The evocative visual style -- is the main reason to watch this whimsical comedy-drama.

The movie doesn't have much more get-up-and-go than the characters, but solid performances and richly textured camera work keep it involving most of the way through.

The movie has no profound insights to offer, but its nimble acting and lifelike dialogue make it entertaining as well as thoughtful. Think "Stand by Me" meets "Ghost World," and you just about have it.

The movie should fascinate anyone interested in politics, publishing, and the uneasy marriage between big money and mass communication.

Although the role may not have been written with great depth, Hussain’s performance as Mirza is richly layered.

The action is swift and witty, and the 3-D effects are imaginative and not simply tacked on as with so many animated movies these days.

Although its first hour is more stunning than its second, this is a movie musical that, for a change, never degenerates into a false wholesomeness. It’s one of the rare musicals that both children and adults can enjoy, though for somewhat different reasons.

Of course, most of the people who flock to Gremlins 2 are interested in the special-effects fantasy scenes featuring the gremlins themselves, and the nastier the better. Here the filmmakers are at their most energetic and most wearisome, dishing out so many silly-gruesome variations on the crazy-creature theme that you can't help being impressed, even as you feel like ducking under your seat for a moment's relief from the relentlessness of it all.

Brilliantly filmed in his usual transfixing style, Kubrick's last movie pleads for alertness to the temptations that assail human nature from within and without.

Despite his fascinating subject and an impressive cast -- Sayles lets his story drift in too many directions, as if he'd lost his Florida road map somewhere along the way during his travels.

Riveting stuff.

For all its ambitions, though, the Coens' odyssey is a scattershot affair with too many tricks and twists for its own good.

For the literal-minded, there’s an added bonus: Johnny Cash singing Solitary Man over the opening credits.

This pitch-black comedy is less lurid than its title, but director Danny Boyle ultimately fritters away his psychologically rich story in a horror-flick finale.

Nothing more than an efficient time-killer with the added bonus of being based on a real misadventure. But, unlike its benighted cast of characters, it gets the job done without a hitch.

The movie is often as raucous and seedy as its less-attractive characters, but it gains power from inventive acting and poignant touches.

Whatever brought Greene down was far more complex than this film allows for.

An actor making his directorial debut, Parker, who plays Turner and also co-wrote the script with Jean McGianni Celestin, has taken hold of an incendiary subject and coarsened its complexities into agitprop.

Essentially three movies in one: The staged reenactment of Columbus's expedition, the filming of that staged expedition, and the contemporary local uprising. It's a lot to bite off, especially since Bollaín's budget doesn't seem to be much larger than Sebastián's.

Ms. Denis is one of contemporary film's best stylists. Friday Night is part tone poem, part love song, and all pure magic.

[The Coen Brothers] sweat and strain to deliver more of the same cinematic ingenuity, but the result seems more nervous than inspired. Relax, fellas! [13 Mar 1987]

One of those stranger-than-fiction documentaries that just gets weirder and weirder as you’re watching it.

Some of the action is as lurid as the title, but passionate performances and ingenious visuals make this the most absorbing movie by Spanish director Almodvar since his great comedy "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."

The film, which swivels frantically between first responders, survivors, and investigators, has a percussive force, but its best scene, unbearably tense, is a quiet one, when a Chinese app designer (an excellent Jimmy O. Yang) is carjacked by the Tsarnaev brothers.

If you care anything about the music of groups like The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Mamas and the Papas, The Beach Boys, or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the ramshackle, engagingly anecdotal Echo in the Canyon is required viewing.

The film is a dual portrait in courage.

The movie is flawed by implausible psychology and moments of weak acting. But it's more than redeemed by Lee's passionate ideas about America today.

The ultimate feel-good movie about feeling bad. And within those limits, it succeeds all too well.