I like the movie on a simple physical level. There is no deeper meaning and no higher skill involved; just professional action, well-staged and filmed with a certain stylistic elegance.

Above all, this is a movie where the characters ask the same questions we do: They're as smart about themselves as we are.

With the deadpan-great Benedict Cumberbatch effortlessly sliding back into the role of the brilliant and immensely powerful but sometimes shortsighted and narcissistic Doctor Stephen Strange and a bizarro plot that serves up philosophical, ethical and spiritual mind games in between the sometimes repetitive but slick and exhilarating action sequences, this is one of the weirder Marvel movies yet.

Has the same mixture of dumb puns, corny sight gags and sly, even sophisticated in-jokes. It's a lot of fun.

Teeming with familiar war-film clichés and at times almost unbearably melodramatic, Twice Born is nevertheless worth the effort, thanks in large part to a magnificent performance from Penelope Cruz and some fine work from the international supporting cast.

The ghost of anime can be seen here trying to dive into the shell of the movie mainstream. But this particular film is too complex and murky to reach a large audience, I suspect; it's not until the second hour that the story begins to reveal its meaning. But I enjoyed its visuals, its evocative soundtrack (including a suite for percussion and heavy breathing), and its ideas.

With cinematographer David Ungaro providing hand-held docudrama work in saturated colors, “Asphalt City” is bleak and heavy-handed, yet we get the feeling a lot of paramedics in major cities would say it’s not all that far from the harsh realities of the job.

Remarkable, how in a film where we KNOW with an absolute certainty that all or most of the dogs must survive, Eight Below succeeds as an effective story. It works by focusing on the dogs.

Much of what transpires in “Cuckoo” depends on your willingness to just go with it, and your forgiveness for a couple of loose ends that remain untied throughout. The fun here is enjoying the screen-popping performances by Schafer and Dan Stevens as a snarling villain, not to mention the quality Jump Scares and the overall creepy vibe.

Huston films the horrifying assault scenes to provoke disgust, outrage, fear and pity. She doesn't flinch. She refuses to soften the situation. Her Carolina is painful to watch. It's meant to be. [13 Dec 1996, p.65nc]

The documentary homes in on the ideas of community, about caregiving and giving care, about human nature and humanity, about parenting and becoming parents to the people we once called mom and dad.

Director Mark Mori, whose last feature documentary was the 1991 exposé “Building Bombs,” does an entertaining job of conveying Page’s entire life in her own words and illustrating why she has become a worldwide symbol of liberated sexuality.

Servillo charms in his dual turn, then takes it up a notch when one brother shows off his childhood knack for impersonating his look-alike.

Director Craig Gillespie (“Lars and the Real Girl,” “I, Tonya”) has delivered a clever, devilishly offbeat story with appropriately over-the-top and wildly entertaining performances from Emma Stone as the titular character and Emma Thompson as her nemesis, who is so casually cruel (in a manner of speaking), so cold and cunning, she makes Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” look like the Employer of the Year.

The Breakfast Club doesn't need earthshaking revelations; it's about kids who grow willing to talk to one another, and it has a surprisingly good ear for the way they speak.

What's effective is how matter-of-fact Fair Game is. This isn't a lathering, angry attack picture.

Odd and intense, very well acted, and impossible to dismiss.

Other pleasures: The wicked trick used to smuggle Connery into the locked car with the gold; the chase scene on top of the train; and, of course, the exquisite presence of Down, who has a bedroom scene with Connery that makes James Bond look curiously like Sherlock Holmes.

Kevin Bacon is on a roll right now after several good roles, and here he channels diabolical sleaze while mugging joylessly before the telethon cameras.

I liked the action, I liked the absurdity, I liked the incongruous use and misuse of mutant powers, and I especially liked the way it introduces all of those political issues and lets them fight it out with the special effects.

Beautiful, languorous, passive -- it plays like background music for itself.

A rarity, a movie that seems to be on autopilot for the first two acts and then reveals that it was not, with a third act that causes us to rethink everything that has gone before. Ingenious, how simple and yet how devious the solution is.

So assured and perceptive in its style, so loving, so intensely right, that if you can receive on that frequency, the film is like a voluptuous feast.

If you’ve seen “Wonder,” it will add some depth and context to the viewing experience, but with the surehanded direction from Forster, the excellent script by Bomback and the strong performances from the veteran actors as well as the younger faces, “White Bird” flies quite well on its own.

Rebecca Hall gives one of the great performances of the year as the title character in Christine, an intense, stomach-churning, unblinking drama.

If you respond to film noir, if you like dark streets and women with scarlet lips and big fast cars with running boards, the look of this movie will work some kind of magic. The story itself may not be so mesmerizing, but who really cares? Style and tone are everything with a movie like this, which wants to bring to life a dark secret place in the lurid pulp imagination.

I would not want to see a sequel to the film, and at 81 minutes it isn't a second too short, but what it does, it does cheerfully, with great energy, and very well.

For a time in her life, a woman's pregnancy is the most important thing about her. That is the subject of Hideaway.