a fine framing eye and ability to guide actors to good work.

Lion can't avoid seeming lesser in the second half after Davis' mesmeric first but it's solid storytelling nonetheless. Bring the Kleenex.

The Little Hours is less than the sum of its many comedy parts but some of those many are hilarious.

King's book isn't hallowed literature, just a little vicious fun, if 1,100 pages can be considered little. This is the spooky, overlong movie It deserves and It deserves that sequel. Float on.

The Avengers is as brawny and lamebrainy as any comic book movie deserves to be, capped by a 40-minute assault pummeling senses as few action sequences ever have.

Hamm makes for a compelling guide, Bogart-weary and mind racing, assessing each situation with a readable face for the camera. Beirut won’t make him a bigger movie star, but more interesting actors are tough to find.

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]

Chronicle is so clever about the absurd, and so much fun to watch, that I'm almost disappointed the ending doesn't leave room for a sequel.

Parker makes an assured feature filmmaking debut, with poetic imagery and powerful narrative.

The Coens fashion an atmospheric descent for Llewyn, a meticulous re-creation of Greenwich Village's folk scene in 1961, around the time Bob Dylan hit town.

Like Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon before, Patriots Day is a brawny procedural, more than the exploitation flick it could be. Berg and Wahlberg's commitment to details beyond death and destruction feels like a calling.

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.

This movie embraces everything that should make it lousy, calling out itself for aping the source's bad ideas then flipping the script with meta precision.

Liman handles the spy stuff with Bourne-again flair, especially the opener when Valerie proves her mettle during an assignment to secure a snitch.

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.

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.

Lin siphons elements of his previous gig into this one. More precisely, he accentuates the existing "family" dynamic of Star Trek, leading to genuinely earned lumps in Trekker throats.

Doremus captures each insipid moment with hand-held camera urgency and clumsy jump cuts.

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

Leaner than "Harry Potter's" adventures, meaner than the "Twilight" saga, The Hunger Games lives up to its source if not entirely the hype.

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]

There are laughs that stick in your throat, when they aren't broad strokes shattering a forlorn mood that occasionally makes the movie feel like a companion piece to "Magnolia," or any film depicting downbeat people realizing they have more sorrow in common than expected.

Deepwater Horizon is a brawny hybrid of technical expertise and real-life tragedy, with neither quality getting shortchanged.

End of Watch is a repellent movie, first for its shaky-cam conceit rendering much of the action incomprehensible, and finally for seeking to entertain viewers through the thuggish execution of a police officer.

The plot is a piffle but Ozon's presentation is gloriously romantic.

In a movie year of more than two dozen animated films, this and "Rango" tower over all others. Welcome to America, Tintin. It's great getting to know you.

The Conjuring is a throwback to old-school spine tingling, although this movie is less Halloween theme ride and more 1970s post-"Exorcist" terror.

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.

Next to Swinton's excellent portrayal of a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown, the movie belongs to the two Kevins, young actors with matching arched eyebrows and sullen expressions.

Early Man proudly retains Park’s simple/not simple Plasticine pleasures.

The East is a crackling thriller and a political statement tough to peg.

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.

It's a mystery wrapped inside an enigmatic nation, flawlessly acted and difficult to predict. I'm always impressed when a movie informs about a foreign culture while it entertains, and this one is powerful art in that regard.

Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight is vile art, bludgeoning viewers for three hours with indefensibly gratuitous race baiting and blood.

Eat Drink Man Woman cleverly leaps between the two generations, with a wise sense of humor that illuminates the security and restrictions of the ties that bind. [02 Sep 1994, p.6]

Robinson's screenplay covers all of its bases by the midway point, and then a framing device of Marston being interrogated by a cultural watchdog (Connie Britton) hammers his theories flat.

Chuck is a character study of fleeting fame in prolonged decline, anchored by Liev Schreiber's brutish charisma in the title role.

Graphically thinking outside the box, the Lonely Island comedy team makes a decent splash with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, an SNL spinoff that generally works.

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.

The jokes are often double-edged, the performances always spot-on. The Way, Way Back doesn't re-invent the teenage turning point genre, but Faxon and Rash offer a breezy new spin. You'll see more inventive movies this year but few more endearing.

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]

It's a story languorously told in three chapters, the first two in the late 1980s and the third 15 years later. Each could be a movie unto themselves. Together they prove Cianfrance to be an effectively unobtrusive storyteller, crafting without artifice what book critics would call a page turner.

It takes a while for Arteta's ideas to click but his finale begins as revenge served cold and ends with chilling symbolism.

There's a subtle wisdom to this screenplay that complements its exceedingly bad taste, small lessons among the laughs.

Despite wild deviations in spiritual themes and execution, nothing in Noah approaches sacrilege or surrender, making this an acutely sensible biblical epic. It may simply be too strange for the masses to notice.

A fitfully entertaining movie in an awkward position; too arty for the action crowd yet too unsubtle for more refined tastes.

Part two is even more gorgeous to behold, and deeper in substance.

Robot & Frank occasionally strains for emotion and stretches credulity, even for such fantasy circumstances. But it has two hearts - one human, one not - in the right place, and intelligence that is anything but artificial.

Director Dave McCary maintains a suitably goofy tone and inspired casting (Hamill, Greg Kinnear, Claire Danes) make for a pleasantly uneven experience.

This is a soulless endeavor that would alarm if Ford devised it on his own. Instead, he shares blame with Austen Wright's novel Tony and Susan, adapted into parallel narratives; one empty, the other leaking blood.

Like its predecessor T2 Trainspotting aggressively shocks and charms, a singular example of cinematic bravura now improbably duplicated.

There are no boundaries in this movie, so deal with it or leave.

Man Bites Dog is a strange, undeniably powerful hybrid of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and This is Spinal Tap; a jaw-dropper that takes your breath away with its scabrous mayhem, then replaces it with an uneasy chuckle. [5 Nov 1993, p.7]

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

How many surprises and peaks can Walken possibly have left, after so many movies and memorable roles? Well, there's this one.

For two hours it's a fun head trip.

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.

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

As a director, Clooney makes his most straightforward movie yet, although it's static at times due to the stage origins of Willimon's material.

I adore The Perks of Being a Wallflower for its honest, unsentimental feel, which gets stretched a bit in the revelatory finale, but by then I didn't mind.

A feel-good movie in the most positive meaning of that term, thanks to the Motown music and O'Dowd's cheeky charm.

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.

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.

James Gunn's second spin with Marvel's interplanetary misfits still entertains but this time the fun feels forced. Gone is the original's scrappy underdog spirit and a director operating like it's his only chance to make a movie.

The first film that comes close to capturing the Bohemian flair and everyman accents of Generation X life while remaining a first-rate piece of entertainment. Stiller and his knowing screenwriter Helen Childress fashioned a wise, very funny film that brightens the slow early going of 1994. [18 Feb 1994, p.6]

Joyful Noise is a good movie when it lifts up its heart and lets people sing.

What truly becomes aggravating about Zoolander 2 is its dependence upon a parade of famous people doing supremely unfunny things.

In an age of digital chaos and deep emotional themes The Peanuts Movie keeps things sweet and simple, perfectly in tune with the qualities Schulz fans adore.

Giamatti is a superb expressionist of emotional flotsam, with a Golden Globe for his effort.

Gutt is a wonderful villain, something the franchise has lacked, and even performs an original musical number - an Ice Age first, if I'm not mistaken. Dinklage has a sinister voice, and a subtle way of expressing the character's sillier moments.

Barbershop: The Next Cut's heart is in the right place, and I enjoyed nearly every unkempt minute of it.

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

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

A singular look, an exemplary vocal cast, and a narrative arc like a caress. That'll be the Kung Fu Panda franchise's legacy, the idea that shouldn't have worked but did, beautifully and with its own chi.

This summer's funniest movie.

It's a welcome chance to learn more about Lisbeth Salander, the kinky, punk hacker and pop culture phenom played by Noomi Rapace.

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.

Succeeds where "Thor" didn't and the "Incredible Hulk" hasn't, twice. Unlike those drags, director Joe Johnston keeps things relatively simple and pleasantly stupid.

Never Here is a moody inversion of the stalker genre, less of a thriller than a Lynchian thinker. Thoman has a bright future and we'll say we knew her when.

Is it funny? Absolutely. Sausage Party also gets a bit exhausting, even running under 90 minutes. We're hearing essentially the same dirty jokes over and over, in a movie saved by its brilliantly filthy finale.

This movie never realizes how ridiculous anything it does truly is, right up to the last-second promise of another sequel.

It's good to know Solondz hasn't lost his ability to shock, or his indifference to anyone thinking he goes too far. Wiener-Dog is gentler material than usual for him, sweet, even goofy at times, yet no comfier than a sandpaper hug.

Even in repetitive or undernourished moments Keaton, Offerman and Lynch always entertain. Their performances have fallen through the cracks of awards season.

Fast Five is brawny dumb fun, nothing more but that's enough.

Writer-director Martin McDonagh's followup to his more cohesive "In Bruges" is a middle finger to cliches "Pulp Fiction" wrought, while garishly reveling in the same hyper-ironic, pop referenced ultraviolence it lampoons.

Megan Leavey does the feel-good job everyone intends, an interesting story straightforwardly told. Cowperthwaite and Mara won't get a fraction of Wonder Woman's audience yet deserve as much respect.

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

Horror is an impatient person's game these days, and Crimson Peak isn't hurried at all. It seduces with creepily erotic atmosphere, and performances in perfect tune with the script's melodrama.

Rock of Ages is nothing but a good time and sometimes less, slogging through the knee-deep hoopla of 1980s nostalgia at a jukebox pace.

Spielberg doesn't pull heart strings as much as push the right buttons, dutiful to an undercooked story. The BFG begins like a classic fairy tale and ends with helicopters and fart jokes, a tonal dissonance that is Dahl's fault, not the film's.

Fortunately, Hooper has a pair of extraordinary actors on which to hang The Danish Girl, two of the finest performances of women this year.

Game Night is one of those comedy tweeners in which the jokes that click are milked too long and jokes that don’t will take too long to confirm that. Appropriately for the premise, it’ll likely be more enjoyable at home with friends.