The movie makes the same mistake as some of the characters in it: It treats these two guys like lovable old characters instead of listening to what they really have to say.

Educating Rita, which might have been a charming human comedy, disintegrated into a forced march through a formula relationship.

Disney’s bland comedy Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day might have been a little more entertaining if it had been a little more, terrible, horrible, no good and so forth.

Though Captive State has plenty of action, it’s not a blood-and-guts sci-fi thriller. It aims for a more cerebral, social-commentary approach.

There is noting quite so awkward as a film that is one thing while it pretends to be another.

A quasi-documentary about love that is sweet, true and perhaps a little deceptive.

This is a repetitive, pointless exercise in genre filmmaking--the kind of movie where you distract yourself by making a list of the sources.

Desert Flower tells a rags-to-riches story, but it plays like two stories in conflict. Everything involving Waris in Africa or in London before her success feels true and heartfelt. Many later details are badly handled.

It’s a visually arresting movie. But as the plot layers are peeled back, and we’re given one answer after another, Oblivion actually becomes less interesting.

Every character in the Netflix teenage rom-com “Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between” is just so nice that we wish them all well, but we’re not fully convinced there’s enough here for an actual movie.

It’s not that “The Boys in the Boat” doesn’t have an inspirational impact; it’s that we’re so aware of being pushed in that direction.

This is terrific family entertainment.

When the film was over I was not particularly pleased that I had seen it; it was mostly behavior and contrivance. While it was running, I was not bored.

Despite the first-rate production values and the game performances from the cast, “Greta” can’t escape from the formulaic screenplay that dogs it at every turn. It’s almost as if it’s being stalked by mediocrity itself.

The Craft: Legacy is a smart, edgy, wickedly funny and wild ride from the talented writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones.

It's manipulative, yes, but clever and persuasive in its manipulations.

A sentimental, predictable, sometimes implausible but thoroughly entertaining, old-fashioned piece.

The gray, drab monotony of the setting seeps into the marrow of the prison drama Camp X-Ray, though it’s invigorated, somewhat, by strong central performances from actors on opposite sides of a locked steel door.

Becky is a deeply fractured fairy tale that leaves logic at the door and revels in elaborate set pieces that usually wind up with someone maimed or dead.

The plot is a little of Fatal Attraction, a little of Jagged Edge and a little of Wall Street. It works because it's so audacious in combining elements that don't seem to belong together.

Despite an intriguing premise, it ultimately falls apart as the gimmick wears thin and the plot veers into ludicrous territory, with the heroine making a series of increasingly rash and idiotic decisions.

Alas, the basketball scenes and the basketball talk in this basketball movie continually bounce the wrong way, and there’s no overcoming that.

This one basically just sticks to the real story, which has all the emotional wallop that's needed.

The movie is so gloriously bloody-minded, so perverse in its obstinacy, that it rises to a kind of mad purity. The longer the movie ran, the less I liked it and the more I admired it.

Family Business tries to play it down the middle, when it probably should have jumped in one direction or the other, toward a pure caper or toward a family drama.

Life in a Day 2020 is an affirmation of life, of the simple joys experienced by citizens of the planet over the course of a single day. We’d never have met any of them without this film, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to get to know them a little bit.

This is a genuinely well-crafted horror gem with a winning cast, some nifty twists and a very good bear who betrays its CGI origins maybe 10% of the time but for the most part looks like an actual, cocaine-fueled black bear with lightning-quick reflexes, a big bite and an insatiable appetite for coke on the rocks.

For Your Eyes Only is a competent James Bond thriller, well-crafted, a respectable product from the 007 production line. But it's no more than that.