A visually dazzling cyberadventure, full of kinetic excitement, but it retreats to formula just when it's getting interesting.

Here is a searing film of human tragedy.

It is whimsical, bittersweet, wise in a minor key.

I'm Not Scared is a reminder of true childhood, of its fears and speculations, of the way a conversation can be overheard but not understood, of the way that the shape of the adult world forms slowly through the mist.

This is the documentary that caused a sensation at Sundance 2004 and allegedly inspired McDonald's to discontinue its "super size" promotions as a preemptive measure.

This late adulthood lark is a treat.

Johnnie To, the director, is highly respected in this genre, and I suppose he does it about as well as you'd want it to be done, unless you wanted acting and more coherence.

So perceptive and mature it makes similar films seem flippant. The performances are on just the right note, scene after scene, for what needs to be done.

The astonishing thing about Gilbert is the behind-the-curtain record it provides of the real Gilbert Gottfried.

The outcome of this journey is going to be predictable and disappointing. Mottola does his best to make the trip itself enjoyable.

Some of the best movies are like this: They show everyday life, carefully observed, and as we grow to know the people in the film, maybe we find out something about ourselves. The fact that Hallstrom is able to combine these qualities with comedy, romance and even melodrama make the movie very rare.

By the end of the film, you admire the artistry and the care, you know that the actors worked hard and are grateful for their labors, but you wonder who in God's name thought this was a promising scenario for a movie. It's not a story, it's an idea.

The movie is filled with life and energy, and the music is honest. The Commitments is one of the few movies about a fictional band that’s able to convince us the band is real and actually plays together.

For all its influences and roots in similar types of comedies, Emergency is an original work, very much of its time.

The impersonation of Welles by Christian McKay in Me and Orson Welles is the centerpiece of the film, and from it, all else flows. We can almost accept that this is the Great Man.

I suspect a lot of high school students will recognize elements of real life in the movie, and that the movie will build a following. It may gross as little as "Welcome to the Dollhouse" or as much as "Clueless," but whichever it does, it's in the same league.

American Sniper isn’t some flag-waving political movie. It’s a powerful, intense portrayal of a man who was hardly the blueprint candidate to become the most prolific sniper in American military history. And yet that’s what happened.

One of those entertainments where you laugh a lot along the way, and then you end up on the edge of your seat at the end.

It might be easy to make a farce about screwball happenings in the desert, but it's a lot harder to create a funny interaction between nature and human nature. This movie's a nice little treasure.

Watching the film, I felt impatience with these bullheaded men and the women who endure them. That's what Marston intended, I'm sure, but the stupidity of the characters doesn't provide much of an emotional payoff.

Declaration of War is a domestic comedy as much as it is a medical drama. This movie has been made by the couple it is about, Valerie Donzelli and Jeremie Elkaim. She directed, they wrote it together, and in real life, their relationship also fell apart. They approach their fraught story with a surprising freshness.

Isn't a slick documentary; some of it feels like Blaustein's home movie about being a wrestling fan. But it has a hypnotic quality.

The film's title is appropriate. A desperate Catholicism flavors the doomed city.

His story is simple, unadorned, direct. Only the margins are complicated.

The stuff in outer space is unexpected, the surprise waiting out there is genuine, and meanwhile, there's an abundance of charm and screen presence from the four veteran actors.

The ending is a cheap shot. An inconclusive ending would have been better, and perhaps more honest. The movie and the ending have so little in common that it's as if the last scene is spliced in from a different film.

An impassioned polemic, filled with information sure to break up any dinner-table conversation. Its fault is that of the dinner guest who tells you something fascinating, and then tells you again, and then a third time. At 145 minutes, it overstays its welcome.

The best thing about Spider-Man: Homecoming is Spidey is still more of a kid than a man. Even with his budding superpowers, he still has the impatience, the awkwardness, the passion, the uncertainty and sometimes the dangerous ambition of a teenager still trying to figure out this world.

Prince Avalance is frequently funny in a subdued sort of way, but it’s primarily contemplative and eventually intimate.

The Man in the Moon is a wonderful movie, but it is more than that, it is a victory of tone and mood. It is like a poem.

The elegant style of the fighting sequences does more than display camera and kung fu technique — this style also shows fighters living with honor.

Stars Eastwood as an American icon once again -- this time as a cantankerous, racist, beer-chugging retired Detroit autoworker who keeps his shotgun ready to lock and load. Dirty Harry on a pension, we're thinking, until we realize that only the autoworker retired; Dirty Harry is still on the job.

Working from a sharp and unflinchingly honest screenplay by LaBeouf, director Alma Har’el delivers a smart and knowing inside slice of show business life that also serves as a harrowing cautionary tale about abuse and about encouraging your children to become professional entertainers when they’d most likely be better off having, you know, an actual childhood.

David Fincher’s The Killer is a meticulously crafted and masterfully rendered film about a meticulous and masterful assassin, and with Michael Fassbender in the lead role, you just couldn’t have a better triangle of material, director and actor.

Wells is a talent as a storyteller and as a director with a nice visual touch, and as a screen presence. Emily is wonderful. We like spending time with them. (Noel and Emily, I mean.)

Bujalski’s script is smarter and much weirder (in a good way) than the standard romantic comedy. His characters are funny without ever trying to be funny.

I wouldn't have thought that even in animation a 1951 Hudson Hornet could look simultaneously like itself and like Paul Newman, but you will witness that feat, and others, in Cars.

A screenplay with the depth and insight of a cable-TV docudrama.

Who would have guessed such a funny movie as Zombieland could be made around zombies? No thanks to the zombies.

Ferrari never quite achieves the greatness of previous Mann movies such as “Thief” and “Heat,” but it’s a solid and extremely well-filmed slice of one legendary life.

It's sharp and funny--not a children's movie, but one of those hybrids that works on different levels for different ages.

News of the World works at the highest levels as a story of two lost souls who find one another, and as a crackling good, blood-spattered Western.

It's too involved in administering its reversion fantasy to acquisition-guilty yuppies to cast an eye on its own venture status. And the contradictions don't stop there. That this celebration of the Peter Pan syndrome was directed by a woman, Penny Marshall, adds another layer of dishonesty. [3 Jun 1988, p.31]

A funny movie, flat out, all the way through. Its setup is funny. Every situation is funny. Most of the dialogue is funny almost line by line.

The plot was probably inspired by an actual event, which I will not mention because you may be familiar with it. In any event, Chabrol's insidious style is more absorbing than the plot, as it should be.

There are some nice, amusing scenes, especially when one of the dozen (Donald Sutherland) pretends to be a general and inspects some troops. In fact, right up to the last scene the movie is amusing, well paced, intelligent.

Slam is a fable disguised as a slice of life, and cobbled together out of too many pieces that don't fit smoothly together. It's moving, but not as effective as it could have been.

Alfred Hitchcock called Rope an “experiment that didn’t work out,” and he was happy to see it kept out of release for most of three decades. He was correct that it didn’t work out, but Rope remains one of the most interesting experiments ever attempted by a major director working with big box-office names.

Given the grievousness of their sins, one wonders why the church continues to shelter them. Might it not be more appropriate to excommunicate them, and refer them to the attention of the civil authorities?

Battle of the Sexes stands on its own as a finely tuned period piece, a vibrant comedy, an effective character study and, yep, an inspirational sports movie.

River's Edge is not a film I will forget very soon. Its portrait of these adolescents is an exercise in despair.

A terrific thriller with action sequences that function as a kind of action poetry.

There’s a lot to admire in Cold in July, but its chief virtue is unpredictability. Most movies these days sleepwalk through their formulaic paces, but you’ll never guess where this one is going based on the way it begins.

A beautiful and haunting film that tells this story, and then tells another subterranean story about the seasons of a marriage.

Why did it take me so long to see what was right there in front of my face -- that The Company is the closest that Robert Altman has come to making an autobiographical film?

The movie would be worth seeing simply for the sound of the music and the sight of Jamie Foxx performing it. That it looks deeper and gives us a sense of the man himself is what makes it special.

Craig is fascinating here as a criminal who is very smart, and finds that is not an advantage because while you might be able to figure out what another smart person is about to do, dumbos like the men he works for are likely to do anything.

Mask is a wonderful movie, a story of high spirits and hope and courage.

It’s impossible not to think of military training camp staples such as “Full Metal Jacket” and “An Officer and a Gentlemen” when experiencing writer-director Elegance Bratton’s semi-autobiographical The Inspection. While Bratton’s film isn’t in the same league as those classics, it’s a strong and memorable if predictable boot-camp journey that features many of the same elements of the first half of “Jacket” and the entirety of “Gentleman” — most notably in that all three films feature an alpha male drill instructor who will either defeat his recruits and send them home, or turn them into lean mean fighting machines.

It leaves you wondering, how was it that so many people liked this man who does not seem to have liked himself?

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang contains a lot of comedy and invention, but doesn't much benefit from its clever style. The characters and plot are so promising that maybe Black should have backed off and told the story deadpan, instead of mugging so shamelessly for laughs.

The film is so well made and acted, because it captures its period so meticulously.

The movie works. It is food at last for we who hunger for a screwball comedy utterly lacking in redeeming social importance.

The film has extraordinary beauty. Indeed, the visuals by cinematographer Gokhan Tiryaki are so awesome that the characters almost seem belittled, which may be Ceylan's purpose.

A powerful and affecting film, so well played by Goldberg and Spacek that we understand not just the politics of the time but the emotions as well.

One of those comedies where everything works.

So, if we’re in the mood for an R-rated, sometimes cartoonishly violent, occasionally salacious comedy where you know some jokes will score and others will land with a thud and we’ll just move on to the next scene, here’s your ticket.

Writer-director Defa has delivered a small and quietly compelling low-key gem filled with offbeat characters who are perfectly normal — which means they’re kind of odd.

Pocahontas was given the gift of sensing the whole picture, and that is what Malick founds his film on, not tawdry stories of love and adventure. He is a visionary, and this story requires one.

Surprisingly insightful, as buddy comedies go, and it has a good heart and a lovable hero.

A big budget historical drama that carries Denmark's hopes into the Oscar season. It provides still more exposure for the rising Danish star Mads Mikkelsen, the latest male sex symbol of the art house crowd.

A treasure of a movie because it knows so much about baseball and so little about love.

Mark Ruffalo is a master at playing a certain type of earnest character who often wears a quizzical expression — not because he’s slow on the uptake, but because he’s the smartest person in the room and he has questions no one else has even thought to ask.

Doesn't have the theatrical subtext or, let it be said, the genius of Richard Pryor.

Here is the most passionate and tender love story in many years, so touching because it is not about a story, not about stars, not about a plot, not about sex, not about nudity, but about LOVE itself.

The movie is smart about journalism because it is smart about offices; the typical newsroom is open space filled with desks, and journalists are actors on this stage; to see a good writer on deadline with a big story is to watch not simply work but performance.

A big, clunky movie containing some sensational sights but lacking the zest and joyous energy we expect from Steven Spielberg.

Not as taut as it could have been, but I prefer its emotional perception to the pumped-up sports cliches I was sort of expecting.

Movies exist to cloak our desires in disguises we can accept, and there is an undeniable appeal to Thirst.

For a time, The Dig is a quiet little gem of a drama with only a few characters, but after Basil uncovers what appears to be an intact, seventh century Anglo-Saxon ship with far-ranging historical and cultural implications, Sutton Hoo gets quite crowded with new characters and a myriad of subplots, most examining the classism and sexism of the era.

A smart and funny movie, and the characters are in on the joke.

I am not one of you. But I have enough of you in me to pass along the word. Far out.

A documentary of a time that began in 1929 and seemed to end only yesterday, and a eulogy for an art form that will never be again.

Dying Laughing is a movie about stand-up with no performance footage. It’s like a documentary about baseball with no game footage — but it’s great and it’s valuable and it’s wonderful, because we love seeing and hearing these all-time greats talk about what they do with such passion and candor.

A heartwarming film, not a political dirge. Much of this warmth comes from the actress Nisreen Faour.

Coda features a nice little romance between Ruby and a handsome and well-liked boy named Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), but this is primarily a story about a family. A family that just happens to communicate via ASL but will remind you of families you know, or maybe even the family you know best.

To be sure, this is a special moment for movies, seeing as how this is a mainstream, theatrical release, R-rated gay rom-com featuring a cast of LGBTQ actors, and of course we should salute that — but for all its forward-thinking casting, cutting-edge references, sexual frankness and cultural awareness, “Bros” should also be celebrated for creating an instant near-classic of the genre, filled with so many of the touchstones we’ve come to expect from romantic comedies and featuring crisp writing and a host of richly layered performances from actors who can handle quick comedy as well as legit drama.

Choice, a luxury of the Corleones, is denied to the Sullivans and Rooneys, and choice or its absence is the difference between Sophocles and Shakespeare. I prefer Shakespeare.

Stevie seems destined to end the way it does, and is the more courageous and powerful for it. A satisfying ending would have been a lie.

Starts at the beginning and goes straight through to the inevitable end, unblinkingly. It doesn't relieve the pressure, as "Iris" does, with flashbacks to happier days.

Winslet and Ronan are magnificent together, conveying the escalation of intimate moments, from holding hands to kissing to embracing to an extended and graphic coupling that beautifully conveys the avalanche of feelings each is experiencing as they make love.

The result is a superior police procedural, and something more -- a study in devious human nature.

Selling anyone the right to touch your genital area for a couple of bucks is not a good way to build self-esteem. Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike makes this argument with a crafty mixture of comedy, romance, melodrama and some remarkably well-staged strip routines involving hunky, good-looking guys.

This is one of the better musical biopics of the last 20 years.

There’s never a moment when the story lulls. Alas, it’s all just so … preposterous, due to that mistrial of a screenplay.

it is a well-acted movie and for long stretches we're hoping it will work.

Matilda doesn't condescend to children, it doesn’t sentimentalize, and as a result it feels heartfelt and sincere. It's funny, too.

For a time this movie will probably be best known for the behind-the-scenes drama. But the work itself deserves to endure as one of the better films of 2017.