There is no one in the movie to provide a reasonable reaction to anything; the adults are all demented, evil, or, in the case of Mr. Poe, stunningly lacking in perception, and the kids are plucky enough, but rather dazed by their misfortunes.

The movie itself is surprisingly affecting, perhaps because Shepherd never goes for easy laughs but plays her character seriously.

Based on the novel of the same name by Olen Steinhauer and directed with style and skill by the Danish filmmaker Janus Metz, All the Old Knives feels like a small-scale version of a John Le Carré adaptation, with the obligatory Spy Movie Score as perfect accompaniment to the tension-building sequences in the restaurant and the cloak-and-dagger stuff in Vienna.

Wise Guys is an abundant movie, filled with ideas and gags and great characters. It never runs dry. It never has the desperation of so many gangster comedies, which seem to be marching over the same tired ground. This movie was made with joy, and you can feel it in the sense of all the actors working at the top of their form.

It’s a knowing and insightful look at how lives can be forever changed and love can be lost or gained in a single moment.

This is in many ways his most revealing film, his most painful, and if it also contains more than his usual quotient of big laughs, what was it the man said? "We laugh, that we may not cry."

Cats Don't Dance is not compelling and it's not a breakthrough, but on its own terms, it works well. Whether this will appeal to kids is debatable; the story involves a time and a subject they're not much interested in. But the songs by Randy Newman are catchy, the look is bright, the spirits are high and fans of Hollywood's golden age might find it engaging.

Two people finally tell each other the truth. This is, of course, an astonishing breakthrough in movies about teenagers, and All the Right Moves deserves it.

The first lighthearted, laugh-oriented family Western in a long time, and one of the nice things about it is, it doesn't feel the need to justify its existence. It acts like it's the most natural thing in the world to be a Western.

The training sequences are as they have to be: incredible rigors, survived by O'Neil. They are good cinema because Ridley Scott, the director, brings a documentary attention to them, and because Demi Moore, having bitten off a great deal here, proves she can chew it.

[A] remarkably tepid sequel to the surprise 2010 hit.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover is not an easy film to sit through. It doesn't simply make a show of being uncompromising -- it is uncompromised in every single shot from beginning to end. Why is it so extreme? Because it is a film made in rage, and rage cannot be modulated.

It is an immensely skillful sci-fi adventure, combining the usual elements: heroes and villains, special effects and stunts, chases and explosions, romance and oratory.

The funniest movie character so far this year is a stuffed teddy bear. And the best comedy screenplay so far is Ted, the saga of the bear's friendship with a 35-year-old manchild.

Non-narrative films can be opaque in deep ways. Visitors slips into pseudo-profundity. That said, I’d see it again.

Not Okay isn’t exactly a swing and a miss. But it doesn’t quite connect in solid fashion.

The Goonies, like Gremlins, shows that Spielberg and his directors are absolute masters of how to excite and involve an audience. "E.T." was more like "Close Encounters"; it didn't simply want us to feel, but also to wonder, and to dream.

A film like this can end honestly in only one way, and Ku is true to it. Life will go on, one baffling day after another. There can be no release, only a gradual deadening.

If you walk out after 10 or 15 minutes, you will have seen the best parts of the film.

Not since young Hutter arrived at Orlok's castle in "Nosferatu" has a journey to a dreaded house been more fearsome than the one in The Woman in Black.

I admired this movie. It kept me at arm's length, but that is where I am supposed to be; the characters are after all at arm's length from each other, and the tragedy of the story is implied but never spoken aloud.

You can enjoy U-571 as a big, dumb war movie without a brain in its head.

An important film as well as an entertaining one.

In this haunting, darkly funny and elegiac mood piece, Cranston once again displays a nearly unparalleled ability to make us like and care about men who are selfish and impetuous and reckless — yet still seem to have a core of decency buried deep within.

I have never seen anything remotely approaching the mess that the new punk version of "Romeo & Juliet" makes of Shakespeare's tragedy.

These are fellow human beings who suffer, who are limited in their freedom to imagine greater happiness for themselves, and yet in their very misery they embody human striving. There is more of humanity in a prostitute trying to truly love, if only for a moment, than in all of the slow-motion romantic fantasies in the world.

Thanks in large part to the vibrant, funny, sweet, endearing work by Reynolds and Comer, Free Guy delivers.

The four leads are enormously likable and there’s still enough sharp, raunchy, sexy humor for me to recommend this version.