This is one of the most entertaining movies of the year.

Sometimes it’s a creepy thriller. Sometimes it’s a gripping and heartbreaking story of a man losing his memory. Sometimes it’s drive-in movie about a charismatic and thoroughly reprehensible cult leader. And then, from time to time, it’s for all intents and purposes a musical.

I feel like recommending the performances, and suggesting they be transported to another film. The actors emerge with glory for attempting something very hard and succeeding remarkably well. They deserve to be in a better movie.

The movie doesn't crank up the volume with violence and jailhouse cliches, but focuses on this person and his possibilities for change.

Movies like this are not for everyone, but arrive like private messages for their own particular audiences.

Starts out with the materials of an ordinary movie and becomes a rather special one.

The claustrophobic, isolated Victorian household is a stage on which every nuance, however small, is noticed.

Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland is a great-looking, old-fashioned, at times soaring adventure ultimately brought down by a needlessly convoluted plot, some surprisingly casual violence and heavy-handed lectures about how we’re our own worst enemy and we’re going to destroy the planet if we don’t get it together.

The plot of Point Blank, summarized, invites parody (rookie agent goes undercover as surfer to catch bank robbers). The result is surprisingly effective.

And Cruise is so efficiently packaged in this product that he plays the same role as a saint in a Mexican village's holy day procession: It's not what he does that makes him so special; it's the way he manifests everybody's faith in him.

Three Thousand Years of Longing actually ends on a creative high note, but the path to that conclusion is filled with muddled adventures that play like something out of a 1980s B-movie. We find ourselves longing for the credits to roll.

Scanners is a new horror film made with enough craft and skill that it could have been very good, if it could find a way to make us care about it.

To its credit, Dark Night does not exploit or glamorize the gun culture, nor does it attempt to hammer us over the head with social or political views. Sutton is undeniably talented. Better, deeper, richer work is almost sure to follow.

At Middleton is an innocuous romantic comedy.

In the introspective The Last Sentence Swedish director Jan Troell invokes ’50’s and ’60’s Swedish cinema: masterly black-and-white cinematography, philosophical angst, a lifeless marriage and loved ones visiting from the afterlife.

Elba captures the fire and the passion of Mandela the young activist, the resilience of Mandela the political prisoner, and the wisdom and astonishing capacity of forgiveness of Mandela the elder statesman.

An honest, on-the-ground documentary about the lives of Americans fighting there. It has no spin. It's not left or right.

The film is not a compelling drama so much as a poignant observation of a sad situation.

This is not a cute fantasy in which bears ride tricycles and play house. It is about life in the wild, and it does an impressive job of seeming to show wild bears in their natural habitat.

Red is neither a good movie nor a bad one. It features actors we like doing things we wish were more interesting.

This is a basic story, simply and directly told by Irish writer-director Ciaran Foy. He doesn't try to explain too much, he doesn't depend on special effects and stays just this side of the unbelievable.

The fulcrum to the success of Goosebumps, it must be noted, is the perfect casting of Jack Black as Stine.

The movie's screenplay is contrived and not blindingly original, but Barrymore illuminates it with sunniness, and creates a lovable character

Familiar in its story arc, but fresh in its energy and lucky in its choice of actors.

Essentially silliness crossed with science fiction. The actors make it fun to watch.

This conclusion is too pat to be satisfying, but the film has a kind of hard, cold effect.

Schlaich portrays a society in which some are racists who act cruelly toward the black man, and others, even strangers, go out of their way to help him.

The patter is always fascinating, and at right angles to the action. [Mamet]'s like a magician who gets you all involved in his story about the King, the Queen and the Jack, while the whole point is that there's a rabbit in your pocket.

By occupying their roles believably, by acting as we think their characters probably would, they save the movie from feeling like basic Hollywood action (even when it probably is). This is one of the year's best thrillers.

Brassed Off is a sweet film with a lot of anger at its core.

You hear some nostalgia, but with most of them you don't get the idea that if they had the chance they'd do it all again.

Winner of Sundance's grand jury prize for world cinema, Happy, Happy is a very strange film. Yet I was happy to be watching. It is short and intense enough that it always seems on track, even if the train goes nowhere.

What's a little startling about this movie is that all of this works. The Blues Brothers cost untold millions of dollars and kept threatening to grow completely out of control. But director John Landis (of “Animal House”) has somehow pulled it together, with a good deal of help from the strongly defined personalities of the title characters. Belushi and Aykroyd come over as hard-boiled city guys, total cynics with a world-view of sublime simplicity, and that all fits perfectly with the movie's other parts. There's even room, in the midst of the carnage and mayhem, for a surprising amount of grace, humor, and whimsy.

The Andromeda Strain is a splendid entertainment that will get you worried about whether they'll be able to contain that strange blob of alien green crystal.

One of the nice things about the movie is the way it provides chills and thrills and still tones down the violence.

Coffy is slightly more serious and a little more inventive than it needs to be.

On balance, Rolling Papers is more about marijuana journalism than the big picture, and as such it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

The comedy here isn't all on the surface, and Viterelli [the bodyguard Jelly] is one reason why.

In a sense, the deception he practices on his followers is contemptible, but in another sense, they're all in it together. The film's implication seems to be: It doesn't matter if a religion's teachings are true. What matters is if you think they are.

Thanks to a smart screenplay, direction that perfectly captures the tone of modern rom-coms and two of the most engaging comedic leads working in movies and TV today, “They Came Together” is more entertaining and (in its own insane way) more endearing than two-thirds of the legitimate romantic comedies I’ve seen over the last two decades.

The movie is wise, deep, and painful, and it is filled with words. Used to be, a "sex film" contained lots of nudity and steamy scenes. That kind of stuff would just slow this one down.

To my surprise, Ratner does a sure, stylish job, appreciating the droll humor of Lecter's predicament, creating a depraved new villain in the Tooth Fairy (Ralph Fiennes), and using the quiet, intense skills of Norton to create a character whose old fears feed into his new ones. There is also humor, of the uneasy he-can't-get-away-with-this variety, in the character of a nosy scandal-sheet reporter (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

As good as Gibson is, his character is still caught between the tragedy of the man and the absurdity of the Beaver. Fugitive thoughts of Señor Wences crept into my mind. I'm sorry, but they did.

Essentially a hyperactive showcase for Tsui Hark's ability to pile one unbelievably complex action sequence on top of another.

If the movie is not original, at least it's a showcase for the actors and writers. It does not speak as well, alas, for director Jordan Melamed and his cinematographer, Nick Hay.

It's the kind of sweet, good-humored comedy that used to star Margaret Rutherford, although Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, its daring top-liners, would have curled Dame Margaret's eyebrows.

Rather than trusting in the verbal powers of this master storyteller, who requires only a desk to sit behind, Soderbergh subjects him to light-show effects, tilted camera angles and projected backdrops -- urban setting, forest, eyeball blowup. [1 August 1997, p.27]

For me, Richard Jenkins is the heart of Norman. How often I've admired him; even in unworthy roles, he has such strength, he never seems the need to try.

The movie reveals its serious undertones (with commentary by the Greek chorus, which occasionally breaks into song and dance) while at the same time developing a plot that lends itself to slapstick.

We’re not buying ALL the hype and hokum sugarcoating this fact-based fairy tale, but we’re happy to come along for this particular ride.

It's strange how the earlier movies fill in the gaps left by this one, and answer the questions. It is, I suspect, not even possible to understand this film without knowing the first two, and yet, knowing them, Part III works better than it should.

David Schwimmer has made one of the year's best films: Powerfully emotional, yes, but also very perceptive.

Painfully long, exceedingly tedious, consistently unimaginative and quite dopey.

Holland does fine work as the novice, but it’s Bernthal who owns the screen as The Mute, who will protect the relic and his brothers at all costs. It’s fiercely effective work.

If Wayne and Garth ever grow confident of their success, the series will be over. Everything depends on the delighted disbelief with which they greet every new victory.

Gifted isn’t the best or most sophisticated or most original film of the year so far — but it just might be my favorite.

Lone Survivor is primarily about the unflinching bravery of SEALs executing their mission and looking out for one another, even as they’re coming to grips with the reality of how this thing is going to end.

It’s not often an animated children’s movie features lessons about critical thinking, especially when the movie on the whole is a zippy, silly, zany, cheery little tale with the obligatory upbeat musical numbers, wonderfully entertaining voice work from the eclectic cast, and a gentle, PG tone with nary a sequence that will have the little ones scurrying for cover under your wing.

So determined to be clever and whimsical that it neglects to be anything else.

Has zest and humor and some lovable supporting characters, but do we really need this zapped-up version of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic? Eighteenth century galleons and pirate ships go sailing through the stars, and it somehow just doesn't look right.

A sweetheart of a film, whimsical and touching. It positions itself somewhere between a slice of life and a screwball comedy.

Adam Driver (who has now played a French squire and an Italian fashion heir in consecutive Ridley Scott movies) and Lady Gaga have legit chemistry together, and it’s still a kick to see Al Pacino roaring like a lion in winter. But Hayek and Irons are playing cardboard-thin characters, Leto flounders about as if he’s in a movie all his own, and “House of Gucci” feels coldly calculating when it should have been flush and warm with scandalous sensationalism.

There’s life, there’s TV — and there are movies about TV, and though Being the Ricardos is a work of drama, it has the essence of truth.

Bad Moms had me laughing out loud even as I was cringing, thanks to some fantastically over-the-top hijinks, crass but hilarious one-liners and terrific performances from Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn and Christina Applegate.

This is a devilishly ingenious screenplay by the sisters Jill and Karen Sprecher.

Despite its predictable philosophy, however, Nell is an effective film, and a moving one. That is largely because of the strange beauty of Jodie Foster's performance as Nell, and the warmth of the performance by Liam Neeson, as a doctor who finds himself somehow responsible for her.

True Romance, which feels at times like a fire sale down at the cliche factory, is made with such energy, such high spirits, such an enchanting goofiness, that it's impossible to resist. Check your brains at the door.

Kristen Wiig’s performance in the unfortunately titled Hateship Loveship is so beautifully muted it takes a while to appreciate the loveliness of the notes she’s hitting.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is the new Disney production from the team that made Mary Poppins, and it has the same technical skill and professional polish. It doesn't have much of a heart, though, and toward the end you wonder why the Poppins team thought kids would like it much.

I'm not surprised that Rashida Jones took the lead in writing this screenplay; the way things are going now, if an actress doesn't write a good role for herself, no one else is going to write one.

Parker succeeds in making the prison into a full, real, rounded world, a microcosm of human behavior; I was reminded of e.e. cummings' novel The Enormous Room. The movie's art direction is especially good at recreating that world, as in a scene where Hayes and his friends try to escape down an old cistern. And there are visions into the inferno, as in a scene in the madhouse where the inmates circle forever around a stone pillar. The movie creates spellbinding terror, all right; my only objection is that it's so eager to have us sympathize with Billy Hayes.

With Pugh and Garfield delivering authentic, genuine movie-star performances, “We Live in Time” is an old-fashioned weeper, done with heart and originality. It’s a Movie We Think You’ll Like.

Movies like this renew my faith that the future of the cinema lies not in the compromises of digital projection, but by leaping over the limitations of digital into the next generation of film technology.

A well-crafted example of a film of pure sensation. I do not mind admitting I was enthralled.

Until the plot becomes intolerably cornball, there's charm in the story.

Once in the jungle they have all sorts of harrowing adventures, and I enjoyed it that real things were happening, that we were not simply looking at shoot-outs and chases, but at intriguing and daring enterprise.

Dane De Haan’s borderline-irritating portrayal of James Dean, with all the self-conscious cadences and high-pitched deliveries, almost dares you to reject the work — until you realize he’s encapsulating Dean’s charisma AND his selfishness as an actor.

Private Benjamin is refreshing and fun. Goldie Hawn, who is a true comic actress, makes an original, appealing character out of Judy Benjamin, and so the movie feels alive, not just an exercise in gags and situations.

We are not looking at flesh-and-blood actors but special effects that look uncannily convincing, even though I am reasonably certain that Angelina Jolie does not have spike-heeled feet. That's right: feet, not shoes.

This is a chronicle of two men — writer and subject — obsessed with the theme of spying on unsuspecting, innocent people who have no idea their private lives are on display.

The Humbling is a jumbled collection of scenes in which fantasy and reality intertwine in a manner I found more maddening than intriguing.

The movie is like a Dickens novel in which the hero moves through the underskirts of society, encountering one colorful character after another.

Spider-Man 3 is, in short, a mess. Too many villains, too many pale plot strands, too many romantic misunderstandings, too many conversations, too many street crowds looking high into the air and shouting "oooh!" this way, then swiveling and shouting "aaah!" that way.

More evolved, more confident, more sure-footed in the way it marries minimal character development to seamless action.

It’s a funky, violent, nasty exploitation film, highlighted by a performance of operatic madness by the one and only Nicolas Cage.

Each scene works within itself on its own terms. But there is no whole here. I've rarely seen a narrative film that seemed so reluctant to flow. Nor perhaps one with a more accurate title.

Unbroken is an ambitious, sometimes moving film that suffers from a little too much self-conscious nobility, and far too many scenes of sadistic brutality.

Without a great Bond girl, a great villain or a hero with a sense of humor, The Living Daylights belongs somewhere on the lower rungs of the Bond ladder. But there are some nice stunts.

This is an immensely entertaining millennial B-Movie, made for summertime viewing.

What impressed me is how effective the movie was, even though the outcome is a foregone conclusion. That's a tribute to the director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, and the actors, who have been chosen with the same kind of typecasting that perhaps occurs in life.

A charming documentary about the finalists in the Teenage Magician Contest at the annual World Magic Seminar in Las Vegas.

Sometimes overwrought excess can be its own reward. If Obsession had been even a little more subtle, had made even a little more sense on some boring logical plane, it wouldn't have worked at all.

Has a good heart and some fine performances, but is too muddled at the story level to involve us emotionally.

Colin Farrell is astonishing in the movie.

There’s something pretty special about this cast, all of whom turn in excellent performances while alternating between light comedy and some seriously heavy dramatic lifting.

These neat little notes are dropped like so many breadcrumbs along the trail and offer some clever hints about the larger storyline, but that brings us to where Biosphere falls short: The Big Picture it is painting remains a bit too fuzzy and frustratingly ambiguous to the end.

At the very least a superior action film, in which the action sequences are plausible and grounded in reality.

Director Adam Salky wisely allows the writing and the performances to do the heavy lifting, using his camera in a decidedly low-key, indie style without drawing too much attention to stylistic flourishes.