Olivia Thirlby adds some humanity as the empath. And as the scarred queen of a drug cartel, Lena Headey chews the scenery, and some of her costars, with relish.

Ultimately, The Adjustment Bureau shifts from paranoid dystopia to a more hopeful tenor, and that weakens it slightly.

C.O.G. is probably of the most interest to Sedaris fans curious to see how the humorist’s unique tone translates to film (the answer is moderately well).

For gourmands who appreciate this sort of cinematic comfort food, though, The White Countess is a fitting finale for the producer.

What the picture doesn't do is make sense of the world it tries to depict, or even, truly, depict it. Biggie -- and, for that matter, Woolard -- deserved better.

There’s nothing approaching a unique take on the story.

It's got a big heart and high spirits on a low budget and actors who refuse to phone it in.

Chock-full of the sort of levity that leaves you feeling you've been beaten about the head with a lead pipe.

It's old-fashioned, sometimes accomplished, syrupy and, at its intermittent best, absorbing.

The film is built as a series of (possibly tall) tales that don't add up to a plot, a theme or a purpose.

For at least three-fourths of its running time, The Concert is predictable, soft-edged and unremarkable. Then the titular performance, of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, begins, and the music elicits the emotional response the rest of the film has been striving for the whole time. It's enough to almost make the whole thing worthwhile.

If the film takes too long to wrap itself up --and hints, predictably, at a sequel -- the funky soundtrack is fun and McCarthy's South Boston relations are a scream.

What Machete does have -- and what saves it from itself -- is comic bloodthirst, shameless vulgarity and the determination of Rodriguez and Maniquis to wink at their audience at every moment.

It isn't, finally, satisfying: It's too uneven, indulgent, fey.

Its an intriguing reimagining of a period that was moving rapidly. [21 Aug 1998]

Multiplex audiences can choose over the next few weeks between two starkly different views of the future. The remnants of humanity struggle for survival in the brutal world of "Mad Max: Fury Road," while Tomorrowland offers an optimistic retro-future paradise full of jetpacks and robots. Me, I'll take post-apocalyptic desert wasteland over soulless corporate utopia any day of the week.

Point Break is actually better than you would expect for about the first hour, then starts the long, slow slide into dumber and dumber dumbness. You can almost hear the IQ points dropping from the screen. [12 July 1991, p.E17]

The Belgian comedy The Iceberg might be a pale shadow of the films of the great French comedian Jacques Tati, but even that's enough to qualify it as an amusing, inventive effort.

There's nothing earth-shaking here, but a chance to see one of cinema's great movie stars in a tailor-made role that pleasantly subverts her icy image is always welcome.

If it's meant as a retort to anti-Semitic doctrine, it's far too episodic, anecdotal and lacking in specifics.

Christensen, who played the James Bond villain Mr. White in "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace," cuts a striking, white-haired figure as Segerstedt, whose principled tirades against Hitler ultimately earn him the enmity of his prime minster and even his king.

British-born director Justin Chadwick might not seem the most logical choice to bring Mandela’s life to the screen, but he handles the historical sweep and the intimate moments with equal steadiness.

while the conception of bear behavior is false and sentimental, the bears' performances are perfect, through a combination of training, staging and editing. [27 Oct 1989, p.F15]

Red isn't edifying, ennobling, or artful. It's just an utterly satisfying combination of big kicks, cheap thrills and real laughs.

It's an interesting effort (particularly for JFK conspiracy nuts), and Barry's cold-fish act makes the experience worthwhile.

All guts, no glory and, worse, bad story.

There's a touch of second-rate playwriting about it that imparts a flattened feel to the end of an otherwise crackerjack picture.

What's truly disheartening about Cellular is that just as logic has become a luxury in a thriller, so has anything resembling tension.