Robert Redford has shown that he has a real feeling for the West--he's not a movie tourist--and there is a magnificence in his treatment here that dignifies what is essentially a soap opera.

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part doesn’t quite match the original’s spark and creativity, but it’s a worthy chapter in the ever-expanding Lego movie universe.

Brosnan redefines "hit man" in the best performance of his career, and Kinnear plays with, and against, his image as a regular kinda guy.

Maudie is one of the most beautiful and life-affirming and uplifting movies of the year, capable of moving us to tears of appreciation for getting to know the title subject.

Here’s the thing about bad bosses: they rarely realize they are bad bosses. Even if they’re manipulative, inflexible, uncaring, incompetent, out of touch and generally terrible at virtually every facet of the position, they think they’re doing a fantastic job. So it goes with Javier Bardem’s charming, hands-on, seemingly caring Blanco in writer-director Fernando León de Aranoa’s wickedly warped comedy/drama The Good Boss.

I would rather see one movie like this than a thousand "Bring It Ons."

A sly little comic treasure.

The movie resembles a chess game; the board and all of the pieces are in full view, both sides know the rules, and the winner will simply be the better strategist.

A well-made, rough-edged and solid frontier fable with a distinctive look and fine performances all around.

The movie is like a merger of his ugly drunk in "Bad Santa" and his football coach in "Friday Night Lights," yet Thornton doesn't recycle from either movie; he modulates the manic anger of the Santa and the intensity of the coach and produces a morose loser who we like better than he likes himself.

Director Wheatley and screenwriter Amy Jump are clearly playing much of as pitch-black satire, but High-Rise keeps hammering home the same points, and not even the wealth of strong performances from Hiddleston, Miller and Irons are enough to salvage the day.

The elaborate special effects also seem a little out of place in a Sherlock Holmes movie, although I'm willing to forgive them because they were fun.

The four main players are all excellent, with Amber Midthunder delivering particularly outstanding work that shows she is a young actor capable of great things.

What's best about the movie is that it considers interesting adults--young and old--in an intelligent manner. After it's over we almost feel relief; there are so many movies about clods reacting moronically to romantic and/or violent situations. But we hardly ever get movies about people who seem engaging enough to spend half an hour talking with (what would you say to Charles Bronson?). Here's one that works.

The movie gives people a piece of the AIDS nightmare - a view of HIV-infected men struggling to retain romance - but the piece is sharp and brittle, with little humor truly working. And despite the somewhat serene ending, it is really shot through more with the characters' rage than anything. [14 Aug 1992, p.42]

I'm glad I saw the film. It challenged me.

This isn’t a heartfelt amateur night, but a film by an artist whose art has become his life.

The movie therefore offers meager pleasures of character. Where it excels is in staging and cinematography. The running sequences, in races, on city streets and through forests, are very well-handled.

This is a sunny, admiring documentary about the British (and Los Angeles) treasure David Hockney, who remains productive at 78, is candid and entertaining in interview segments and seems utterly content and grateful for the life he’s had and the artistry he’s been gifted with.

Alan Rudolph’s Mortal Thoughts is a movie just like the true crime stories I enjoy the most.

The film is a visual pleasure, using elegant techniques that don't call flashy attention to themselves. The camera is intended to be as omniscient as the narrator, and can occupy the film's space as it pleases and move as it desires. Here is a young man's film made with a lifetime of experience.

Twisters is hokey and dumb, but spectacular fun.

It’s a family-friendly fun fest with the expected ingredients of fast-paced action, ingenious visuals, terrific voice performances and, yes, some heaping spoonfuls of upbeat messaging about family ties, the importance of being true to oneself and how we should all take great measures to take care of not only each other but the world in which we live, no matter how STRANGE that world might be.

If the film has a flaw, and I'm afraid it does, it's the Sondre Lerche songs on the soundtrack. They are too foregrounded and literal, either commenting on the action or expounding on associated topics. In such a laid-back movie, they're in our face.

Under the cover of slapstick, cheap laughs, raunchy humor, gross-out physical comedy and sheer exploitation, Get Him to the Greek also is fundamentally a sound movie.

Cadillac Records is an account of the Chess story that depends more on music than history, which is perhaps as it should be. The film is a fascinating record of the evolution of a black musical style, and the tangled motives of the white men who had an instinct for it.

A long, flat, curiously muted film about the heavyweight champion. It lacks much of the flash, fire and humor of Muhammad Ali and is shot more in the tone of a eulogy than a celebration. There is little joy here.

Twelve and Holding could have been a series of horror stories, but the filmmakers and their gifted young actors somehow negotiate the horrors and generate a deep sympathy.

Crooklyn is not in any way an angry film. But thinking about the difference between its world and ours can make you angry, and I think that was one of Lee's purposes here.

It is the kind of experience you simply sink into.

If the movie finally doesn’t succeed, that’s because Spielberg has paid too much attention to all those police cars (and all the crashes they get into), and not enough to the personalities of his characters.

The film exists as an unforgettable experience, but not as a comprehensible one.

With a dialogue-driven, authentic screenplay by Alanna Francis, an effectively poignant score by Owen Pallett and powerful work by Kendrick and Kaniehtiio Horn and Wunmi Mosaku as Alice’s best friends, this is the kind of intimate drama that sticks with you long after the viewing experience.

In the hands of the Danish director Tobias Lindholm and screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns (“1917,” “Last Night in Soho”) and thanks in large part to the towering twin performances of the equally chameleon-like Chastain and Redmayne, The Good Nurse is a solid albeit conventional medical thriller that overcomes a few plodding stretches and ends in bittersweet fashion.

With clear and obvious influences from films such as “Joker,” “The King of Comedy,” “Whiplash” and, most prominently, “Taxi Driver,” writer-director Bynum and Majors team up for a disturbing and blistering case study of a man who feels utterly unseen and is obsessed with making a name for himself.

Here is a film that, for all of its plot, depends on characters in service of their emotional turmoil. It feels good to see Coppola back in form.

The real subject of the film is Douglas Bruce sitting on two years of memories and told there is a 95 percent chance that another 30 years may return to him. A lot of people don't want to know when they're going to die. Maybe they wouldn't want to be reborn, either.

Based on a short story from Joe Hill and directed with tone-perfect style by Scott Derrickson, who wrote the screen adaptation with his “Doctor Strange” writing partner C. Robert Cargill, The Black Phone is a hauntingly effective, perfectly paced, consistently chilling and wickedly warped horror gem.

The naturalism of Anne Fontaine's film would be at home in a novel by Dreiser. Her star Audrey Tautou, who could make lovability into a career, avoids any effort to make Coco Chanel nice, or soft, or particularly sympathetic.

This movie by its nature is not thrilling, but it is very genuinely interesting, and that is rare.

I liked this movie a lot - not just for Bacon and Renfro, but also for the work of the wonderfully-named Calista Flockhart, as the girl who dates Karchy.

The Parallax View will no doubt remind some reviewers of Executive Action, another movie released at about the same time that advanced a conspiracy theory of assassination. It's a better use of similar material, however, because it tries to entertain instead of staying behind to argue.

A dark, grisly, horrifying and intelligent thriller.

Most dances are for people who are falling in love. The tango is a dance for those who have survived it, and are still a little angry about having their hearts so mishandled. The Tango Lesson is a movie for people who understand that difference.

Writer-director Hiroyuki Okiura, however, does not match the high expectations for story and design set by other Japanese animators.

Klaus is a weird, meandering tale — but it has a distinctive visual style and a sly sense of humor and features brilliant voice work from the ensemble cast.

This isn't the kind of movie that even has hope enough to contain a message. There is no message, only the reality of these wounded personalities.

This isn’t so much a traditional musical drama a la “Wicked” as it is a turgid, heavy-handed and preachy melodrama interspersed with musical numbers that are serviceable but hardly memorable.

The parts work even if the whole leaves me uncertain. Many movies are certain about their whole, but are made of careless parts. Forced to choose, I would take the parts.

This is the best-looking horror film since Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula."

A cheerful, life-affirming film, strong in its energy, about vivid characters. It uses mental illness as an entertainment, not a disease.

Sweet Dreams begins with more energy than it is able to sustain.

The last act of A Brilliant Young Mind is undeniably moving but not entirely believable and a little too neat and clean. Still, long after you’ve seen the film, you’ll remember the wonderfully nuanced work of the cast.

Altman's approach in Vincent & Theo is a very immediate, intimate one. He would rather show us things happening than provide themes and explanations. He is most concerned with the relationship that made the art possible.

Polanski's film is visually exact and detailed without being too picturesque. This is not Ye Olde London, but Ye Harrowing London, teeming with life and dispute.

Hostiles is not for the faint of heart, but it winds up being about having a heart in a world that seems almost without hope.

Upon leaving the theater I had a feeling like I just got to know a bunch of kids: some great, some annoying, but all living lives that extend beyond what little I saw of them on the screen.

An enjoyable and slick little thriller with a brilliant cast of actors clearly having a good time sinking their teeth into the salacious material.

It’s the Damien origin story we never knew we needed.

Generation P appears to be Russian slang for Generation Perestroika and "The Pepsi Generation," which nicely reflects this film's cockamamie spirit, sort of a cross between "Mad Men" and an acid trip.

If it doesn't work, it fails spectacularly, but it does work, and it succeeds in making its plot clear even though the basic story device is unending confusion.

The Phantom of the Open is about as deep and complex as a round of miniature golf, but it’s just as much fun as well.

This is one terrifically twisted parental play date.

If this is messy filmmaking, it's vibrant and winningly acted. Johnson reveals genuine star quality in her her film debut. It's to her credit that Chantel's up side lingers in the memory well beyond her down side - and that Just Another Girl is not just another movie. [06 Apr 1993, p.30]

Here we have an odd cross between a fairy tale and a high-tech action movie. It could have been a fairly strained attempt at either, but director Joe Wright ("Atonement") combines his two genres into a stylish exercise that perversely includes some sentiment and insight.

This is an action movie. It makes no apology for that. But it's high-style action.

It is a ridiculously entertaining (and often just plain ridiculous) monster-robot movie that plays like a gigantic version of that “Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em Robots” game from the 1960s, combined with the cheesy wonderfulness (or should it be wonderful cheesiness?) of black-and-white Japanese monster movies from the 1950s.

The film leads to no showy conclusion, no spectacular climax. It is about movement possible within the soul even in difficult times.

"Black Hawk Down" was criticized because the characters seemed hard to tell apart. We Were Soldiers doesn't have that problem; in the Hollywood tradition it identifies a few key players, casts them with stars, and follows their stories.

The movie is as light and frothy as a French comedy, which is what it is, a reminder that Cedric Klapisch also directed "When the Cat's Away" (1996).

What is best in the film is its depiction of the warrior's epic journey, photographed with breathtaking beauty and simplicity by Roman Osin.

A handsome and sometimes harrowing film, and will be completely unintelligible for anyone coming to the series for the first time.

This is the first Bond film that is self-aware, that has lost its innocence and the simplicity of its world view, and has some understanding of the absurdity and sadness of its hero.

I think Bloch and Rosenberg should get organized and take on the cabbage. If nothing else, a horror movie about cabbages could help Rosenberg work through his obsession and save a lot of analyst's fees.

When a movie begins to present one implausible or unwise decision after another, when its world plays too easily into the hands of its story, when the taste for symbolism creates impossible scenes, we grow restless.

The Year of Living Dangerously is a wonderfully complex film about personalities more than events, and we really share the feeling of living in that place, at that time.

Apart from its pure entertainment value - this is the best American crime movie in years - it is an important statement about a time and a condition that should not be forgotten. The Academy loves to honor prestigious movies in which long-ago crimes are rectified in far-away places. Here is a nominee with the ink still wet on its pages.

There are two strong stories here, in Africa and Denmark. Either could have made a film. Intercut in this way, they seem too much like self-conscious parables.

With a running time of just 92 minutes, “Last Breath” will keep you in its grip throughout. Just remember to inhale, and exhale. Slow, long, steady breaths.

That could have been a good movie, but predictable. Mike Nichols' Silkwood is not predictable.... We realize this is a lot more movie than perhaps we were expecting.

The Pillow Book, starring Vivian Wu, is a seductive and elegant story.

It's a sweet and sincere family pilgrimage, even if a little too long and obvious. Audiences seeking uplift will find it here.

The Rover does have a central nervous system that crackles and pops with suspense, but in the end it’s not enough to jump-start the lack of narrative. Too much story is missing, and that is simply distracting.

The fact is, this movie is really about a woman's spunk and a common man's sneaky revenge. And on that level it's absorbing and entertaining.

Altman would never admit this, but I believe Dr. T, the gynecologist in his latest film, is an autobiographical character.

There is a kind of studied stupidity that sometimes passes as humor, and Jared Hess' Napoleon Dynamite pushes it as far as it can go.

In its heedless energy and joy, it reminded me of how I felt the first time I saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark." It's like a film that escaped from the imagination directly onto the screen, without having to pass through reality along the way.

Kristen Dunst is pitch-perfect in the title role.

Good in so many subtle ways, I despair of doing them justice.

Guilty by Suspicion is about a period that is now some 40 years ago (although some blacklist members did not work again until the 1970s). But it teaches a lesson we are always in danger of forgetting: that the greatest service we can do our country is to be true to our conscience.

I found Interview kind of fascinating, especially in the ways that Buscemi and Miller make their performances into commentaries on the types of characters they play.

The movie is effective, well-acted and convincing.

Science-fiction fans will like it, and also brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there's a lot going on up there, and we can't even define precisely what a soliton is.

While the plot often travels familiar paths and even the impressive camerawork is evocative of other films, Mean Dreams has a few story tricks up its sleeve — and it has Bill Paxton, playing one of the most odious characters he ever played, and doing it with absolute mastery.

This movie, like Boyz N the Hood, is uncompromising in its view of how things work in a neighborhood like South Central. It was made before the Los Angeles riots in April, 1992, but it provides a stark picture of the anger that was waiting to boil over.

One of the best-looking animated films ever made.

Lee uses visual imagination to lift his material into the realms of hopes and dreams.

The Muppets Take Manhattan is yet another retread of the reliable old formula in which somebody says "Hey, gang! Our senior class musical show is so good, I'll bet we could be stars on Broadway!" The fact that this plot is not original does not deter you, Kermit, nor should it. It's still a good plot.