Produced during the pandemic and available on Netflix, the movie is well worth a look both as an exploration of love’s bitter aftermath and as an example of how art can bloom even in the most challenging circumstances.

The underlying idea is pregnant with promise but writer/director Shelagh McLeod, making her feature debut, is trapped by the time limitations of a film into cutting narrative corners and cheating to achieve an upbeat ending.

White Squall is a success because the good elements are so well-orchestrated that they dwarf the few obvious flaws. This film offers just about everything, including a twenty-minute white-knuckle sequence and a chance to shed a few tears. In short, it's first-rate entertainment.

The slow, uneven beginning is more than compensated for by the rousing climax.

Director Philip Saville, working from a script by Adrian Hodges (which, in turn, is based on the novel by Julian Barnes), has crafted a competent, character-based tale, but the issues examined are stale, and Saville is unable to find a way to take the story to a newer, more interesting level

I'm not convinced there was a compelling reason to remake La Femme Nikita. The original stands well on its own, and, having been made only a few years ago, it's definitely not dated. Nevertheless, mainstream American audiences hate subtitles, so this won't be the last foreign language film to receive this treatment. In terms of style and originality, Point of No Return can't compare to its inspiration, but, for a Hollywood thriller, it's more than adequate.

If you go to Eight Legged Freaks expecting anything but a campy, cheesy romp, then you have wandered into the wrong theater. This movie is for those who like smart (often self-referential) humor and cheap thrills.

In terms of checking off the genre’s requisite boxes, You, Me & Tuscany does just enough to earn a passing grade for rom-com devotees who prioritize "vibes" over cinematic standards.

A fully disengaged brain is probably the key to enjoying Final Score. Employing even basic logic engenders a recognition of how truly stupid this screenplay is, especially when it comes to the resolution.

It's an enjoyable and unpretentious perspective of life that reminds us how important and rewarding the little things can be.

At his best, Carpenter was able to do amazing things with low budgets and a surfeit of creativity but, despite the arguments of its adherents, Big Trouble in Little China isn’t an example of one of those instances.

Instead of bringing intriguing characters with real problems and interesting dialogue to the bash, Kaplan and Elfont take the lazy approach of pulling generic stereotypes off the shelf and throwing them into a formulaic plot that doesn't offer one genuine surprise or meaningful moment.

I.S.S. doesn’t disappoint but neither does it go above or beyond what one might reasonably expect based on the trailer.

Red Sparrow is a deliciously perverse, unflinchingly violent thriller – a modern-day espionage tale that breaks with the tradition of making the spy business the purview of suave and debonair characters.

There are problems with De Palma's version, especially in its portrayal of the key relationship between Carrie and her mother, but it's a more engaging and insightful portrayal than Kimberly Peirce's too-slick remake.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Apt Pupil is the lack of sustained tension generated by director Bryan Singer.

Measure of a Man, the sophomore feature effort from British director Jim Loach (the son of the famed filmmaker Ken Loach), effectively captures this difficult-to-pin-down feeling with a largely unsentimental coming-of-age story based on Robert Lipsyte’s novel, “One Fat Summer.”

Anyone expecting a movie dominated by figure skating will be disappointed. The Cutting Edge concentrates on its characters, with the skating limited to a supporting role. This is not a movie for cynics, nor for those who don't occasionally like to sit back and enjoy an undemanding, "comfortable" film. For unadulterated fun, The Cutting Edge may not earn a gold medal, but it's worth at least a bronze.

Fly Me to the Moon isn’t a complete failure to launch (thanks primarily to the not-inconsiderable charisma and energy Johansson brings to the production) but neither does it have the thrust to make it into orbit.

There's nothing in The Guardian that audiences haven't previously been exposed to ad nauseam.

The problem with In Time, to the extent that it is a problem, is that an intriguing premise turns into window dressing for a somewhat routine "Bonnie & Clyde"-meets-"Robin Hood" action thriller with car chases, heists, and gunplay.

he movie is funny enough to get its share of laughs but, in its angry heart, it’s a tragedy - and the saddest part is that too much of this story is true.

Tomorrow Never Dies is a better film than Goldeneye. In fact, it's the best Bond film in many years.

This sloppy mess also pales in comparison to the better-paced, taut "Olympus Has Fallen," which represents 2013's better White House invasion story.

As a piece of religious instruction or an animated version of a crèche, it accomplishes its aims. As a movie, however, it's slow, plodding, and not terribly interesting.

Essentially a one-joke movie that milks its central conceit long after there's nothing left.

A fairly routine thriller that gets high marks as a result of tight pacing and top-notch acting.

Part of the reason The Devil's Own is endurable is because, in spite of various script deficiencies, both of the stars -- Pitt and Harrison Ford -- have an undeniable screen presence. And, while star power can't save a sinking movie, it can at least keep it afloat longer.

While Malice won't win any awards, it's a cut above the average. The result is a curious mixture that provides one-hundred minutes of entertainment.

A pleasant but relatively inconsequential movie.

Light, funny, and clever.

The Holiday is no vacation. Sloppy writing, an overindulgent editor, and poor casting have taken an intriguing premise and transformed it into an uneven mess.

Ricci's performance is brave and effective - the most provocative in a career that has rejected Hollywood norms.

Love Me isn’t bad in the sense that it is poorly assembled or incompetently shot. On a craft and technical level, it’s above average. But the narrative is incoherent and the philosophical meanderings lack depth and intelligence.

Despite being overlong, Blackhat is mostly engaging. The narrative features one major change of direction and things get increasingly preposterous as the climax approaches, but that's not unusual in this genre.

By incorporating a strong Jamaican flavor and infusing the mix with reggae and dance, Elba provides something more interesting than the standard tale of gang warfare and drug deals that forms Yardie’s skeleton. However, although these unique elements form an effective distraction, their ability to captivate wears thin, exposing the threadbare, overfamiliar story that struggles mightily to keep viewers engaged.

The film stays true to its unpretentious origins -- it's like a comic book come to life, with an undeniable visual flair, a lot of kinetic action sequences, minimal character development, and a plot that could charitably be called "uneven".

Like a time-travel movie, but without the time travel, The Mothman Prophecies delights in playing with cause-and-effect relationships.

Unfortunately, stiff acting, an increasingly hard-to-swallow storyline, and an atrociously bad ending torpedo Eli Horowitz’s Gone in the Night, making it unworthy of even a streamed view. When the movie started, I wanted to like it. 90 minutes later, I just wanted it to end.

Viewed from the straightforward perspective of a narrative-based motion picture, writer/director Nathalie Biancheri’s sophomore feature never gains traction. There are some interesting ideas but it becomes increasingly difficult to relate to the characters or the situation the more obviously divorced from reality things become.

The film isn’t funny enough to warrant a recommendation and, although it doesn’t desecrate the less-than-sacred image of the earlier film, it proves itself to be superfluous. However, Coming 2 America will disappoint only those who believed Murphy could do something amazing or hilarious with this dubious property.

They say the third time's the charm. Not with the Insidious series, it isn't. Admittedly, installment #3 is an improvement over #2, but it fails to reach the highs of the chilling-but-uneven original.

It would be nice to argue that the good outweighs the bad in The Switch, but it's a wash.

It ends up feeling a little like warmed-over "Strictly Ballroom" without Baz Lurhmann's over-the-top sense of style.

This movie is a perfect example of what's wrong with many big-budget films today: no characters, no intelligence, and, worst of all, little fun.

Kandahar is one of those movies that exists without having a compelling reason for doing do. As a war movie, it’s not especially insightful or gut-wrenching. As an action film, it lacks energy, momentum, and consistency. As a drama, it feels artificial and manipulative.

I am conflicted about this film. I like the fact that it takes chances. I appreciate that it's trying to do a supernatural love story without falling into the schmaltz of "Ghost." Yet I recognize that the screenplay is like Swiss cheese - riddled with hole.

Deadfall suffers most obviously from a sense of not being adequately developed.

Trap is a house of cards built on a bed of sand in the middle of a hurricane. It flies apart and collapses almost immediately and the various plot threads are so thoroughly ripped to shreds that there’s nothing left at the end but the wreckage of a movie and the recognition that 105 precious minutes have been stolen.

Die-hard Christie purists may be disappointed by some of the changes but, on the whole, Death on the Nile is faithful enough to tell the story and different enough to work better with modern-day concerns about diversity than the original text.

While Bean branches out from the format developed for the television series, it remains faithful to the concepts and constructs that led to its success.

Those for whom Spirit was made will find this to be a thoroughly enjoyable production. As a "kids' movie", Spirit is a resounding success.

Eternals, despite trying to be a departure from the superhero generic norm, misses wide of the mark and ends up being a major lapse.

Offers enough suspense to make it worth the price of admission.

The Hills Have Eyes gets points for gore and general creepiness, and for occasional periods of tension, but it's not scary enough to linger long in the subconscious.

Kenneth Branagh’s new, workmanlike interpretation of the tale will be met with different reactions from those who are familiar with the ending and those who aren’t. It makes a big difference.

Compelling material, especially for those who believe that the lives and loves of the dead can impact the trajectory of the existences of the living.

H20 is the second-best entry into the series, and, although it's nowhere close to the level established by Carpenter's classic, it avoids the excesses that ruin many would-be horror movies.

It has an interesting subtext. I'm referring to the way the lives and friendships of these four individuals crumble in the wake of their accident.

This is yet another early 2025 movie where there’s just enough material in the film to assemble an intriguing three-minute trailer but not enough to make the other 120 minutes of more than passing interest.

For all its faults, Gracie is made with enough grace to get us rooting for the protagonist.

This picture doesn't have deep enough currents to succeed as a psychological thriller and, as a ghost story, there are times when it has trouble treading water.

A stillborn affair that could have been -- and should have been -- a whole lot hipper and funnier. If you've seen the two- minute theatrical trailer, you've seen nearly everything that's worthwhile in the feature.

Besson may have misfired with The Fifth Element, but at least he does it with flair and a sense of humor.

It’s an enjoyable enough parfait but far from a theatrical destination.

Ghost in the Shell is visually compelling but tone deaf.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is one of Soderbergh’s most notable misfires and, although one can justifiably argue that sub-par Soderbergh is as good as a solid effort by many other directors, that doesn’t change the end result: there’s something unsatisfying about this motion picture.

With its canned, predictable action sequences and mirthless attempts at humor, it displays an ineptitude that is frankly shocking considering the talent involved.

If there's a complaint to be made about Insidious, it's that the film's second half is unable to live up to the impossibly high standards set by the first half.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a harrowing journey but, for those who appreciate horror, it’s well worth taking.

"Before Sunrise" is a great movie. The Sun is also a Star isn’t. It’s not horrible and it may please its target audience but it misses an opportunity to have a deeper and less surgically-targeted impact than what it achieves.

The most disappointing aspect of The Iron Lady is that some of the most memorable hallmarks of Thatcher's time in power are glossed over.

A viscerally effective, fast paced thriller.

Every time An Ordinary Man seems to be headed into a minefield of clichés, it takes an unexpected detour and the film’s final such excursion comes like a gut-punch.

I have come to the conclusion that it's impossible for a Steven Segal movie to be anything better than mediocre, and this particular travesty may be his worst yet. The title Under Siege is supposed to represent the situation faced by Segal's character, but it's equally appropriate in describing the experience of the poor viewer who sits through this film.

At 2 1/2 hours, the movie is actually too short to adequately tell the full tale (The Ten Commandments is 70 minutes longer) but that doesn't prevent Scott from presenting multiple, seemingly endless scenes of people crossing deserts.

Although none of the characters are fleshed out much beyond the comic book level, we nevertheless find our sympathies aligning with them.

Despite being light in the story department, The Crimes of Grindelwald offers plenty of small pleasures and tightens up the linkage between this series and Harry Potter.

I'm not a religious man but, Hallelujah! I may not be done with Meyer but at least I'll never again have to cope with the angst, self-absorption, and vampire mythology mutilation that characterized these five movies.

National Champions remains effective as an ode to cynical realism but it’s uneven at best as a slice of drama.

Those who want something substantial in their cinematic diet may recoil from what A Working Man offers. But for anyone whose primary concern is to see the righteous slaughter of bad guys at the hands of the noble Statham, A Working Man doesn’t disappoint.

The biggest crime committed by The Spy Who Dumped Me isn’t its dearth of humor or reliance on an unimaginative espionage plot but the way it wastes the talents of its leads, Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon.

Has enough charm and whimsy to capture the attention and imagination of children and parents alike, and arguably represents one of the best live-action family films to enter theaters this year.

Predictable this isn't, but that can be seen as both an asset and a detriment.

Despite the negatives, I'm still recommending Fallen on the strength of its complex plot and especially its ending, which I loved. The final scenes are startling, audacious, and unexpected. It's not often that a plot development takes me by surprise the way this one did.

It's a funny movie, although rarely is the humor of the loud, obnoxious kind we have come to associate with Ferrell. It's not unlike "Blazing Saddles."

300 may not offer masterful storytelling in a conventional sense, but it's hard to beat as a spectacle and that makes it worthwhile viewing for all but the most squeamish of potential audience members.

This is not a story that cries out to be remade every 15-20 years. And, while the special effects and acting are getting better, the story isn't.

The movie is uneven in the extreme, to the extent that it feels like two imperfectly wed pictures. The first, while not extraordinary, at least contains some interesting ideas. The second borders on embarrassing: an overblown melodrama complete with coincidence building upon coincidence and plot threads that are left unresolved.

As a whole, Valentin is a moderately entertaining motion picture, but the lack of a satisfying sense of closure dims its appeal.

Scream 4 is so obsessed with the self-referential element that made the original Scream unique that it loses the capacity to be genuinely scary or funny.

Sadly, passion and romance are two ingredients missing from this melodrama, which does an excellent job of re-creating the Depression-era circus business.

X-Men: Apocalypse is a competently made superhero action film but it’s not a game-changer and its brand of action seems a little too familiar.

Like undercooked comfort food, the series has lost its taste and appeal. Despicable Me 4 exemplifies what happens when an animated franchise overstays its welcome.

Certainly, the story told by The Monuments Men is worth telling and it's easy to see why a luminary like Clooney would be sufficiently attracted to want to direct it. Unfortunately, this treatment, written by Clooney and long-time collaborator Grant Heslov, isn't the best fit.

The International possesses the look and feel of a thriller, but not the heart or soul of one.

The Producers is a movie based on a play based on a movie about a play. And that's probably the funniest thing about it.

Too much in Nacho Libre doesn't work to enable me to recommend it to anyone except a card-carrying member of the Jack Black fan club.