Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves feels like Daley and Goldstein, who also co-wrote with Michael Gilio, asked ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI: “Write a Marvel movie except with ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ characters.” Seconds later, this spit out.

The fight climax and very interesting resolution cap off an exhilarating two hours of entertainment — and suggest a sequel to come. Hope there is one.

Both revealing and evasive.

Viewers will be swept away by the beauty of individual moments and by Ivan Barnev's extraordinary performance.

Lacks one thing -- an epic grandeur.

Ends up musing perceptively on the American dream of wanderlust and its unintended consequences.

There's tremendous maturity and skill in Felicia's Journey but also a sense of impending horror that's bound to repel some audience members -- even though the violence is all implied.

Eschews cliches and cuts to the truth.

Sinks into melodrama.

Plays like a holy, erotic mood piece, steeped in so much subdued jungle fever that it practically runs on photosynthesis.

Inspiring and largely unsentimental, this is as much a love story as a tale of courage.

If ultimately Slow West seems more like a filmmaking exercise than an engaging piece of work — despite Fassbender’s star presence — that’s all right. Filmmakers need to get their exercise. Let’s see what Maclean does next.

The writing, by Adam Mansbach, and direction, by Vikram Gandhi, are competent without being terribly sophisticated or daring. Terrell’s performance elevates the film, though.

John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy directed this fine adaptation of the stage hit, a comedy-drama about a first officer on a cargo ship (Henry Fonda) who wants to be reassigned to combat duty. [05 Jul 1998]

It’s fascinating to return to this movie after many years. [2024 Restored Version]

An engaging, absorbing portrait of a moment in time when the Beatles were at their zenith.

Don’t be misled by the middling rating attached to this review. Midsommar is anything but mediocre. It’s horrible and brilliant, a crashing failure but one with many good moments. What do you say about a movie that’s both a disgusting, tiresome and predictable endurance test and an irrefutable demonstration of real directorial talent? Perhaps, this: Ari Aster is definitely someone who should be making movies. But maybe not this movie.

It’s hard to imagine a more original movie, or a more unfiltered vision from the mind of its maker.

Tasteful but not compromised.

Though “Society of the Snow” has its moments, it’s difficult to see what was gained by telling the story as a dramatic feature. Yes, in a documentary we’d lose the amazing crash scene, but the story would otherwise be better served by a straight laying out of the facts.

Die My Love is not plot-driven, with events that don’t necessarily follow one another in cause and effect. Rather, it’s a slow-burn psychological drama populated by imperfect people struggling with painful realities. Instead of a dramatic arc, it’s a dramatic decline.

Shame has a lolling pace and stunning visual clarity. Structurally, it's close to perfect - its precision echoed in the Glenn Gould piano recordings of Bach keyboard works that Brandon listens to obsessively.

Akeelah and the Bee connects where it counts most, on an emotional level. Only a curmudgeon could watch this feisty but vulnerable youngster rack up victories against all odds without tearing up.

To their credit, directors Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer, both of San Francisco, poke gentle fun at the locals without ridiculing them. The film's playful spirit is underscored by catchy steel-guitar melodies (courtesy of the Friends of Dean Martinez) that perfectly suit the bone-dry setting.

If nothing else, you'll surely relish the extravagant rhetoric used by Ali Mahdavi, the club's artistic director, to describe what is basically a tasteful nudie revue.

A weird and near-perfect polyglot of indie art film and noir mystery.

Cumberbatch fleshes out a portrait of uncompromised and resolute selfhood. In that way, he carries us and the movie over some long stretches of blue-screen emptiness.

Polanski directs the film without a wasting a moment. The occasional humor does nothing to relieve tension but, as in a Hitchcock picture, has a way of increasing it.

In The Suicide Squad, writer-director James Gunn has done the seemingly impossible: He has found the fun in the Suicide Squad. He has come up with a way to take what seemed like a dead concept and turn it into an action-packed joke machine.

Both very funny and a bit of a tearjerker, with an on-the-money performance from Ricky Gervais.

The documentary shows the stranglehold that the teachers union has on politicians, particularly Democratic politicians. The arrogance and ignorance of some of these politicians is galling.

Succeeds by placing us in an interesting world with characters who are impossible not to root for.

The result is an unconventional and layered portrait of a complicated talent.

What Dunham lacks in polish, she makes up for in her ability to observe her generation, with the hardest truths coming at her own expense.

Potentially oppressive subject matter is redeemed by impeccable moral integrity and stunning artistry.

One might quibble that Jackman and Thompson aren’t in the film enough, but really, humans are a distraction. The movie rides on its woolly sleuths, so audiences won’t feel fleeced.

In this pitch-perfect documentary about the very real rise of air guitar competition in the United States, and two of its top performers, stony thoughts will arise as to whether one is suddenly trapped inside a satire that got wrapped in a reality. Or vice versa, man.

Neither a "gay" movie nor a straight one; it is simply a funny one.

Little gem.

Obviously, sports fans will get the most out of In Search of Greatness. But there are self-help tropes for everyone.

A passionate, chronicle of an extraordinary artist, and a love story that can't be beat.

Guare's play is austerely funny and cerebral, and the film stays true to it, neither warming it up nor dumbing it down. [22 Dec 1993, p.E1]

The film’s depiction of loss, isolation and reconciliation, and the rewards of friendship, grows more touching as the story builds to its highly emotional conclusion.

A Hungarian film -- an existential thriller, one might call it -- about an intelligent man who happens to have this lowly nuisance of a job.

If you've sworn off movies about adolescent misfits, I don't blame you, but make an exception for Terri. This modest comedy-drama declines to take the easy way out, unlike many examples of the genre.

The highly enjoyable documentary Obit finally gives credit to the storytellers who bring people to life one last time.

Allen's most satisfying film since "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994) and his most compelling since "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989).

For all the movie’s honesty, the reality of Alzheimer’s disease is a lot worse than what you see in Still Alice. Perhaps directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland made a calculation as to how much an audience can take. They were right.

This is an irresistible throwback to not only old-school horror, but old-school television.

Writer-director Caroline Vignal could have made "My Donkey” into a 90-minute monologue, with Antoinette talking to the donkey. Instead, there’s lots of variation, smart turns of story and well-drawn, well-defined characters. Vignal makes even the bit characters, the ones with just three or four lines, vivid.

All this happens in an India that is both grim and beautiful: bustling, bureaucratic, colorful, harsh, full of cute children playing, full of downtrodden adults hustling for the next buck, full of life in general. It all feels very real. So does the ending.

This latest visitation from heaven, written and directed by Anthony Minghella, isn't as sappy, slick or saccharine as "Ghost" - thanks largely to the pert performance of Stevenson and the irascible character displayed by Rickman. [24 May 1991, p.E8]

Occasionally funny and touching, but often embarrassing and cringe-inducing.

There’s something to be said for simply watching Blanchett at work. Without the contribution of this exceptionally talented actress, Manifesto would be rough going indeed. With it, the film rises — barely — above the category of “enough already.”

Presents an almost fawning portrait of the doctor-turned-surfer.

Will have even the most landlocked goofy-footers wondering why they never learned to surf.

The payoff is a consistently rich piece with impressive visual vitality.

When compared with the ambition and achievement of recent animated films, such as "Coraline" and "Toy Story 3," Despicable Me hardly seems to have been worth making, and it's barely worth watching.

It is funny in an absurdist way, but it’s heartfelt, too. It creates unease, but also sympathy.

Aided by the star magnetism of Yen and Tse, and back in his element on the colorful streets of Hong Kong, Chan goes out with both guns blazing.

Eileen builds and builds and builds, and it definitely goes somewhere, but in a way more gimmicky than true — and that leaves us feeling like we were wrong for taking it seriously.

It’s a wail of grief, an expression of love, a testament to the body. Cronenberg puts it all on the line here, and he gets his actors to put it all on the line with him. If you don’t feel its visceral charge, you’re not paying attention.

Kiss of Death was directed by Barbet Schroeder ("Single White Female") in the fashion of a creepily smirking cat toying with a particularly appealing mouse.

Difficult to watch, and the film is sabotaged by an impossibly naive lead character and the repetitive auditions that become gratuitously depressing.

The scope of the film can be frustratingly narrow. But even this limited view into the events of the Maywand District murders is gripping cinema.

The movie's mixture of romance and noir, its air of menace and a certain occasional playfulness suggest the filmmakers have been thinking about Polanski and Hitchcock.

The Rainmaker has a mostly plausible story, an engaging young courtroom hero (Matt Damon, Hollywood's new cover boy), a giant insurance company as the perfect adversary and the best supporting cast of any movie this year.

Aside from its scintillating title character, Bobi Wine: The People’s President is valuable because it stands as a clarion call against authoritarianism.

No matter how bad things get, you can always be thankful for this: You're not on trial for murder in Russia.

Elisabeth Moss is an acting event all by herself, a modern version of Bette Davis, and The Invisible Man gives her a chance to embody all kinds of emotional extremes — terror, dread, madness, inconsolable grief and murderous rage.

Nothing that works here adds up to anything worth a long slog in a movie theater, watching Pattinson punching guys and knocking guns out of their hands. From start to finish, The Batman is mostly just a collection of bad ideas.

Never becomes the thoroughly satisfying psychological drama that it promises to be. There's also a problem with the central metaphor of ice -- a literary device that turns repetitive and obvious.

Despite very little dialogue and only one actor with a speaking role, Arctic has a smart script. Something is always happening.

Though a heartbreaking film, there are certainly moments of quirky humor.

Undefeated is filled with wonderful narratives, which impressed academy voters enough to garner an Academy Award this week. It's a credit to directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Daniels that the personal stories of the kids and coaches resonate more than the wins and losses.

Taken as a motion picture, the new "Harry" comes up short. But taken as a visual aid to the experience of reading a book, the new "Harry" does its job.

It's hard to argue with the movie's basic point. Dr. Robert Lustig of UCSF sums it up in three words: "Sugar is poison."

Director James Ponsoldt knows what his job is here. He keeps the camera on his lead actress and doesn't cut away. For Winstead, Smashed is the doorway to great things.

A compelling, tightly made political thriller.

Not every moment of the film is as potent as the book (which is noted for passages of passion and impassioned eloquence), but Cry, the Beloved Country overcomes its own limitations to become a glorious tribute to the workings of a faith that does not blind but opens up the human spirit.

Keenly observed and refreshingly natural.

A low-budget wonder: rough and gritty around the edges, filmed for what looks like a budget of $1.98, but bristling with energy, passion and intimacy.

Downbeat but ultimately hopeful, it's a domestic tragedy that cuts clearly to the bone, finding emotional nuance among the family's knotty secrets and dense layers of subterfuge.

This one's so much fun, it's worth taking the whole family.

The master is back, and there's no shortage of exploding brain matter -- or fun -- to be had in the theaters this weekend.

It's a modest and mildly funny effort, with good scenes and touches of incisive satire, but it's not quite funny enough, and it's undermined by its camera technique.

Tariq began his career as a documentary filmmaker, and now he has made a drama that rings with truth, about a musician’s ambition, a son’s relationship with his father and how the immigrant experience shapes following generations.

It's impossible to dismiss the attraction of such accomplished actors on the big screen, even with a fits-and-starts script.

A breezy account of a man whose obsession began early.

Director Ted Demme (with a terse script by Mike Armstrong) keeps it darkly funny while exposing raw nerves in a buildup to unexpected tragedy.

The Imitation Game is the one film that might have been better off longer. Starting the story in 1938 and just going through Turing’s life chronologically might have taken an extra 20 or 30 minutes, but it would have been worth it.

Compelling and frequently entertaining.

A first-rate historical drama.

We're compelled to admire these athletes because, despite their obvious skill, they are in constant danger.

Lacks insight and finesse, and feels like a boldfaced Rorschach for Smith's own hang-ups.

Married to the Mob picks up pace throughout and builds to an exciting finish. [19 Aug 1988]

A solidly made wish-fulfillment fantasy set during World War II.

This is a serious film, but it is also entertaining. Ngassa and Ntuba should be galvanizing figures for a nation stuck on "Judge Judy" and "Jerry Springer."