Stakeout is an example of a movie that would have been a lot better if the filmmakers had been prepared to trust the human dimensions of their characters - to follow these people where their personalities led. Instead, Badham takes out an insurance policy by adding the assembly-line violence.

Not a bad movie, although it could have been better. It isn't flat-out silly like "Troy," its actors look at home as their characters, and director Antoine Fuqua curtails the use of computer effects in the battle scenes, which involve mostly real people.

Emily Blunt makes Victoria as irresistible a young woman as Dame Judi Dench made her an older one in "Mrs. Brown" (1997).

It was fun, it was funny, it was alive.

There is a wise and understanding teacher on the faculty, played by Anjelica Huston. Defending the work of Dead White Males, she sensibly observes that when they did their best work "they weren't dead yet."

Alice Waddington makes her feature directing debut with this futuristic sci-fi psychological thriller, and she is a clearly talented visual stylist.

If there’s one thing you can count on from indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, it’s a keen and unwavering ability to bring the viewer into the world of the outsider as few other filmmakers can.

In too much of a hurry to be much of a people picture. And the standoff at the end edges perilously close to the ridiculous, for a movie that's tried so hard to be plausible.

It's unfair to complain that Weiss seems over the top. The portrayal seems to be accurate.

All that beauty, Hitchcock's panache and a certain amount of cleverly suggestive, double entendre-filled banter between Grant and Kelly may be enough to keep To Catch a Thief entertaining for modern viewers, but it clearly falls short of the director's best work.

One of the movie's most enjoyable in-jokes is the way some of the animals actually look a little like the humans doing their voices.

This is the kind of movie you don't want to analyze until you've seen it two times. Now that I've seen it twice, I think I understand it, or maybe not. Certainly it's entertaining as it rolls along.

Body of Lies is a James Bond plot inserted into today's headlines. The film wants to be persuasive in its expertise about modern spycraft, terrorism, the CIA and Middle East politics. But its hero is a lone ranger who operates in three countries, single-handedly creates a fictitious terrorist organization, and survives explosions, gunfights, and brutal torture.

Director Dexter Fletcher paints Eddie’s story in broad, bold strokes, never missing an opportunity to milk a suspenseful dramatic turn or go for the relatively easy laugh — but it’s a style well-suited to this wonderfully ridiculous story.

While this charming movie will be targeted to senior audiences, I hope younger generations check it out — as the humor and underlying messages are truly universal.

Even when I Saw the Light is giving us standard-issue concert scenes or simple interior sequences such as young Hank and his band playing live on the radio, the saturated colors and the subtle camera moves make every scene pop.

Directed by Bao Nguyen, who expertly combines the multi-camera recordings from the night of the session with new interviews with Richie, Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Loggins, Huey Lewis, Smokey Robinson and Bruce Springsteen, as well as technicians who were there, “The Greatest Night in Pop” is a terrific behind-the-scenes chronicle of the making of a single that sold 20 million copies worldwide, won multiple Grammys and, most important, of course, raised more than $60 million in 1985 dollars.

Nobody’s ever going to match Bogart’s iconic work opposite Lauren Bacall in Howard Hawks’ 1946 classic, but Neeson delivers a reliably powerful, world-weary, “I’m too old for this s---!” performance in Neil Jordan’s exquisitely photographed and sometimes convoluted but thoroughly enjoyable period piece.

If the movie is imperfect, it's not boring and is often very funny, as in a solo dance that Nick does in his apartment, to Frank Sinatra singing "I Won't Dance."

Don’t Breathe is an impressively photographed, well-acted, relentlessly paced horror film sure to sicken some and delight others with its twisted sense of humor.

What makes Creed III a consistently engrossing watch is the gritty and violent back story, and the present-day tension between two former best friends whose lives were forever changed by a single confrontation that went sideways and who now have been reunited after nearly 20 years, with one man on top of the world and the other about two degrees from reaching the boiling point as he simmers with rage and resentment.

I call the movie a thriller, even though the outcome is known, because it plays like one: We may know that the world doesn't end, but the players in this drama don't, and it is easy to identify with them.

Over all, this is a rousing, albeit sometimes cheesy, action-packed Western bolstered by Denzel Washington’s baddest-of-the-baddasses lead performance, mostly fine supporting work, and yep, some of the most impressively choreographed extended shootout sequences in recent memory.

The movie works because it is, above all, sincere. It's not sports by the numbers. The starring performance by Kuno Becker is convincing and dimensional and we begin to care for him.

Real Steel is a real movie. It has characters, it matters who they are, it makes sense of its action, it has a compelling plot. This is the sort of movie, I suspect, young viewers went to the "Transformers" movies looking for.

There's some kind of pulse of sincerity beating below the glittering surface, and it may come from Mitchell's own life story.

Maybe the environment is poisoned, and the group is phony, and Carol is gnawing away at her own psychic health. Now there's a fine mess.

This is an amazingly ambitious movie, not so much because of the time and space it covers (a lot), but because Potter trusts us to follow her heroine through one damn thing after another.