Steve Persall

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

The movie's strength is Sheridan's knack for vivid characterization through little more than casual remarks and consistent voices.

Director Patrick Hughes' instinct isn't to find dark humor in violence, only to graphically depict it. There's a sadistic edge to The Hitman's Bodyguard that's unbecoming to its comedy.

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

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.

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

From the impure perspective of someone who hasn't read King's series, The Dark Tower isn't half-bad. Faint praise, but this movie will take all it can get.

David Lowery's A Ghost Story is a different sort of haunting, a quiet reverie of never letting go of people, places, anything. Some viewers may think it silly, others profound, but there's no other movie quite like it.

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

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

Shannon is perfectly cast, a creepily magnetic actor with an otherworldly calm, tight jaw and piercing, set-apart eyes. The performance and movie stick with you, with masterful construction and muted psychological horror.

Atomic Blonde is a rare case of a woman toplining an action flick, but it hardly feels revolutionary.

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

Valerian displays reckless imagination and zero personality.

Dunkirk is a staggering feat of filmmaking, as Nolan's fans are accustomed. Van Hoytema's cinematography conveys death trap closeness even with IMAX cameras on a vast beach. Hans Zimmer again proves himself a masterfully dramatic composer, turning violins into the sound of spiraling aircraft. The performances are solid as such Nolan's vision requires, including pop star Harry Styles briefly.

War for the Planet of the Apes seals Caesar's place in the pantheon of movie messiahs and the trilogy's place among the finest ever.

This movie doesn't play any of its themes cheaply.

Spider-Man: Homecoming does the improbable, successfully rebooting a reboot of a trilogy that did the job well enough only a decade ago. It's a movie that could be unnecessary but isn't.

Chaplin is a screen biography of a comedy legend that takes itself much too seriously. [08 Jan 1993, p.8]

Despicable Me 3 doubles down on Steve Carell's silly way with words, a smart idea after too much Minions gibberish spoiled Part 2. They're still here, in smaller doses and somewhat funnier for it.

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.

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

Style is the substance of Edgar Wright's inventive heist flick, a fresh, masterful synching of music and getaway mayhem, as if La La Land's traffic jam was moving, armed and dangerous.

It's the little pleasures in mediocre movies that mean a lot.

Rough Night wouldn't be fresh or funny no matter what gender it's written about or for.

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.

Roger Michell's revival of My Cousin Rachel is a graceful note amid summer's movie din, adapting Daphne du Maurier's black widow mystery with class bordering on defiance.

It Comes at Night lays down a heavy layer of dreadful promise and doesn't follow through. Edgerton's fine performance is overshadowed by a title and ad campaign springing a bait-and-switch scam on horror fans.