O'Toole just keeps turning up the volume, and it's thrilling to watch.

As horror movies go, The Conjuring is an extremely skillful, entertaining remix album. That's not an insult.

The film features some fine performances and explores an intriguing set of themes, but it fails to ever take life, causing its laudable message to fall on deadened ears. [12 Oct 1993, p.C1]

All the hammy acting and meandering storytelling in the world can't drown the essential appeal of the story.

Innocence revisits imagery from the first film. But this time computer animation pumps everything up to epic proportions. The results are overwhelming.

The Homesman is so stark and haunting to look at and listen to -- cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and composer Marco Beltrami support the story with career-best work -- that it's easy to miss the twists that blow across the screen.

Watching it isn't easy, but it is definitely worth having waited for.

If there's a calmer, more self-collected star out there, then he or she has hidden the fact pretty well.

The East never goes as deep undercover as it should.

Monster House makes its intentions clear: It wants to wrap you in a thick, warm blanket of 1980s nostalgia.

He's good, but Depp can't quite annihilate the self-consciousness that makes some of his more light-hearted work shine. Too often, it feels like he's channeling other actors: here he's Jack Nicholson with Hunter S. Thompson's nose, there he's an Irish-American Ray Liotta.

One of those gratifyingly nostalgic works of art that accept the present day but remind us, as well, that the past wasn't necessarily worse.

If you can look beyond the simple-minded Socratic political discourse, The Edukators reveals itself as warm, humane and sad, a movie that genuinely wants you to think about how idealism eventually collides with human frailty, and about what upstarts and sell-outs might teach one another.

This time the talk was cheap, not witty or sharp. Tarantino the writer let his gift of gab get away from him and didn't give his script a close enough edit. Tarantino the director didn't do enough with the static setting; the flashbacks don't help and the big timeshift that's meant to explain everything that's happened feels incomplete.

The Illusionist might trick some moviegoers into thinking it's clever, deft, old-fashioned fun. But I urge those folks to stay home with a real classic romantic thriller on DVD or cable to remember the difference. This film doesn't even manage to breathe old life into the forms it apes.

The 82-year-old director has a light, assured touch and wrote a script that gives his actors space to shine.

Charlotte's Web is worth seeing (even if you don't have the excuse of a child to bring along with you) simply because it is so enduring after more than 50 years.

The writing, acting and filmmaking make Hustle & Flow nothing short of amazing.

While it lacks the experimental razzle-dazzle of "Lola," the film is a similarly confident and fetching look at love, coincidence, tragedy and fate among the young, the bored and the beautiful.

Not just love, but maybe an escape from a wretched world. We're not sure, but that's what makes Heaven so inexplicably, intriguingly soulful, even in its most remote and architectural instances.

Isn't a bad movie so much as one that feels like an amateur version of material from more accomplished works -- a movie that not only isn't sure what it really is but doesn't seem terribly much to care.

Ordinary folks working together to triumph over incredible odds, depicted in a Disney film that doesn't overdose on sentiment? That's the real miracle.

"Waltz" requires you to be on board with it from the start and doesn't often enough rouse itself to magnetize you if you're not.

One of those American independent films with two chief points to recommend it: the earnest good will of its creators and its determination to be unlike any studio film.

Katz, who has been saddled with the deadly label "mumblecore" in the past, and Stephens ("Pilgrim Song") combine sensibilities of dry wit and warm earnestness in precise proportions. It's also further proof, if it were needed, that smart, funny, entertaining films are always around, even in the dog days of summer. You just have to know where to look.

Once things get going, and especially when Moore takes center stage, "Maps" becomes more involving, sometimes queasily funny, and even, almost despite itself, a tiny bit moving. Hooray for Hollywood, indeed.

There are some attempts at a comic-bookish, film noir vibe, including a hotel where all the crooks and killers stay, forbidden by house rules from "doing business"on the premises. And everywhere Keanu turns, he bumps into a character from HBO.

Co-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who won an Oscar for writing "The Descendants," are smart enough to mostly stay out the way and let this talented crew bring their script to life.

Favreau's a big man who knows how to wield a chef's knife and shoots the food truck scenes with a hectic good nature that's infectious.

Popping with intrigue, intelligence and colorful New York characters seemingly straight out of a paperback potboiler.

Why We Fight attempts, somewhat sketchily, to connect the dots between Ike's Cassandra-like warnings and current events.

Down Terrace is so intimate and hilariously offhanded (a hit man shows up for a job pushing his 3-year-old in a stroller) that it is all the more shocking when murderous violence finally erupts about halfway through.

Chow's specialty is over-the-top slapstick action in the Hong Kong style, and the new film doesn't disappoint on either count.

What is appealing in Avalon is what is appealing in Levinson's best films, Diner, Tin Men and Rain Man. He creates relationships with texture. After a half-hour, the viewer feels part of the family, yet has an overview allowing a tolerance for the characters they don't always have for themselves. [19 Oct 1990, p.F04]

It's the rest of the movie, especially a grin-inducing final third, which makes "Apes" rise above the level of a typical sci-fi rehash.

A movie that will wear you out and make you misty even when you don't want to be. It's a gushy, sometimes-maudlin, often-charming movie that highlights the importance of little things.

It's a movie of charm and insight, well-acted and carefully observed, but it's also one that lacks any real heights to offset the generic competence that characterizes it. There's no real drama to follow, no surprises of sufficient magnitude to enliven the experience.

An engaging spectacle of energy and special effects built around a doomy mood and an ensemble cast vigorously pursuing a story line that isn't nearly as snazzy as the dressing.

Really, though, the most surprising thing about this system is how it disregards some of the basic tenets of conservatism.

Even without the eyeglasses that gave viewers a headache, this film is a classic because it is one of the earliest and best of the wailing-music-in-the-desert-after-the-UFO-has-landed genre. This movie is a cut above some of the truly awful, tacky aliens-behind-the-cactus space operas of that era, possibly because the script was adapted from a story by Ray Bradbury. [29 Nov 1987, p.11]

The jokes are sparse and predictable, and the storytelling is, too. But Buscemi and Gershon have great fun with their roles, and Pitt is strangely agreeable about the whole thing. Bully for him.

It's difficult to imagine a better film adaptation of Maclean's work. [16 Oct 1992]

This mock-documentary look at one man's allegorical tour of Italy is a whimsical, intelligent antidote to big-budget Hollywood formula bloat. [18 Nov 1994, p.15]

What saves Kisses from its missteps is the chemistry between O'Neill and Curry.

flat and disappointing.

It's not clear that Ayoade has anything new to say about these time-worn themes, but he has fun creating the world of the film.

The teachers have moxie. The students have courage. Mermin's warm, funny, beautiful and deeply humane documentary certainly honors the latter.

Cianfrance is the real deal, and anyone who can persuade talented Hollywood stars to enact nonironic, intelligent, ambitious drama should be encouraged, especially when the result is something like this.

A pure, sweet romance that moves along with bouncy comedy and a touch of grown-up realism and rue.

It's a bit insidery, yes, but isn't it a treat to be brought inside a hidden world by a movie?

A purely cinematic experience. You've got to see it, in other words, to understand.

The darkest, most operatic, and technologically richest "Star Wars" movie to date, "Sith" is grim, stirring entertainment and a nearly complete vindication of everything its creator has been saying for six years about where the series was heading and what its final shape would be.

Mournful and moody, crepuscular and poetic, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford turns one of cinema's most rehearsed tales into a dreamy inquiry into the nature of sadism, hero-worship and betrayal.

Sneaks up on you. At first, it plays like it might be another in a long line of dullish legal thrillers. But then, in its modest, grown-up way, it keeps getting better and better.

De la Iglesia is a mercilessly agile talent.

With so much potential, The Valet is disappointingly flat and wan, with few of the moments of cringe-and-laughter-inducing mortification that are Veber's stock in trade.

Apart from its sociological interest, though, Nathan's film offers the pleasure of some really impressive stunt driving.

For those under the impression that Icelandic life consists solely of fishing and the hosting of international summits, this triangle of love, lust, and misunderstanding from director Baltasar Kormakur is a welcome treat.

Manages to be a solid, though not exceptional, heist movie with a good-looking cast and -- maybe -- even better-looking cars.

The politics of the story come to life through the vivid characterizations of a uniformly excellent cast.

If you're not a Beasties fan, you'll get almost nothing out of this after about two minutes. But if you like the band and want to see them rock hard in front of their oldest fans, it's a tasty treat.

Neighbors makes "Animal House" look like "Remembrances of Things Past."

Isn't meant to be a depressing experience, as each of these unfortunate souls recovers a sense of pride in themselves and their tribe through music.

The film is best when it isn't trying to be an action epic, but is simply being a character study. Here stands a man, asked to prepare for an unspeakable thing by an unknowable presence.

Barrymore is terrific with her actors, finding moments for even the smallest supporting players.

Z for Zachariah has things to say about the tugs-of-war between science and spirituality, thought and action, men and women. It's just not exactly sure what they are.

Falls somewhere between the kind of trashy, campy romp that's on movie channels in the middle of the night (though with far superior acting and production values) and the dark psychological thrillers of Kim Ki-duk.

A movie that, like its title character, is meandering, unstructured and only dimly aware of what it’s doing.

A dense, sharp, hilarious and unflinching film about a group of British Muslims who seek to shock the world with an apocalyptic act of jihad but are too dumb, contentious and accident-prone to succeed at anything much more audacious than ringing a doorbell and running.

If The Good Thief isn't up to the work that inspired it, it's nevertheless fresh and distinct, a shot of citrus in a movie season far too often tasting of pablum.

Inspired by uprisings in the former Soviet bloc as well as, more pointedly, the Arab Spring, Makhmalbaf serves up a surprisingly tense, sometimes poignant parable. It's good to have him back.

Frequently gory, often talky, almost always watchable, never quite thrilling, Gladiator is a cold and big film that mixes solid acting with cheesy digital effects and sweaty action with stultifying chatter.

Moon doesn't arrive with a train of ballyhoo, but its quiet charms easily drowns out the clatter of bigger, dumber pictures.

Make no mistake: This isn't a relentless button-pushing joke machine like the best Apatow schlumpy-man comedies. I guess I'd describe it as "agreeably ribald."

The result feels less like selling out than growing up.

One of the most exciting American movies about recent political history since, ironically, Oliver Stone's "JFK."

Kung Fu 2 does almost NOTHING to advance the story, to deepen the characters, or to charm, amuse or entertain.

The message here is vital, though, and Siegel retains the gift of making you dream of making a difference.

There's a terrific balance between human comedy and just-this-side-of-science-fiction in Robot & Frank.

Like a lot of movies associated with Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, ``Manny & Lo'' is long on atmosphere, rich in character and not very goal-oriented. But Manny, Lo and Elaine are fully human female characters one is glad to have met. How many movies offer us anything of the sort? [13 Sep 1996, p.21]

It's a sad commentary on the independent film business when a proven filmmaker like Hartley has to go hat in hand to the Internet for his budget, but at least he got to make the movie on his terms. It turns out to be the best thing he's done since "Henry Fool."

A bright, sexy, globe-trotting and very French romantic comedy.

Travolta does a nice job, but Bolt is of course the most boring, blandly cute character in the movie.

With less intelligence behind it, this could have easily been one of those films that seem like they were more fun to make than to watch. Instead, it's a thoroughly good time at the movies, from humble beginning to cosmic, surprise-cameo-featuring end.

By turns absorbing, unsettling and, for lack of a better word, icky.

The movie is directed with real confidence by Batmanglij. He lets his actors breathe, builds suspense in one group-purge brainwashing scene, and lets the mystery unfold in an immersive way that's probably a bit more compelling than its actual scripted payoff deserves.

"Sixth" achieves a rare hushed poetry where Stir, for all its strengths, is more earthbound and familiar.

A savagely partisan indictment of George W. Bush's presidency.

It's nonetheless a fascinating, thirst-inspiring, thought-provoking journey. Just one request for the lengthier version: fewer shots of dogs' swimsuit areas, please.

The first hour of Die Hard 2 is pretty good, despite consistent improbability. It's the second half, with its consistent impossibility, that looks like "Tom 'n' Jerry" or "Roadrunner." [6 July 1990, p.E3]

In effect, Caden's life passes before his eyes while he is living it. And Kaufman shares this effect with us through a strange process he achieves with invisible strings; it's a knockout.

Edge of Seventeen has such a sweet heart that you wish it were more capably made and played. If you can forgive a great many little stumbles, you may succumb to its decency. But there's a lot to overlook. [17 Sep 1999]

You don't often hear critics gripe that a movie isn't long or explicit enough, but Sorkin and Nichols could have gone the extra lap or so to show that Wilson's saga is more than just a story of a good ol' boy accidentally pulling off a remarkable coup; it's a sobering account of the geopolitical hijinks that gave shape to our current world.

An energetic, witty and altogether well-built martial arts drama that is familiar in many ways but distinguished by its high level of craft, its sincere sentiment and drama, and the forceful charisma of its star, Donnie Yen.

Kyle Patrick Alvarez, whose previous movie was the filmed-in-Oregon "C.O.G.," stages the many torture scenes in a tight, claustrophobic way that works to heighten tension.

All of Gibney's movies are worth watching. The best ones – "We Steal Secrets" (about WikiLeaks), "Client 9" (about Spitzer) and "Taxi to the Dark Side" (about Afghanistan) – speak truth to power in daring, unexpected ways. The Armstrong Lie feels like wheel-spinning, outraged that Armstrong lied not only to millions of people but to Gibney and then not pushing the evidence to the finish line.

There's a touch of whimsy to his misadventures, but the malfeasance he uncovers -- often using hidden cameras and microphones -- is anything but a joke.

The bickering lovers are generally likable, as are her quintessentially and hilariously Gallic parents (played by Delpy's real mom and dad).