Tasha Robinson

This is Csupo's feature directorial debut, but as creator, producer, and writer of "Rugrats" and "The Wild Thornberrys," among several other series, he's had a long career in animation, and he handles the CGI setpieces masterfully.

While The Rescuers is at times a showcase for marvelously expressive art—especially in Kahl’s design for Madame Medusa, a sloppy, flailing disaster of a woman with a shapeless bust hanging to her waist and a face like a half-empty bag—the seams show throughout, and it’s all too easy to see the patchwork process that created it from foregrounds and backgrounds, and from animators of varying experience and talent.

The story is a standard fairy-tale concoction, but the New Agey philosophy about healing and heroism makes for a classic Henson story, all heart and rapturous wonder at the world's incredible possibilities.

Nothing about where the story is going or how it’ll get there stylistically can be taken for granted. That’s one of the biggest joys of Shaw’s projects — the sense of something new and different happening, of that anti-capitalist, anti-conformist, anti-containment bent that stretches throughout the story also extending into every aspect of the film’s aesthetics.

Trouble is, most of the major changes took place inside her head and heart, which makes her story a natural fit for a book, but an awkward one for a film.

Well-crafted but frustratingly superficial documentary.

It's easier to find enjoyment in Sparrows on a moment-by-moment basis than to swallow its message whole, but that method squares just fine with Majidi's aesthetic, in which tiny, quiet joys are the best kind.

Impatient adult escorts ought to appreciate the brevity, and their kids should find plenty of good-natured diversion in the film's generally charming story.

The latest from Spanish writer-director Alberto Vázquez is transgressive and aggressive to a degree that’s hard to fathom: It weaponizes cute cartoon creatures against its audience, and introduces innocence and beauty in order to tear it apart on screen in the most horrific ways possible. The film isn’t an easy watch, but it is a bold and memorable one.

Nair's film is a joyous triumph in the way it makes the story accessible, without losing sight of the specifics that make it not just a true story, but a complete and real one.

Strangely, this Thatcher biopic might have been far more worthwhile if it wasn't about Thatcher: The aged, dotty stranger hanging out with her dead husband is a more compelling subject.

Inside Out 2 is full of passion and empathy, letting the audience in on Riley’s inner struggle without always painting her as the hero, even in her own story.

The tenor can be shrill, but there's no time to get bored. And on top of that, most of the gags actually work.

Disney’s triumphant return to hand-drawn 2-D animation still holds an awful lot of familiar, comfort-food charm.

It’s a movie designed for people who like their future-fiction thoughtful and relevant, and for people who enjoy the runaway-train feeling of having no idea where a given story could possibly go next.

Pirates! comes with all the usual Aardman strengths intact, particularly the sense that its characters and creators alike are too good-hearted and sweet to nitpick.

Spider-Man: Homecoming brings the character back to his basics. In the process, it shows why he’s always been such a popular draw, and it makes a strong argument for a branch of the MCU / Sony heroverse that operates on a smaller scale than the rest of the world.

Holmes’ performance helps Miss Meadows considerably: It’s so relentlessly upbeat and deliberately artificial that it admits no cynicism or judgment, and it makes the film daringly weird.

It's a little unfair to any sequel to use its predecessor as a yardstick rather than considering it on its own merit, but in this case, it's impossible to put the original movie aside. Not just because of the title, but because Sword Of Destiny mimics its predecessor in so many clear and frustrating ways.

Cars is a fine example of the formula, with pleasant chemistry, the patented Pixar cleverness, and the usual sweetly melancholy nostalgia courtesy of songwriter Randy Newman.

The Host is a step up from the endless metaphorical lectures and gaping plot holes of Niccol’s last film, In Time, but its muffled emotions, delivered with Twilight-esque blank-eyed calm, put it in the same category of a creative idea hamstrung in execution.

Public Enemy openly raises the question of why officers of the law hated Mesrine so much that they were willing to turn his death into a block party.

Eastwood's prim, respectful biography presents Hoover in turn as a muddy political metaphor, a lesson in self-mythologizing, and a case history in repression, but never particularly as a man.

The filmmaking is prosaic, the pacing sleepy. It's a solid but unremarkable experience, perfect for insomniacs watching the History Channel late at night, but not nearly as satisfying as simply re-reading Lee's book.

For all Thompson's talent and promise, King Jack still rests most on the actors, and the way they suggest inner worlds deep enough to get lost in, without pushing or forcing the point.

From a technical and filmmaking standpoint, nothing about Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower stands out.... It’s as dry and straightforward as a reputable news report. But from a content standpoint, the film is riveting.

This is the kind of film where viewers can let themselves flow with the film’s emotion, or entirely ignore the action and just get lost in the beauty of the imagination. Either way, it’s a luscious trip to take.

It's a wildly exciting ride, the fastest-moving, most enthusiastically kinetic kids' action film since "The Incredibles."

It plays with comedy and drama, but keeps failing to commit to one or the other.

Hail, Caesar! is immensely entertaining, but it's also frustratingly discursive, with so many incomplete sidelines and distractions that it suggests an overcrowded but exciting TV pilot more than a self-contained film.

There's a noble cause buried under all the clumsy speeches, blatant manipulations, and foreordained conflicts, but the thudding lack of subtlety proves exhausting.

This caper film possesses Miyazaki's usual good-hearted charm, but he injects a manically energetic humor that his more sedate children's films never quite achieve.

Elio is a big-swing movie, an attempt to push viewers out of their comfort zones and into a strange new setting. But while it successfully blasts off to a colorful new world of wonder, it doesn’t always land.

Slow West often feels like the Coen brothers’ rendition of True Grit, if they’d brought Wes Anderson in as a collaborator. It’s a shaggy-dog story full of colorful characters and aimless but diverting narrative byways, all delivered with Andersonian solemnity, against a backdrop of deeply saturated colors and meticulously dressed sets.

Just as trying to keep up with every geopolitical crisis on the planet all at once can be overwhelming, trying to track Geostorm’s name-checked concerns and its barely present characters is likely to tax viewers’ attention spans. Horror movies help people process some of our worst fears, but there’s a reason most movies don’t try to address every human fear at the same time.

It’s a quiet film of modest narrative ambitions and simple shifts. But its technical and visual ambitions couldn’t be higher. It’s as if Ghibli is still trying to raise its own bar, so that even if it’s going out, it’s reminding viewers what they’d be missing.

Nimród Antal's terrific feature debut Kontroll takes some time to get up to speed--but once it's fully underway, it develops a heady momentum and a devastating impact.

Until the "creep + orphans = happy family" formula starts demanding abrupt, unconvincing character mutations, Despicable Me is a giddy joy.

While "War Within" takes a deeper, more personal look at its protagonist, Paradise Now is a more ambitious film that better contextualizes its central characters and their politics.

Few kid films manage to assemble this much ambition alongside this much sincere, sweet emotion.

It never winds up with anything particularly interesting or effective to say about life, intelligence, religion, the nature of consciousness, or any of the other big themes it deliberately evokes. It does, however, blow up a lot of stuff.

There’s some knuckle-biting tension as viewers wait to see how it’ll all play out, but Mylod and the writers also suggest that it’s worth chuckling a little at everyone involved, whether they’re serving up fancy versions of mayhem or just paying through the nose for it.

A harmless feel-good movie that tries to tell audiences what it's like to be a victimized immigrant, and mostly winds up telling them what it's like to have their heartstrings yanked, gratuitiously and often.

Maybe Stiller just seems stilted because he's the only one here who isn't playing to the rafters.

Detailed and memorable, with attention given to the many personalities and agendas involved, but while it finds sympathy for the men who feel pushed to cheat for money, it offers just as much sympathy for the fans who love the sport, and can’t figure out why their beloved players would betray them.

The film makes a strong argument for the value of artistry in horror. Stark colors and an active camera, chasing or leading the characters, give the whole film a sense of intensity and dynamism.

Deep Blue is a thrilling film, but not a thoughtful one; it'd be right at home on an IMAX screen, or possibly as the pretty, polished, and vaguely empty Successories poster it closely resembles.

It’s colorful and charming, and it’s certainly unique in its story specifics. But it also feels safe, simple, and soft-edged compared to Pixar’s wilder swings for the outfield.

The film’s eye-candy is endlessly impressive and a worthy reason to see the film in a theater, but it’s never as memorable as authentic, unique story moments like Hiccup’s first connection with Toothless in the series’s first installment.

Like the best claustrophobic thrillers, the film keeps finding clever new ways to complicate what initially seems like a limited setting with limited story options.

Hurt steals scenes with a brilliantly nuanced character, a man bitter enough to make every line delivered to his peers a challenge or an accusation, yet experienced enough to present those challenges with an ingratiating politesse that only cracks in extremis.

Reichert and Zaman don’t editorialize, which keeps Remote Area Medical from being preachy, forceful, or didactic, but also leaves it feeling shapeless.

Cassel is convincing and riveting as Mesrine, which helps balance out the film's problematic slick shallowness and disconnects.

Dystopian sci-fi has rarely been as delicately and beautifully detailed as Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper’s new film.

Narratively, Trance is questionable, but Boyle and Hodges whisk past all the unlikely developments with enough verve and style to keep audiences from thinking too hard until after they’ve left the theater.

The pacing is expansive rather than draggy; Berri is in no rush to tear through his story, but the dialogue is generally meaningful and story-critical, and very little goes on that isn't directly relevant to the story's ultimate ends.

While the characters are distinctive and charming, and the dialogue is often pretty funny, The Nice Guys is a large step down on the ambition scale from Kiss Kiss. Having deconstructed his favorite genre so perfectly, Black has a harder time reconstructing it without leaving out some pieces.

Beyond the film’s strong look and feel, it’s memorable because the script is so bizarre and unexpected, so confident and daring about what it’s trying to do.

Given how much of the film is spent on watching tiny items grow to improbable size, and huge objects shrink down to the scale of toys, it seems only appropriate that Ant-Man and the Wasp neatly balances its big, serious concerns with its little petty ones. It’s a movie that understands all the variances of scale, and takes the audience along for the ride as they constantly change.

House Of Sand is a gorgeous piece of cinema, but by the end, it just dries up and blows away.

Animated in much the same style as "Perfect Blue," but with greater depth and a more elaborate sense of playfulness, Millennium Actress is a visual feast, but also a mental gymnastics routine.

While the ending is wretchedly fakey and predictable, Murphy in subdued mode gives it a little authentic sweetness.

This is a film about the wilds — internal and external — and Saulnier shoots both the natural and the human side of the story with his usual sharp instincts for startling and engaging images.

An indie version of Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," albeit with none of the star power, a quarter of the budget, half the angst, and twice the charm.

Ultimately, The Syrian Bride becomes an overtly political movie, but with all its loose threads and random directions, it feels more like the pilot for an unmade miniseries.

Meet The Patels does offer a light, hearty overview of a subculture and a family, with plenty of disarming humor. And it perfectly captures the paradoxes of family relationships—the way affection, respect, resentment, and exasperation can all blur into each other inside a close-knit family.

It's an accomplished potboiler entertainment, as calculated and clever as the stories Irving spins to stay afloat in the growing sea of his own lies.

Their best material, and the film's most authentically Southern humor, comes from their comfortable interactions, their funny tall tales, and their alternating shows of respect and good-natured teasing.

For a film that pads out such broad slapstick with toilet humor, obnoxious-child antics, and even cute-animal business, Only Human is surprisingly enjoyable, thanks to the filmmakers' relatively low-key, Pedro Almodóvar-style approach.

At its best, it’s a reminder that King’s biggest strengths lie in his unparalleled ability to build tension, create atmosphere, and tell a direct and brutal story, not in his ability to launch profitable many-branched franchises.

Men is nearly unique as a horror movie in Harper’s specific response to the threats she faces. But even as she parts ways with the usual wailing victim image, the film still holds onto its sense of the uncanny and horrific. Even seasoned body-horror fans may be shaken by where this film goes in terms of its bloody physicality.

A surprisingly intimate behind-the-scenes documentary.

At its best, Brave accesses all the complicated feelings involved between a parent and a rebellious adolescent: the mutual frustration, the lack of communication, the way conflicting desires can mask love without weakening it.

The convincing child cast carries the film when the scares start to feel redundant.

The premise seems profound, but the claustrophobically inert execution lacks reach or imagination.

Greenstreet's film at least serves as a reminder of how useless public debate becomes when everyone's screaming and no one's listening.

It’s appropriately goofy given the premise and the structure, but a brisk pace and a committed cast turns it into a diverting indie horror-movie spin on a familiar gimmick.

This is a movie where the craft dominates the experience, which is thrilling for people watching for the artistry, but less convincing for viewers focused on the story.

Birth Of A Nation is powerful and effective, but it's spectacle that can't humanize or define its subject.

Trumbo’s writing was so terrific, the film emphasizes, that it outweighed his caustic personality, his unfashionable politics, and the career-threatening dangers of working with him.

It’s an out-and-out triumph, an adrenaline blast of pure action and emotion that lives up to its predecessors and ably forwards the MCU story in memorable and even touching ways.

While The Fault In Our Stars is more pastel watercolor than hard-edged drama, it’s still hugely warm and winning, thanks in large part to Boone’s unfussy, wistful direction.

The film unravels a bit in the last few moments, amid unanswered story questions and a simplistic climax, but until that moment, Redbelt is Mamet's richest film of the decade.

The entire film vibrates with understated tension, but almost never raises its voice above a hissed threat or a discomfited mutter. For a film with so many life-or-death choices on the line, it’s almost perversely passive.

Chicago 10 is a lot of fun, but it could stand to take its subjects a little more seriously, if only because they themselves are so frequently goofy that mocking them is complete overkill.

The Wild Thornberrys Movie's heart is clearly in the right place -- but the Thornberry family's grotesquely huge heads, jutting teeth, stick limbs, and mismatched bodies look even more improbable and unpleasant on the big screen than they do on their TV show.

Ultimately, the problem with Infamous isn't that it revisits Capote's turf--it's that it does the same things well, and leaves the same unsatisfying holes.