Finding Dory is a good sequel to a great film, and perhaps that's all fans could hope for.

The Dark Knight Rises declares its importance with each scene but seldom backs up the claims. It is a climax more fitful than fulfilling, solemn to a fault and begging the Joker's question: "Why so serious?"

Black's performance is the key to making The D-Train more than just another sophomoric bromance. The wild-eyed mania is still evident, but channeled through a filter of pity.

Hotel Transylvania doesn't raise the bar for animation or comedy but it's fun, and nice for once to have a different reason to say "boo" after an Adam Sandler flick.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is good at its feel-iest, a beloved but stale tale retold with novelty while revealing an interesting rest of the story. Let’s hope it becomes a perennial like so many versions before, with Plummer’s Scrooge as a yearly gift.

Most of the time I was distracted by the superb photorealism of The Good Dinosaur's American Southwest backdrops, wondering how much money Disney would save by just filming the real thing.

Unknown is finely tuned pulp filmmaking, a dumb movie with a smart veneer, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Until it lapses into a Rube Goldberg farce with a tacked-on, present-day epilogue, the movie is a wonderful reminder of why we've tried so hard to get major league baseball in Tampa Bay. [7 Apr 1993, p.5B]

Leslie Harris wrote and directed this special jury prize winner at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, which often slips into Afternoon Special territory with its story of teen pregnancy. What keeps it buoyant and engaging is a remarkable performance by newcomer Ariyan Johnson as Chantel, whose hip, flippant moods mask an ambitious, bright mind. [18 Jun 1993, p.10]

Doesn't revolutionize the romantic comedy like "(500) Days of Summer," or even match the Farrellys or Judd Apatow for clever smut. But it is cheerful raunch delivered by a solid cast.

The Queen of Versailles leaves viewers with one feeling about the Siegels: Let them eat stale cake.

The reclamation project that Ben Affleck calls a career continues with The Town, his second directing effort that would impress more if the first try weren't so terrific and visually similar.

Never Here is a moody inversion of the stalker genre, less of a thriller than a Lynchian thinker. Thoman has a bright future and we'll say we knew her when.

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.

What lifts Equity above ordinary corporate melodrama is its staunchly feminine perspective, and not only in its lead character.

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]

For the most part, the performances can raise goosebumps, especially whenever Lea Michele, Amber Riley and Naya Rivera open their mouths.

This is among the funnier entries in the cancer-kid genre, flawed yet affable, with no fault in its dweebly charismatic stars.

It can get a bit redundant but always remains interesting, as young lives take shape on an asphalt oval.

It isn't a movie to embrace (except for Leguizamo's brilliance) but it deserves one of Noxeema's air kisses - a passing, passionless show of affection, and then we're off to the next party. [08 Sep 1995, p.8]

Now and Then is much better when Hoffman, Ricci, Birch and Aston Moore draw us into their clique, with all their worldly poses and brittle facades. [20 Oct 1995, p.12]

Romantic charm and racy humor in a neatly arranged package anyone can appreciate.

These are minor quibbles with a stunning achievement. For All Mankind rewrites history, creating a single glorious adventure from a generation of giant leaps for all mankind. [20 July 1990, p.7]

Eat Pray Love is like one of those rich dishes Liz consumes in Italy; robustly flavored and guiltily pleasurable.

Anything men can do women can do dirtier, funnier, fresher, since distaff raunchiness shows no signs of going stale and isn't contained to Melissa McCarthy.

It will mightily preach to the choirs of concerned citizens, and be ignored by anyone else.

A sequel needs to hit the ground running faster than Divergent does. Find more notes for Woodley's elegantly plain face to express.

Muppets Most Wanted is pleasant enough to recommend as family entertainment. But the movie falls short of what immediately preceded it, musically and emotionally.

True Story may someday be used in both acting and journalism classes, the former for what students should do, and the latter for what they shouldn't.

Appropriately, the best jokes in Trainwreck are unprintable, or too winding to describe. Schumer's sexual vocabulary and observational skills get a workout, surrounded by an occasionally surprising cast of foils.

Kingsman is as violently kinetic as anything Vaughn has made, a list including Kick-Ass (the good one) and Craig's U.S. breakthrough, Layer Cake. But Kingsman is also wildly uneven, often slowing its roll to stiff-upper-lip pacing necessary (or not) to create a new British secret agent movie mythology.

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.

Non-Stop mostly works by being aware of what other jet-in-jeopardy flicks have done before, adding a spin here and there. Nothing Hitchcockian but more ambitious than a Neeson action flick needs to be.

Succeeds where "Thor" didn't and the "Incredible Hulk" hasn't, twice. Unlike those drags, director Joe Johnston keeps things relatively simple and pleasantly stupid.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time.

Gang Related isn't perfect; the plot does get a bit far-fetched at times, bordering on ironic overkill, and the last 10 minutes of bloody revenge is needlessly out-of-synch with the rest of the movie. You walk away from Kouf's movie not entirely happy about what it turned out to be, but overjoyed at what it is not. Sometimes, that's good enough.

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.

For all of its carnal frivolity, The Wolf of Wall Street lacks passion and purpose, qualities Scorsese at his best has in abundance.

The humor is an underdog's fantasy, tapping the same vein Murray bled dry with self-important camp counselors and military officers; the less cool they are, the harder they'll fall.

Bully is no more incisive than a Dateline NBC segment on the subject, although with a PG-13 rating it now can be a classroom tool for discussion.

The cast is delightful top to bottom, although Arterton's role is chiefly defined by seductive smiles and the rise of her cut-off shorts. Allam and Cooper are standouts, creating hormonally despicable characters getting more of Tamara's attention than they deserve.

Hysteria is a one-joke movie, but when a joke is told this well, it doesn't matter.

It's a movie that grows on you, after grating your nerves while viewing it.

Bridesmaids is a bit of a groundbreaker... Not exactly a banner for feminism but equal time is overdue.

Franco doesn’t ask viewers to reconsider bad art but to respect the artist behind it. Sage advice from someone who, after a few career disasters, can still shape a movie this good.

Some of the more tender moments - Farmer and Marron dancing at a country bar and gently probing each other's secrets - are particularly affecting. Less successful is a sequence purportedly set at the Academy Awards that wreaks of artificiality. The utter fecklessness of the segment is so jarring that it isn't until the climax that The Bodyguard pulls itself together.

Fast Five is brawny dumb fun, nothing more but that's enough.

A shocking and outrageous comedy that gets under your skin. Landis doesn't always know the difference between a laugh and a nervous giggle, but you can't just sit there unaffected. [25 Sept 1992, p.10]

If only City Slickers II possessed the heart of the original, a quality it might have recouped at its climax. Yet, instead of a gentle lesson on the true value of life, the screenwriters tack on a Las Vegas epilogue that exists to present one more Palance zinger and a set-up for another sequel. [10 June 1994, p.8]

Technically dazzling but emotionally empty. [22 Oct 1993, p.5]

It's a capable Sunday school lesson with little for anyone to challenge and practically nothing that offends.

Elysium proves better at social polemics than escapism, a balancing act Blomkamp managed well in District 9, with its allegory of South Africa's apartheid era.

It's a quiet story, without many emotional outbursts and no villains. Parts of Higher Ground are dull, honestly. But the movie always feels honest about its subject.

Anyone of any age can get a kick out of watching penguins slide down the spiraled interior of the Guggenheim Museum, or seeing how one of these flightless birds manages to buck nature.

Conveying a visceral sense of warfare's terror is what Berg chiefly seeks, and on that level Lone Survivor handily succeeds.

Certainly this could've been a bolder, angrier movie than what it became. After so much grimness in movies about U.S. military actions in the Middle East, it's good finding one dedicated to the kind of humor getting a lot of folks through over there.

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

This Must Be the Place is a movie existing in a zonked-out realm where reality smashes head-on with a train-wreck hero too strange to be real, unless you're the love child of Ozzy Osbourne and the Cure's Robert Smith.

Early Man proudly retains Park’s simple/not simple Plasticine pleasures.

Casper often resembles a blueprint for the next Universal theme park ride, but it serves well as the summer's first family treat. This movie should make children happy, at least for another month, until Disney unleashes its Pocahontas punch. [26 May 1995, p.10]

The Jungle Book is rich with stunning sights and impossibly lush features. [23 Dec 1994, p.16]

Wan in particular is pacing today's movie horror by reverting to the past. There's a touch of Hammer Films in his haunted house atmospheres, and Roger Corman in his groaning comic relief from the dread.

Lincoln is like a thoroughly researched poli-sci term paper come to life, with interesting personal material about the participants relegated to footnotes.

A movie as fun as it is flawed.

The Magnificent Seven had me smiling throughout, tapping into Saturday matinee memories without seeming entirely old-fashioned.

A bit dated in its feminism, making some jokes even funnier. [08 Mar 2001, p.17W]

The IMF workings are still complex, but without Brian DePalma's artistic indulgences (Part 1) and John Woo's poetic distractions (Part 2). Abrams cuts to the chase whenever the option arises, and the results don't leave much time to question logic or motive. [4 May 2006, p.6W]

For the most part, however, Southpaw is a terrific boxing movie, with choreographed violence emphasizing the sport's speed rather than its poetry in slow motion.

McKay and Ferrell keep the jokes naughty not dirty and flying for shrapnel accuracy; many miss, but when one hits it counts.

Prince of Tides brims with earnest emotion, but it's packed as tight as a can of sardines. There's no room for the actors to breathe, to relax, to reflect on the events around them...Despite numerous flaws, this is an unusual and special movie, a throwback to an era when big pictures were made about little people in the throes of everyday crisis. [25 Dec 1991, p.1D]

Jordan makes performing in front of a camera look as easy as everything else he has attempted in his storied life except baseball. Bugs Bunny and the gang are old pros at that. There are some genuine surprises in the special effects expertise on display. [15 Nov 1996, p.3]

Liman handles the spy stuff with Bourne-again flair, especially the opener when Valerie proves her mettle during an assignment to secure a snitch.

One of the family comedy treats of the season. [15 Oct 1993, p.6]

Buckle up for a bumpy ride but one that a road warrior like McQueen would hitch in a heartbeat.

Barbershop: The Next Cut's heart is in the right place, and I enjoyed nearly every unkempt minute of it.

While The Mummy isn't the big bang preferred to start the Dark Universe of classic monsters, it's a serviceable popcorn flick dangling hints of promising things to come.

There's a surprising number of salient, even revolutionary notions about human nature and intelligence throughout, none fully explored but enough to make the running time at least 20 minutes too long.

Trapped in Paradise merely settles for being a genial diversion from the holiday shopping crowds. [02 Dec 1994, p.6]

Kick-Ass is a rabid puppy of a movie, energetically bounding off the screen and into your lap, where it proceeds to chew off your face.

Sure, it's silly without shame, and predictably sentimental. But Zookeeper is the most thoroughly enjoyable movie for the entire family in theaters right now. I can't believe I just typed that about a Kevin James flick with talking animals.

Deadpool's flawed insolence is appealing, like a mangy pup crawling into your lap.

Though Chocolat never fulfills the plot it promises, Denis makes many low-key but powerful observations about racism and the lines it can draw between us. [12 Aug 1989, p.4D]

Biloxi Blues is sweet, nostalgic and readily forgettable. But it is entertaining. And in this case, that's all that is required. [25 Mar 1988, p.7]

Politicians get painted with a wide brush in My Fellow Americans, a minor comedy made somewhat special by the actors who play those combative commanders-in-chief. You'll rarely see two actors do more to make a passably fun screenplay work - and appear so effortless doing it - than Jack Lemmon and James Garner in this movie. [20 Dec 1996, p.3]

Danny Boyle's movie is meticulously crafted to artful specifications, written in Aaron Sorkin's torrential style and acted to perfection by a superb ensemble. Yet like Jobs' NeXT Cube in 1988, there's one obvious question that isn't satisfactorily answered: What does it do?

But I'll admit, as Western's climactic "big game" drew to a close, the personalities and situations Shelton and Friedkin created made it tough to guess exactly how the game would end. That's high praise, considering how predictable most jock flicks are. With that kind of heads-up play, and Nolte strong in the pivot position, Blue Chips scores. [18 Feb 1994, p.7]

Bridges is supremely creepy, while Sutherland is worse than grating, and, while this version doesn't hold up to its Dutch predecessor, it's impossible to deny The Vanishing's power. [05 Feb 1993, p.6]

A moviegoer's reaction to Mr. Holland's Opus depends mightily on what personal baggage he/she takes into the theater. The right audience will discover that Herek's film can be a stirring, sentimental testament to educators. For more daring types, Mr. Holland's Opus may be the multiplex equivalent of a tough required class; easy to sleep through, and dismissed not a moment too soon. [19 Jan 1996, p.8]

The Witches is a delectably creepy movie guaranteed to keep night lights burning bright.

Whatever his motivations or deeds, Gordon Gekko is a classic screen character and Douglas is never better than when playing him.

Solid work from an actor long thought incapable of as much. [6 Dec 1996, p.5]

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

Penguins of Madagascar is fun while it lasts, and then mostly forgettable except for whatever shake-your-head lunacy sticks.

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

Bran Nue Dae is a strange change from the usual multiplex fare, and that's nearly enough to make it wonderful.

The movie is like an old vinyl LP; the best cuts are on the first side, there's a bangup finish and a lot of filler material in between.

It's the nicest Mother's Day gift available at the movies this weekend.

Megan Leavey does the feel-good job everyone intends, an interesting story straightforwardly told. Cowperthwaite and Mara won't get a fraction of Wonder Woman's audience yet deserve as much respect.