It may sound like faint praise to say that Enchanted is the movie of the year for smart and spirited 11-year-old girls. But a movie that genuinely respects that audience is not to be belittled.

Kore-eda has a gift for portraying goodness that is quite rare. He does so without a whisper of banality.

The most original and amusing animation in recent memory. Kids will love its fantasy and adventure, and grownups should appreciate its whimsical humor.

Night Moves may have a soft, almost dreamy feel, but at the core it’s crucially hard-headed. In its own quiet way, in how it pulls together our utopian ideals and home-grown fears, it’s the zeitgeist movie of the moment.

Ultimately it’s an upbeat movie about life’s downbeats.

While almost entirely family-friendly, the film deserves its PG rating: One plot point near the very end would have totally freaked my tender childhood sensibilities.

Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns maintain a tone of taut creepiness, but the plot’s double and triple crosses are more ingenious than believable.

The first half drags a bit, but the adventure scenes are exciting and the visual effects are as dazzling as Hollywood's most advanced technology can make them. Focusing as much on time and memory as on danger and disaster, it's an epic with a heart.

One thing few will disagree on is the quality of the film's acting, especially by Gael García Bernal as Guevara and Rodrigo de la Serna as his friend. Both effortlessly embody the footloose, sometimes feckless quality of this "On the Road"-style adventure.

The most perplexing thing about this portrait is that, against all odds, the kids mostly seem outlandishly resilient and good-natured. I say “seem” because, again, I don’t entirely trust this portrait. Too much of what Moselle shows us looks tenderized.

By turns jokey, portentous, and pretentious, the movie immediately sizes up each of its protagonists and never budges from that assessment.

It's unlikely there will ever be a more moving portrait of the shared selfhood, usually veiled by politics, common to the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

Written and directed by newcomer Noah Baumbach with an excellent ear for absurdity and a keen eye for the offhand realities of everyday life in a den of unmitigated slack.

The action, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, is thuddingly effective without being terribly imaginative, but at least it’s not in the clobber-the-audience “Transformers” category.

The film only touches the surface of Monk's complex and mysterious personality, and it doesn't explore the deepest roots of his innovative style. It's full of magnificent jazz, though, and offers an unprecedented look at Monk's unconventional behavior, both onstage and off. [06 Oct 1989, p.10]

Maier is a great artist who discounted adulation entirely. Her life was a masquerade; her genius, quite literally, was unexposed.

A startling, suspenseful ride few will forget in a hurry.

Filmed in a quietly impressionistic style and splendidly acted by a well-chosen cast, the movie would be a top-of-the-line entertainment if its delicately balanced perspective weren't marred by a few moments of racially insensitive excess.

Peter Cattaneo's comedy has brash and boisterous scenes, but its message about the humiliations of unemployment is serious and insightful, and applies far beyond the English setting of this story.

Funny, sad, and skeptical in about equal measures, it announces writer-director Dylan Kidd as a filmmaker with a bright future.

The overall effect is too self-worshipping to be of lasting interest. The guy sure isn't shy!

Acted and directed with a savvy understatement that perfectly matches the eccentric story.

Intimate and engaging.

Like all good noirs, it has an almost comic appreciation for how the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong. No matter how bad things get, they can always get worse. I watched the film in a state of rapt enjoyment.

Four university students band together under the obnoxious mentorship of Andre (Thibault Vinçon), who is meant to be brilliant but, to me at least, seemed all too obviously a poseur. His betrayal of his friends deepens the movie.

Spielberg's directing is a tad less tricky than usual, but he doesn't have much talent for psychological suspense, which is the heart of the story. DiCaprio underplays nicely and Walken is superb as the con artist's downtrodden dad.

I couldn’t follow many of the ins and outs of the time-travel scenario, and I’m not altogether sure that the filmmakers could, either. It doesn’t really matter. It’s enough that the movie is fun. We shouldn’t also expect it to make sense.

It’s clear from the way writer-director Martin Zandvliet sets up the story that the fiery Rasmussen, who denies the boys adequate rations and pens them indoors at night, will eventually soften. It’s to the film’s credit that he does so in ways that are eminently believable.