The Portrait of a Lady is a huge disappointment. It's a deliberately arty, overly formal exercise in emotional terrorism.

Rarely has a movie ever captured the importance of a writer’s having unbroken concentration in order to work.

Instead of a balanced film that explains the zeitgeist that is the X Games, we get a cinematic postcard that's superficial and unrealized.

The result is a genre-bending yarn, an entertaining mix of period drama and flat-out farce that should please history fans.

Occasionally, this film is funny and cute. When the family's little girl narrates, it reaches a level of humor that is ironic and endearing.

What “The Grab” doesn’t do quite well is sell its argument or weave its many disparate, admirably reported discoveries into a graspable whole.

In all, it’s a relaxed portrait of a likable fellow.

Filmmakers can’t depend on funny actors to go out there cold and bring back laughs. They have to be given funny things to do.

"Hornet's Nest" isn't the best of the three (that would be the first film, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), but it's the most challenging.

Neither true believers nor newcomers to the phenomenon will be disappointed.

Its one flaw occurs when the film concocts a fake conflict between the women in an attempt to add some drama. The plot device doesn't do great damage, but it is enough to keep the film from being a hands-down four-star movie.

That the movie succeeds as thoroughly as it does -- getting deeper and creepier as it goes along -- is evidence of a far-seeing creative imagination. Nolan is a compelling new talent.

A proper labor of love profiling many of the principles involved in the making of the films, peppered with a generous helping of wonderful clips.

Garlin's directing has little pacing, and many of the borderline gags could have been salvaged with some sharper editing. And there's a shocking amount of jokes and situations that just don't work.

The Devil's Advocate is a sharp, suspenseful and completely satisfying movie.

One of the great satisfactions of Spectre is that, in addition to all the stirring action, and all the timely references to a secret organization out to steal everyone’s personal information, we get to believe in Bond as a person.

Sexy and passably entertaining, with a plot that's too clever by half.

This is a small -- if rough -- gem of a film.

Comes across as a cautionary tale.

A thorough indictment of the Bush administration's focus on Iraq.

A 98-minute elucidation of a point that's accepted within three minutes.

Accomplishes the impossible, maybe the unimaginable -- it makes golf entertaining.

To put it bluntly, Wiig and McCarthy are funny, but Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones aren’t. McKinnon, in particular, is shockingly out of place, and she helps drag down the movie.

Still, despite Olsen and the appealing breeziness of Cumberbatch, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is what it is, a superhero extravaganza with too many fight scenes. But director Sam Raimi doesn’t overplay them, and the creative visuals keep them from becoming monotonous.

Two decades after its predecessor, Disney’s “Freakier Friday” plunges back into “legacy sequel” waters — where nostalgia keeps storylines afloat and originality barely treads water.

It’s a wild ride from beginning to end, thanks to a fearless performance from Finnish actor Elmer Back, who is a perfect match for Greenaway’s mischief.

Easily could have been mildly funny and phony but instead is really funny and true to life.

Director Sidney Lumet takes another shot at New York City police corruption in his new film, but despite some solid performances, Night Falls on Manhattan fails to deliver the passion of such Lumet classics as "Serpico" and "Prince of the City."