What is missing is some balance; Pauline and Juliet are portrayed from their own idealized point-of-view, while parents and others who object to them are as silly, pompous and uncaring as the girls obviously perceived. Crime doesn't pay in Heavenly Creatures, but it's rationalized in expert, provocative fashion. [6 Jan 1995, p.7]

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.

Despite wild deviations in spiritual themes and execution, nothing in Noah approaches sacrilege or surrender, making this an acutely sensible biblical epic. It may simply be too strange for the masses to notice.

While the villains are standard issue evil, Wonder Woman is remarkable in the genre for its early 20th century setting and Gadot's galvanizing performance.

Plenty of secrets are uncovered before the fadeout, plus another nugget dropped midway through the end credits that may render nearly everything beforehand to be false. That's the nature of intimacies submerged so long then revealed.

The plot is a piffle but Ozon's presentation is gloriously romantic.

This movie is one of the biggest surprises of the new year: a tense suspense thriller, with darkly comic elements, that celebrates American excess while ridiculing it. [09 Mar 1990, p.23]

Superbly directed by John Huston and acted with extraordinary charisma by Caine and Sean Connery. [14 Mar 2002, p.19W]

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]

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

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is one of the finest installments in the saga. [6 Dec. 1991, p.5]

Never a dull moment, which, considering the film's length is saying something. [04 Jan 1987, p.6E]

Spielberg's Empire of the Sun dispels with the sugar coating that turned Alice Walker's searing novel about racial and sexual subjugation into "The Color Purple: The Coffee Table Edition." Yet, Spielberg retains a sense of innocence in this ambitious, visionary tale. [10 Dec 1987, p.6]

There's no way to make this a feel-good movie, and admirably the Duplass brothers don't try. Cyrus finds its humor in dark places, through characters bringing out the worst in each other.

As a director, Clooney makes his most straightforward movie yet, although it's static at times due to the stage origins of Willimon's material.

Trevorrow hits all the right, respectful beats, as a protege should; you can sense a desire to please his mentor, with several amusing references to Spielberg's 1993 original, and a climactic, triumphant nod to another of his works.

James Schamus makes an impressive directing debut with Indignation, an oasis of summer movie intelligence.

Bridge of Spies is solid work but feels like Spielberg's best intentions as a filmmaker and world conscience on cruise control.

It's good to know Solondz hasn't lost his ability to shock, or his indifference to anyone thinking he goes too far. Wiener-Dog is gentler material than usual for him, sweet, even goofy at times, yet no comfier than a sandpaper hug.

Stoker operates in a perpetual state of dread, a sophisticated Southern gothic that starts out confusing and winds up as a perversely humorous coming-of-age yarn.

They're an entertaining foursome, and Estevez guides them through lovely scenery, clever sight gags and personal confessions with leisurely skill.

With everything it's doing all over again, The Book of Life often finds fresh ways to do it. That's all it takes.

It Follows has an impressively sustained sense of dread, less explicit gore than measured tension. Mitchell slyly inverts the conventions of dead-meat teenager flicks, although not with wink-wink comedy like the Scream series. This movie is serious about creeping out viewers, and Mitchell is just artistic enough about it to create a minor masterpiece.

Horror is an impatient person's game these days, and Crimson Peak isn't hurried at all. It seduces with creepily erotic atmosphere, and performances in perfect tune with the script's melodrama.

This is how a romantic vampire flick should work.

X-Men: Days of Future Past effectively passes the torch from one generation of socially segregated mutants to the next.

The Fate of the Furious doesn't merely suspend disbelief, it expels it like a delinquent student told to never come back.

Alien: Covenant is smarter than the average horror flick with a healthy dose of gross.