Steve Persall

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

Split is a tidy example of lurid understatement, its themes ripe for nastier treatment than Shyamalan offers, grindhouse stuff served with vegan restraint.

Keanu is raucous enough to satisfy the Hangover crowd, yet when compared to Key and Peele's trenchant tomfoolery on television, it needs focused anger, funnier tension. Or perhaps simply more kitty cat.

Megamind's Kryptonite is a common weakness for any comedy so fast out of the blocks: It simply runs out of surprises.

Iron Man 3 is missing that old Tony Stark spark. Not from Robert Downey Jr., who is still the best thing about this overblown show.

Set It Off doesn't say anything especially original, but it says it loud and proud. [06 Nov 1996, p.1D]

One of the all-time great sports movies — primarily because it's one of the all-time great sports stories.

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

For Colored Girls is blessed with a Murderer's Row of black female actors, each tearing ferociously into Shange's words and gamely hanging on through Perry's.

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

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.

Pacino, Cusack and Aiello are fascinating to observe, playing three sides of the same political coin, but the whole thing winds up as meaningless as a concession speech by Phil Gramm. [16 Feb 1996, p.5]

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]

The appeal of The Rugrats Movie sits squarely on the shoulders of its vast cast of characters, each of whom has one characteristic, but collectively sketch an amusing perspective of childhood. [20 Nov 1998, p.3]

Maverick has everything going for it except a sense of cinematic adventure and a stopwatch. [20 May 1994, p.6]

There's enough here for a nice little movie, anyway, even if Al Pacino didn't think so. He was hired to voice the movie's arch villain but dropped out due to "creative differences."

It's often convulsively funny.

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.

If this was December, Kevin Hart might be in the Oscar mix, he's that good in About Last Night. Explosively good, a comedy nova who won't shut up and never should.

Quirky to the brink of exhaustion, the latest from Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a live-action Looney Tune complete with Acme contraptions and wily coyotes.

It's a movie of terrific performances and rousing comeuppances, with a side order of corn pone for the soul.

Director John Madden and an ensemble of polished actors in their second primes make this a constant amusement and a nice alternative at the movies.

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

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.

Save the money you might spend for a ticket to see For a Good Time, Call... and just read a dive bar's restroom wall for free. That's the sub-level of comedy here, with a litany of crude sexual euphemisms and phallic images passed off as jokes.

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.

The most gratifying takeaway from He Named Me Malala is how ordinary Malala is shown to be, when she isn't lobbying the United Nations and visiting beleaguered countries.

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.

Imagination is the key element that Conviction lacks.

The Secret Life of Pets is funnier than Zootopia and fresher than Finding Dory. Bonus points for a genuinely touching finale that had me crying behind my 3-D glasses.

McKay and Ferrell keep the jokes naughty not dirty and flying for shrapnel accuracy; many miss, but when one hits it counts.

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

It will mightily preach to the choirs of concerned citizens, and be ignored by anyone else.

Anything men can do women can do dirtier, funnier, fresher, since distaff raunchiness shows no signs of going stale and isn't contained to Melissa McCarthy.

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.

Addams Family Values is a rare sequel that surpasses the original, primarily for the same reason that Superman II topped the Man of Steel's first outing. This time, Sonnenfeld doesn't bury the jokes in exposition about characters we already know. [19 Nov 1993, p.7]

Has something for everyone, if everyone is looking for young nuns taking showers, a department store Santa dealing weed, a coked-up infant crawling on the ceiling and Danny Trejo as the father-in-law-to-be from Hell. I didn't think I was looking for that but found it. And heaven help me, it wasn't bad.

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.

Nick Cassavetes, like his father, works out his movies through the instincts of the actors, not the camera lens. It's a fitting, and occasionally fitful, eulogy to an unheralded legend. [29 Aug 1997, p.3]

This franchise that won't die began in 2001 as The Fast and the Furious and has pretty much run through every title permutation, so the inevitable next chapter might be called only "The & The 7."

This Must Be the Place is a movie existing in a zonked-out realm where reality smashes head-on with a train-wreck hero too strange to be real, unless you're the love child of Ozzy Osbourne and the Cure's Robert Smith.

Muppets Most Wanted is pleasant enough to recommend as family entertainment. But the movie falls short of what immediately preceded it, musically and emotionally.

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.

Efron makes hay with his richest role post-High School Musical, making Dean a rural rake with conflicting charisma.

The globetrotting is reined in, the mayhem at each stop just as exciting. Renner is a sturdy action hero, with an interesting face that unlike Damon's appears to have taken a punch or two.

Elysium proves better at social polemics than escapism, a balancing act Blomkamp managed well in District 9, with its allegory of South Africa's apartheid era.

If comic book movies are the last place you look for a soulful, serious performance, The Wolverine should be your first.

What's fun is how the new Karate Kid embraces and vastly improves the cliches, keeping the plot cleverly updated for a generation that never heard of Ralph Macchio.

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.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is good at its feel-iest, a beloved but stale tale retold with novelty while revealing an interesting rest of the story. Let’s hope it becomes a perennial like so many versions before, with Plummer’s Scrooge as a yearly gift.

For the initiated, however, Alfredson weaves a tidy web from loose ends left dangling.

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

Ghostbusters is back, it's not bad, get used to it.

Certainly amusing, but it never accelerates past one-note characters playing out separate personal crises in ways that aren't surprising.

It's a movie that grows on you, after grating your nerves while viewing it.

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]

When director Paul Feig — who revitalized feminine comedy with "Bridesmaids" — allows McCarthy's improvisational instincts to take over because, honestly, nobody else in the cast can stand up to her. McCarthy is the best thing about The Heat.

It isn't a movie to embrace (except for Leguizamo's brilliance) but it deserves one of Noxeema's air kisses - a passing, passionless show of affection, and then we're off to the next party. [08 Sep 1995, p.8]

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.

It's a valuable history lesson crammed into a creatively uninspired movie. Wiki-cinema, if you will.

It's an amusing geriatric uprising that might just as well be titled "Gray."

Rules Don't Apply is affably mediocre, even tolerable between brief pleasures. The movie's lone constant amusement is Beatty's madcap portrayal of Hughes, keeping aloft his Spruce Goose of nonromantic not quite comedy.

Last Man Standing can't live up to its Japanese and Italian predecessors or even its title. [20 Sep 1996, p.5]

The Beaver plays like a thickly veiled confessional and plea for forgiveness. It's too creepy for comfort.

While the result isn't the greatest show on Earth, it certainly is a lot of fun.

The best moments in Wayne's World 2 have been done before and better - a kung fu movie spoof and a running gag based on Oliver Stone's The Doors (which was unintentionally funnier). Surjik trots out a slew of star cameos and cinema salutes, but without the verve of Hot Shots!, Fatal Instinct or Wayne's World itself. [10 Dec 1993, p.6]

The sermons are subtle, raising the film's chances of crossing over to secular audiences. Soul Surfer is so clean that it squeaks, but sometimes that's a nice change of pace.

Conveying a visceral sense of warfare's terror is what Berg chiefly seeks, and on that level Lone Survivor handily succeeds.

Foster's manipulation of Nell's strange language holds us in rapt attention and empathy until Apted falsely gooses his film. It's an excellent performance slightly cheapened by the filmmaker's dramatic framing. [23 Dec 1994, p.17]

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.

Woo directs Mission: Impossible 2 cautiously, as if still introducing himself to U.S. audiences despite Face-Off and Broken Arrow. Or maybe he has nothing left to say about the poetry of violence after such visual eloquence in his Chinese classics. [24 May 2000, p.1D]

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

An efficiently preposterous thriller.

As far as sophisticated caper flicks go, Tower Heist is oceans away from George Clooney's crew. Compared to other recent comedies, it's pretty light on the laughs.

An offbeat romance as dysfunctional as its lovers. [17 Feb 1993, p.5B]

Stoker operates in a perpetual state of dread, a sophisticated Southern gothic that starts out confusing and winds up as a perversely humorous coming-of-age yarn.

It's the only chance for small children to drag parents to the movies until November, so knock yourself out, kiddies.

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

It's more amusing than you might expect, and ultimately more touching than an eroding society around them deserves.

A moviegoer's reaction to Mr. Holland's Opus depends mightily on what personal baggage he/she takes into the theater. The right audience will discover that Herek's film can be a stirring, sentimental testament to educators. For more daring types, Mr. Holland's Opus may be the multiplex equivalent of a tough required class; easy to sleep through, and dismissed not a moment too soon. [19 Jan 1996, p.8]

Cars 3 is a better time at the movies than Cars 2 led me to expect. Not exactly ringing praise but we take amusement from sequels where we can get it these days.

An amoral mosaic of carnage and carnality.

Stealth is a key element of tension and, even though DePalma tosses his share of fireballs around, Mission: Impossible gets edgier when it gets quieter. The audience's rapt, empathetic silence while Hunt hangs there in peril proves how well the director does it. [24 May 1996, p.5]

Dawn of the Dead is very much its own movie, and a disturbing one at that. But it also realizes we're in the theater to have fun, either grotesquely or cleverly.

For two hours it's a fun head trip.

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.

Not as funny as you might expect but, like Reitman's political comedy Dave, it has a genuine affection for its institutional subject. [23 Nov 1994, p.8C]

Whatever his motivations or deeds, Gordon Gekko is a classic screen character and Douglas is never better than when playing him.

With its flat acting and titillating format, The Lover is soft-core and mostly a bore. [14 May 1993, p.9]

Ultimately, the movie's energy rises and falls on the presence of Adam Driver as Wallace's libido-on-legs friend, who can make you believe sex can solve anything. Except this movie.

Director Ted Demme (Jonathan's nephew, Who's the Man?) guides this predictable action with a leaden hand. It's as if he, like everyone else in The Ref, is holding back, awaiting Leary's next inspired, caustic riff. That's a lot of pressure for a cult-level comic in his first lead role. He doesn't always measure up. [11 Mar 1994, p.8]

Depp and Cruz only occasionally strike the sparks expected from two of the world's most beautiful people.

The Jumanji sequel nobody demanded is fun. Kind of. Sort of. It’s a close call.

Even in strained moments, there is a sincerity to Dolphin Tale 2, an ambition to be more than an easy sequel, making it satisfying.

There's a pervasive cruelty, a condescension toward common folks like the Westons that's frequently off-putting, even as we're laughing.

Wormald won't make anyone forget Bacon, but he dances better, and without a stand-in. Hough's dance ability is well-known, but she also displays flashes of acting skill.

What could be a cash grab turns out to be the series' finest chapter, with the same piano-wire tension plus a narrative clarity lacking before.

Victoria & Abdul is a small tale well told, a modest historical biopic allowing Dench a remarkable encore.

Director Robert Lorenz makes a nondescript debut, after assisting Eastwood on several of his directing gigs. The student hasn't learned much from the teacher about economic storytelling or deflecting schmaltz.

Despite its overt feminism, Neighbors 2 makes the sorority unravel when its guiding man leaves. It's one of several mixed messages in the screenplay, possibly due to having five writers' fingerprints on it.

This movie is a last chance to save the series, which it does.

This is such a generic endeavor — not a poor effort, just one that doesn't attempt to do anything besides splash a screen with color and movement.

Fey and Poehler remain game throughout, mustering a bit of besties magic here and there. Sisters flips a tested formula to become the New Coke of comedy, looking familiar and bubbly on the surface, disposable before it's finished.

It's a one-note character that Bardem builds into a complex emotional chord, lessening the urge to dismiss Biutiful solely as an endurance test for viewers.

Even the smuttiest jokes about rape, torture and genitals have a more polished edge, sliding by without causing much offense. Watching actors portray alarm at Cohen's antics isn't as hilarious as civilians doing it for real.

Quantum of Solace bends whatever rules 2006's Casino Royale didn't break, presenting more action in less time, with a world domination scheme based on natural resources rather than unnatural gadgets.

Denzel Washington’s labored portrayal of a shambling legal savant named Roman J. Israel, Esq. is the least of the movie’s worries. This is a story of shifting ethics that should be dramatic, but shaky logic prevents that from happening.

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.

Rise of the Guardians is an all-star addition to holiday movies lists but the real question is: Which holiday?

I honestly thought Eclipse would be different, after "New Moon" showed stirrings of cinematic life.

If this movie truly cost $375 million to produce and market (as the L.A. Times reported), the biggest chunk isn't on the screen.

Even with its flaws, Snowden is Stone's return to relevance, in subject and execution.

Kind of like Lawless, a movie about bootleggers more violently authentic than previous takes on the subject, from "Thunder Road" to the first half of "The Last American Hero." What Lawless has over those moonshine melodramas is a striking sense of period and setting.

Malaise isn't Tom Hanks' thing, so A Hologram for the King with its death of an IT salesman vibe isn't a good fit. Hanks is far too indelible as a can-do personality to play why bother.

Apted is a gifted British director with a keen eye for the way American subcultures live. But in Thunderheart he allows the hunt for a big box office cop smash to interfere with a cross-cultural tale that could stand on its own. [3 Apr 1992, p.9]

It's a story told accurately, if not particularly well.

The Night Before isn't anything Harold, Kumar or Billy Bob Thornton didn't desecrate before and better.

In telling someone else's story Crowe loses track of his own as a cultural definer, not a panderer. Mee bought a zoo; Crowe sells out.

What is most surprising about The Indian in the Cupboard is its listless pacing, without emotional goosebumps. Director Frank Oz's films (Little Shop of Horrors, Housesitter), usually possess an energy to carry audiences along. [14 July 1995, p.8]

If only one character in Stone reacted as someone in his position would to the preposterous situation at hand, the movie would be 15 minutes long.

Romantics of any age will probably succumb to Depp's deft portrayal, cinematographer John Schwartzman's fantastic vision and Berman's comic wordplay. [23 Apr 1993, p.5]

All that director Kenneth Branagh must do with Thor is not mess it up, and he succeeds. But that isn't enough. The results aren't as exhilarating as the first "Iron Man," but Downey can't play every superhero.

The harrowing scenes of Stahl's drug abuse and strung-out aftermaths are dulled by Stiller's quips, while the laughs stick in our throats because of sheer embarrassment for Stahl's character. By trying to have it both ways, Veloz does full service to neither. [09 Oct 1998, p.8]

Jordan makes performing in front of a camera look as easy as everything else he has attempted in his storied life except baseball. Bugs Bunny and the gang are old pros at that. There are some genuine surprises in the special effects expertise on display. [15 Nov 1996, p.3]

Certainly this could've been a bolder, angrier movie than what it became. After so much grimness in movies about U.S. military actions in the Middle East, it's good finding one dedicated to the kind of humor getting a lot of folks through over there.

Bad Words isn't an entirely auspicious beginning to Bateman's career behind the camera, but a riotous performance suggests what a wonderful louse he can be.

Close's performance is technically perfect and emotionally pinched, which is exactly what her role calls for, but it doesn't make a compelling 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.

Burton's manner is changed, not drastically or consistently but more controlled, making strangeness the story's accessory rather than its purpose. He seems inspired by this material for the first time in years, in a creative vein where he finds the most satisfaction.

I learned a total of two things from watching Evil Dead: No camping kit is complete without duct tape, and sometimes end credits are worth sitting through for a movie's best gag.

Hotel Transylvania doesn't raise the bar for animation or comedy but it's fun, and nice for once to have a different reason to say "boo" after an Adam Sandler flick.

Director Wes Ball makes a solid feature film debut, without any noticeable video game envy to his action sequences.

It's as slick and fun as summertime entertainment should be. Downey is still an arresting presence, glib to the nth degree and supremely confident that he's smarter than anyone else.

The redneck rust bucket is on screen so much that 3-D glasses should come with tetanus shots.

It's the Topps style of filmmaking; like most baseball trading cards, Little Big League is flatly two-dimensional, distinctly lacking action and with little value, unless its engaging young star, Luke Edwards, turns out to have a brilliant career. [24 Jun 1994, p.9]

First Knight isn't sparkling enough to be a legend, isn't grubby enough for realistic drama or bad enough to completely dismiss. Call it a near-myth. [07 Jul 1995, p.6]

I spent several minutes not caring what was happening with the story but just observing the patchwork illusion of oversized props, short stunt doubles and computer grafting of big faces on small bodies. Nice work.

Only a spunky cast prevents the film from being as tedious as a test pattern.

Wind only hits full stride during the racing sequences, filmed with stunning authenticity by cinematographer John Toll. This movie should be a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination for Toll's work. But there hasn't been such a threadbare film so dependent upon its camera work since Days of Heaven. [11 Sep 1992, p.10]

The funniest comedy of degeneracy since "Bad Santa," and a career-changer for Aniston and Farrell if they'll only keep following their perverted muses. Horrible Bosses spins hostile work environments into a movie surpassing "9 to 5" and "Office Space" as the touchstone flick for disenchanted drones.

War Dogs is cocked with an irreverent pedigree and loaded with the genius teaming of Jonah Hill and Miles Teller as high rolling gun runners making up everything as they go. It's a splendid mismatch, physically and tempermentally, folded into a screenplay that's only occasionally as razored as it might be.

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.

Reiner made another one of those stodgy courtroom pieces and forgot the first rule of a witness: Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. [03 Jan 1997, p.5]

One of the best screen encores since Hollywood started depending on sequels to break even. It accomplishes what audiences should demand from a follow-up; familiar characters with a new slant to their exploits that makes us view them differently from before. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be around the Brady household, and we'll thank Sanford for that as soon as we finish snickering. [23 Aug 1996, p.5]

Director/chief screenwriter Philip Kaufman used the same kid-glove treatment in his adaptation of Michael Crichton's controversial bestseller, but Rising Sun has enough mystique and chemistry among its stars to be worthwhile adult entertainment. [30 July 1993, p.6]

It takes too long for The Commuter to build a head of steam but it’s medium speed ahead after that.

Pierce Brosnan is dashing and deadly, finally meeting the gold standard. And director Lee Tamahori detours from convention, taking the franchise up a notch in Die Another Day.

The 33 has a disappointing lack of depth for a movie about being trapped 2,400 feet below.

The movie seldom bridges the gap between education and entertainment, a trait that made "March of the Penguins" a must-see multiplex experience.

Underwood's film doesn't have a fraction of the insight or genuine comedy of City Slickers and it's a few years too late to be fresh material. Overall, Heart and Souls is an odd title for a movie that has a distinct, depressing lack of both qualities. [13 Aug 1993]

The Glass Castle meanders toward its uplift ending, needing a few more of Cretton's clever time-jump edits, less rehashing the same personal failures. Not a bad movie at all, at times something more but seldom what it could be.

Just like Will Stoneman himself, it crosses the finish line battered and wobbly, but a winner nonetheless. [14 Jan 1994, p.7]

Like a struggling sprinter, Stephen Hopkins' film suffers from wasted motion, too much going on. It's the difference between a merely competent movie and one justifying more discussion of Hollywood's commitment to reward diversity.

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.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is an elegant scandal almost devoid of true passion, no matter how many times the nude lovers artfully mingle.

The Fate of the Furious doesn't merely suspend disbelief, it expels it like a delinquent student told to never come back.

Non-Stop mostly works by being aware of what other jet-in-jeopardy flicks have done before, adding a spin here and there. Nothing Hitchcockian but more ambitious than a Neeson action flick needs to be.

It's occasional fun, but that's about all, folks.

Curled up at home with the lights off and DVD player running, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark might be passable fun. Spread over a movie screen, the film's modest ambition gets dwarfed by expectations, especially after paying for a ticket.

Date Night is really just another example of what happens when funny sitcom stars are lumped together in a movie, believing that laughter exponentially increases with screen size.

As far as Sabrina goes...may she rest in peace for at least another 41 years. [15 Dec 1995, p.7]

The plot, dealing with aliens infiltrating our world, still made as much sense as it possibly could, and the special effects guys really don't go to work until the last two reels. [31 May 1996, p.8]

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.

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

Real Steel is sci-fi without the science, and the fiction is strictly 20th century, straight out of Rocky knockoffs.

It's a pleasing tribute to Steadman, but there's a sense that Paul would really prefer to focus on Thompson's brand of altered-state brilliance, which has been covered in documentaries before. If you're a gonzo completist, For No Good Reason is a must-see.

Unknown is finely tuned pulp filmmaking, a dumb movie with a smart veneer, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Thompson's fans will embrace its twisted verbal dexterity, romantically imagining the author feverishly pulling strings from the beyond.

Hereafter doesn't feel like a Clint Eastwood film; it's more like a very special edition of John Edward's psychic TV show.

Death Becomes Her is a comedy so dark and disjointed that not even some terrific makeup effects can cover its blemishes. [31 July 1992, p.5]

Maleficent feels spit-balled into more directions than barely 90 minutes of story time can adequately cover. It's once upon a time, happily ever after and a lot of undeveloped drama in between.

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]

Steve Carell's character in Dinner for Schmucks is almost too pitiful for the jokes launched against him to be funny. It is a terrific performance making everyone else's condescension sound harsher than the writers likely intended.

Is Carrey funny? Of course, because Stiller and the script allow him to be funny, at the expense of tension. [14 June 1996, p.3]

2 Days in the Valley is a neatly folded piece of cinematic quirk.

Endings have never been Russell's strong suit. This time the beginning also eluded him, and the middle fell into his lap. Joy leaves a feeling of panicked disappointment, as if phone lines are open and nobody's calling.

The Farrellys affectionately structure their movie to resemble the Stooges' one-reelers from the 1930s, while the modern setting shows how timeless their rapid-fire puns, insults and pratfalls truly are. Silliness never goes out of style.

Concussion is essentially Erin Brockovich with shoulder pads, a crowd pleaser built upon an issue long ignored.

Jude Law's ferociously vulgar portrayal of a hard-luck safecracker carries the first hour of this amorality tale. Then writer-director Richard Shepard makes the creatively fatal mistake of making Dom Hemingway sympathetic, when irredeemable is much more fun.

Love Affair is a second honeymoon disguised as a movie project. [21 Oct 1994, p.7]

Jackie Chan, master of martial arts comedy, wishes to be taken seriously as an actor. Seriously. The Foreigner is no place to start and a smart place to finish.

The performances are constantly spot-on, especially Scott during a wonderfully written rant during a group vacation.

Man of Steel is more than just Avengers-sized escapism; it's an artistic introduction to a movie superhero we only thought we knew.

Yes, The Eagle is as bad as it sounds but also entertaining, in a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" sort of way that Macdonald didn't intend.

Cloud Atlas, surely the most incoherent waste of time and money on screen this year.

A movie as fun as it is flawed.

The movie finds its humor in the royals' shock at Hyde Park's lacking decorum, and a hint of FDR's political savvy.

Dark Shadows manages in two hours what the TV show took six years to do: become irrelevant and remembered only for how sloppy it was.

It's a crudely populist movie designed to rouse the rabble, to loudly remind us greed isn't good. Viewers seeking another "The Big Short" will leave shortchanged.

The Kids in the Hall might be impossible to like if they didn't pursue their constitutional right to offend with such whimsy and joy. Even in their darkest moments, the comedy doesn't seem mean-spirited, and there is a righteous undercurrent that hints the guys care about their targets more than one might think. [19 Apr 1996, p.3]

2 Guns is a movie based on smart callbacks and sly flip-flops of loyalty, regularly interrupted by spasms of well-staged violence.

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.

Until it lapses into a Rube Goldberg farce with a tacked-on, present-day epilogue, the movie is a wonderful reminder of why we've tried so hard to get major league baseball in Tampa Bay. [7 Apr 1993, p.5B]

Robert Altman's tantalizing, multicharacter style is considerably dumbed down in Willard Carroll's imitative Playing by Heart. [22 Jan 1999, p.3]

Paramount prefers to think of Star Trek: Generations as the first of a new film series, rather than the seventh act of the old, but prior knowledge of the saga definitely is a necessity. It's a movie filled with punchlines that depend on the audience knowing the set-ups. [18 Nov. 1994, p.3]

Redford proves that at 75 he can still choose meaningful projects and deliver them with intelligence.

Everything was awesome in 2014's The Lego Movie, a high-wire risk paying off with a new look in computer animation based on Lego's interlocking design. The Lego Ninjago Movie hasn't abandoned that uniqueness but certainly reins it in.

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

A memorable doomsday drama. [28 Sep 2000, p.13W]

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.

Except for slipping on a third-act soapbox, The Joneses is a deft allegory of the greed and coveting that led to the recession. At times, you wonder if something like this scam could really happen, or does.

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

As a purely sensory experience at the movies you're hard-pressed to find anything more dazzling than the first 90 minutes of The Great Gatsby, when Luhrmann's riotous amusements make anything possible.

It feels like a rush job, needing another draft or two for cohesion's sake, or for Allen to decide what sort of story he's telling.

The rest are hit-and-miss propositions with occasional flashes of wit, and a few standout performances. It's always good to see Judy Davis exchanging barbs with Allen, like when he boasts of having an IQ of 160.

Espinosa overcomes any shortcomings in originality and logic with one of the most satisfying finales in recent memory. First impressions are important but a clever last impression makes Life worthwhile.

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.

The movie has its heart and humor in the right place, and there's no "Shame" in that.

Eastwood's unvarnished storytelling style, usually his strength as a filmmaker, is terribly out of place here. If ever a movie needed flashbacks, dream sequences, any attempt no matter how cliche to goose the narrative, it's this one.

Like The Flintstones and The Beverly Hillbillies before it, The Brady Bunch Movie is an amusing facsimile of a pop culture archetype. If only the script had been given such attention to detail. [17 Feb 1995, p.3]

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

Mike Myers' first film excursion beyond Wayne's World feels like one of those boring, aimless Saturday Night Live sketches that typically ruin the final 10 minutes of each show. So I Married an Axe Murderer is a mess, from its cliched mistaken-identity premise to one-liners that sound "borrowed" from other comedians or school-yard jive sessions. Above all, this tedious comedy proves that, as a movie star, Myers should never be let out of that basement in Aurora, Ill., that he shares with Dana Carvey. [30 July 1993, p.11]

Sparkle may wind up as Ejogo's breakthrough but will forever be remembered as Houston's swan song, and a glimpse of what her next life chapter might have been. What a talent. What a waste.

Arau's style is an aphrodisiac at 24 frames per second. [11 Aug 1995, p.2B]

Extraordinary heroism deserves a less ordinary movie.

But I'll admit, as Western's climactic "big game" drew to a close, the personalities and situations Shelton and Friedkin created made it tough to guess exactly how the game would end. That's high praise, considering how predictable most jock flicks are. With that kind of heads-up play, and Nolte strong in the pivot position, Blue Chips scores. [18 Feb 1994, p.7]

Somehow, the loose ends fit together, as rag-tag plucky as Eddie himself. What Eddie the Eagle has that last week's more historically accurate Race didn't is charm to spare, especially in Egerton's performance.

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

The final 20 minutes at the Radio City Music Hall extravaganza are fairly tense, in highly improbable ways designed to rouse send-off cheers.

The Magnificent Seven had me smiling throughout, tapping into Saturday matinee memories without seeming entirely old-fashioned.

Bran Nue Dae is a strange change from the usual multiplex fare, and that's nearly enough to make it wonderful.

Sinister is basically a collection of bogus snuff films linked by standard haunted house tricks - everything creaking and slamming, with the power conveniently shut off.

DuVernay finds herself in the unenviable position of being both the right and wrong person for an important job. A Wrinkle in Time is gratifying for what it is, a step forward for creative women of color, and so disappointing for what it turns out to be.

Frankel's movie is as refreshing as a walk in the woods and surprising as a chance encounter with the best that nature can offer.

A distinct lack of merriment marks each frame of this film, with Scott determined to erase all fond memories of past Robin Hoods.

Multiplicity is a pleasant comedy, in the blandest sense of that adjective. It's what you call a billboard movie - a quick-pitch concept easily advertised with snappy star images, flat in its execution and merely a passing distraction to an audience. [17 July 1996, p.3D]

Hands down and body parts floating, the most irresistibly sick movie in years is Piranha 3D, which should be retitled Piranha 3D, Double-D and C for all the topless cuties director Alexandre Aja feeds the fish and audience.

It only took four years for New Jack Cinema to devolve into the same old cliches of the 'hood, and only 86 minutes for the first family of def comedy to blow them away. [14 Jan 1996, p.2B]

Hysteria is a one-joke movie, but when a joke is told this well, it doesn't matter.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ends on a perfectly appropriate note, recapturing a childish sense of wonder and an earnest approach to Lewis' religious allegory.

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

It all comes down to what Francis Fitzpatrick considers the division of life: those people who are miserable and those who are dissatisfied. She's the One has enough fine moments to keep an audience out of the first category. Fans of Burns' first film will fit squarely in the second.

There is still Spider-Man's personal turmoil, crises of romance and loyalty, that Webb occasionally holds a few beats too long. Yet the performances ring true, with arresting chemistry where it counts.

Another Stakeout eventually crumbles under the weight of its own stupidity. Badham and Kouf are compelled to shove the comedy aside for an overly violent shootout finish that leaves as many bodies as unanswered questions about the case. An overblown pyrotechnic sequence that destroys a house from a handful of angles is too familiar to be exciting. [23 July 1993, p.9]

Anyone of any age can get a kick out of watching penguins slide down the spiraled interior of the Guggenheim Museum, or seeing how one of these flightless birds manages to buck nature.

There hasn't been a great Muppet movie since the first one, in 1979. Muppets From Space is the most entertaining of five sequels since then, although it isn't anything special. Yet we can all appreciate the way it's packaged, with one adorably round eye on the kid market and the other focused on grown-ups buying the tickets. [14 July 1999, p.1D]

If not for a few choice performance moments and a couple of peppy montages, Wanderlust would be cinematic compost, recycled and thoroughly smelly.

Sure, it's silly without shame, and predictably sentimental. But Zookeeper is the most thoroughly enjoyable movie for the entire family in theaters right now. I can't believe I just typed that about a Kevin James flick with talking animals.

Airheads is a rock 'n' roll radio comedy in which laughs come at a very low frequency. [5 Aug 1994, p.8]

It's just another example of technology intruding upon storytelling, that's been happening since kinetoscopes cranked one frame at a time.

The Hollars plays like a Zach Braff cast-off, with its strenuous quirks and strummy musical interludes.

I’m stunned by where this movie dares to go with a star like Lawrence (and female co-stars) at a time like this, nearly as much as I’m impressed by Red Sparrow’s total investment in such trashy, grindhouse affairs while maintaining a veneer of high-toned quality. Blood lust and carnality at its classiest. Guilty pleasures as charged.

The greatest animated film of all time...one of the truly monumental cinematic accomplishments of all time. Each frame was lovingly hand-drawn, rather than the stylized mechanics of computer animation that brought back the art form in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. The effect is astounding, especially when the animators' attention to detail and four years of painstaking effort is considered. I'm not ashamed to admit that at a recent screening - right around the sound of the first "Heigh Ho" - I wept, awed by the artistry and savoring a rich historical and emotional experience. [2 July 1993, p.8]

Give the Olympic ice skating fantasy The Cutting Edge a so-so score of 5.2 on technical merit and a low 4.6 for artistic interpretation. This Rocky romance movie is lovely to watch and difficult to swallow. [27 March 1992, p.8]

Niccol fashioned an uninspired and downright dull sci-fi gimmick and doesn't even explain how it happened.

Our Brand Is Crisis shows flashes of insight cribbed from reality, nibbling the edges of satire without ever taking a big bite.

The only bright spot in Tomorrow Never Dies is watching Chinese action star Michelle Yeoh eventually get a chance to grab a couple of machine guns and start rocking the house. She's a dynamo who has held her own alongside Jackie Chan, so it's disappointing that Spottiswoode doesn't find more opportunities to let her kick some tail. [19 Dec 1997, p.8]

White House Down is nearly enough fun to be a bad movie that's a good time. But it always finds some way of being a drag, belching exposition and weak humor when action's all we need, then carrying the action to exhausting lengths.

Like many sudden heroes, these lifelong friends led unremarkable lives until fate stepped in. Eastwood is committed to depicting every single unremarkable step along the way.

Paul Haggis is positive that withholding information while John makes "A Beautiful Mind" flow charts and deals with bad dudes will keep it interesting. Haggis is wrong.

Murder on the Orient Express is prestige gone off the rails, a tony chunk of nothing that doesn’t beg the question whodunnit as much as why?

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

Like the live action Beauty and the Beast, its best impressions come from imitating the source, lifting visuals and dialogue to deja vu effect.

What makes Central Intelligence appealing in appalling times is volcanic chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart.

A tidy terror flick, and refreshing with its intention to make viewers gasp rather than gag.

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

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is the sort of movie that would give sequels a bad name, if they didn't already have one. [16 July 1995, p.2B]

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

Fallen begins in unremarkable fashion and trails off from there, idling its way through bland psycho-religious violence and spooky lighting. [16 Jan 1998, p.8]

We've seen plenty of sword-and-sandal epics, full of robustly virile men fighting like real men against other men. But we've never seen those hyper-macho mechanics presented with the brutal beauty and thrilling finesse of 300, clearly the best film of 2007 so far.

It's about time that another Scream flick came along to gouge the new cliches out of their sockets. Scream 4 does it in grandly Guignol style.

Reese Witherspoon can do a lot of things as an actor but playing a damaged-goods Depression era dame isn't one of them.

X-Men: Apocalypse is sprawling to a fault, in both geography and characters to be given something to do.

Mostly it's hamstrung by an abundance of reverence and dialogue sounding like an art studies syllabus when it isn't rehashing war movie tropes.

John Hillcoat's Triple 9 is doubly disappointing, wasting talent and our time with underworld cliches previously covered in other movies that ultimately didn't matter. This cynical slice of lowlife will join them soon enough.

So many oddities are thrown in our faces that The Frighteners becomes measured by its occasional imaginative moments, rather than as a complete entertainment. [19 July 1996, p.5]

Movies don't come any brawnier than Safe House, and all that chaotic mayhem eventually beats the plot to a pulp.

It's all bathetic enough for Labor Day to be subtitled The Prisons of Madison County.

As viscerally exciting as Padilha's RoboCop can be, the movie is elevated by serious considerations of the ethics of using robots as guardians (shades of drones), commercialism, playing God with science, and what being human is about.

Even as Touching Home finds those moments, it's easier to appreciate the stars' dedication to a grass roots project than the project itself.

Beautiful Creatures gives supernatural teenage romance a good name, or at least a better one than the entire "Twilight Saga" offered.

The Intern is a movie outmoded in style and strangely retro-sexist in spirit.

Donaldson mimics the original shot-for-shot in some sequences, adding sordid violence that would have been too extreme even for Peckinpah. What's needed is a fast Getaway. This is merely Donaldson, Hill and glamorous stars spinning their wheels. [11 Feb 1994, p.6B]

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

A Walk in the Woods is a trifle compared to 2014's Wild, which tracked a similar real-life journey toward self-discovery in richer detail. But darned if Redford's easy charm and Nolte's gravelly lack of it aren't enticing throughout.

Anything goes in The Big Lebowski, and you roll right along with it. [6 March 1998, p.3]

What truly makes The Neon Demon frustrating is Refn's undeniable talent for arresting images. His color schemes and framing make each second fascinating to observe, even when the dialogue is stultifying.

After such a revolutionary acting career, Andy Serkis should be expected to make an equally inventive directing debut. Breathe is anything but that.

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

It's a nice pairing of singular personalities deserving better material, or a shorter leash on the improv.

How to Be Single isn't doing anything that some flop probably starring Katherine Heigl hasn't done before. This appealing cast at times works wonders with what they're being asked to play.

Even when The Net goes off-line, Bullock's captivating presence is a screen saver. [28 July 1995, p.6]

Disney's remake of Mighty Joe Young has little to recommend except more realistic special effects than the 1949 original and a handful of kid-sized thrills. The movie feels designed only to pass some time in a theater, without much attention to anything except building the perfect cuddly beast. [25 Dec 1998, p.8]

Jack the Giant Slayer is merely cable TV fodder waiting to happen and not worth a hill of beans, magic or otherwise.

Valerian displays reckless imagination and zero personality.

It's an out-of-control movie from an out-of-touch director/screenwriter; too frenzied to make sense, and too awful to tear your eyes away. [01 Dec 1995, p.12]

Romantic charm and racy humor in a neatly arranged package anyone can appreciate.