More than in most animated films, the art design and color palette of Wreck-It Ralph permit unlimited sets, costumes and rules, giving the movie tireless originality and different behavior in every different cyber word.

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.

I could go two ways. I could say that No Mercy is a dumb formula thriller, which we can all sort of figure out from the ads, or I could go the other way and talk about the movie's style and energy. I think I'll go the second way, because whatever this movie is, it's not boring. It doesn't take shortcuts and it delivers on its grimy, breathless action sequences.

An animated film both harrowing and heartwarming, about a story that will never, ever, be remade by Disney.

The best things about Brooklyn's Finest are the one-on-one scenes. These are fine actors.

Roll Bounce, a nostalgic memory of disco roller-dancing in the late 1970s, has warm starring performances from Bow Wow and Chi McBride, who are funny, lovable and sometimes touching.

7 Days to Vegas works as a broad and funny comedy about some truly bent but hilarious characters.

Historical dramas can be fun if you approach them in the right spirit, and I enjoyed Mary, Queen of Scots.

Some viewers may find the film confusing; I found it absorbing.

Taps works as an uncommonly engrossing story, primarily because the performances are so well done. All of the cadet roles are well acted, not only by seasoned actors like Hutton but even by the very young kids who struggle with guns and realities much too large for them.

The movie’s funniest touches are quiet flashes of character, expertly timed and nimbly played by a deft ensemble. It’s a Disaster is consistently funny, but you wince more often than you laugh out loud. It’s like a Christopher Guest improvisational farce with the volume turned down to 5.

The leading men are successful. Alan Bates, in a change of pace, is the loyal shepherd. Terence Stamp is a suitably vile Sgt. Troy, and Peter Finch makes Boldwood strong and honorable in his love for Bathsheba. Miss Christie, however, is too sweet and superficial, and so is the film.

Russo has never been better than he is in this film. It is a quietly powerful, sometimes devastating and heartbreaking performance.

Mantegna gives us just enough detail, enough exterior shots, so that we feel we're on a ship. All the rest is conversation and idleness. The lake boat is a lot like life.

Happy Christmas expertly captures the rhythms of a young couple’s life and how it changes enormously when a baby arrives.

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

Even with all that success and a number of high-profile romances, Lopez has maintained a tight control over her image (like most stars on that level), and this is probably as close as her fans are going to get to a revealing filmed biography.

Thanks in large part to the beautiful work by Daisy Edgar-Jones and the consistently stunning visuals, Where the Crawdads Sing provides just enough marshland entertainment to carry the day.

This movie is a little treasure, a funny, sexy, appealing story of a Valley Girl's heartbreaking decision: Should she stick with her boring jock boyfriend, or take a chance on a punk from Hollywood?

On the surface, The Burial is about a contract dispute between a white small business owner and a white billionaire. Soon, though, it becomes about much more than that, and the result is a thoroughly entertaining, old-fashioned yet timely courtroom thriller.

It is a joy to look at frame by frame, and it would be worth getting the Blu-ray to do that. I am not quite so thrilled by the story, which at times threatens to make "Gormenghast" seem straightforward.

While the material at times veers close to exploitation, Knoll’s writing and Kunis’ performance ensure this is ultimately a tale of survival and perseverance — of a victim who refuses to let that label define her.

This film is a documentary about the young man's devilment. He seems perfectly happy — ecstatic, even — seated at a table in front of a three-sided mirror and practicing card moves over and over and over again. As a kid, he learned moves from his grandfather. He moved away from home in his early teens.

Told with the simplicity and beauty of a child's fairy tale, but with emotional undertones and a surrealistic style that adults are more likely to appreciate.

In the flourishing genre of faith-based movies, this is one of the better efforts we’ve seen.

A reminder of the pleasure of classic martial-arts films in which skilled athletes performed many of their own stunts.

Not a great film, but you know what? It achieves what it sets out to achieve, and it isn't boring, and it kept me intrigued and involved. As an actor, Eric Gores creates an engaging and convincing character that I liked and cared about -- and believed.

There is something in the nature of director Tran Anh Hung, however, that seems to resist happy endings. In the emotional arc of his art, the high point seems to be bittersweet. It's sweet all the way up, wavers in dread and slides down to doom.