Steve Persall

Vallée's movie itself begins falling apart after being so artfully put together. Yet Gyllenhaal's performance is the center that holds, making Davis' melancholic obsession and irrational acts seem like the sanest things anyone could do. His disintegration is the actor's triumph.

Everybody Wants Some!! is as playfully raunchy as any sex comedy doubling down on exclamation points can be.

The Boss feels like a fun character gradually wasted.

Eye in the Sky remains gripping even when Hibbert tosses in one or two side-taking circumstances too many.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was supposed to settle a fanboy debate older than Adam West. Instead it raises another: Is being a superhero really this much of a drag?

In 2002, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was at least a unique cultural take on movie cliches typically reserved for Italian and Jewish squabbles and makeups. Now it's all stale baklava, made with love but past its prime. Opa? Nope-a.

It's a very funny character needing more arc than Rauch's script offers or a shorter movie.

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

The pleasures of Allegiant are unintended, those little bits of business taken so seriously that serious viewers must laugh.

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.

Good intentions don't always make for good movies. Case in point: Zootopia, a Disney film with more on its mind than animated fun and fuzzies. So much, in fact, that it loses track of what audiences expect, what they're being sold.

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.

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.

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.

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

Eggers' chilling debut is a small masterpiece of atmosphere.

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.

Deadpool's flawed insolence is appealing, like a mangy pup crawling into your lap.

Hail, Caesar! is maddeningly hit-and-miss.

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

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.

13 Hours is another flag-wrapped paean to true-life Alamo heroism in the vein of Lone Survivor, hoping for ticket sales like American Sniper. Neither of those movies carry the political burden of 13 Hours, and Bay isn't one to channel it.

Anomalisa ends with a major decision and a minor triumph, the result of a one-night stand in Cincinnati. Sad, desperate? Maybe. But in the hands of Kaufman and Johnson, an extraordinary movie.

Haynes designs a perfectly nostalgic sensory experience — something like a Manhattan department store window — needing a suppler story to sell.

The Revenant is an action blockbuster with an art house soul, a headlong rush of motion with meaning. Pure cinema from Iñárritu and Lubezki, two undisputed masters working at their peaks.

Youth is a movie of dreamscapes and insinuated feelings, gorgeous and puzzling at once.

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

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