Sky Blue slows things down, creating a ponderous, almost languid movie-going experience.

It’s fairly entertaining even when it doesn’t quite work, directed for maximum pace by Cruise’s “Edge of Tomorrow” cohort, director Doug Liman.

The surreal and silly sequel to the hit 2015 comedy skates on the well-known but still-appealing comic personas of stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg and their zany chemistry.

Is the movie itself good? Half-good, I'd say - the second, more openly sentimental half.

A movie can be unreasonably formulaic and still be reasonably diverting, and A Bad Moms Christmas is the proof.

There are colors that pop throughout film — as if, in a nod to the title, drawn from a TV test pattern — and visually this is what stayed with me, from the yellow of Renesha’s dress, to the aqua benches against the white antiseptic floors of the hospital waiting room

And yet if Re-Animator offers only a few laughs, that still puts it smiles ahead of George Romero`s awful ''Return of the Dead,'' the third in his zombie series, which suffered from tired blood. At least director Gordon`s ghoulies drool on naked women and decapitate each other with shovels. Hoe, hoe, hoe.

The jokes are dirty and wildly inappropriate, but are thoughtfully played.

But as likable as it is, Tadpole is hardly a maturing woman's revenge movie, but another male fantasy -- that of the sexually nurturing mother figure. If only all coming-of-age sexual experiences could be as healthy and wholesome.

All in all, it's a fascinating, kid-friendly journey.

It's Aniston's return to the emotional authenticity that surfaced too briefly in "Friends With Money" and made "The Good Girl" such a revelation.

It's worth seeing simply to make the acquaintance of Tobias, a really extraordinary old guy.

Feels different from most recovering-train-wreck stories. The movie is a tidy relaying of a messy situation involving two reasonably functional middle-class LA alcoholics, one of whom gets serious about cleaning up a lot sooner than the other.

It takes a while to get used to Mick Jagger as a paid predator, wearing a goofy helmet and spouting lines like, "Get the meat!" But by the end of Freejack, a fairly silly new sci-fi action thriller, rock star Jagger has made the role his own. [20 Jan 1982, p.C7]

A potentially great movie--with talent and plot points to spare--that settles for being just okay.

Frequently maddening in its reiteration and circularity, Song to Song nonetheless offers more of interest (along with the hooey) than I found in "Knight of Cups" or "Voyage of Time," his recent IMAX cosmos travelogue.

A paper-thin wish-fulfillment comedy about escaping small-town repressions and blasting conformity.

While Lunacy leaves you with the impression that Svankmajer is more expressive with cutlets than he is with his atypically human-dominated dreamscape, some of the images are doozies.

Stupid but fun.

Near the end, we hear Cobain reveal his disdain for adults who “can’t even pretend, or at least have enough courtesy for their children, to talk to one another civilly.” A painful and unexpected moment.

Too often the movie’s franchise mechanics and green-screen overload have a way of dragging “The Marvels” into generic sequeldom. But the stars give us something to hang onto, even if Larson — so good in so many films — has yet to master the useful trick of looking neutral yet invested in her many, many reaction shots.

There's a good movie in this story. The one that got made is roughly half-good.

Succeeds in bringing the best attributes of Nickelodeon TV to the big screen.

Hedges is a determined romantic and a bit of a saphead. He's also humane.

When the secrets of David's circumstances and motives start spilling into the daylight along with more and more blood, The Guest does a strange thing. It becomes flat-footed and a bit dull.

So laden with forced plot twists that it will never be able to recover.

Louiso has a confident touch and a good eye, and there isn't a scene in the film that wasn't intelligently done. Besides Hoffman's near-great performance as Joel, there isn't a bad or mediocre acting job on view either.

Made with the full cooperation of the Pentagon, Brothers at War makes the war on-screen seem eminently winnable, eminently noble. Rademacher's desire to prove himself to himself, and to his soldier brothers, may stir different reactions among different audience members. And that's as it should be.

A glass three-fifths full, writer-director Lynn Shelton’s affable comedy Sword of Trust gets by on the improvisational wiles of its cast.

The way director and co-adapter Armfield shoots it, the film's awfully pretty in its grimness, in the way "Leaving Las Vegas" managed to make train-wreck alcoholism more fake-lyrical than grungy.

Thing is, Levy is a hard-sell man. He pushes the material so hard, it's as if he were working on commission.

Considering how good "Puccini's" middle often is, it's a shame it falls down fore and aft. But Maggenti, who loves Carole Lombard and William Powell in "My Man Godfrey," is tapping a likable vein here. She should open it up again.

By the time Watanabe encounters a holy senile fool in the forest, the film has foregone contemporary urban “King Lear” territory for something a lot closer to the Lifetime Channel.

Although the film isn't an empty picture, it is too much of a good thing. Voight delivers a wonderful speech to Roberts about survival, but it's only one of many such monologues. Similarly, Roberts is tiring in his frantic reactions.

With The Way Back, Ben Affleck didn’t have to deliver his biggest or most attention-getting performance, simply — and simplicity is hard — his truest.

While the subject matter makes Nuremberg worth the watch, the film itself is a mixed bag, with some towering performances (Crowe and Shannon), and some poor ones. It manages to eke out its message in the eleventh hour, but it feels too little too late, in our cultural moment, despite its evergreen importance.

Around the midpoint, Pineapple Express falls apart and keeps falling, and the comedy, spiced with considerable, unevenly effective violence in that first hour, goes out the window, and in comes all the gore and the bone-crunching.

Whimsy and wit are the saving graces of much British movie comedy, and Saving Grace has a decent measure of both.

Alternately sweet and mean, sophisticated and vulgar, witty and base, dazzling and ugly, charming and charmless.

Has its satisfactions, thanks mainly to a cast skillful enough to finesse what is effectively two films sharing the same screen.

At its best, this uneven work represents Moore at the peak of his argumentative skills.

At least there's Cage, who has become an astute voice actor, finding some odd, clever, energetic line readings consistently fresher than The Croods itself.

Filming on locations in Prague and in various Czech locations serving as London and the English countryside, the director delivers Dickens' tale with some style. The style, however, is that of a more cautious artist than Polanski is at his best.

The movie takes paranoia to a far edge. And some audiences will admire it simply because it doesn't waste time on the normality it's going to end up subverting-because it's more fixated on its pods than its people. [25 Feb 1994, p.C]

It's big, brash and dramatically it goes in circles. The first two may be enough for most people, especially if they're into Formula One racing, to overlook the third.

An epic unhinged, and while its best sections suggest a Loony Tune done by Sam Peckinpah and Emilio Fernandez, "Mexico" needs to be even crazier than it is.

Ward's ambitions for this project far outstripped the intentions and capacities of its screenplay.

A string of slapstick sequences at the end of Brain Donors...finally unleashes its potential for subversive hilarity. But the wait is long and not altogether compensated by Turturro's smooth delivery.

Chirpy, bland, slightly maudlin Christmas musical comedy. [21 Dec 2001, p.C5]

The film is easy to take and easy to forget, even with Black running around Oaxaca in turquoise wrestling tights.

For sheer lavishness, attention to detail, honesty of purpose, The Great Ziegfeld is to be commended. Where the picture falls down - hard! - is in its fulsomeness. [15 Apr 1936, p.21]

This one's a margin Western. Frustratingly uneven, rarely dull.

The movie is a paradox. It's ostentatiously restrained. You cannot say Corbijn lacks rigor. You can, however, say that when a talented director's approach too precisely mirrors the tightly calibrated performance strategy of his leading player, a movie risks stalling out completely.

This one's a step down from the original.

They never quite got the script right, but director Kormakur toggles well enough. And Woodley sees it through.

The point is: When Sweet Dreams' as it is now constructed, is over, we remember and are intrigued more by Charlie Dick than by Patsy Cline, played by Jessica Lange in a performance that comes up short when necessarily compared with Sissy Spacek`s tour de force as Loretta Lynn in ''Coal Miner`s Daughter.''

If it has the edge over the 2018 and 2020 movies, the reason is simple though her talent certainly isn’t: Lupita Nyong’o.

The Good Liar takes its sweet time to pick up steam and pulls its punches in places where it could have been even darker and more daring. Erring on the side of caution isn’t exactly the approach one should take when it comes to suspense thrillers.

The second film lingers less determinedly on the degradation of Lisbeth and concentrates more on moving the narrative furniture around. The relationship between the main characters is the glue holding the balsa wood together.

This new heist movie by the great thriller director John Frankenheimer flails around like its own dysfunctional gang of casino robbers.

The film wears its heart--and its nostalgia--on its sleeve, but while it's clearly made by people who love old Hollywood musicals, it never stoops to being just a vehicle for smug genre references.

Spirit Untamed is a sweet film with a moving message about embracing family, heritage and most importantly, yourself, just the way you are, even if that means bravery and recklessness often go hand in hand.

The filmmaker's access was impressive, the results moderately entertaining.

Jim Carrey is good as Scrooge. There’s surprisingly little shtick in his performance.

Bailed out by a few good jolts, Jurassic World gets by, barely, as a marauding-dinosaurs narrative designed for a more jaded audience than the one "Jurassic Park" conquered back in 1993.

Unlike a few other well-drilled young actress-singers we could name, such as the one whose name rhymes with "Riley Myrus," Gomez knows how to relax on camera.

There's something off in its scenes of Arterton's romantically unlucky loner showing up at Arthur's home, in the rain, distraught. If the movie weren't so determined to placate, you'd think you're in for a daring exploration of an affair between a 30-something emotional cripple and a 70-something sexy beast, unchained at last.

Code Unknown is a film you think more than feel. Though each scene is executed close to flawlessly, the cumulative effect is often oppressive. But at the center of the film -- the real reason it was made -- is Binoche, one of the genuinely radiant presences in movies today.

The movie seems so convinced of its own entertainment value that it has neglected to factor in the elements that make a comedic thriller more than just a facile exercise -- i.e., suspense, tension, heart. Being amused by plot turns is not the same as caring, and Clay Pigeons never inspires you to grab your armrest or catch your breath. [25 Sept 1998]

It's Ferrell who is the vehicle, a mow-you-down comic engine, and everyone else is just along for the ride in this marginally effective, starkly unoriginal family comedy.

A short film with a unique subject matter. But you won't soon forget its people, its places or its sad, surprising revelations about all the sexes.

Demme gets a lot of flavor and spice into his "Charade" remake, but he can't disguise that he's spiffing up leftovers that aren't so substantial or fresh.

The pleasures of Jumanji: The Next Level are not visual or story-based, as they revolve around the ability of each of our stars and their abilities to do impressions.

Coppola has raised the stakes, promising the definitive version of the vampire story. What he has created, however, is fresh and original yet boring, an exercise more in art direction than storytelling. [13 Nov 1992, p. C]

There's really nothing wrong with the movie; it delivers exactly what Arnold's audience wants, but I'm not part of that crowd. I'm tired of jungle fights and creatures with weird fangs. [12 June 1987, p.A]

The actors in Nadja seem to be having such a good time that it's a shame the movie doesn't give them more room, and get even wilder and more eccentric.

Although Star Maps has some merit as a mood piece, Arteta's treatment of the audience has parallels to Pepe's treatment of Carlos, as he hammers home a message of no hope. [8 Aug 1997, p.K]

Campbell and her character are willing to take chances. But Toback's tangled noirish plot, with Vera as a post-feminist femme fatale, isn't particularly clever or original.

It’s a charming and quirky New York tale, if a bit disorganized, finding its voice when it quiets down to just listen to the three women at the center of the story.

Carpenter writes his own scripts -- here with past collaborator Larry Sulkis -- and their "Ghosts" screenplay lacks the density, character and humor of a Hollywood genre classic.

Possession needs a sharp eye, a wicked tongue, less reverence and much more of its author's voice.

Role Models wouldn't be anything without Mintz-Plasse, whose character occasions what may be the cinema's first really funny Marvin Hamlisch joke, and whose camera presence is at once unfailingly modest and distinctive.

It's a very small film, undermined by a puttering rhythm and Pinter-worthy pauses in the second half and a resolution neither satisfyingly oblique nor conventionally pleasing.

Ultimately the film functions as an elbow to the ribs: “Remember this? Remember how fun it was?”

By salvaging a troubled script with deep, committed, touching portrayals, Plummer and Walsh help prove Schroeder’s points about how Hollywood isn’t just the province of the rich, young and pretty.

An odd, one-sided documentary that nevertheless opens a window onto Australian class struggles and a world weirdly familiar and exotic simultaneously.

The script is half-a-fortune at best, and visually the picture is staid. But you stick with it, because it's Williams and because certainly no one since Williams has written this sort of embroidered dialogue.

A handsome but lightweight period piece about passions indulged and repressed, and the calamitous outcomes that result from both courses.

The content may be dubious, but the execution is hypnotic.

To what degree does Zoo test our limits of tolerance? In the end, not much, which is why Devor's strange, carefully composed objet d'art is a limited achievement.

From first to last frame, Total Recall is in your face. Its rather elegant little science-fiction story is as suffocated as the Martians are. The director has violated his own movie, going so far over the top he's still out there-weightless. [1 June 1990, Friday, p.C]

In many respects, Forgiving Dr. Mengele is an ordinary documentary, stylistically and technically unexceptional. But its subject enobles the work. So does Kor : determined, indomitable, and by the end of the movie, a symbol herself of both survival and mercy.

What the Bleep Do We Know? is both modern science for dummies and a feisty extension of our ongoing religious debate.

At heart, though, odd as it sounds, Gray has created a pocket-sized version of “Apocalypse Now.” Ad Astra bends the Francis Ford Coppola Vietnam-era extravagance, about the rogue commander, Kurtz, and the errand boy, Willard, into its own thing. Like Coppola’s film, and the Joseph Conrad novel “Heart of Darkness," the new film examines the limits of colonialist hubris. It’s also, and primarily, a father/son parable of betrayal, confrontation and forgiveness.

If "Roll Bounce" and "Boyz n the Hood" fell in love and had a PG-13 baby, it would be ATL.

If you're in the mood for something strange, this film may please you, twice over.

Just because it's true to life doesn't mean it can sing.

It suffers from stilted Vista Vision staging and a lack of gloss -- but has some sparkling Cole Porter musical numbers. [26 Sep 1999, p.26C]