At some point in this endless thriller the suspense turns into an extremely unpleasant ordeal that Dahl doesn't know when to stop.

Though I hate to ruin the complex experience of following a rather calm story about a lonely widower as it becomes something else, I feel obliged to point out that the hard-core gore and soft-core surrealism of this baroque morality play may not support any theme.

Writer-director Aiyana Elliott gives her father his due in this evenhanded yet impassioned documentary.

As usual with Stallone's Rocky sequels, the schmaltz is unbearable, but the fight is plausibly handled, and Stallone's sincere sadness at growing older makes this an unexpectedly satisfying conclusion to the series.

Though its ending feels protracted--especially the climactic chase--it kept me reasonably distracted.

Part wish fulfillment and part social moralizing, the film never resolves its point of view, but a few of the apocalyptic images stay in the mind.

It's well mounted and lushly photographed, and Rappeneau deftly orchestrates the crowd scenes as Parisian elites flock to Bordeaux, but the large cast doesn't mesh.

Undeniably well executed.

It's Joan Cusack as her doting single mom who holds the film together--her sensitive turn as a flawed feminist hints at what she could do with a meatier role.

Watt's script is a bit overstuffed, and by the end the roiling animated sequences (drawn by Emma Kelly and inked by Watt and Clare Callinan) are wearing out their welcome. But the convincing characters and hearty examination of mortality make this fresh and oddly uplifting.

Excellent support from Alan Bates, Albert Finney, and Joan Plowright, but Richardson's direction drags more than a bit.

On a mindless exploitation level this is pretty good, but on other levels it seems to make promises that it fails to deliver on; none of the deaths carries any moral weight, and the climactic special-effects free-for-all tends to drown out all other interests.

The late 300-pound transvestite Divine, John Waters’s most enduring muse, makes his/her first star entrance in this 1969 feature—the first Waters movie to play outside Baltimore—driving a 1959 Eldorado to the strains of “The Girl Can’t Help It.”

A rich but regrettably lumpy pastry, with moments of genuine drama redeeming an almost defiantly hokey plot.

Kurt Russell gives a terse, unsentimental performance as coach Herb Brooks, but director Gavin O'Connor sticks to the "Hoosiers" playbook.

For torture and violence freaks, every clank and thud is duly and hyperbolically registered.

The gags are as idiotic as you'd expect, but they consistently hit the bull's-eye.

This realist fairy tale of impossible love has a fair amount of nuance and charm.

An enjoyable though distinctly second-degree comedy by writer-director Andrew Bergman. Full of fun around the edges, it's rather flat and unfelt at the center.

Moderately entertaining popcorn thriller.

A box office phenomenon in France, this crowd-pleasing drama is based on a true story but sticks closely to the template for a Hollywood buddy movie.

This early-1900s costume drama surely differs from Henry James's source novel.

The main novelty of this conventional, slight, but charming youth picture is that it's English and therefore more class-conscious than most American equivalents.

Quinones is ill at ease doing the romantic scenes and reading the hokey dialogue, but the street kids around him play themselves naturally. The pacing is slow—inexcusable in a film about music—except when hip-hop takes over, and Ahearn wisely gives plenty of screen time to the likes of Busy Bee, Rock Steady Crew, and Fab Five Freddy.

The verbal and conceptual gags, however, belong wholly to Martin's own brand of goofiness, and some of them are pretty funny.

Half-funny mockumentary.

This 1939 release is still watchable, though the spirit is now sitcom.

As for remakes, it stands to reason that if you try to redo a work of art without the original artist, you're bound to damage the artistry as well.