It’s hard to believe that the likable British star of “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Lion” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” could be the next actor to become a hard-charging action director. But Patel’s filmmaking debut, “Monkey Man,” makes a bone-breaking case for just that.

This film is always pleasant to watch. It shows us that life has little detours, all the way to the end.

Sad, funny and painfully honest.

Escape means a roller-coaster finish, and with this delightful sequence achieved without the aid of computer effects, this “Ant-Man” entry stakes its own corner of the Marvel Universe sandbox as a throwback to ’80s-style childlike adventure.

Most viewers will have no more fun watching this story than the characters do living it.

Grease isn't a four-star musical. It's fluffy and unimportant, and it gets tedious toward the end with the car-racing sequence that Kleiser staged in the paved-in-concrete Los Angeles River. The friskiness of the performers, the choreography by Patricia Birch and most of all Travolta's phenomenal charm give it its value.

It has plenty of emotionally satisfying scenes and its share of humorous moments, but the drama and comedy mix like oil and water.

A rambling documentary that freely moves back and forth through time but maintains interest and cohesion by virtue of its subject. The more you watch Lewis, the more fascinating he gets.

The film's editing and pacing are appealingly straightforward, not to say blunt, and the humor runs from dry to bone-dry to parched.

Has the usual overlong running time, the half-hearted feints in the direction of human feeling and the obligatory action sequences that are big without being either exciting or particularly legible.

An intelligent movie that portrays the mighty without reverence.

It's the content that makes this documentary fly. The documentary's only stumbling point is its dearth of historical context.

A hit-and-miss affair, or, to be more precise, a miss (story one), hit (story two) and break even (story three) affair.

There isn't a film filled with richer, more colorfully imaginative images currently playing in theaters.

Slowly unfolding but liberating film, which is also a rare look inside a circumscribed community.

This oddball comedy may be one of the brightest, funniest pieces of entertainment of the season.

It wimped out by blanding down the story and the characters to the point where she isn't really a shrew and he isn't really a maniac.

This is Curtis' film. Looking a little like a combination of Carol Burnett and Annie Lennox, Curtis has this character down.

Wood is superb at delineating Tracy's slide into desperate incoherence, but equally impressive is Reed, who has to conceal her writer's intelligence in playing a character who's entirely instinctive and unreflective.

This comic film from Belgium, in which God is shown as a cantankerous slob, is more mischievous than malevolent, likely to offend only the humor-impaired.

It takes an extraordinary film on the order of Joyeux Noel to make it all suddenly vital, immediate and human.

Intends to inspire outrage, and to an extent it succeeds.

Its virtues of crisp, uncluttered photography and striking performances are frustratingly undermined by the muddled pretensions of Hungarian director Peter Medak. [09 Nov 1990, p.E7]

Beckwith, though, rallies with some memorable moments in the third trimester and nails the climactic scene with gut-wrenching efficiency. Her movie stays afloat because of Harrison (watch out for her in the future) and Helms, who both deliver a fitting finale that’s revelatory and emotionally satisfying.

Right now, his (Dolan) work is fun to watch. Before long, it may very well be mandatory for anyone who values great filmmaking.

Leigh is perfectly cast as the game-pod goddess.

There is much to think about in Far From the Tree, a worthy and at times tender film.

The best glimpse yet of what it's like to be in Iraq.