A lively, workmanlike musical that only occasionally rises to the heights of its 1991 predecessor and frequently coasts on a lower plane.

Despite its name, Beautiful Girls is actually about a group of irritating, twenty-something males whose adolescent attitudes have remained with them well into adulthood.

The easiest way to summarize my reaction to X-Men: First Class is with a shrug.

Despite some obvious overplotting, Oscar and Lucinda is a mostly effective and often affecting motion picture that touches our hearts while daring our minds to balk at its implausible coincidences.

At its best, this film echoes the creepiness and tension of "Alien." At its worst, it sinks into the pretentiousness that at times threatened to derail "Prometheus."

A charming, family friendly endeavor and, although it falls short of the best Pixar has brought to the screen over its long association with Disney, it's nevertheless worth a trip to the theater, especially for kids.

Compared to Deadpool, "Guardians of the Galaxy" is a bastion of sobriety and good taste.

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

In a way, it’s almost worth recommending Men for the first 70 minutes. At that point, a quick exit would preserve the illusion that this is some sort of modern horror classic. For those who stick around, however, the final assessment isn’t likely to be nearly as favorable.

A film as rich in its visual presentation as it is in its emotional resonance.

A moderately entertaining but overlong film that emphasizes visual razzle-dazzle over narrative backbone.

As intense and as harrowing as any British thriller to emerge from the east side of the Atlantic in recent years, and there are some good titles vying for that distinction.

There's nothing edgy or groundbreaking about The Matador, but it's funny, touching, and ultimately endearing.

Fincher eschews quick cuts in favor of long, leisurely ones. He knows what he's doing, and the proof is in the result. The suspense in Panic Room never ebbs, and that makes for a thoroughly entertaining -- if somewhat exhausting -- 108 minutes.

Linklater has crafted an entertaining motion picture.

The opening sequence/prologue is gripping but that’s the only aspect of Twisters that works on its intended level. I was not blown away.

Beneath its aw-shucks, wants-to-be-liked exterior, this is a bankrupt motion picture. It's cloying, artificial, and not the least bit romantic.

Turns out to be the funniest hard-R comedy since "The Hangover."

There are plenty of small pleasures to be found throughout Darnell Martin's feature, but a compelling storyline featuring three-dimensional characters is not among them.

Manages to entertain, even though it stays on the surface. It fails to deliver the hoped-for knockout, but also avoids the pitfall of an early-round collapse. While not attaining the greatness of its subject, it rises to a level somewhere above mediocrity.

Director Michael Cuesta hits the right notes with his characters. They are believable 12-year olds: intelligent (but not too intelligent) yet naïve, and trying with mixed success to navigate the path of adolescence.

Crooklyn comes to the screen with an upbeat tone and a lot of heart. Beneath the surface of this deceptively simple motion picture lurks a keen insight.

Written without much concern for logic and coherence, the movie wavers between being a drama and a thriller and, as is too often the case in situations like these, doesn’t work as either.

What starts out as a devilishly clever exercise in evasion and detection turns into a self-parody that climaxes with several eye-rolling whoppers. Well, at least it’s never boring.

In a streaming series spread out over four or six hours, this might have offered compelling content (and certainly would have seemed less rushed) but, in its current format, it’s more frustrating than satisfying and the facile ending doesn’t hit the right spot.

This is a funny movie. It delivers plenty of laughs, but it isn't in the same league as "Clerks." I left that movie holding my stomach from laughing so hard.

There's enough drama here to fill two hours. Whether or not that happens, Rupert Murray's account represents fascinating viewing, and the richness of the subject matter more than makes up for the crudeness of some of the visual elements.

The Black Phone is as solid a horror film as has come out post-pandemic and brings back memories of when “horror” meant more than an assembled sequence of shocks and blood-soaked clichés.