A likable, low-budget high school comedy.

Any movie that considers the possibility of an afterlife, or the possibility that there isn't one, without first getting all postapocalyptic about it, merits some respect. Stay, Mia, stay!

As remakes go, Footloose is fine, serving up slightly fresher batches of cheese and corn. But why? Why?

The film is better on mood than on message, sharply etching the professional desperation behind the forced gaiety.

Brings too much of EVERYTHING to the table: It's the cinema equivalent of a long, winding, run-on sentence.

Unlike "Caché" and "Code: Unknown," where Haneke's investigations into societal and spiritual despair resonated with poetic force, The White Ribbon doesn't resonate at all.

Has the arc of a Shakespearean tragedy, and all the essential components therein: loyalty and betrayal, conspiracy and delusion, self-destruction.

A Tale of Love and Darkness loses itself in dreamy imagery, in its studiously crafted aesthetic. But there are times when Portman lets the toughness, the tenacity, the emotional heart of Oz's story shine through.

Featuring an awe-inspiring, stellar performance by Parks and Recreation's (and Wilmington's) Aubrey Plaza as Beth, the film opens with the high school girl's short-lived death.

With ambitions greater than comedy and results that fall short of character study, The Big Year is neither fish nor fowl.

Kunis, rebounding from the disastrous Jupiter Ascending (an unintentional comedy if ever there was one), demonstrates an easygoing comic flair.

Hunt, whose flutelike voice makes music of Wilde's dialogue, has the most difficult role. While she acquits herself honorably, she nudges her lines a little too broadly, as if she's worried that the audience will miss the double meanings and wordplay.

In-your-face polemic, with nowhere to go once the point has been made. Repeatedly.

Lacking in subtlety and nuance, Broomfield's nerve-jangling movie nonetheless succeeds in showing the war from various vantage points. And from wherever one's standing, the view is profoundly disturbing.

Fans of the original should relish going back to Back to the Future, as long as they keep in mind that in movies - as in life - you can't go home again. And if you do, things aren't likely to be the same. [22 Nov 1989, p.E1]

Peter Jackson devotees may not like to hear this, but Jack the Giant Slayer is far more accomplished, visually speaking, than The Hobbit: An Unexpected Snooze, I mean, Journey.

Unlike the first film, which was broader and more episodic, this one has a narrative throughline.

A goofy sports inspirational.

As superb as Boseman is - moving with athletic grace, doing splits with hair curled in a sky-high pompadour, approximating Brown's rapid-fire, guttural speaking voice without descending to Eddie Murphy SNL parody - he's never quite good enough to convince you you're watching the Hardest Working Man in Show Business up on screen.

Based on the charming young-adult novel by Florida bard Carl Hiaasen, Hoot is a pleasant diversion on the order of a gloriously photographed after-school special.

Salt offers a sloppy concoction of story elements from '70s espionage classics - the sinister black ops of "Three Days of the Condor," the nuclear dread of "Fail-Safe," the political-assassination scenarios of "The Day of the Jackal."

It's the emotional equivalent of a big shrug.

If you strip away all the gunplay, Hitman: Agent 47 would be about 10 minutes long.

It lacks the resonances of Gilbert's book.

The moral of this softhearted tale is that family values can rehabilitate and tenderize even the toughest of birds. But you'll forgive me if I liked it less when Stuart smoothed Margalo's feathers than when Snowbell's fundamental cattiness made the fur fly.

An undeniable pleasure of National Treasure was watching a movie shot locally that wasn't haunted by a virus or by dead people.

The screenplay of Open Range, credited to one Craig Storper, is an awesome compendium of cowboy-movie cliches. It borders on parody, and often crosses the border, rustling up a drove of oater aphorisms.

Sex and the City 2 is a champagne cocktail on a runaway train -- fizzy, sparkly, giddy-making, and splashing all over the place.