Steve Persall

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.

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.

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.

Three Billboards lands somewhere near Coen brothers country, eloquently finding comedy in horror and vice versa. Yet it remains its own mangy animal; a study in grief that’s funny, finding justice in terror and forgiveness after the unforgivable.

Linklater tinkers with Ponicsan’s memorable characters while asking practically the same performances of his actors that Ashby did. Of course, if a viewer isn’t familiar with The Last Detail then Last Flag Flying gets by as an okay grumpy old soldiers tragicomedy. The rest of us know better because we’ve seen far better.

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

Justice League does remain fun as it unravels, an upgrade from every other DC flick. Yet a movie intended as the culmination of DC lore instead feels like just another sequel set-up.

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?

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

Always lovely to observe, Wonderstruck never entirely grasps the magic of the coincidences it requires. Themes are emotional yet Haynes’ obsession with visual detailing can drain their meaning.

A Bad Moms Christmas is a comedy with better casting than jokes, a sequel sticking to the formula of using twice as much of whatever worked before.

George Clooney’s latest directing effort, Suburbicon, is a movie tipping off why it’s going wrong before it actually happens.

They’re called comic books for a reason too many superhero movies neglect. Not Thor: Ragnarok, one keenly aware of how silly all this universe saving stuff is. Guardians of the Galaxy is fun; this movie’s funny. There’s a difference.

The Florida Project is a very funny, incredibly warm movie about what amounts to child endangerment. It earns its laughs, gasps and tears honestly, almost always keeping the kids distanced from unsavory situations. When that gap is bridged by a violent or protective act, the effect is devastating.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Ain't no mountain high enough, no plot valley deep enough, to keep Idris Elba and Kate Winslet from setting off romantic sparks in The Mountain Between Us. But this movie surely doesn't do them any favors.

Villeneuve crafts a movie both cerebral and sensuous, as puzzling and visually striking as its predecessor. The experience should be likewise revered by next generations.

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

Stone is terrific, easy to cheer. She's feisty but a bit softer around the edges than King deserves. Another Oscar nomination is certain. Throw in Steve Carell's uncanny impersonation of Riggs and a stellar supporting cast and Battle of the Sexes has the makings of fine time capsule comedy, an extraordinary sports happening even by today's wired standards.

Brad's Status is White's second admirable screenplay this year after Beatriz at Dinner, each rapier sharp about human conditions. This script brings out Stiller's best, meaning his characters' worst. Midlife crises this well-written and performed never grow old.

American Made wants it both ways, with comedy eroding its drama and vice versa.

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.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a tarnished sequel demolishing the original's balderdash charm in tumble-dry camera moves, CGI slosh and Elton John f-bombs.

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.