I do wish Felicity Jones’ character popped the way Daisy Ridley’s did in last year’s franchise offering. “The Force Awakens,” directed by J.J. Abrams, was smooth, consistent, even-toned, nostalgic. Rogue One zigzags, and it’s more willfully jarring. Yet it takes time for callbacks and shout-outs to characters we’ve seen before, and we’ll see again. And again. And again.

Shallow, colorful adaptation of one of Hemingway's best short stories. [08 May 1998, p.M]

The story is a lot harder on its female protagonist than the 2000 film was on its male equivalent. This makes a depressing amount of sense, given what women are up against in most workplaces. Henson’s Ali plays both the dramatic encounters and the slapstick opportunities for higher stakes than Gibson ever did.

At times, Limbo can feel confining in ways that exceed the confining circumstances of its characters. But the story of Omar deepens and amplifies the film’s second half, maintaining its droll amusements but playing the circumstances for just enough bittersweet honesty to make it stick.

Insistently grotesque, relentlessly misanthropic and spectacularly tasteless, Death Becomes Her isn't a film designed to win the hearts of the mass moviegoing public. But it is diabolically inventive and very, very funny.

Here’s the surprise: Bandslam may come from synthetic materials, but the characters are a little more complicated than usual.

The visual personality of the movie is fantastically vivid and bright, the story itself, less so.

At its best Jason Bourne crackles with professionalism; at its worst, it's rehashing greatest hits (as in, "assassinations") from earlier films, with a lavish budget.

A vital film about a bunch of youngsters who view break-dancing as a way out of their dead end lifestyle. For what is essentially a musical exploitation film, Breakin' is surprisingly filled with more human moments and dance scenes than violence or sexuality. [08 June 1984, p.12]

The Dying Gaul stays interesting even when it asks more and more--too much, probably--of the audience's disbelief suspension.

As Kay and Arnold struggle to reconnect, Hope Springs stays close to the task at hand. The characters aren't fabulously dimensional, but the actors are.

The movie sputters in its later, darker passages, which by design are less audience-friendly than the earlier, satirically secure ones.

Most of the stuff that's new in the new Sparkle, written by Mara Brock Akil (who is married to the director), is shrewd and cleverly considered. The stuff that's old is what people responded to back in '76.

The movie has a large theme, even if it's unspoken. Old Joy is about a particular friendship, but it's also about how American society changed in the '90s and the new century.

Recently making its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, The Wild Robot already has been pumped up into the contradictory “instant classic” stratosphere. I understand the enthusiasm, or most of it, I guess, especially given the mellow, less photorealistic, more painterly visual landscapes, and Sanders’ assured tear-duct massage technique.

A sprightly fairy tale full of darkness and delight from seemingly unlikely movie collaborators: author Roald Dahl and director-star Danny DeVito.

Director Jon Favreau's voice cast for the animals is tiptop.

An original and insinuating black comedy from Winnipeg, Canada, where something very strange seems to be going on. The pastiche is nearly perfect, played with an utter sincerity that makes it impossible to tell just where the jokes are coming from.

The climax of “Final Reckoning” is likewise impressive and scenic, but paced and edited less for the good of the overall movie and more for risk-verification purposes. That said, this franchise has class.

What works about ParaNorman is its subtle interweave of the stoical and the heroic. The voice work is inspired, without a lot of theatrical flourish. The low-key musical score by Jon Brion, one of the year's best, teases out the macabre humor in each new challenge faced by Norman.

Total Eclipse is a biographical film steeped in ecstasy and despair, seething with madness and torment.

Ideally, with Roe about to be erased from the books, The Janes would land on a more complex note of imminent, controversial change afoot. Small matters. It’s a very fine film

The acting is uniformly strong, the visual approach self-effacingly honest.

Despite the somewhat bland nature of the storytelling — it’s not like this documentary is pushing the boundaries of the form — it’s an incredible true story told with care and skill.

Russell, who looks younger with each movie, holds his own against the formidable force that is Dakota Fanning.

The all-time great Stoller-Lieber title number, performed by The King in jailbird regalia, is just one highlight of this '50s rock-the-house classic. [04 Sep 1998, p.H]

Does it immerse the uninitiated into a new, fabulous world? Yes. To the book's many readers, does this feel like the real "Harry Potter"? For the most part, yes.

In the end, all these young women want is a foothold on life, a little less humiliation and some physical intimacy. If that makes Bottoms snarky on the outside but conventionally heartfelt on the inside, well, that’s fine, actually.

The runaway train thriller Unstoppable is one of Tony Scott's better films.

The movie has a sense of humor, but its sense of dread, micro and macro, overrules it.

Elf, formulaic but lovable, is essentially "Big" in pointy shoes.

Series 7 does exactly what independent cinema should -- challenge audiences while it entertains.

Delivers on the promise of its playful premise, thanks to some sly gender role reversals and Gibson's willingness to play along.

The film’s half-real, half-fantasy treatment of a fact-based story is almost really good. But “good enough” is good enough, thanks mostly to Jennifer Lopez dining out on her best role in years. She’s terrific.

In the best possible way, Reeder has returned throughout her career to stories and characters rooted in trauma, while expanding the fantasy/reality boundaries of her narratives. This is her best realized work so far.

While I hope Perkins doesn’t lean into jokey sadism as a dominant creative impulse — we have too many jokey sadists with movie deals as is — The Monkey asserts his stealth versatility as well as his confident technique.

As psychological drama, In My Skin falls short. But as pure horror, it's unforgettable.

The Coens have technique and they have taste; what they do not yet have is the ability to move beyond their handsome imagery to the human center of their material. [5 Oct 1990, Friday, p.C]

One fears, however, that not every uncomfortable scene was scripted, and that we have just been privy to some awfully private moments. It makes for uneasy viewing, sure, but it's one of the most compelling rides around.

Reminiscent of classic old Westerns.

If this all sounds very heavy, well, it is, but it's also very, very funny. Cronenberg may want to say something important about violence, but he's also head over heels for it, ending each gunfight and neck-breaking with a close-up on the victim, blood either pooling behind his head or brains spilling from his face. Big laughs.

Packed with facts, figures and the testimony of policy experts, the film is no wallow in wonkiness, though, but a surprisingly sprightly tough-love lesson in fiscal responsibility.

If a Warner Bros. social-protest film from the early 1930s somehow got into bed with an American indie from the 1970s, how would the love-child turn out? Like this.

The Dawn Treader doesn't so much reinvent the "Narnia" franchise as do what's needed, and expected, with a little more zip than the previous voyages.

Usually American marital problems are left to the soap operas; it's nice to see them tackled by experts, piercing personas and peeling open hearts.

It’s essentially the Hotel Earle from “Barton Fink,” augmented by the latest in robotic surgical techniques for bullet extraction.

Lucidity, austerity and quiet compassion are peculiar virtues to ascribe to a movie about a horrific real-life murder case, but those are among the best qualities of Jean-Pierre Denis' Murderous Maids.

As long as Hughes is content to provide a simple, flexible format for Candy, Uncle Buck is very entertaining. Hughes seems to have relaxed his usual controlling, compulsively tidy style, taking full advantage of the improvisational talents of his star.

The looniest movie of the season and also one of the most engaging. [7 Nov 1988]

A realistic drama about life's uncertainties.

But, as with any other Merchant Ivory film, this one provides pleasures beyond the ordinary. [07 Apr 1995]

This is not a film intended for a wide audience. But B-movie fans who find their way to Adam Green's gory schlock extravaganza are going to like it.

Things We Lost in the Fire finds Bier at an interesting juncture, half-Dogmatic, half traditionalist.

What I did like unreservedly was the acting. Enid, as enacted by the sometimes astonishing Birch, is one of the more convincing, no-nonsense teens in recent movies.

It turns out a success, tempering its farfetched scenario with enough restraint and believability to pass for a modest parable of modern manners.

Yet it's worth seeing because the sights are truly something. Claudio Miranda's pearly cinematography, Donald Graham Burt's luscious production design, the visual effects supervised by Eric Barba--everything blends, and none of the seams show.

A work both rigorously stylized and deeply personal. Devotees of Kitano and Japanese cinema will admire Dolls.

Tangling reality and fiction into one impossible knot is at the core of this story, and the form follows that function.

I liked a lot of writer-director Jeff Baena's picture; it may be a one-joke movie, but I've seen comedies recently that would've killed for that many.

Epidemic will never be confused with von Trier's great films. But it is an intriguing introduction to his later cinematic obsessions.

Amid so many earnest, forgettable COVID-era and COVID-acknowledging movies around the world, here’s one that truly goes for it.

Even with its imperfections, Philadelphia is still an entertaining and moving film. Although it preaches, it also forces us to look at ourselves. [21 Jan 1994, p.N]

I Swear is a film that was made with a lot of bravery and heart. It’s an important extension of John’s advocacy, but it’s also deeply moving and very entertaining.

Most of the film's action takes place on the base, where Fox smartly concentrates on how this relationship -- tormented at times, lighthearted at others -- exists in Israel's military bubble.

For most of the film, Fin is only as odd as Joe and Olivia -- three eccentrics rendered positively normal in a friendship built on the crap we all face every day.

A strangely powerful yet meandering film that takes a long time to make its point.

Many will find DaCosta’s take on the story didactic, I suppose, or low on genre payoffs. I’m eager to see it a second time, flaws and all. It’s alive and awake to where we are now.

Malick is a true searcher, true to his preoccupations and definitions of soulful rhapsody. To the Wonder repeats its central motifs aplenty, yet you may find yourself thinking about life, and living, and love, while sorting through the movie. Even if it drives you nertz.

If there’s anything rarer than a film about money that truly makes us think, it’s a film about politics that makes us feel like there’s something to it beyond money, and luck.

The River Wild is more of a family movie, a thrill-ride where all the crazier dips and turns are straightened out by the ride's end. Hanson keeps the action clean, the tensions simmering. As a family movie, it's actually pretty good. [30 Sep 1994, p.C]

It's an entertaining picture — pulp, coming from a place of righteous indignation.

The ensemble performances are of such a uniformly high caliber that our interest in the story never wavers.

Even when Shanks hits the primary theme of his movie a little too insistently, the actors are vivid throughout. Brie, especially, is spectacularly effective in every emotional register, in the keys of D (Distress), E (Eh what’s going on with our suction-lips?) and C (Commitment is all).

The film favors more subtly melancholy strains and, at its best, a poetic touch.

The edgy and explicit Pillion might be set within the parameters of a relationship that many would consider “alternative,” but the heart of it is the same as any love story that becomes a lesson in self-love.

Nothing Altman made before or after Brewster McCloud is quite so heightened with enjoyably sophomoric and bizarre humor.

Super/Man should introduce many people, young and older, to a fine actor’s work and, more importantly, to what Reeve accomplished for himself and so many others in the life he was dealt.

A movie that will act like a smack in the face to some audiences, while others may simply laugh in recognition.

It's a high-tech thriller that really works.

Uneven but rollicking, The Pirates! has a personality to call its own.

Southside with You is best taken as a reminder of the value of the slow relational build, of taking your time and actually talking, and actually listening, with someone new. Even if there's not a staggering political future in your shared future.

There's so much emotion and so many ideas in this film that it's both angering and exhilarating. The acting is fine, the writing superb, the production crisp.

Its moving narrative requires little in the way of embellishment, but Temple’s documentary sometimes becomes too clever for its own good.

The film does a fine job of displaying the contrasts between these tense, formalized Chinese students and the faux populist American academics.

The movie's gentle humor and offbeat whimsy prove that humanity trumps bureaucratic foolishness, in Norway or anywhere else.

A lively, well-made schlock thriller that will doubtlessly be forgotten in two weeks, but in the meantime should provide a few pleasant evenings for fans of the genre.

As it turns out, "Liberty," a likable, light-as-air road comedy, is a much better movie than its sour-pun title.

Pretty silly. The Hot Spot certainly is, and it's occasionally quite entertaining for it, though the picture never really achieves a dimension beyond that of a Playboy Party Joke. [26 Oct 1990, Friday, p.I]

The film would be funnier and more provocative if it took a stronger stand on one side or the other, but Howard chooses to hedge his bets, selecting an ending that celebrates brotherhood more than the strongly hinted- at notion that American workers would do well to get off their featherbedding backs.

Zanuck seems unsure whether to swoon or to scold, and the distance she preserves between herself and the characters occasionally feels smug and exploitative. Still, Leigh preserves her integrity throughout, adding an inflexible reality principle to the often extravagant goings-on. [10 Jan 1992, p.J]

Dercourt, a very fine filmmaker, is a musician himself, a music teacher and one-time solo viola player with the French Symphony Orchestra. And he directs, with a musician's precision and an insider's sly wit, the world of classical music performance.

A film driven by an elusive plot buried like a cryptogram under the action. It's a delightfully screwy ethnographic murder mystery, beautifully photographed in translucent naturalistic color.

First-time director Timothy Bjorklund, who also shepherded Teacher's Pet on television, conducts some inventive, devilish sequences.

Works remarkably well as a stylish and unconventional buddy flick--cruising along with wit and wisdom.

Spiritual journeys, even if they’re comedies, don’t really lend themselves to the extreme, anal-retentive formalism found in every frame of The Darjeeling Limited.

Mamet being Mamet, the story has far greater repercussions than whether the kidnap victim will be returned to safety. This is a tale of grand conspiracies, formidable forces, shadow warfare; the more that is revealed, the higher the stakes become.

The best thing I can say about "Prelude to a Kiss" is that it seems fresh, daring its talented performers to play a couple in love. In 1992, that seems very bold. [10 Jul 1992, p.C]