There have been many adultery movies over the years, but Leaving has some aspects that make it different and interesting.

G.B.F. has been unfairly slapped with an R rating, but the film is about as scandalous as a "Glee" episode. It's suitable for young teenage girls, who apparently are far more at ease with the times than the homophobic folks at the MPAA. Don't let their rating fool you: The movie may be thoroughly modern, yet it's old-fashioned, too.

This is a movie you might want to talk about afterward, so try to see it with other people.

The Corruptor' quickly turns into a good bad-cop drama of fascinating moral complexity.

The new movie lacks something, a special something. It's a quality that has characterized some of the best of the first 19 Bond movies: extravagant ludicrousness.

It’s a strength, not a weakness, of Jacquot’s that he makes movies about people. The ideas can take care of themselves.

A crackerjack combination of live action, special effects and recycled footage.

Breaking Upwards has its amusing and touching moments, but we're left wondering just what we're supposed to make of it all. In the end, the relationship at the film's core is less absorbing than the filmmakers imagine.

Shore should have just stuck to his strengths, which is producing music. As a documentary, though, Take Me to the River falls woefully short on offering a serious contribution to the history of African American-inspired music.

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.

This is a funny novelty, no denying it.

Campy, overwrought and gleefully cannibalistic in the way it references and regurgitates horror flicks of yore, Scream 3 fulfills its modest ambitions by delivering a glib slasher spoof for the mall crowd.

The body-swap movie “It’s What’s Inside” dazzles up to the moment its plot gets going.

It's a tepid, quiet and uneventful film, directed almost in slow motion, with no narrative propulsion and with a succession of very similar scenes. The actors speak softly and pause a lot. And in the background is the steady hum of the soundtrack.

It's the typical elements that make Eraser no more than a solid bit of fluff: This is one of those movies where good guys don't miss, and bad guys can't shoot to save their lives.

A quirky little comedy about one day in the life of a New York playwright on the brink of either greatness or failure.

Woodley has been first-rate in everything she’s been in, particularly the “Divergent” series. But there’s something about her performance here that feels like the sincere and dutiful dispersal of medicine.

A romantic comedy that flirts with something serious but never gets past the flirting stage.

A mix of the powerful and the ridiculous, and eventually the ridiculous wins. The movie deals with a big subject that has received scant treatment in movies - the genocide in Bosnia in the 1990s - giving voice and testimony to what happened there. But the ill-conceived fictional elements take the picture right off the rails.

If Monster occasionally shows its YA roots with flashes of simplicity, it also tells a lean, propulsive story with style and grace.

This flawed drama about a self-destructive young actress and her reclusive novelist father has its rewards, mainly in some good performances.

Tag isn’t interesting at all, but its failure is. It’s the kind of movie that makes the viewer ask questions, such as, why isn’t this working? Why is this bombing? Why is this dying the death? Why am I shifting in my seat just to stay conscious? The movie seems like it should be funny, but it’s not, so why?

Heart and Souls stands up beautifully as a heart- tugging testament to the importance of taking care of the sometimes complicated business of being a decent, loving person before some fateful bus crash robs you of the chance. [13 Aug 1993, p.C1]

The character moments here resonate, and there are enough stakes to make the final scenes feel meaningful.

While the songs are recycled, Across the Universe stands out just by existing.

All along, you know something terrible is going to happen, and when it does, you leave the theater shaken and deeply moved.

Jackass 3D has its moments, but it lacks the ingenuity and hilarity of the previous films - no doubt in large part because of the aging process.

More often than not, it's fun.

The result is a satisfying and original picture.

I'm not denying that a 40-year- old woman might be self-conscious about going around with someone this young. But the subject isn't interesting or provocative enough to sustain an entire movie.

Squanders its comic capital on redundant bits about her perplexed family and secret society of fellow sex addicts.

The Two Jakes is an interesting movie and audiences are predisposed to warm up to Nicholson the actor, but they may not be so charitable to Nicholson the director. [10 Aug 1990]

A few times every year, Hollywood makes a mistake, violates formula and actually makes a great picture. Falling Down is one of the great mistakes of 1993, a film too good and too original to win any Oscars but one bound to be remembered in years to come as a true and ironic statement about life in our time. [26 Feb 1993, p.D1]

It's really not bad... It's a genuine vault at greatness that misses the mark -- but survives.

A potential problem with the movie is that it can be a challenge watching people hand-wringing over moral decisions. But the acting is so good that it makes it worth sticking with during the slow patches.

If you can get past the impossibilities it is a fun time at the movies.

How could a little story like this get stretched to 124 minutes? It's at least 30 minutes too long.

In Mimic, director Guillermo Del Toro has created a dark, grotesque world that's hard to look at, and impossible to stop looking at.

An ideal movie for an ideal time in America.

Much of what we see is revealing, but I was unable to quell an occasional sense that the dice were being loaded, that the subjects were being given just enough rope to hang themselves.

At no point during the movie does it strike him that mass extermination might be classified as "rude." No, Frank has the courage of his convictions, which include the belief that most of America has already flushed itself down the toilet.

Maher makes Michael Moore look incredibly likable in comparison.

In style and structure, it mimics an old-style studio effort, a culture-clashing comedy of manners that's tinged with melodrama and filmed in a smart progression of medium shots.

Bezucha made something perverse, a feel-bad holiday film about a repellent family, with a milquetoast dad and a smug, devious harpy of a mom.

Still the spectacle of this, of beautiful, sensitive children at the mercy of damaged adults — this is what we take from The Glass Castle. It’s a universal awfulness rendered with truth and detail, and somehow that’s enough.

Part of what made the prior two “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies work was their playful, controlled scope that still provided engaging, serious storylines. By contrast, the third and latest installation overwhelms with so many explosions and colorful sky beams that instead of pulling the audience in, it has the opposite effect.

For those interested in this rich period in American literature, it’s a treat.

Eisner has almost nothing on his mind, no political rumblings, nothing behind the urge to upgrade vintage trash.

A surprisingly handsome film whose visual appeal often shores up a predictable plot. [14 Jan 1994, p.C3]

It's the speed of love, not the speed of light, that occupies Adam, a small, sweet movie about one man's widening cosmos.

The movie's one flaw is this: The whole movie hangs on the gradual unraveling of the central mystery and is made with the expectation that the audience is fascinated and hanging on every tidbit.

If you're a fashion insider, you may find the entire film fascinating. If you're not, you may find it way too long.

As a thriller, Cabin Fever falls short, filled with characters so obnoxiously stupid that just watching their skin slowly melt off doesn't seem like enough punishment.

In I'll Sleep When I'm Dead,' master of stylish criminality Mike Hodges presents a nighttime London of sharp suits, distorted jazz notes and shiny luxury sedans cruising dirty streets.

Watching the film is like being on a jury in which you know the defendant is probably guilty, but alas, there's not enough evidence to convict.

Pike’s own commitment is wonderful to witness. Radioactive is a good movie, a bit more imaginative than most (at several points, the movie takes a quick leap into the future to show the various ways radioactivity has been used, for good and for ill), but Pike makes it something to see, simply by giving it everything.

This is a profound saga that makes for a great American movie.

The result is a movie that, like the book, is episodic and has dips in energy but has more than its share of glory and illumination.

The Details has a light tone, but it's anything but light in purpose. It's committed and passionate, one of the most perceptive and morally persuasive movies of 2012.

Either “Nightbitch” shouldn’t have been made or its premise should have been transformed and built upon.

Part conscious and part unconscious, Watchmen tells us of a world without hope and then makes us wonder if we're already living in it.

Almost overcomes weak source material to become a decent film.

The film is finally a letdown.

It’s definitely not for everybody, but even a non-fan stumbling into the theater accidentally will find whole sections here to enjoy.

If John Waters had directed Mermaids, the new Cher comedy, it might have more of the spunk and the trash that it needs. In the hands of middlebrow director Richard Benjamin, it starts off promisingly but finally sinks into schmaltz and melodrama. [14 Dec 1990, p.E1]

Peralta uses the creative liberties of fiction to focus on the one thing he couldn't convey in his historical record -- the sense of tribalism among skateboarders, who live by a code that most law-abiding citizens misunderstand for hooliganism.

The writing is funny during individual moments, but the cumulative result is a bit depressing, with a surprising amount of negativity.

The emotional core of the movie, the relationship between Nicky and Jess, lacks impact, mostly because you can’t believe a word that they say, but also because Smith is not a strong leading man.

A filmic hug for Brooklyn.

For at least a half hour, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a brilliant and exciting film and seems almost sure to be one of the best of 2010. Then it becomes simply good. Then it becomes merely interesting. And then, about 15 minutes before the finish, it becomes dull and interminable.

It's a pleasant and well-intentioned end of summer diversion that doesn't possess the imagination-stoking qualities of a premier children's movie.

The weakness of “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” aside from the fact that at 136 minutes it’s a little too long, is that it follows the less interesting character of Baranov. But this isn’t Dano’s fault. He can’t make this fictional fellow more interesting than Putin.

It exudes goodwill and high spirits, occasionally makes you feel really good, and yet here and there and in some definite ways, it kinda sorta stinks.

When Paper Towns works, it’s fun.

A good, strong movie, but never threatens to be great. One salivates at the adventurous directions the film could have explored.

Alan Bates and Charlotte Rampling are the brave stars of this pretty but sterile adaptation of the Anton Chekhov stage classic.

A lot more than the sum of its delicately balanced parts.

The dialogue is loaded with depth charges that take a while to explode beneath the surface.

It is maliciously entertaining, up to a point.

Holds our attention by dispensing information gradually, like a piece of fiction.

Excellent.

Ultimately, Hocus Pocus 2 operates as a cheerful throwback to the 1980s/early ’90s genre of plucky kids saving small-town America from existential danger, a vibe tapped into by not just the original “Hocus Pocus” but such classics as “Gremlins,” “Back to the Future” and “The Goonies.”

The action is not just big — big is easy. It’s creative. It’s choreographed. It’s unexpected and delightful. It’s lots of fun and a stark contrast to the previous film, “Furious 7,” which was huge but flat, just commotion without inspiration.

The mockumentary-style delivery of a serious subject proves to be an unworkable mash-up.

What's surprising about Quick Change, particularly in light of his more recent mega-budget efforts, is its witty affability. [15 Jul 1990, p.34]

Thanks to him (Neeson), I not only enjoyed Non-Stop, but I'd watch it again. Particularly on a plane.

Extreme Measures has disturbing moments, and poignant ones, too. It plays a good game of paranoia with its unlikely hero. Once the story gets past Luthan's implausible firing on trumped-up drug charges, it places him alone in a hostile world. Relying only on a determination to solve the medical puzzle, he goes on a desperate expedition into the bowels of the subway system. It's a grim, scary sequence, and Grant seems a million miles away from his stammering comedic style -- an extreme that is surprisingly engaging.

Isn't an awful movie. It's got two charismatic, albeit ill-served leads in John Cusack and Kevin Spacey, and it's got a sizzling, tear-it-up performance by The Lady Chablis, who brings such good-natured sass and suggestiveness that you hunger for more whenever she's offscreen.

It’s a loving sampler platter full of big laughs and heart that will satisfy lifelong DC buffs, while serving as the perfect on-ramp to the universe for a whole new generation of young fans.

Like Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s stellar “The Lego Movie,” the filmmakers work with the confidence that if a joke fails, the one that follows a few seconds later will redeem the scene.

The history itself is the main appeal here.

The title promises a film that never really materializes: something nastier, smellier, more nihilistic than the skittish morality tale at hand.

All of this amounts to so much stylish nostalgia - not half as repulsive as the splatterific torture porn currently dominating the horror genre, and not half as cynical, either.

Though directed by someone who has been making movies for four years, “Drive-Away Dolls” feels like a young person’s movie, which is a good thing. It also seems like a movie directed by someone who grew up watching Tarantino movies, not Coen Brothers movies, which is unexpected but welcome, too.

Best of all, the filmmakers know when to pull the plug. Date Night clocks in at 88 minutes and would not have been as funny at 89.

With the aid of a charmingly offbeat story and a jolly good dialect coach, the stars leave you thinking, well done. Their spirited performances help cover up glaring holes in the plot.

Overall, though, Sandel’s film has heart, some good laughs, and a decent message. In this age of cyberbullying, that’s nothing to scoff at.

French Exit is worth seeing because it gives a juicy role to Michelle Pfeiffer, who is something to marvel at. But it’s a frustrating film because, as a whole, it’s just not nearly as good as its central performance.