With impeccable period detail, strong character development, superior acting, and a surprisingly fast pace, this film represents welcome counterprogramming to the typical loud and vacuous summertime multiplex fare.

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.

Intriguing but ultimately unfulfilling.

Kingdom of Heaven may have problems, but it delivers.

The film will likely find a receptive audience among those who enjoy blood-soaked B movies. It has enough gory elements to enhance the overpowering mood.

I could easily list a half-dozen movies about famous artists/authors that fall into the same general category as this one. Excepting Cumberbatch’s performance and the strong visual sense, there’s not a lot to separate this from any of them.

Boasts a strong ensemble of performances. Martin Freeman is the perfect choice for an ordinary, unheroic Earth guy.

The performances are universally strong - not that one would expect anything else considering the quality of the cast.

Out of the Furnace features some nice performances and is deliciously atmospheric but it never achieves its goal of being a compelling meditation about how the economic erosion of a community influences the lives of those trapped within it.

Guy Ritchie’s name not withstanding, there’s little here with strong mass appeal – not enough mind-numbing action; too much dwelling on a recent, tragic, failed war; and a muted catharsis. It’s also one of the best things Ritchie has done since his early years (only Lock, Stock is unequivocally better) and deserves a viewing when MGM brings it to streaming.

Regardless of whatever ephemeral entertainment this production may offer to some, it is not by any reasonable definition a good movie. It is badly written, inexpertly directed, poorly acted, erratically paced, and features music of dubious worth.

The movie is at times funny, at times blistering, and at times insightful, but it lacks consistency, thereby arguing that perhaps the short film that provided its basis offered a better length.

A New Era offers the kind of comfortable, comforting experience that Downton Abbey aficionados have been awaiting since before the term COVID was coined.

As it's unspooling on screen, the film is hugely entertaining, but there are several significant plot holes that grow wider the more closely they're investigated.

The story is pure exploitation but the style bespeaks a more artistic bent. The film can be enjoyed (to the degree it can be enjoyed) for its excesses, perverse humor, and excursions into blood, barbarism, and violence, but the narrative doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The end result is an unremarkable, unmemorable movie that deserves neither praise nor approbation.

The result, while at times a little too visually chaotic, is bracing.

The best thing that can be said about Wright's immersion into the world of Tolstoy is that it's interesting - a quality not always true of Anna Karenina adaptations. The movie also doesn't feel rushed, successfully capturing more of the novel's secondary stories into its fabric.

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.

A respectable and satisfying historical romantic melodrama.

Unchallenging but easy to like. There's not enough here to capture the interest of those indifferent to romantic comedies, but fans - even of the casual variety - will find this to be a pleasant mid-summer diversion.

While Muriel's Wedding has its moments of exhilarating humor, it is, as often as not, downbeat and even mean-spirited.

The humor avoids becoming too outrageous. This is like an indie version of Olivia Wilde’s "Booksmart," which was filmed after Banana Split despite being released earlier. Both films offer complex perspectives of high school-oriented female friendships without demanding a happy ending for the happy ending.

The Last Exorcism is one of those rare films where the marketing campaign is more interesting than the film it publicizes.

Has its share of bitingly funny moments, and some of the comedy is quite inventive.

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.

The Hunter works best as a travelogue and a thought-piece about the ugly, shadowy side of resurrecting dead species.

Les Miserables understandably cuts some of the stage production's numbers, but all of the major anthems are intact and wonderfully presented.