For a movie like this to last, you've got to have a certain amount of pathos to serve as connective tissue between those jokes. That's where Sisters is most lacking.

It is raw, it is searing, it is honest.

It's still darker, still grittier, still absent any shred of camp. Best of all, it's still got Daniel Craig.... So what's missing? How about a compelling story?

It's interesting to ponder how well Roman J. Israel, Esq. would have worked had Washington passed on the role. Thankfully, we don't have to ponder too long -- because Washington, indeed, took it, and he is terrific.

While it's enjoyable enough to watch, there's no slam-dunk takeaway here.

It's a grand, colorful adventure, an escapist romp draped in tinsel. And, who knows -- if you're all good little boys and girls this year, perhaps it will also be the first installment in a new DreamWorks holiday tradition.

More than just corny. Eclipse is boring.

What we're left with is a thoroughly mediocre, shrug-generating disappointment -- and one that certainly doesn't feel like it should have cost more than a third of a billion dollars to make and market.

Stone's characteristic on-his-sleeve political views aren't the problem with the often-sleepy Snowden. Rather, it's that his film – the lag-prone script for which the filmmaker co-wrote with Kieran Fitzgerald – really doesn't tell us much that we don't already know. That'll certainly be the case for anyone who saw director Laura Poitras' Oscar-winning 2014 documentary "Citizenfour," a remarkable bit of filmmaking.

Suffers through the occasional lull, but those would be much easier to forgive if they didn't also generate frequent false moments that threaten to take viewers out of the movie.

An Unexpected Journey also proves that it is, indeed, possible to get too much of a good thing.

Drama is one thing. Resonance is another. Without digging deeply enough, "The Finest Hours" seems content to capture the former while ignoring the latter.

A movie with undeniable melancholy underpinnings, but Bertuccelli wisely avoids overdoing the drama to nurse cheap tears from her audience.

An uneven R-rated Christmas comedy that's more enjoyable than, say, your Nana's fruitcake, but which at the same time doesn't feel quite like the dose of memorable holiday cheer it could have been.

This isn't a movie that pretends to be profound. It's meant purely as B-movie entertainment, and -- also like the "John Wick" films -- it's fully aware of that.

Even though Blue Bayou could have been set anywhere, Chon is smart enough of a storyteller to leverage the personality and textures of New Orleans — just as he did with southern Los Angeles in his 2017 film Gook — to lend his film a very specific and very authentic sense of place.

A heartwarming -- and at times heartbreaking -- post-"Juno" road comedy for grownups.

A low-energy drama, but the kind that has a way of holding your attention -- and keeping you smiling -- for the entire time you're watching it, lifting your mood in the process.

In a word: Bibbidi-bobbidi-blah.

The film -- lame of title but big on fun.

Blown up to big-screen size, you can see that "Going All the Way" isn't "a Midwestern 'Catcher in the Rye' " at all. It's really an old-fashioned gay romance - with everything but the significant glances ruthlessly cut out. [12 Dec 1997, p.L33]

In the end, it all amounts to something of a cinematic victory lap, but one played with finesse and just enough fresh material to make the encore worth it. In a world of bloated reboots and soulless sequels, “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” earns its place on the setlist.

Almost feels as if it is two different films. One is the opening 20 minutes or so, in which most of the screwball comedy takes place. The other comes when Yimou gets on with the real story. That's where the payoff comes in.

There's something haunting going on in The Notebook -- in the story, in the performances, in the overall atmosphere -- that makes it hard to look away from, and equally hard to forget.

Designed to lead viewers on a latter-day vision quest, "Little Buddha" instead offers only mystical mumbo-jumbo. And poorly plotted mumbo-jumbo, at that. [27 May 1994, p.L32]

That it's all true might make it more heart-tugging, but it doesn't make it any more interesting.

Along the way, a raft of experts are featured -- including Times-Picayune outdoor editor Bob Marshall -- speaking bluntly about the cozy relationship between politicians and the oil industry.

Aside from the “you-got-your-zombie-thriller-in-my-heist-movie” element, there’s nothing here that’s strikingly original, but Army of the Dead is still fun in its overblown, unapologetically violent way.