It’s tougher than it looks to sidestep revenge movie shortcuts and formulaic payoffs while keeping matters engaging. But Saulnier does it. Off-kilter and fresh, Rebel Ridge may frustrate crude expectations, but its satisfactions are many.

The film is certainly clever enough to hold an audience's interest throughout, though in the end it's a victim of its own ambition. As a moral investigation, it's shallow and ultimately ludicrous.

It's the most tension-producing movie out there right now -- in the best way, it's almost unbearable.

This is a moderately but consistently entertaining film, with but one extraordinary thing about it, which is Saoirse Ronan in the title role.

A sexy, moody comedy that plays like a dreamy comic novel.

The film doesn't leave the audience with a moral. It just leaves a sense of having been in the stimulating company of passionate people -- all of them in the arts or on the fringes of that world, all of them struggling to make something intense and amazing out of their lives.

This is a movie made by and for adults, and adults should consider seeing it.

You’ll see lots of movies in 2023, and you’ll forget most of them. But Carmen is so sincerely passionate and peculiar that you’re bound to remember it.

Sister Act 2 doesn't challenge Goldberg, but it's a marvelous showcase, nonetheless, for one of the screen's most likable personalities. [10 Dec 1993, p.C1]

This is not comfortable comedy.

A heartfelt effort, if at times a bit heavy-handed.

If “The Jungle Book” is like taking a trip to Disneyland, then “Mowgli” is a hike straight into unknown woods with nothing but some duct tape and a Bowie knife.

While the sequel to "Night Watch" is an imperfect film, it's always interesting.

Mortal Kombat II is a sterling example of an action movie that starts out dumb but gradually becomes kind of awesome — and a little bit smarter.

Jerome and Lopez build an undeniable chemistry that powers the movie, and it wouldn’t work at all unless Jerome wasn’t excellent as well. He is.

A clever look at con artists and their games of deception.

Not surprisingly for a movie of this type, there are lots of scenes of violence, including hand-to-hand combat. The fight choreography is exceptional. In the “John Wick” movies, the violence seems almost like a ballet. Here the fighting is just as intricate, but it also seems like actual fighting, and Hemsworth seems like an actual person who’s doing it.

A one-woman show.

The filmmakers investigate, but can't answer every tough question. There are so many people who could be potentially taking advantage of these players, it's hard to sort out the wrongdoers.

I Am Greta does show why she is a powerful voice. The key to her appeal is her honesty and her “innocence,” or as some would say, naivete.

Hawke is the movie's revelation.

Using movie clips, animation and news footage, Ascher creates his own alternate universe in A Glitch in the Matrix and explores phenomena such as the Mandela Effect, a real-life wonder in which masses of unconnected people claim to “remember” something that is simply not true.

It's a drama with elements of black comedy and suspense, European in feeling but American in attitude. Just for fun, it's set in 1949, an era of glamour, of Hitchcock and of husbands even more clueless than they are today.

An austere rural landscape, festering hatred, class tensions, terse dialogue - these are common currency in indie movies these days. Shotgun Stories uses them all, but manages to stand out from the crowd.

With a sense of eccentric macabre that recalls Roald Dahl and Charles Addams, The Willoughbys arrives on Netflix with a winning, eclectic energy that should have kids — like the animated moppets in the film — bouncing off the walls. In a good way, of course.

It’s still an unusually good picture and worth the time (though you could skip the last 30 minutes and still get all you’re going to get from it). But if only writer-director Ruben Ostlund (“The Square”) had figured out a graceful way to end his movie at, say, the 100-minute point. He’d have had something extraordinary.

When Danny takes off his collar for the last time, Besson's plan becomes clear: You may have paid for an hour and a half of escapist entertainment, but he just provided something much better.

Perhaps the greatest gift of Tick, Tick … Boom! is that it rejects the false narrative of the artist’s one big shot, the make-it-or-break-it moment. Jonathan might keep hearing a timer ticking down in his head, but he has to learn that the singular event of his arrival as an artist is a myth.

Enormously satisfying and fun to watch.

The movie is pretty stupid in a lot of ways. But in a multiplex world of grim action thrillers with dark heroes, it isn't the worst thing to blow an hour and a half on a film where everyone - including supporting players Gary Busey, Beverly D'Angelo and Kristanna Loken - seems to be having a good time.

Timberlake is the secret weapon, making the crankiest troll also the most appealing.

Unsane is Soderbergh in his best mode. As in “Haywire” and “Side Effects,” he takes what easily might have been a lowbrow genre entry and realizes it so completely that he turns it into something extraordinary.

This is what makes the distinctly unromantic Cold Mountain' such a breath of fresh air. Its battles are hideous bloodbaths.

Even though the film is by the numbers, it offers younger generations who know nothing of Poitier’s life and groundbreaking work a look at this important actor and activist.

Its cinematic stylishness and its attention to modern-day anxiety raise it to something out of the ordinary.

As suspense thrillers go, “Dangerous Animals” is as uncompromising as it gets. It doesn’t aspire to much, but it’s well-acted and well-written, looks great and full of surprises.

The filmmaker makes ample use of Ungerer's drawings and existing documentary material, but sensibly lets the man tell most of his own story, which lends Far Out Isn't Far Enough a raconteur's charm rare among film studies of artists' lives.

This is the picture the Belgian actor has been waiting for, the step up in class that has seemed inevitable since his breakthrough in ''Bloodsport'' six years ago. ''Nowhere to Run'' is not just a boy movie. Women can enjoy it, too, and Van Damme's boyish good looks and gentlemanly manner -- gentlemanly, except when he's smashing heads -- won't hurt. [16 Jan 1993, p.C3]

There's a lot to appreciate in Street Kings, a tight, propulsive action thriller, but there's one thing to marvel at, and that's James Ellroy's command of story.

The result is a movie that combines a seriousness of purpose with an impish delight in craft, in a way Hitchcock would have appreciated.

Doesn’t have a dull frame in it, thanks mainly to the star-making performance of Zoey Deutch, who dazzles the screen as Erica with her mix of humor, sensuality, volatility and vulnerability.

Unabashedly weepy, lyrical in tone, and yet it cuts through the melodrama and stands as an honest depiction of young people who don't know all the answers but have the intellectual capacity to figure them out.

Judging by her funny, warm, drawn-from-life feature directing debut Wine Country, Amy Poehler is a gracious friend. She and screenwriters Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski ensure that the many former “Saturday Night Live” performers and writers assembled for this Napa Valley-set Netflix comedy get moments to shine.

It's never less than worthy and entertaining, but the importance of Invictus doesn't broaden as it goes along. It narrows.

Has plenty to satisfy fans and bring in new admirers.

It's a weird movie, in that spooky/sicko, deadpan way that Lynch's movies always are, and it's guaranteed to repel anyone who likes entertainment wrapped in tidy resolutions and optimistic fade- outs.

Extremely pleasurable and well worth seeing.

Writer-director Seth MacFarlane is like some weird combination of a stupid, dirty-minded teenager and a brilliant comic master. His impulses are sophomoric, but he knows where to find the punch line, and he hits it, again and again.

Not enough can be said for how strong [Crowe] is in this film, and how welcome it is every time he appears on screen. He seems able to read people. He also seems German, complete with German gestures.

Blade Runner 2049 is long and slow. It’s never boring, but it’s a little too mired in one sustained note of sadness to break out as a great experience or to stand out as a great movie. Still, there are some remarkable scenes.

This is like any other Edward Burns film, except for one thing. It's unmistakably better. This is the movie I believe Burns has been trying to make since "The Brothers McMullen," 11 years ago.

Grafted onto a true underdog story, it makes for a salvation show that could move Brother Love himself — as well as those of his who think we can resist such things.

The biggest sin of 28 Weeks Later is that it's not in the same league as the near-perfect movie that came before it.

There are so many rich, colorful scenes that it’s a worthy watch just as an ethnographic record of our planet in a moment of time.

The subtlety is the beauty of it.

A downbeat but oddly affectionate tale.

People take comedy for granted, but to step back and think about Stuck on You is to be impressed by the invention and sheer exuberance of the picture, which isn't great but sure is enjoyable.

Like George Bailey, and the Cartwright family from “Bonanza” and other fictitious families, the real-life story of the Sungs is one of loyalty and adhering to their code, even as they face losing everything.

More than just a nostalgia trip.

Even at her most nihilistic, Cameron Diaz is about as menacing as a boozy college cheerleader.

The bottom line on Being the Ricardos is that it’s irresistible. It’s an invitation to go behind the scenes of the “I Love Lucy” show and to see what Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were really like. It’s also an invitation to travel back to the 1950s, with writer-director Aaron Sorkin as your guide.

There’s no question that John Wick: Chapter 4 is really good for what it is. The only bad thing is what it is.

Raw, provocative, sometimes humorous and always humane, Kokomo City is an engrossing documentary about four Black trans sex workers who constantly disarm with their outrageous anecdotes and their palpable fears of living in a world that’s often hostile to them.

Director Ang Lee ("The Wedding Banquet") spared no effort in giving the food its perfect preparation and display. Brace yourself for a visual orgy.

At some point or another, you will be offended by The Hunt. But see it anyway, confident in the certainty that other people — people you don’t agree with, people you don’t like — will be offended, too.

The movie moves. It has action sequences that are so enormous that they won't just wow audiences, but rock them back in their seats and make them laugh at the audacity of it all.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the best movie so far this year about a kung-fu fighting panda.

When the movie starts, its main characters seem outside the norm, unusual, “wierdos,” in the description of David himself. By its end, you see nothing at all of that; they’re just people.

Writer-director Patric Chiha directs the proceedings with incredible restraint, which works both for and against him. Yes, it allows the actors to shine with some subtle, quiet moments, and prevents things from going over the top, but somehow Aunt Nadine and restraint don't belong in the same sentence.

Killer of Killers continues the concept co-director Dan Trachtenberg applied to his 2022 live-action “Prey,” only with the more elaborate action, wider scope and graceful, graphic kineticism animation can accommodate.

An appealingly quirky thriller from Brazil.

The world of this film is like nothing most Americans have seen. But we know what it's about. It's about greed and guilt and how inconvenient it can be to have a soul.

Black comedies are rare enough. Birthday Girl is a member of an even rarer species, the black romantic comedy.

Joel Schumacher, the director of "Falling Down," "The Client" and "Batman Forever," has a strong feel for this kind of glossy pop entertainment and a way of integrating social issues without sacrificing narrative drive.

Has an old-fashioned feel, as if it had been made in the period of its setting. I mean this as a compliment.

Gladstone (“Under the Bridge”), Oscar-nominated for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is the heart and soul of “Fancy Dance,” which in other hands might have been a noirish thriller. But writer-director Erica Tremblay has something else in mind: a finely crafted drama about a woman and her niece who are unwilling to let the hopelessness of her situation define her.

Like the best Marx Brothers films, Brain Donors has gags for the sake of gags. There's no pretense to plausibility. It's just layers and layers of jokes; some work, some don't. [18 April 1992, p.C3]

In a film that easily could have been cold or ironical, Ferrell provides the emotional thrust.

Relies on comic formula -- but does so with more than usual panache.

At times, Anderson may be too brilliant for his own good, and there is a risk that viewers will tire of the director's relentlessly prowling camera.

The concluding image of men silhouetted against the dying flares of explosives, as they march to the raucous refrain of the Mickey Mouse Club theme, is masterly, but leaves a viewer curiously discomfited. Whereas "Platoon" shattered civilian complacency about that war, Full Metal Jacket is merely numbing. [26 June 1987]

It took the franchise four tries, but with Expend4bles, they’ve finally made a solid and consistently effective action movie.

The key to enjoying the film is warming up to the heroine, Poppy.

At its heart, the film is about the intense connection between Valentino and his business partner of 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti, the brains behind the branding.

This moody film, set in muggy Memphis, exudes a dangerous veracity that's both exciting and poisonous.

The Call might not be a classic for the ages, but for a Friday night? For a movie to take people out of themselves? And to make them marvel at the viewing experience that just happened to them? This one is hard to beat.

American Star is a nice surprise. To hear it described, its premise sounds almost ridiculously predictable: Ian McShane as an old hit man on his last assignment. But the movie turns out to be a serious work that goes to unexpected places.

The handsome and appealing Max, by the way, is played by five dogs. For the record, he is a Belgian Malinois, a breed that in real life is often used in police and military work.

Gritty, bleak and sexy, the movie is also, between the lines, a strong feminist statement.

Impassioned and well-crafted, One Day in September is also grueling.

Mike Cahill's King of California reminds me of those '70s-era pictures beloved of the counterculture about appealing rebels who go down in flames of moral victory.

As innocent as a Disney movie -- and a lot more entertaining.

One of the smartest action thrillers to come along in the past few years. It's also one of the freshest.

The result? Well, as expected, director John Singleton ("Boyz N the Hood") did not make a movie as good as "FF1." This is way better.

The fun and human “Thunderbolts*” is an encouraging sign for the MCU’s future.

The picture... is well- made and entertaining, but it holds a special interest in what it says about Hanks.

As uneven as I Think I Love My Wife often is, it still has an emotional resonance lacking in most films about relationships. By dealing with temptation in even a quasi-realistic way, it affirms that, like comedy, monogamy is hard.

Beethoven once went five years without composing. Until now, Downey has gone five years without making anything close to a serious movie. The bigger waste of time was Beethoven’s, but talent wasted is talent wasted. This is the type of film Downey should be making.