Not a great film, but it's an excuse to have an evening of pure enjoyment with a little culture painlessly mixed in.

Provided the viewer is broad-minded enough not to be bothered by a nearly constant stream of profanity, Strays offers a kennel of off-color laughter.

This is essentially a familiar story told with consummate skill.

Dominic Cooke’s unadorned style and pacing work for the material and the result is a spy story worth telling and experiencing.

Despite providing an opportunity to spend 147 minutes in the company of people we have grown to know and love over the years and advancing the narrative toward its final cataclysmic confrontation, The Deathly Hallows Part One underachieves. At a time when Harry Potter should be soaring to new heights, it remains curiously grounded.

The best one-liners, like the best fight scenes, are reserved for Schwarzenegger. It's too soon to tell whether Terminator Genisys will have a catch phrase like "I'll be back" or "Hasta la vista, baby" but there are several candidates. Much of the film's comedy results from The Terminator's failed attempts to emulate human behavior.

Tom Jones succeeded in large part because of its wit, its performances, and its energy.

While such a loud, brash interpretation may not go down in cinematic history as the definitive version of the play, hopefully it will open a few eyes and widen the audience willing to venture into any movie bearing the credit "based on the play by William Shakespeare."

Fuqua takes a genre picture and, by diverting the story onto an unconventional path, generates a sense of urgency. Tears of the Sun is not a great movie, but it is satisfying, and represents an example of accomplished filmmaking.

The voice work is on-target - the child actors, none of whom have played these parts before and many of whom have limited professional experience, nail their characters. They sound just like we expect them to sound.

This is a simple story of human drama that provides an incentive to spend a couple of hours in a movie theater during a spring that has not provided many such reasons.

The cast is comprised of unfamiliar faces, which enhances the pseudo-reality of the milieu. The principals - Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, and Michael B. Jordan - are professional actors with credits (many on television) to their names. But they are not "known" stars and that allows them to be accepted with ease into these roles.

It is at times serious and at times very funny. But it is always perceptive, and that quality, more than any other, is what makes it worth a recommendation.

The Lost Daughter uses tone, location, and a string of expert performances to leave an impression, even if the story itself is unremarkable.

Alpha Dog isn't a happy movie, but it's dramatically solid and the impressions it leaves will not be easily shaken.

The film gets frequent laughs from its raunchiness but, underneath it all, there’s an emotionally resonant story of how children confront the demons of youth that guard the gates to adolescence.

Macbeth may be among the Bard’s weakest popular plays (opinion is, of course, divided) but this is one of the better cinematic conversions.

The movie's sincerity helps it get over some of the most difficult hurdles and the feeling after leaving theater is one of having experienced something worthwhile albeit unremarkable.

Those anticipating something along the lines of Casablanca will be disappointed. Despite the superficial similarities and Warner Brothers' obvious desire to point them out, To Have and Have Not is inferior in almost every way that matters. But for those who visit this movie to vicariously experience the beginnings of Hollywood's most famous romance, it delivers in full.

It isn't as delirious a journey as we experienced a decade ago, but it's still filled with wonder, monsters, and thrills.

Fast-paced with a morbid sense of humor and copious pop culture references, Kingsman breezes along at a nice clip until it gets a little bogged down during its final third.

The tendency for an actor in a role like this is to overact. The result is often disastrous, reducing a character into a caricature. Hugh Dancy, adopting an American accent as effectively as the mannerisms of someone on the moderate portion of the Asperger's spectrum, makes Adam believable and generally sympathetic.

There's nothing here to astound or surprise; the movie neither exceeds nor falls below expectations. Those who love Hardy and/or the less-filmy romances of his era will derive the most from Far from the Madding Crowd.

While "Hereditary" crashed and burned in its final act, Midsommar stays afloat, although the movie is ultimately hampered by a too-long running length (147 minutes) and scenes that teeter perilously close to slipping over a cliff into self-parody.

Hard-core science fiction fans will likely greet Sunshine with a smile. Others may find this to be an odd motion picture, but there's enough going on that even those who are expecting something flashier should still be engaged.

An occasionally maddening and sometimes brilliant motion picture that varies between being insightfully sharp and insufferably self-indulgent. Regardless of whether you appreciate the movie or not, it's likely to stay with you.

As chick flicks go, this is one men can attend with the expectation that they might just enjoy experiencing two hours alongside these down-to-earth, appealing characters.

I’ll be the first to admit that not everything in Saltburn works and, during some of the cringe-inducing instances when it fails, it does so rather spectacularly. Yet Emerald Fennell’s film is just bonkers enough to be wildly entertaining and completely disturbing in equal parts.

It’s a rom-com where one of the participants is the self-described “last black man” and the other is a house.

Perhaps best of all, this is a rare instance in which the 3-D, while not an asset, is at least not a detriment.

It’s a must-see for those with a penchant for droll, avant-garde cinema or anyone fascinated more by technique than narrative. For others, it’s more of a curiosity than a can’t-miss production – a film that may fascinate for a while before starting to seem repetitive and overlong.

Allen appears determined to craft a motion picture that can be laughed at without plumbing any especially deep neuroses of the human condition.

Despite being a little rough around the edges (as is often the case with the work of maverick documentarians), This Film Is Not Yet Rated is more than just an angry diatribe against the MPAA.

The actors, especially an uncharacteristically low-key Russell Crowe, are effective in bringing the personalities to life and director Joel Edgerton (who adapted the source material and also acts) avoids the kind of extreme melodrama that could unbalance a project like this.

The result is a mature and challenging motion picture, and something that will stick with viewers after the screen has gone dark.

Up is not as transcendent as last year's "WALL-E," and doesn't rank near the top of Pixar's pantheon of great features, but it's a solid (and in some ways innovative) fantasy adventure that mixes comedy, action, and drama into a satisfying whole.

Blindspotting is a compelling film with much to say about subjects like gentrification and race – things it approaches with a mix of wit and seriousness. However, when it comes to punctuating a core theme of the Black Lives Matters movement, it falls short of the gut-punch delivered by a film such as "Fruitvale Station."

In the best tradition of mystery thrillers of this sort, it satisfies enough on an emotional level that we're willing to forgive any intellectual, procedural, and logical shortcomings.

The performances are uniformly strong and there are some powerful scenes but the overall story arc is less insightful or affecting than one might hope.

What is missing in depth and philosophical intent is compensated for with humor and humanization.

It's easy to nitpick Abigail’s narrative. Parts don’t hold together well, there are significant plot holes, story elements violate just-established rules, and (in true horror movie fashion) characters sometimes make head-scratchingly stupid decisions. But, for those willing to overlook these often-familiar conventions, the movie is gorily diverting.

Thumbsucker is true to its nature, and that makes Justin's eventual transformation all the more rewarding.

Connie (Robert Pattinson) is one of those individuals who constantly seems to be on the edge of a violent explosion and that potential makes watching Good Time a frequently exhausting experience.

Reaction to The Weather Man may depend upon an individual's ability to tolerate spending 100 minutes in the company of an unpleasant protagonist. There's no doubt this can be an uncomfortable experience, but it can also be rewarding for those who are willing to endure the discomfort.

Imperfect, but magical nonetheless.

Robinson has assembled an impressive young cast comprised primarily of rappers (such as Tip Harris, a.k.a. T.I.) and fresh faces (newcomer Lauren London).

For those who buy into the precept that "good things are worth waiting for," The Walk unquestionably delivers.

Dave is proof that predictable movies with only a marginally original premise can still be tremendous fun.

An engagingly lighthearted rags-to-riches romp with a David vs. Goliath element, the movie uses its real-life basis to formulate a modern day fairy tale.

A remake, done right, was not a bad idea. And, fortunately in this case, it has been accomplished with some flair. The result is a lightweight source of entertainment that maximizes humor and minimizes serious stuff.

A deliciously nasty, dark comedy.

Simultaneously funny and touching with elements of pathos to go along with the raunchiness. However, The King of Staten Island runs too long and, as result, it loses steam while chugging toward the ending.

The movie is fresh, fun, and breezy.

The film revels in blood and gore, but this is not just a run-of-the-mill splatter film. There's a lot of intelligence in both the script and in Alexandre Aja's direction.

Not mainstream fare, but neither is it as willfully obtuse as "Melancholia."

Denzel Washington plays Denzel Washington, good cop. This isn't a great performance, but Washington wasn't brought in to show off his acting chops.

Lightweight, although it exhibits enough heft for us to develop an emotional connection with the main character. I have always appreciated a smartly written motion picture, and, whatever flaws Igby Goes Down may possess, it is undeniably that.

As a date movie or for a solo night out, Blast from the Past offers more than standard romantic comedy fare.

The Last Jedi is a film of moments. There are perhaps a half-dozen of them: goose-pimple inducing, fist-pump encouraging, heart-racing bursts of cinematic satisfaction. The problem is that the narrative threads connecting them are lazily knitted and sometimes tangled or broken.

Life of Pi is a curious juxtaposition of the mundane and the majestic; a film that strives for something grander than what it perhaps achieves.

The best pure thriller of 2003 to-date.

Whether this is an accurate depiction of how things are in real life, I cannot say, but it's almost always how they are in the movies.

Send Help makes for an interesting counterpoint to Swept Away; the similarities are too frequent to be coincidental. Yet, where the Wertmüller film openly courted controversy for its misogynistic elements, Send Help is a more straightforward, crowd-pleasing endeavor.

Director Zhang Yimou's ambitious attempt to blend martial arts action with Shakespearean melodrama. It's not a perfect marriage but it offers two hours of solidly over-the-top entertainment featuring incredible visuals and powerful performances by international icons Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat.

Even considering some of its late-innings flaws, this is an engaging movie that doesn't mistake histrionics and bile for solid family reunion drama.

The film's success or failure depends almost entirely on a viewer's ability to relate to and become involved in the lives of the characters. We are with them for less than a week and, during that short time, we come to understand the lifetime of hurt and misunderstanding that stands between them.

It has been argued that for characters to be three-dimensional, they must have a past, a present, and a future, not to mention an arc. The Merry Gentleman offers a counter-argument for those who would dispute this.

As horror movies go, Boarding School is worth seeing simply because it’s different. Not weird, off-the-wall different like mother! or Hereditary, but different in a good way.

To date, no motion picture has adequately captured the soaring highs and devastating lows associated with a long distance relationship, but Going the Distance comes as close as any movie has.

The absence of a strong narrative is the film’s weakest aspect. The Coens are so absorbed by their mimicry that they don’t invest a lot of effort in the connective tissue.

The bottom line is that viewers who enjoyed Deadpool will almost certainly enjoy Deadpool 2, although perhaps not quite as much.

Aside from the likable performers, Forces of Nature's greatest strength is that it flouts several established conventions of the genre.

Paddington 2 is a charming early-year offering and, although the main character is better known in the U.K. than the U.S., no cultural leap is required to fall in love with the bear and enjoy his adventures.

A drama about isolation and communication, The Band's Visit is characterized both by strongly delineated characters and low-key comedy. The movie is not lightweight but it is at times lighthearted.

With its offbeat blend of warped humor, dramatic and horror elements, social commentary, and Talking Heads, Dream Scenario may not always be comfortable but it is undeniably provocative.

Vincere is Ida's story, but it says as much about fascist Italy and its ruler as it does about the central character.

Costner, who has never been the most emotive of actors, is perfect for this role.

This brash, glitzy, energetic entertainment has the power to hold an audience enraptured, but, at the same time, there's a sense that what we're experiencing is just candy for the eyes and ears.

A workmanlike thriller that provides solid performances; a mixture of comedy, tension, and drama; and an engaging storyline. But there's nothing extraordinary about the movie.

The only thing of real importance in A Man of No Importance is Albert Finney's performance.

DiCaprio wears the persona of Hoover with ease, again reminding audiences that the young man who made so many girls swoon with Titanic has grown into an actor of great range and capability.

The inevitable sequel, arriving three years later, isn't as giddily entertaining as its predecessor but much of the charm remains, making this an ideal destination for a family excursion.

Saw is for hard-gore horror aficionados only.

The acting by Scarlett Johansson is so raw and sincere that the film leaves an impact despite its deficiencies.

Camilla Belle is an impressive newcomer - this could be her breakthrough appearance.

Whether it works as a traditional motion picture is up for debate. However, it’s short enough (about 90 minutes) that it never overstays its welcome and is generally a fun, wild ride, even though it may at times be difficult to figure out where the journey began and where, as the 1964 Chevy leaves the streets like Doc’s DeLorean in Back to the Future, it ends.

In addition to telling an involving story, This Is England is insightful and informative.

The key to the film's success is that it uses the burned out premise as the springboard for a comedy, not an action flick.

An effective character study of a figure who has attained an almost-mythical status among track-and-field followers.

Despite a number of narrative holes, The Long Walk succeeds largely on the strength of its performances.

This is not a "nice" movie -- it deals with some pretty intense issues (like incest and suicide) -- but it is both bold and inventive, and works because of an unforced approach.

Tropic Thunder understands movies, understands the system in which they are created and, most of all, knows what it takes to make an audience roar with laughter.

A respectable and satisfying historical romantic melodrama.

After a slow-burn first hour, the movie cranks up the octane with plenty of blood, guts, and bullets. The final 20 minutes feel a little sloppy, with one twist too many and an unfocused ending that may be optimistically hinting at a sequel, but everything else is solid.

The emotional resonance that results from the focus on several unique individuals is what makes this a worthwhile viewing experience.

Through a mixture of imaginative storytelling, impressive animatronics, and irresistible cuteness, Babe casts a spell over all viewers -- young, old, or somewhere in between.

For those who enjoy ghost stories and are willing to be patient with a movie that gradually unveils its secrets rather than uncovering them all in an orgy of violence and terror, The Orphanage fills a need. The spell it casts early does not evaporate until the epilogue is finished.

Paradoxically, there's a lot less gore. There is blood, of course, but nothing excessive by slasher-movie standards, and there are no depictions of spilled entrails. Craven has remembered that scares are more important that graphic displays of human insides and bodily fluids.