Fierce and chaotic, the re-creations of war also fall short — the CGI in many scenes is shockingly bad. Whenever the movie threatens to become too dull, there’s a battle sequence. They start to blur together as the minutes slowly tick by.

It's a predictable but acridly pleasant 12-step bonbon: self-help noir.

A bleakly comic, brutally Darwinian gangland saga that at times comes close to being this year's "Drive." It also does something that, if you're from around these parts, seems downright perverse. It takes the Boston out of George V. Higgins.

The film’s ultimate message — help other people, basically — is, while useful and necessary, dramatically rather slack, and you notice with a shock that the film’s central conceit has almost entirely dropped off the table by the final third. Payne’s microcosm is so like our macrocosm that after a while he simply forgets to make the distinction.

For all its sugary sweet coating, this movie is nothing more than mindless, mundane distraction.

The film plays fast and loose with the book, until its emotional depths, spiritual conflicts, and Waugh's discreet humor have been wrung out.

True to its title, Schizo is both gripped by the past and pulled toward an unknown future.

This movie can't commit to a genre, let alone a logical sequence or complete idea. But there is a wisdom in its blasé assessments and frivolous air: What's the point; where's the wine?

Cloverfield is content to be a creature feature; that's what makes it bearable and what keeps it from greatness. The genre, not the script, does the psychological heavy lifting.

It’s all deeply felt and just as deeply unfocused, and that, more than the invented story line, betrays the movie’s subject.

Ayer, who has dealt with charismatic bad boys before — he wrote the script for “Training Day” and directed the sharp police drama “End of Watch” — makes the paternal “Wardaddy” into a figure both monstrous and upstanding.

A frolic that keeps tripping over its own gorgeous feet.

Putting a provocative spin on the body-fluids subtext, Lowensohn projects stony melancholy and a convincing capacity for romantic impulse as well, making Nadja a surprising little black orchid of a vampire movie. [29 Sept 1995, p.50]

The Cotton Club does look terrific and has its moments. It’s certainly not an embarrassment. It’s just not . . . very good.

If ''Sean" was about conviction and revolution, Following Sean is about ambivalence and resignation. In either case it's pretty easy for a funny-provocative kid to stand out.

It’s a muddled but plush experience overall, and if you’re a royalist completist or a historical romantic, you’ll probably have a decent time.

Everything about the film is a welcome rebuke to the happy-face apocalypse of “2012,’’ a movie that turns mass extinction into the Greatest Show on Earth. In The Road, what has been lost is recognized as infinitely precious; what’s left is bitter and our due.

The most colorful of the penguin 'toons to date, both figuratively and literally.

It answers most questions by the end, except the most important one: Is the devil in Miss Sloane, or is Miss Sloane the devil?

Watson's character grows in importance until she eclipses the recessive Luzhin.

Nowhere near as dynamic as the title implies. It's hard not to think of it as ''Sleepwalk Lola Sleepwalk.''

The triptych is a device but never a gimmick: three windows into one fractured soul.

Far from perfect but completely unique, the film could best be described as a paranoid South American metaphysical political thriller -- you heard me -- and whatever its failures, they're not ones of nerve or imagination.

Of course what’s most interesting of all is the art. Huystee’s many closeups and slow pans over Bosch’s teeming backgrounds are transfixing, unsettling, and a rare privilege.

It's an unfocused overview that intersperses choppy interviews and observations with clips from "Deep Throat," including some of its most notorious and explicit scenes.

Ironically, the phoniness that iconic teen romantic Holden Caulfield despised pervades Jim Sadwith’s Coming through the Rye, a semi-autobiographical tale of hero worship and literary integrity.

The film's insistence on the men's innocence is matter of fact. But it's also an urgent corrective to the suspicious eye the movies so often cast on Arabs and Islam.

Too much of the show, though, feels like frenetic movement for its own sake, as though Conan were one of those cartoon characters who runs off a cliff and stays in the air through the ceaseless pumping of his legs.

Everett draws effectively from Wilde’s own writings and witticisms.

Sollett's working with stale material, clearly. He genuinely likes people, though, and his fondness revives "Nick and Norah" and sets it spinning with camaraderie and hope.

The movie’s OK, nothing more.

It’s a cheat, a cash grab, and it makes for 125 dystopian minutes of set-up with no resolution. But come back next November, folks, and we’ll show you the rest! They should have called it “Mockingjay, Part 1 — The Shakedown.” Or “The Hunger Games 3: Rubble Without a Cause.”

Mastering subtlety, you won't be surprised to hear, remains on Moore’s to-do list.

As visually overstuffed as a hoarder’s apartment, the movie improves as it goes.

The primary talking head is Ono, of course, who's serenely protective of Lennon's greater legacy. Her cooperation ties the film's hands, but only to a point.

Sirens aims at "Enchanted April," not at D. H. Lawrence. Languid, sexy, benevolently naughty, it's right on target. [11 March 1994, p.68]

Unlike the first two installments, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ultimately feels tethered to the MCU in ways that mute the uniqueness of the series. Unlike its predecessors, its familiar beats feel like a bridge back to the MCU rather than a divergence off the beaten path.

The filmmaker invites us to reconsider the author as someone warmer and less intimidating than his body of work. On that count, Wrestling With Angels succeeds.

Hey, Boo is the documentary equivalent of a group hug, right down to the segments showing middle schoolers in Westchester County, N.Y., and Birmingham, Ala., discussing the book in class.

The film has two big things going for it: Stanfield and Asomugha. Their characters could easily become capital-letter caricatures — Victim, Loyal Friend — but the actors give Warner and King a sense of personality, and deeply felt hurt, that stays with you.

One of the major problems facing Hollywood today is the lack of will and energy to make movies that can charm youngsters without boring their parents. Popeye is an important contribution toward the solution. It's not a sophisticated film. But it's a gratifyingly engaging one. [12 Dec 1980, p.1]

May not be deep, but it certainly is lip-smacking.

The film is quick, painless, and more than a little brave: not since John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis, and the aerobicizers in "Perfect" has so much Lycra been so abused for our pleasure.

Achache's direction is deft and assured. She lends the film a nice, easy rhythm that conceals the story's alternating whimsy and melodrama and almost compensates for them (almost).

The Fall is what you'd get if you told a fiendishly gifted graphic illustrator the plot of "The Princess Bride" and sent him off to come up with his own version.

The overall lack of subtlety is a riot - there's even a cautionary production of "Peter and the Wolf" happening in the background during one journalist-politician showdown at a Beltway gala. Still, it's a pleasure watching this cast make the most of the material.

Whenever it stays with Piccoli, though, it's mysterious and moving, struck by the humility of a man who's not up to playing God.

A rich mood piece, a study in bleakness, spiritual exhaustion and death. [02 June 1995, p.56]

Disappointingly, Pineapple Express is less than the sum of its ingredients, even if it's still a good stupid time at the movies.

So it is with St. Vincent, which might be Murray’s “Gran Torino” if you squint at it from one angle, or “Old Meatballs” if you come at it from another.

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is the "Fatal Attraction" of child care, but it's too rigged and anti-climactic to send real shivers up your spine. Which is not to say there aren't satisfying moments along the way, mostly watching Rebecca DeMornay camp it up as the avenging nanny out to destroy young mother Annabella Sciorra. [10 Jan 1992, p.74]

Brings the '30s vividly to the screen.

A warmly made, slightly offbeat movie about friendly devotion. It also happens to be a western, and every man in it is grizzled or wizened or both.

If you don't get hooked on the storytelling in Fried Green Tomatoes, you'll surely be charmed by its five terrific actresses. Fried Green Tomatoes can't match the dramatic focus and rich texture of Rambling Rose, it's far more appealingly nuanced than Steel Magnolias - and with actresses like Tandy, Masterson, Bates, Parker and Tyson on the job, it's downright irresistible. [10 Jan 1992, p.73]

Arctic Tale has a very precise audience in mind: Young children who aren't yet ready for the graphs and sociopolitical alarm bells of "An Inconvenient Truth."

Director Baltasar Kormákur (“2 Guns”) and his cast craft a lean narrative tone that humanizes the action without an excess of gloss.

The biggest narrative justification for “Downton” getting feature treatment might be the sweeping quality to all the character developments and showcase moments being juggled here. The intricacy is managed without ever playing like Fellowes took a couple of routine postscript episodes and simply stitched them together.

As an entry in the advocacy-entertainment genre, in which glamorous movie stars bring our attention to the plight of the less fortunate, Blood Diamond is superior to 2003's ridiculous "Beyond Borders" while looking strident and obvious next to last year's "The Constant Gardener."

Tom Cruise might have saved his family from apocalypse. But Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn have just saved our summer.

Another gorgeous and immensely satisfying reminder that there are few better directors than Téchiné when it comes to capturing the vagaries of the heart.

The movie works.

Recedes to a string of mere action exploits. These are proficiently executed but, for all their visual authority, not much more than routine.

Acridly funny.

Yet Crudup does good, mercurial work despite a silly surfer-dude haircut.

At its core, a perceptive satire of the interpersonal boiling points in buddy-cop pictures.

Yet for all the love emanating from client-pals Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Emeril Lagasse, and Steven Tyler, there’s a sadness to this movie that remains just off camera.

The Traitor is a coolly epic appraisal of a country’s struggle with its dark side rather than a mobbed-up melodrama. If it’s “Godfather” clichés you want, there’s always “The Godfather.”

Thumbs up for Denzel; send the rest of this movie to the lions.

This is an inept and unsubtle romantic fantasy about how black people and white people don't mix.

It’s a shame: Odenkirk begins the movie with a rep as a smart and slippery performer, but by the end of Nobody, he could be anybody.

While Harrison Ford brings all you could hope for to the role of Clancy's hero, CIA analyst Jack Ryan, Patriot Games is a pretty routine, generic and on the whole pedestrian film. Considering the talent and obvious care taken, it's surprisingly flavorless. [5 June 1992, p.25]

Gibney lays out the full picture, availing himself of terrific concert footage, archival materials, and interviews with Fela’s colleagues and family members (including eldest son and musical heir Femi Kuti). The portrait that emerges is of a larger-than-life personality who seems to have been closer to those who didn’t know him than those who did. (Again, much like Brown.)

Well-meaning but trying documentary.

It’s an understatement to say that Tcheng is drawn to this material. He revels in it. Yet he’s too clear-eyed to turn Halston’s story into a morality tale.

Greenland, a solid, stolid disaster film arriving on major streaming platforms this week, posits that the sky is falling, puts manly Gerard Butler in the middle of it, and asks us to be diverted by the spectacle of civic breakdown and mass panic. Are you not entertained? Somewhat surprisingly, yes.

Fans of Lanthimos’s works outside his Emma Stone movies will find “Kinds of Kindness” worth watching. As for the rest of us: You’ll start out clapping along with “Sweet Dreams,” but by the end, you’ll be singing Peggy Lee’s immortal question, “Is That All There Is?”

The movie has a curious and cumulative power.

It overuses ’80s nostalgia as shorthand for genuine emotional involvement, and it presents us with a rapturous digital wonderworld only to sternly lecture us that reality is the better value.

Even as a romantic confection it would soar higher, glow brighter, if it had permitted itself some texture, some bite. It's too simply emblematic to muster all the magic it needs, even though it has a pair of utterly winning performances by Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda. [29 July 1994, p.53]

Proof is proof that you can drain most of the juice out of a play and still have an enjoyable night at the movies.

This is one of those rare movies that genuinely likes its characters and wishes them the best; as agonizing as it can be to watch Jack fumble toward human connection, Hoffman knows the fumbling's the point.

The Muppet Christmas Carol plays like an overextended rerun of a not-quite top-drawer Muppet show. [11 Dec 1992, p.53]

The animation techniques are sophisticated but the story tends to get bogged down in pop philosophy. [01 Mar 2015, p.N]

Café Society is a romantic comedy where the romance is lackluster and the comedy an afterthought.

All Peter Pan lacks is a Peter Pan with any discernible personality, no matter that Jeremy Sumpter is the first actual, genetic boy to play the role on film.

Seems calculated to shock, but what’s most disquieting about Nymph()maniac is how funny, tender, thoughtful, and truthful it is, even as it pushes into genuinely seamy aspects of onscreen sexuality. Obnoxious he may be, but von Trier knows how to burrow into our ids.

Isn't as trippy, scary, handmade-looking, or environmentally aware as some of Miyazaki's pictures. But it shares their dreaminess. Even at its most ingenious, not even Pixar does that.

Written by Gabriel Sherman and directed by Ali Abbasi, it mostly achieves its vision — especially in its wildly strong first half.

“Dunkirk” or “1917,” this is not. But as a window onto an under-acknowledged arena of combat and a starting point for armchair military historians, Greyhound is seaworthy enough to make it across.

Offers no tangible sense of Ganesh's genuine convictions (beyond a thirst for fame), nor of the essence of his character. By the time Ganesh's political downfall comes, in the same spiritless fashion in which his fortunes rose, it would take a mystic miracle to care.

The joy is in the details, and they are unrelentingly comic.

Presents a darkly realistic yet seductive world, with music as the tie that binds.

Eastwood risks embarrassment flirting with material this naked in its mawkishness, then jumps right in. He seems to want the world to know: Inside the 72-year-old body of this icon of virility beats the heart of a Mexican woman.

Silverado plays like a big-budget regurgitation of old Westerns. Whatkeeps it going is the generosity that flows between Kasdan and his actors. It's got benevolent energies, but not the more primal kind needed to renew the standard Western images and archetypes. [10 Jul 1985, p.26]

The Paradine Case is more than just a big and elegant whodunit. It has smart, penetrating, clever characterization and Mr. Hitchcock has used his unexcelled craftsmanship to show the interplay of motive and mood, the power and weakness of love, the courage and cowardice of mankind. [15 May 1948, p.12]

A romantic comedy with film noir shadows.

Like so many of these farm-raised films, this one looks polished, but takes no risks, offers no surprises, and contains a final sequence that's laughable for its lack of courage.

In Shortbus, the impish writer-director John Cameron Mitchell does the unthinkable: He puts the joy back in movie sex.