Believe it or not, The Manhattan Project, a thriller about a high school boy who builds an atomic bomb, is a solid, credible action film. It also contains, during this summer of violent films, a welcome pacifistic message.

Surely the gentlest American film ever made about home-grown revolutionaries.

So what started as a female "Agent Cody Banks" happily and seamlessly becomes so much more, with style and substance existing in unusual harmony for a spy spoof.

The acting is amateurish at times, but always convincing.

As soft and tentative as her dramatic surroundings may be, Tomei remains an amazingly clear and vivid presence; she has the star's ability to establish her own reality at the center of something hopelessly false. She'll be remembered; Untamed Heart almost certainly won't be. [12 Feb 1993, p.B]

It boasts a generous exuberance and, as entertainment products go, it's surprisingly sweet.

Welcome to Mooseport isn't a belly-laugh farce. It's more along the lines of a "My Cousin Vinny," where you just enjoy almost everybody who crosses the screen. Such a comedy these days is more than welcome.

It's ludicrous, but it's fun. Besson is a filmmaker so in love with his own daffy excesses that he's able to pull us, laughing, right into his world of loony pop. [9 May 1997]

It can't be easy to keep a comedy on track when the underlying emotions are so vicious, and indeed DeVito's staging slips more than once -- too realistic here, too broad there -- resulting in a film that is at least as often funny-peculiar as it is funny-haha. [8 Dec 1989]

Takes a couple of curious turns that you will either applaud or hiss at, depending on the type of film you are looking for.

This sense of unruly behavior is mitigated, deliberately, by the gentleness and odd comic grace of July's presence and voice.

The marriage on view here, a little ridiculous, a little galling but full of interesting sharp edges, presents Knightley and West with a full array of emotions to explore. The tone remains deceptively light, but it feels both true and in period.

I’m glad Chazelle’s film offers some fresh points of view on its subject; it’s proof he’ll be able to keep his filmmaking wits about him, no matter what genre he’s exploring. He has made his Apollo 11 movie. And it’s a good one.

For all the boozed and abusive amusement provided by the great Bill Murray in the good-enough St. Vincent, the moment I liked best was Naomi Watts as a pregnant Russian stripper, manhandling a vacuum across the Murray character's ancient carpet. In movies as in life, it's the little things.

The movie -- simple, pure and powerful -- makes us feel the intensity of both life in transit and life lived, if only for a moment, in another's skin.

As MI6 head Stewart Menzies, Strong is my favorite of the supporting players — witty, knowing, deserving of his own movie and yet comfortably a part of this one.

Self-absorption is the vice of all these characters. That, not sex, is their sin--and Michell, Kureishi and their fine cast show this with a lucidity that cuts to the bone, a candor that draws blood.

Surprises with its intensity and grip.

All four key actors are lovely, none of them playing to the camera — Durkin likes nice, long, slow-zoom set-ups, roomy and generous — and all of them affecting. Coon has the built-in advantage of playing the character undergoing the most evident and playable changes. But she’s extraordinary in her contained emotion.

Original, it's not. Exciting, it is. This jacked-up B-movie hybrid of "Black Hawk Down" and "War of the Worlds" is a modest but crafty triumph of tension over good sense and cliche.

This smart, hardscrabble, very likable film has a heart and spirit all its own: a rollicking, earthy flair and lusty intelligence.

The result, then, is good, not great. But it is hard to come by good films about media and politics, and why the intersection thereof matters so much in a democracy.

It doesn't matter much that Phoenix and Witherspoon sound more like Phoenix and Witherspoon than Cash and Carter. The chemistry is there. The actors walk their own line, successfully.

Ford v Ferrari works as a stylish, enjoyable mash note to its era, and the need for speed and all that.

An at-times deliriously entertaining biopic.

One of the most intelligent and unnerving horror films in recent memory.

Death at a Funeral is lethal farce, combining hints of "The Lavender Hill Mob," doses of Joe Orton and a smidgen of the Farrelly brothers' scatology in its mix.

It's good stuff: a non-fiction film on weighty issues that also manages to entertain.

With an excellent cast and style, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is one gorgeous and dynamic fractured fairy tale.

Disney has reinvigorated the Milne series while staying true both to his and illustrator E.H. Shepherd's original artistic visions.

Cold, nervy and memorable.

Shot under gray skies and in artful shadows by cinematographer Bradford Young, scored to wickedly disorienting music by Oscar-nominated "Sicario" composer Johann Johannsson, Arrival will cast a spell on some while merely discombobulating others. Right there, I'd say that indicates it's worth seeing.

You may not want to accept what you see here; you may be unable to accept it. But it's doubtful you'll leave this film unmoved.

Director and co-writer Eytan Fox is going for a sexually democratic, politically aware variation on story themes familiar to "Sex and the City" viewers. (At one point Lulu is referred to as "Miss Israeli Carrie Bradshaw.") Surprisingly, it works, and the entire cast is excellent.

A movie that's underwritten, overdirected, overproduced and almost constantly over-the-top. But it's also, at its best, a big tongue-in-cheek extravaganza.

There's something delicious in the way Kaplan, who has been working carefully and naturalistically, suddenly gives in to the excess the screenplay has been inviting all along--the shudder of pleasure that comes with a loss of control. Making a movie isn't only a question of doing everything right, but also of knowing when to make a meaningful misstep. [17 Apr 1987, p.A]

Ridley is at her best in scenes with Watts, as both their characters are strong but must deal with romantic blindness. The film also takes some liberties with Gertrude’s story, adding a level that fits a modern telling.

At this point in Pixar's history, the studio contends with nearly impossible expectations itself. This is what happens when you turn out some bona fide masterworks. Brave isn't that; it's simply a bona fide eyeful.

The result is a revelatory, challenging and deeply affecting portrait, anchored by what may be Kidman's most profoundly moving performance to date.

The film's emotional claustrophobia may not be for everyone.

It's the kind of copycat movie that becomes original through its cast and treatment.

A far more Tyler Perry-ish mixture of comedy and tragedy than the easygoing "Best Man" was, back in the pre-Perry movie era.

Chic, shallow stuff, but there's one hell of a car chase. [22 Jan 1999, p.F]

You watch the movie with an ongoing feeling of dread, and it's not a feeling that ever dissipates.

One Crazy Horse staffer, also female, is asked on camera by a visiting journalist to define the cabaret's notion of eroticism. To "suggest," she says. To "seduce."

Quite affecting, even if it doesn't rank with classics like "Open City" or "Forbidden Games."

A welcome respite from the high-volume ugliness of rock extravaganza.

Everything about it flows and pays off better than the ’84 original.

For all of Schrader's capacity for spectacular self-laceration and spiritual agony, Light Sleeper finds him able for the first time to express a certain peacefulness, and the effect is delicate and discreet.

Fundamentally the film succeeds because the musicians themselves are good storytellers.

The picture hurtles along, smoothly if not plausibly, and saves some surprises for the last reel. The Predator, it seems, represents that part of the human spirit that responds with pleasure when violence breaks out, whether it is in Central America, the inner city, or the suburban multiplex playing Predator 2. [21 Nov 1990, p.3C]

It’s a pretty good time, and often a pretty good movie for the nervous blur we’re in right now. It’s cozy.

The tired and washed-out Spanish town is a fitting backdrop for these men - a place where life moves on around them at an uninspiring pace.

A weirdly old-fashioned affair. If it weren't for the explicit sexual encounters, this could be an Ibsen or a Strindberg play, unclothed and unmoored from the late 19th or early 20th century.

Working from a forgotten Victorian thriller by Bram Stoker ("Dracula"), director Ken Russell has fashioned his most watchable film in a long while, largely by staying out of the way of the material.

The actor (Segel) creates a dreamy, solemn but subtly vibrant version of Wallace that works for him and for the material.

Though it never quite transcends its status as a simple concert film, Prince's Sign o' the Times gives far greater range to his talent than his widely successful movie debut, the 1984 Purple Rain. [20 Nov 1987, p.A]

Through good scenes and derivative ones, Adams is disarming.

By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might’ve been like.

Celebrated cinema verite chronicle of a quartet of door-to-door bible salesman, pitching their wares with slick expertise or threadbare urgency. [03 Dec 1999, p.L]

Blackbird is a simple tale, well-told, but it’s also the tale of all tales, of life, death and everything in between.

All three leading performers are scarily convincing on the film's own tight, clammy terms.

This isn't a particularly great flick, but Pacino's performance is first-rate. [24 May 2002, p.C1]

Works best when it works primal--which is not the same thing as working dumb.

Sirens is a brazen, luscious Australian sex comedy full of nature and nudity, flesh, food and fantasy. With its theme of erotic awakening on a painter's sunny Blue Mountains estate, and its frequent scenes of lush female models scampering around naked, it's often a pretty silly film. But it's also an immensely enjoyable one: a fairy tale in which everything-fashions, scenery, badinage, music, even moments of angst-becomes a kind of goofy aphrodisiac. [11 March 1994, p.C2]

The on-screen talents, savvy and fine company all, have been ready for something like this far longer than the opportunity has been available.

The only the bum steer in Me Without You comes in the person of Daniel, played by Kyle MacLachlan of "Twin Peaks" fame. It's hard to tell whether MacLachlan was dealt a bum hand in an otherwise fine screenplay or acted on auto-pilot.

Tune in, turn on and drop out with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda as two down-and-out motorcyclists in this classic road film about the 1960s counterculture. Joining them on their cross-country trip is a young Jack Nicholson, whose charismatic performance keeps the movie rolling through some of its more experimental moments. [22 Jun 2012, p.C6]

Toback's films deliver a lot of bang for the buck. He's one of the few serious and original directors who can mix group sex and talk of existentialism; a fast-paced basketball sequence cut with scenes of Mafia members plotting a hit; and an in-class philosophy lecture stylishly edited with Alan's memories of a contradictory in-bed discussion.

Campbell’s film offers not surprises, exactly, but craftsmanship and low, brute, cunning satisfactions.

It's not a frenzied head-trip, the way Roman Polanski's "The Tenant" was, nor does the movie have half the energy and nightmarish allure of David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive." It's best taken, I think, as a jape and a wry male-centric fable on transgression and desire.

Hollywood legends introduce a collection of moments from the finest MGM musicals, ranging from the first all-sound musical -- Broadway Melody of 1930 -- to the climactic ballet from An American in Paris. [02 Dec 2011, p.3]

Since he popped up and broke hearts in Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," Carradine has learned a wealth of practical acting knowledge about how much and how little need be done at any given moment. He provides the on-screen link to those earlier days and brings the natural authority a director craves in a performer.

A movie about love, friendship and finding oneself, and it takes all its subjects very seriously while seeming to treat them with the lightest and most piquant of touches. Like its bizarre heroine, it irrigates our souls.

Wholly predictable yet serenely enjoyable.

Unlike almost every other sexy modern thriller (especially most recent studio blockbusters), this one gives you a lot to think about.

What strikes me about the new Robin Hood, directed by Ridley Scott, is how its preoccupations and sensibilities lie almost precisely halfway between the derring-do of the 1938 film and the harsh revisionism of the '70s edition

Beautifully shot and filled with gorgeous music.

F/X turns into a dazzling series of deceptions that border on being so topsy-turvy that one almost becomes frustrated with being fooled. But the script of Robert T. Megginson and Gregory Fleeman managed to stay on the right side of credibility and good humor enough of the time so that some rather obvious plot holes can be forgiven.

In true Chris Smith fashion, he seems far less interested in the homes themselves than in the touching relationship between homeowner and abode.

Small but sure, this low-keyed actors’ feast marks the feature directorial debut of writer-director Elizabeth Chomko, who grew up in Chicago and the western suburb of Hinsdale, among other stops in a relocation-heavy childhood.

A genre movie with an agenda that's too packed. Inevitably, some of the many balls it's juggling get dropped -- (but it's) one of the most entertaining and original actioners in several years.

It's an admirable attempt, though a less than completely successful one. The film's disappointments lie not so much in Almodovar's controlled, respectful direction as in the strange gaps and displacements of his screenplay, which never seems to supply the scenes we most want to see. [20 Dec 1991]

The Brave One is "Death Wish" with a guilty conscience, and while it may be a bit of a hypocrite as vigilante thrillers go, the internal contradictions of the thing make for a very interesting picture.

For all its craft and achievement, The Gift -- which has a script that may have needed more rewriting and deepening -- is a good, minor effort; it has some real conviction, even anguish. And it has Blanchett, whose gift as an actress is sometimes transcendent.

A caveat to viewers: This brand of movie sex, as directed by 30-year-old Lionel Baier, is emphatically not for the puritanical.

Director Yann Demange's film White Boy Rick balances these details, both outlandish and intimate, carefully.

You find yourself tricked and having enjoyed the experience after all.

The film, despite some over-obvious stretches, is mostly sad, lovely, moving, haunting. It's a striking and promising debut from a fine new filmmaker. [21 Aug 1998]

As entertaining as The Goonies finally becomes--and its last hour is mostly one pleasure after another--it's a shame that Spielberg, writer Chris Columbus and director Richard Donner felt the need to take the low road in terms of language. [7 Jun 1985, p.A]

The sights, sounds and traffic in Red Lights are oppressively ordinary; the people are unnervingly real. That reality doubles the suspense we might feel in a more slickly made but thinly plotted thriller.

The latest, produced by Abrams and directed by "Fast and Furious" alum Justin Lin, isn't quite up to the 2009 and 2013 movies. But it's still fun, you still care about the people and the effects manage to look a little more elegant and interesting than the usual blue blasts of generica.

The writing isn't always up to the actors, who all give the kind of expert, theatrically ingenious performances that often seem director-proof.

Typical tough '40s Walsh noir. [08 Aug 1997, p.M]

Mainly it's about fast and brittle talk, a lot of it peachy. The dialogue has one ear on the screwball '30s, the other on the way people actually speak when their minds are racing faster than their lives can carry them.

The consciously campy A Simple Favor is as bright and bracing as an ice cold gin martini with a lemon twist, and just as satisfying.

Fine ensemble performances and a tight balance of the supernatural against the historical make The Devil's Backbone a well-crafted, white-knuckled cinematic journey.

A satire is only as good as its subject, and in the very funny I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Keenen Ivory Wayans has found a rich and relatively untapped one. The wit and openness of I'm Gonna Git You Sucka has more to contribute to race relations than the smug piety of "Mississippi Burning." As a positive image, a good, shared laugh is hard to beat. [14 Dec 1988, p.1]