A lively and poignant comedy with lots of laughs and juicy roles for a roster of seasoned performers who should be seen more often.

The film is loving but shallow.

Anderson gives The Machinist a sickly noirish look that contributes to the creeping horror - but it's the emaciated Bale's spectral presence that leaves the imprint.

When The Last Gladiators treats brawls like greatest-hits clips for more than half the movie, then suggests fighting is behind Nilan's decline, it feels like trying to have it both ways.

I liked that The Wolverine (which saves a nifty twist for a surprise scene in the middle of the end credits) turns down the volume on the usual din of colliding mutant superpowers.

Without a humanizing element like Blunt’s character, this whole grim affair is just a race to the bottom in which everyone loses.

A popcorn picture that thinks it’s “The Last Emperor,” The Karate Kid is about as likely to grab your youngster’s attention as any other propaganda film made by the Chinese government.

Saltburn has a brain, no doubt about it, but it also has a script that’s written in jet fuel.

This second installment of Lucas Belvaux's acclaimed "Trilogy" is decidedly inferior to the first: a farce that simply isn't funny.

Ten percent of Ghana's 20 million people are disabled, yet the film makes little attempt to explain why.

Soldini is able to take the shopworn theme and keep it interesting and fresh despite its lack of new ideas. He's assisted by strong performances by his two leading actors.

The adequate Netflix film, which was supposed to have been released two years ago, is funny in spots, but it flatlines early and gets way too gross.

A postcard-pretty psychological drama that's too moody and enigmatic for its own good.

Footnotes isn’t perfect, but at least nobody lectured me about jazz.

Kingsman: The Secret Service borrows the tone, story, characters and humor of “Kick-Ass,” only this time in a 007 world instead of Batman’s. Nearly everything it does, it does poorly: This one is “Weak-Ass.”

A movie needs more than a smart idea and an impressively visualized concept of the future to run smoothly. Two-thirds of the way through, “The Pod Generation’s” battery is already at 1%.

Birds of Prey moves at a breakneck pace with a dry, totally unsentimental sense of humor, and it never gets caught up in cliched morals or weighty lessons.

Somehow, mostly through the impassioned performances of its young actors, the film finds its footing in the third act, as the narration goes quiet and tragedy unfolds with precision, even elegance.

Since the characters barely get a chance to catch their breath, let alone say their piece, we don’t learn much about them beyond familiar traits. However, Reitman’s aim isn’t to seriously illuminate that fateful night so much as to energetically add to showbiz mythology.

Turns out to be one of the most absorbing films of the year. Plus it has lots of wiener jokes.

An effective damsel-stalked-by-psycho horror tale, only more lush, as befitting any film produced by Ross Hunter. [15 Aug 1999, p.035]

Beautifully photographed and acted, with a somberly affecting tone, the film, by Derek Cianfrance, is nevertheless marred by severely contrived elements.

The final scenes, when Mancini meets Kim’s son, have the awkward feel of an “Oprah” episode, with the editing and music suggesting a catharsis that isn’t always backed up by what’s on-screen.

Bad Hair is about 10 minutes too long. You don’t salivate over Anna’s home life as much as you do her office from hell, and a few of those scenes could have been trimmed. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see horror let its hair down again.

Working from a 1982 novel set in Quebec City, director-writer Jacob Tierney provides enough thrills and surprises, even a little satire, to keep viewers' attention.

Pandaemonium plays like a bus-and-truck version of such Ken Russell's '60s classics as "The Music Lovers."

Most of Ultimate X is comprised of truly exhilarating footage of men -- and one woman -- pushing their bodies and their nerve to the edge.

Alan Taylor ("Palookaville"), an American, directs with a playful touch, and Denmark's Hjejle is far more assured acting in English here than she was in "High Fidelity."