Aims to make epic drama of Algeria's battle for independence, but there are moments when you would swear you're watching a "Godfather" knockoff.

An atmospheric and, to a degree, challenging mashup of psychological, social and folk horror, Nanny casts a spell it doesn’t put us entirely under.

Would have been a stronger movie if it didn't require a strong cup of coffee going in.

The Bookshop isn’t an especially good film, but there’s no shortage of good in it.

The film is dreadfully slow without much in the way of rewards.

Tetris holds an audience’s attention until the finish, without ever quite commanding it. To some degree, Noah Pink’s screenplay deserves credit for taking an arcane business story and rendering it entertaining. But the story gets so extreme and unlikely in the movie’s last half hour that it becomes easy to separate fact from fiction.

The feature film Everest provides soaring visuals, but it’s a distant second in terms of storytelling depth and narrative impact.

Something to see and occasionally even to laugh at.

While often cliche ridden and preposterous, it's too busy and loud to put anyone to sleep.

The Hill is meant to be inspiring, of course, and to some, it might be, but the vibe is more reassuring in the way that it does not deviate from the standard-issue formula of such movies. It is a cinematic case of confirmation bias, designed to fulfill preexisting values and beliefs.

Oh, Canada is about not so much Fife’s artistic growth as his journey to hermetically sealed narcissism.

As depicted here, the political story becomes convoluted and dramatically inert.

Kline is good in a role that suits him perfectly, and his scenes with Steenburgen are among the film’s most affecting. Jacobs is pretty good, too, really pouring on the Southern California “charm.”

As in The Florida Project, Baker lingers too long on the atmospherics, and that’s fatal here, because Red Rocket is a comedy and needs a brisk rhythm.

Nelson's work is relentless, grueling and courageous. He makes a large blunder in having American actors (David Arquette, Steve Buscemi) play Hungarian Jews with American accents, while Harvey Keitel plays a Nazi officer with a German accent.

Often the movie seems like a lot of empty-headed blather, with one side hating the First Amendment and the other side unable to find a better use for it but to say the f-word.

Nate Parker’s film isn’t always successful at balancing empathy with suspense or its prison reform message with character development. But there are engaging moments from start to finish, with a plot that, while not as surprising as writer-director Parker may have thought, wracks nerves multiple times.

Braveheart comes up short by beating the drums of human treachery and violence so loudly they become assaults.

The problems lie not with the actors but with a glib approach that exposes the flaws of the original story.

Cox does a better than average job — almost everybody bombs when playing Churchill — capturing the leader’s seriousness of purpose and the weight of his responsibility. He gives us Churchill’s irascibility, but he doesn’t convey Churchill’s twinkle, his charm or his wit.

Remembering Gene Wilder is a pleasant retro journey for fans and an efficient introduction to a comic genius for cineasts who might not know his work. It could have been so much more.

The new John Waters movie, Cry-Baby, which opens today at the Kabuki, isn't daring or even daringly undaring. It's a spoof of those dull, corny musicals from the '50s and early '60s and is just as dull and safe as the kind of movie it mocks. I fell asleep, and I haven't dozed off in a theater since ''Dream Lover,'' a Kristy McNichol effort from 1986. [6 Apr 1990, p.E1]

Worthy but dull.

Its main virtue is that it provides Murphy with a juicy role.

A wildly erratic, often annoying but never boring endeavor.

The main event here is Swank, who was a plaintive and sentimental figure in her earliest movies and has only fully come into her strength in youthful middle age. This strength makes Fatale an entertaining diversion and holds out the promise for something deeper and more satisfying in the future.

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

Has warmth and integrity, but it lacks the urgency of a story that had to be told.