A pleasant surprise. It's a gentle, unforced adult comedy that capitalizes on situations rather than gags. [19 June 1987, p.1D]

Eye in the Sky remains gripping even when Hibbert tosses in one or two side-taking circumstances too many.

Whatever she lacks in filmmaking expertise or originality is balanced by an unadorned sincerity in the melodrama she chose for a debut. Down in the Delta isn't a great movie, but it constantly touches your heart and involves you with its characters. [25 Dec 1998, p.5]

The film is able to overcome some of its narrative familiarity just by showcasing characters, locations and music we rarely see on screen. Having Monsoon Wedding director Mira Nair at the helm also brings a visual vibrancy and communal energy to the proceedings.

Dark, heavy and plodding, with imaginative sex and a strong sense of magnetism between its characters. [26 March 1988, p.1D]

Corbijn keeps the intrigue uncluttered, guided by Andrew Bovell's economical adapted screenplay.

Arbitrage is a classy soap opera with a charismatic louse at its center, without "Margin Call" didactics, or the misplaced empathy of "The Company Men."

The third act sustains a fevered level of absurdity and everything prior is stylish, well-acted yet off-putting.Art without any noticeable heart.

The movie's strength is Sheridan's knack for vivid characterization through little more than casual remarks and consistent voices.

Remember that ultra-violent scene in "Old Boy" when the dude plowed through a subway platform of bad guys and was the only one left standing? Multiply it by four or five and that's The Raid: Redemption.

Many actors would focus their energies only on Arnie's tics, but DiCaprio aims for his soul. We could either laugh at Arnie or pity him, but DiCaprio makes us love him. [4 Mar 1994, p.5]

The Commitments is a noisy, gritty, foul-mouthed movie with strong Irish sentiments and accents as pungent as stout. [13 Sep 1991, p.20]

Unlike many post 9/11 war movies, American Sniper goes easier on the gung ho, with a third act leavened by Chris' depressed denial, his "hurt locker" of stored regret. Eastwood is less concerned with action heroism than the consequences of deadly action, how it chips away at the living.

The movie's memorable moments involve a silently expressive dodo bird and "man-panzee," stealing the show from human caricatures acting silly.

Spider-Man: Homecoming does the improbable, successfully rebooting a reboot of a trilogy that did the job well enough only a decade ago. It's a movie that could be unnecessary but isn't.

Working for the first time with French cinematographer Jean-Claude Larrieu, the director retains his signature framing and crimson flourishes.

Stone is terrific, easy to cheer. She's feisty but a bit softer around the edges than King deserves. Another Oscar nomination is certain. Throw in Steve Carell's uncanny impersonation of Riggs and a stellar supporting cast and Battle of the Sexes has the makings of fine time capsule comedy, an extraordinary sports happening even by today's wired standards.

The strategy deserves to self-destruct in five seconds.

Crossing Delancey is a generously friendly comedy, well-acted and directed. Irving's graceful performance and Riegert's solid one bring depth to what is essentially another light comedy.

Even when Magic Mike is skimpier than a g-string it soars on daring, as if Soderbergh asked himself who could possibly make a good movie from such offbeat material, answered "I can," and did.

More interesting than the hows and whys of N.W.A.'s controversial rise and fall in the industry are the inside snapshots of the industry itself, from grimy Compton clubs to electrifying arena concerts to hotel orgies to studio sessions that illuminate Dr. Dre's creative process.

Anchored by Viggo Mortensen's prismatic portrayal of Ben, this is one of the summer's nicest movie surprises, and among its wisest.

DeVito's pacing stunts the eventual triumphs and gives devotees of Dahl's book one more reason not to trust anyone past middle school. [03 Aug 1996, p.2B]

The Cabin in the Woods isn't merely another "Scream" exercise in self-awareness, or a "Scary Movie" spoof of the same. It's a wickedly smart hybrid mutation, biting the severed hand feeding the genre.

Miami Blues is reminiscent of Demme's Married to the Mob and Something Wild. It has a superb sense of place. It savages Middle American tackiness. Regrettably, Miami Blues is even more mainstream and less developed than Married to the Mob. Its characters' lapses of logic and the holes in Armitage's script require a forgiving audience. The blood-letting at its conclusion necessitates a strong stomach. [20 Apr 1990, p.19]

Stone's riveting three-hour movie freely mixes black and white and color documentary footage with pseudo-documentary and dramatic footage, so the line between real and fabrication is constantly blurred. [20 Dec 1991, p.7]

Egoyan's self-importance mars every frame of his film. [24 Mar 1995, p.9]

How much you enjoy Presumed Innocent depends on whether you read Scott Turow's exhilarating legal thriller about a prosecutor charged with murdering a colleague who was briefly his lover. If you haven't, director Alan J. Pakula's adaptation will leave you dazzled and drained long before the final twist. If you have, you'll appreciate Pakula's faithful, though overly restrained, approach to Turow's 1987 novel that sold 1-million hardback copies and spent 44 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. [27 July 1990, p.6]

The movie's first half is its funniest, as Moore sets up this alternate low-resolution universe.

The movie's erratic pleasures are like its ghosts; now you see them, now you don't.

After his hit-and-miss starring role in Purple Rain and the so-bad-it's-funny Under the Cherry Moon, Prince has come into his own as a film maker by doing what he does best: putting his consummate musical and performance talents into a vehicle that smokes from wire-to-wire. [29 Dec 1987, p.3D]

Hail, Caesar! is maddeningly hit-and-miss.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles puts on the miles without many smiles. The journey hardly seems worth the trouble. [27 Nov 1987, p.6]

Christine is a movie as bleak and withdrawn as its protagonist, with Hall making the most of her best role in years, a slow death spiral that's hard to look away from.

Yes, this one is even better: funnier, brawnier and ingeniously constructed for appeal to both devoted fans and reluctant converts.

Whatever definition of "dope" you prefer, it applies to Rick Famuyiwa's movie of the same name.

It's irreverent about cancer and that could be inspirational. And it's surely one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen all year.

A movie of here-and-now thrills, goosed by judicious CGI effects that never overpower the humanity of the situation.

War Horse takes time reaching its full emotional gallop with a late sequence combining man, beast and barbed wire. Yet it remains a technically magnificent ride throughout, and a checklist of visual influences from "All Quiet on the Western Front" to "Gone with the Wind."

Screenwriter Bert V. Royal takes the oldest adolescence hook in the book - losing one's virginity- and turns it inside out.

While The Stepfather doesn't transcend the limitations of most slice-and-dice movies, it comes close. And has fun trying.

Shame smears the lines between daring and taunting, and art versus indulgence. When it ends there's the urge to take a shower, and not a cold one.

A nice balance of solemn myth making and genre irreverence lifts Doctor Strange to Marvel's first tier of movie franchises.

For all of its movie-of-the-week mechanics, this is a deeply moving dramatization of what Alzheimer's does to mind and spirit, anchored by the finest performance, male or female, from any 2014 movie release.

Directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud craft a fun stretch run, wrapping the story with warm, fuzzy funnies and nothing to suggest a sequel, which is probably wise.

Director Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female) has the proper foreboding drive in his technique to make every minute of his movie hum with fascinating dread. [21 Apr 1995, p.2B]

Like the genre's top filmmakers - the Coens, Polanski, Hitchcock - Capotondi builds dread with wicked winks at the audience, dropping subtle surprises along the way.

It's a familiar, straightforward story, carried from start to finish by Winstead, who makes Kate an interesting study in contradictions.

Cumberbatch radiates such intelligence — with Sherlock and this, egghead Benedict is his speciality — that gaps are easily excused. From sets and costumes to Alexandre Desplat's musical score, The Imitation Game is everything classy that Hollywood wishes it could be.

Rudy and his wonderful story could make even an FSU fan genuflect before Touchdown Jesus. [13 Oct 1993, p.6B]

Anything goes in The Big Lebowski, and you roll right along with it. [6 March 1998, p.3]

The movie is something of a shaggy dog hangout film, albeit one that literally features a shaggy dragon.

Monkey Shines is just humdrum theater fodder that exploits the problems of quadriplegics for a cheap buzz of fear that it can't even deliver. This movie could make the apes sorry that we're related. [29 July 1988, p.9]

It may overwhelm and confuse, until you start tracing the mesmerizing route Ward lays out for his audience. [14 May 1993, p.6]

Tangled would be a satisfying adventure on plot and 3D sensations alone.

Edge of Tomorrow may be the best video game movie ever made. Which is strange since it isn't actually based on a video game.

Always lovely to observe, Wonderstruck never entirely grasps the magic of the coincidences it requires. Themes are emotional yet Haynes’ obsession with visual detailing can drain their meaning.

It feels disingenuous to celebrate Doss' moral code by vividly pretending to demolish it. Nobody disputes the notion that war is hell. But maybe this particular war movie didn't need that.

22 Jump Street is a mixed bag of clever spoofery and miscalculated outrageousness. The unveiled homoeroticism of practically all interaction between Jenko and Schmidt is amusing to the point when it isn't.

It's the most unsettling nice surprise of 2011.

While Husbands and Wives is mired in mid-life, Singles is buoyed by the exhilaration of young people experiencing the initial freedom of adulthood. The concerns are similar. But the outlook of each generation couldn't be more different. [18 Sept 1992, p.5]

Brad's Status is White's second admirable screenplay this year after Beatriz at Dinner, each rapier sharp about human conditions. This script brings out Stiller's best, meaning his characters' worst. Midlife crises this well-written and performed never grow old.

In any language with anyone at the helm, Lisbeth is still a killer.

If you let it, Damage can be an exhilarating and a devastating leap into the realm of erotic obsession. [22 Jan 1993, p.8]

Warrior is a surprising gut punch, a modern-day "Rocky" saga with two mixed martial arts pugs trying to beat, choke and kick the system.

The movie is as quietly assured as its heroine, Bathsheba Everdene, gracefully played by Carey Mulligan.

I've watched Sleepwalk With Me twice now, each time impressed with Birbiglia's confidence in revealing so much about his craft and himself, and the freely associated style with which he does it.

The triumph of Manhattan Murder Mystery is the return to form of Keaton, whose Annie Hall mannerisms have been smoothed by age, but can still erupt in the face of frustration. Watching her and Allen work together again is a joy; there are times when it seems that this couple is actually Annie and Alvy Singer, all grown up and no place else to go but New York City. Keaton's delightful performance is the re-emergence of a fine actor who was creatively sidetracked too long. [20 Aug 1993, p.8]

Many of the movie's scariest moments come from the skillful use of silence or the increasingly limited space the characters inhabit.

Florence Foster Jenkins is too much old-fashioned fun to saddle with ideas. Just sit back and let Meryl screech.

Well-acted and lovingly designed, Marsh's movie falls far short of the genius it attempts to celebrate.

Eastwood keeps the tension humming from his director's chair and contributes a little too much comic relief, but gives Costner an eye-opening, image-shattering showcase that adds a sheen to his often-criticized acting career. [24 Nov 1993, p.6B]

Taylor's movie is overly episodic, but a number of those episodes are marvelous.

Everything is fine and fantastic while the children are allowed to play out their outlaw games with innocent abandon. It's when adults interfere that Into the West limps off into the sunset. [17 Sep 1993, p.8]

It is well acted bunk, led by Hugh Jackman's righteous raging as the father of a missing girl, abducting a suspect (Paul Dano) to pummel and scald a confession from him. If only solving the case and ending this movie sooner was that simple.

A marvelous technical achievement when the director finally gets around to it.

There are a few typos in The Paper, but they're honest - and honestly funny - mistakes. [25 March 1994, p.5]

Gloriously, uproariously, there’s Rose Marie herself, sharp and tart as ever with total recall of every juicy moment, every conversation. A portrait of an indefatigable entertainer emerges, restless when she wasn’t working and fearless when she was.

Catch 22 will be remembered as a screamingly terrifying and funny interpretation of Joesph Heller's classic work. [27 July 1970, p.42]

For a good portion of Black's film, all this mayhem is great fun, since Russell Crowe is obviously funnier than he has ever allowed himself to appear, and Ryan Gosling is funnier than he has already proven. Together they form a deliciously dumb action duo; one brawn, the other sort of has a brain.

Bob Roberts is the meanest, most outrageous movie to come out of the emasculated American left in a decade. It's a triumphant satire. [25 Sep 1992, p.9]

Stephen Fry's elegantly wry performance as Wilde ranks among the best acting of the year so far, elevating what could be a simple impersonation into the embodiment of a person too smart for his surroundings and too tempted by the ways of the flesh. [26 Jun 1998, p.10]

It's a heady blend, at times requiring more speechifying than throwaway pop deserves. But it keeps one guessing between ill-staged and frenetically edited fight scenes. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo handle vehicular mayhem better.

It's not an art film, although it's an extremely intelligent piece of filmmaking. [27 Apr 1987, p.1D]

Gary and Martin Kemp, better known in pop music circles as Britain's Spandau Ballet, are superbly, diabolically creepy as the Krays. They give the film its otherworldly, yet street-smart and gritty, sense of being. [09 Nov 1990, p.7]

Almodóvar dives into perversity, practically daring the audience not to follow. The Skin I Live In is a mediocre addition to his resume, yet for fans, even bad Almodóvar is better than none at all.

Like The Postman Always Rings Twice, Rafelson's Black Widow is seriously flawed despite several compelling scenes. It plods to a contrived resolution, piling implausibility upon implausibility, rarely pausing to account for the incredulous events that transpire. It is the type of movie that squanders potential at every juncture. [7 Feb 1987, p.5B]

Lethal Weapon 2, which is based on a story by Warren Murphy and series' originator Shane Black, is nearly as good as the original. It has its flaws. The story too closely parallels the original, a Golden Triangle conspiracy that had more mercenaries running around Los Angeles than the Third World. [08 July 1989, p.1D]

Enormously engaging. [7 June 1991, p.7]

This movie embraces its inner yokel.

Dragon: The Story of Bruce Lee is therefore one of those rarities, a biography as entertaining as it is informative. [7 May 1993, p.6]

Imagine a stuffy Merchant Ivory production blended with muted Michael Crichton sci-fi and you have Never Let Me Go, at least as it plays on screen.

Batman is perfect summertime fare. Its secret is levity hidden in a dark and troubled soul.. [23 June 1989, p.6]

Unstoppable isn't unwatchable, but it is a letdown after "Speed" and some of the Speed-on-a-(fill in the blank with a vehicle) flicks that followed. Forget missing Hopper; even Keanu Reeves might make this movie more entertaining.

The stories might work better separately as uninterrupted short films. Combined, they lack cohesion but suggest that Coppola has a fine framing eye and ability to guide actors to good work.

Lion can't avoid seeming lesser in the second half after Davis' mesmeric first but it's solid storytelling nonetheless. Bring the Kleenex.

The Little Hours is less than the sum of its many comedy parts but some of those many are hilarious.

King's book isn't hallowed literature, just a little vicious fun, if 1,100 pages can be considered little. This is the spooky, overlong movie It deserves and It deserves that sequel. Float on.