Weaving between freshness and formula, The Boys Are Back earns a gentle pat on the head.

The crescendo of two resonant careers makes the false notes of Unfinished Song forgivable.

Presented as a stand-alone film, but without an explanation for the protagonist’s physical and emotional injuries, it’s a head-scratcher. As with Joe’s sexual compulsion, scratching can’t cure the itch.

A buddy comedy disguised as a political thriller. It’s full of malarkey, but as a campaign of shock and awe, it’s hard to resist.

The rapid dialogue is dry and mannered, like a David Mamet play, there's virtually no story and Cronenberg's visual scheme is cold and claustrophobic.

It’s just sad to see the always interesting Farmiga wasted in such a hackneyed role.

Director Philipp Stolzl worked in the same dangerous conditions as the original climbers, and we can feel the chill and peril in our bones. It's a shame, then, that the screenwriter, unlike the camera crew and the characters, was afflicted with such timidity.

Suicide Squad had the potential to be as hilariously irreverent as “Deadpool,” a surprise box-office hit about a similarly sociopathic hero. Instead, it’s just another film that relies on special effects to distract the audience from a story that’s overblown and underwhelming.

Director Graeme Clifford keeps the action going lickity-split and created a film worth a quick look. [17 Jan 1989, p.5D]

It's a calculated crowd-pleaser that skims over the surface of the era like a cruise-ship production of "American Graffiti."

As much Fosse as Fellini. It’s a shadow of a shadow, refracted through a fun-house mirror. For all the noise and color, it feels like an exercise and not a natural expression.

An oddly uninvolving adventure story.

Pellington, an award-winning music video director, has a good eye for setting scenes, although the movie falls a few times into a choppy video clip-to-video clip rut. [26 Oct 1997, p.04E]

It's a little black dress of a movie, an elegant hint of something sensual that is ultimately denied to us.

The dialogue is ridiculous, the plot is silly, and the acting is cartoonish. But I'll hand this to Italian horror director Lucio Fulci: He knows how to put on a show for those dead set on seeing a violent, gory, bloody, zombie-infested midnight-flick type of a movie. [03 Jul 1998, p.E3]

Every character from the original is here, navigating the dating jungle, but this time there’s no pushing of Steve Harvey’s book.

It takes a while to rev up, but Blockers is often laugh-out-loud funny, thanks to the cast — you just wish they all had a little more to work with.

Despite its brainy title, Monsters University only earns a passing grade on its looks.

For real balance, the debate needs fiercely leftist truth-tellers in tri-corner hats, calling themselves the Organic Chai Tea Party.

There’s much to appreciate here. Like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” which had a stronger sense of its place in the world, this coming-of-age movie should appeal to smart, sensitive young people who haven’t been exposed to the better examples of the genre.

Whether on stage or the screen, Much Ado About Nothing is a pleasure that passes like a midsummer night’s dream.

An Innocent Man is a fairly effective melodramatic thriller, and the prison scenes are powerful. [06 Oct 1989, p.3E]

Watson is a revelation here as a brand-obsessed bad girl.

Targeted toward horror-film junkies looking for a terror throwback, You’re Next mixes gore and dark humor with yet another home invasion plot line.

A bizarre buffet of buffoonery, brutality and beautiful landscapes.

As a diversion, Babies is like a wind-up toy that will tickle anyone with a pulse. As a documentary, it's like a cache of home videos that will frustrate anyone with an inquiring mind.

Texasville is much less memorable than The Last Picture Show, but it is well worth seeing, particularly if you loved the original movie and are curious about what happened to the people in it. There are some slow spots, but not too many. And there are more laughs than tears, although, as country music fans know, it is often hard to tell the difference. [28 Oct 1990, p.6C]

Like Ernest Borgnine, Philip Seymour Hoffman is an unconventional leading man with an Oscar on his mantle, and his bittersweet Jack Goes Boating has elicited comparisons with "Marty."