The plot only slows a film that works best as a feast of sight and sound.

Vengeance exercises [Novak's] knack for making unappetizing social qualities watchable, maybe because he’s playing a character whose self-confidence you don’t really believe in, or maybe because you already know that the movie will make him the butt of some of its rudest jokes.

Haden Church gives the movie the joyous kick it needs. His flirty thrust-and-parry with Collette is beautifully played.

You'll have major fun at this movie. But what makes it something special is the way Kasdan laces the laughs with a sting.

An otherwise mild-mannered diversion from the American indie hinterland, Swan Song is the rare film to give this cult actor the center-stage spotlight, and a mirrorball-refracted spotlight at that. The fact that he’s in every scene of Todd Stephens’ sentimental queer comedy is, it turns out, the boldest decision in a film that doesn’t always honor its professed credo to live life out loud.

Whether audiences are pleased or vexed, very vexed, by A.I., any movie buff worth his salt will want to sift through this fascinating wreck of a movie.

Despite a shaky framework, the magic works. It's a chance to see Ledger one last time in the act of doing what he loved. Take it.

Caught Stealing is a decent wild ride through the past, filled with enough memory-bank fodder and hairpin turns to keep anyone engaged.

Say what you will about the Runaways – they never played it safe. The movie does.

The film offers few answers about Fischer's descent into derangement. But you watch Maguire and slowly, with pity and terror, you understand.

The luminous Michelle Williams goes bone-deep here. Monroe's beauty was one of a kind. No one, not even Williams, can act it. What Williams does, with fierce artistry and feeling, is illuminate Monroe's insights and insecurities about herself at the height of her fame.

Sex, lies, betrayal and murder set among the gods of the Beat Generation. That's Kill Your Darlings, a dark beauty of a film that gets inside your head and stays there.

Audiences looking for emotional resonance in Indy 4 are doomed to the temple of disappointment. Spielberg and Lucas aren't upping their creative game -- they're taking care of business.

Primed to keep your pulse racing so your brain will stop thinking, "WTF!" Go with the illogic or you'll miss the fun.

The good news is that Mockingjay – Part 2, the big finale, has quit the ass-dragging in favor of what made the book a page-turner. There's the visual fireworks, for sure. But there's also the darkness of the theme.

It's one crazy love story, but Carrey and McGregor make it work by making us buy the romance as the real thing. There's something about these Marys that pulls you in.

Ferrell delivers a performance of implosive intensity that rings true in every detail.

Think "Sex and the City" with men, only in Italian and with lots more hollering and hand gestures.

A tasty swig of holiday cheer.

Sally Hawkins is just plain irresistible in this funny, touching and vital salute to women in the work force.

It looks the same, moves the same and sounds the same (those Alan Menken songs!) as the original. But some of the magic has gone M.I.A.

What saves director Ted Demme's comic talkfest from sitcom slickness is a quirky script by Scott Rosenberg and an appealing cast.

In this cheerfully perverse origin tale of Magneto, Professor X and their mutant team, Vaughn delivers a fireworks display of action, smarts and fun, plus a touch of class from actors who can really act.

Even the stalwart Nolte drowns in the laughable idiocy of the Wingo-Lowenstein love affair, which lifts Tides to the fiasco class.

It's true that the film is covering old ground – the shocking originality of the first Alien is a one-time thing. No worries. I'd rank Alien: Covenant with the best of the series, right after the first two chapters. Fans are going to freak out. Join in.

If Sunset doesn’t hit with nearly the impact that "Son of Saul" does — and it doesn’t — his look back at the chaos before the storm solidly establishes Nemes as a major world-cinema voice.

The reason you need to see Bull, however, and we do not use that verb lightly, is Morgan. The calm, concentrated, understated manner in which he presents this man, who’d rather have a battered body than a bruised pride, is something to behold.

It's all infectious fun, despite the lack of originality. In the art of tickling funny bones, Crystal and Goodman earn straight A's.