The film, directed by Jeremiah Zagar, isn’t the farce you might expect. Rather, it’s one of the most textured and affectionate films about basketball that’s come along in a long time. Starring Sandler as a road-weary NBA scout and with several teams’ worth of all-stars in cameos, Hustle has a surprisingly good handle and feel for the game.

It’s really the simple pleasure of seeing so many good actors together that makes “Infinity War” — an “Ocean’s Eleven” in hyper drive — work.

The film sets the tone for the slapstick martial-arts style that Chan would hone over the years. [01 Apr 2002]

When “F1” does, finally, quiet down, for one blissful moment, the movie, almost literally, soars. It’s not quite enough to forget all the high-octane macho dramatics before it, but it’s enough to glimpse another road “F1” might have taken.

Miss Streisand excels in all departments. [21 Nov 1983]

It’s a smart film, certainly, but maybe not as smart as it wants to be. And there are a couple of clunkers that bring the mostly meditative experience to a halt.

Ultimately “Day One” could have been set around any old apocalypse. Tethering it to the rules of “A Quiet Place,” a smart premise whose novelty is impossible to recreate let alone build a world upon, just holds it back.

The real heist of Crime 101 is an old one: If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.

The movie has a valedictory, “let’s get the band together one more time” feel, as Bond enlists old comrades — including Naomie Harris’s Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw’s Q — to destroy the weapon of mass destruction.

McCarthy’s visual style is too fragmented, happy to capture his scrambling camera and sound operators in the frame and changing up his shots from guerilla-style jerky iPhone images to tasteful, polished portraits.

Just Mercy is not always an easy film to watch, but it is necessary.

Richard Donner (Superman) directed with an expert eye for action but impaired vision for logic. The climax comes with a samurai-like duel between Gibson and Busey while Glover and fellow officers watch. This is the crowning absurdity. [03 Apr 1987]

THE SHINING, billed as a "masterpiece of modern horror," fails in one vital regard: it isn't very scary... Kubrick is master of visual images, and many of the scenes display his brilliance. But much of the suspense ends in anti-climax, and Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall seem over-extended in trying to maintain the terror. [28 June 1980]

Not everything works in “Superman.” For those who like their Superman classically drawn, Gunn’s film will probably seem too irreverent and messy. But for anyone who found Zack Snyder’s previous administration painfully ponderous, this “Superman,” at least, has a pulse.

The final moments are unexpected, and perhaps frustrating. But the title comes back to you. This film may leave you exhausted but also somewhat dazzled. It’s best not to look away.

It may be more mystifying than illuminating when all is said and done, but it is certainly a uniquely captivating experience with wildly imaginative creations, interesting performances, challenging ideas and one of the best scores of the year.

As played by Johansson, excellent here, every action for Natasha is tinged with acceptance and revulsion for her own nature. Black Widow becomes, kind of stirringly, a movie not about franchise extension but sisterhood, improvised families and traumatic pasts.

Problemista is not like a Wes Anderson-type hyper-whimsy, but more like the surreal bursting joy of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It even breaks space and time like the latter. It is absolutely captivating.

As wonderful as Domingo is, it’s the astonishing amount of talent in front of and behind the camera that will take your breath away. No matter how small, each performance brings fire and makes the most of a few minutes on camera.

A thoughtful, intensely dramatic, superbly acted depiction of one of the most baffling spy stories of recent times. [28 Jan 1985]

It plays a little loose with facts but the righteous rage of “Dog Day Afternoon” is present enough in Gus Van Sant’s “Dead Man’s Wire,” a based-on-a-true-tale hostage thriller that’s as deeply 1970s as it is contemporary.

Concrete Cowboy, an impressive debut by writer-director Ricky Staub that overcomes formulaic dialogue and we-saw-that-coming plot twists with its sheer heart, is based on a novel, Ghetto Cowboy by Gregory Neri.

There is something comforting about the fact that we are capable of intense, collective cultural whiplash. That “who cares?” can turn to uncynical amazement in an instant. Is that the magic of the movies? Of continuing to push the bounds of the big screen experience? Of betting big on weird-sounding stories about giant blue environmentalists instead of superheroes every so often? Maybe it’s just the magic of James Cameron.

The over-35 audience will savor this as a nostalgia trip while younger audiences may identify with the always current dilemma of impending adulthood. [03 Jan 1985]

While Green’s Halloween, which he penned with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, has faithfully adopted much of what so resonated in Carpenter’s genre-creating film — the stoic killer, the gruesome executions, the suburban nightmares — what makes his Halloween such a thrill is how it deviates from its long-ago predecessor.

All in all, it’s just a little underdeveloped. Perhaps in novel form its polite pace and subtle revelations made a certain amount of sense, but the movie is lacking.

For Miranda disciples, it’s essential. For everyone else? It is a good-natured peek at the origins of this freestyle hip-hop group, which ended up being a springboard for some pretty incredible talents

There are surely more interesting and funnier places “The Idea of You” could have gone. But Hathaway and Galitzine are a good enough match that, for a couple hours, it’s easy to forget.

Rebecca Zlotowski’s latest... is part noir, part comedy of remarriage, and part Freudian fever dream about past lives.

The movie, written by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener, is not the tale of manly valor that it first appears. The Last Duel is more like a medieval tale deconstructed, piece by piece, until its heavily armored male characters and the genre’s mythologized nobility are unmasked.

The film buzzes along with introspective conversations, all-too human moments, a terrific soundtrack with everyone from Marianne Faithfull to The Pretenders, and a few delightfully awkward scenes that really drive home the whole “don’t meet your idols” conceit.

Could the movie have hit harder at the self-involved stars we often worship? Of course. But what makes it powerful is not the Hollywood drama. This is a movie for any of us who have missed a child’s school recital, asked an assistant to work late or skipped a family dinner because a client was running behind. It’s about time. It’s about where we choose to spend our time.

Will you exit with any sort of elevated understanding of artists or love or tragedy? Maybe not, but, again, this thing called Annette has a way of taking up residence in your mind, whether you like it or not. If you’re even the slightest bit intrigued, you should let Carax and the Maels take you on this bizarre journey.

Ambiguous and damning at once, John Curran’s Chappaquiddick plunges us back into the summer of 1969: the season of Woodstock, the moon landing, the Manson murders and the lowest ebb of the Kennedy mythology.

While its ideas are often intriguing, the movie feels like high-concept scaffolding that only thinly conceals it hollowness. It’s a Tesla without electricity.

These are interesting and fraught times that deserve an unflinching look at the perils of data rights and online privacy, but The Great Hack is a reminder that documentaries are not always journalism.

Lawrence’s novel may have been shocking when it was published — most famously, it was the subject of a major obscenity trial in Britain — but it is not shocking now, no matter how frank the sex scenes. So any adaptation needs more to distinguish it than heaving bodies, however attractive.

It’s not a perfect film, it lags at times and at over two hours it is far too long, but Theron and Rogen have a natural chemistry that makes spending a couple hours with them, even in the dullish moments, a joy.

The Legend of Ochi, a scrappy and darkly whimsical fable about a misunderstood teenage girl on a dangerous quest, has the feeling of a film you might have stumbled on and loved as a kid. Something tactile, something fantastical and, maybe, something a little dangerous — the kind of movie you knew you probably weren’t supposed to be seeing just yet.

For a long, sun-addled stretch, Lorcan Finnegan’s beach-set “The Surfer” simmers as a deliciously punishing nightmare, driving Nicolas Cage into his most natural state: a boil.

While I certainly enjoyed elements of this odyssey in reverse, I was ultimately left feeling very little — especially about Chuck and the questionable end-of-film explanation that ties it all together.

There are quite a few good pieces and performances in Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, but, ultimately, it also has the feeling of a first or second draft that isn’t quite where it should be.

Saving the showstopper for last will certainly leave audiences exiting the theater on a happy high note. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that in attempting to tie everything together, “Mission: Impossible” lost the plot.

Wakanda Forever is overlong, a little unwieldy and somewhat mystifyingly steers toward a climax on a barge in the middle of the Atlantic. But Coogler’s fluid command of mixing intimacy with spectacle remains gripping.

In the end, Chevalier may be more fiction than history, but it’s worthwhile with effective acting, tension (helped by Kris Bowers’ score) and a decadently beautiful production.

Despite being near the action, we don’t feel particularly close to it. Still, we get to see the wheels turning, and it’s hard not to get wrapped up in some of the backstage moments.

Over two hours ends up being too long. But [Finn] has found a great satirical target, given life to a third film easily and showcased another rising star to watch. That’s a reason to, well, smile about.

A splendidly mounted and impressively acted version of the Bram Stoker classic. [09 Jul 1979]

A diversion like Save Yourselves! might just save your week.

Guadagnino gives us a lesson in the history of Hollywood itself, not to mention the birth of the “movie star” and the role fashion has played in that. (It’s great fun.)

A story about the victims of Sept. 11 maybe ought not to focus on a lawyer dispensing the cash. But Keaton — a truly great actor in his responsiveness to those around him — makes a compelling, initially tone-deaf listener to the stories that filter through Worth.

For the big tonal swings in A Simple Favor to work, the characters needed to be more plausibly grounded. Lively and Kendrick’s early scenes ping-pong nicely with odd-couple chemistry, but “A Simple Favor” loses the thread, and never shakes the feeling of a rushed Gillian Flynn knockoff.

Kravitz almost pulls it off. With the help of a terrific cast, she offers strikingly confident, brashly entertaining filmmaking, until everything seems to break down in a mess of porous storytelling.

Director James Watkins and especially his excellent troupe of actors, adult and children alike, do a nice job of building the tension, slowly but surely. Until all bloody hell breaks loose, of course. And then, in its third act, “Speak No Evil” becomes an entertaining but routine horror flick, with predictable results.

The Kitchen may lag at times, but it’s an astonishing and fully realized feat for two first-time feature directors with beautifully raw sequences of both emotion and action.

Missing, building off the related film “Searching” from 2018, manages to make a film about small screens feel electric on a big one.

As director, producer and star, Eastwood has made his most ambitious film, traveling to England and Zimbabwe and working with raging rivers and charging elephants. He has added immeasurably to his stature in all three capacities. [12 Sep 1990]

The script by Jake Crane and Jonathan A. H. Stewart is a slow-burning affair that will have audiences tugging at the leash.

Creed II pulls off a rather amazing feat by adding to the luster of its predecessor and propelling the narrative into a bright future while also reaching back to honor its past, resurrecting unfinished business from “Rocky IV” and adding a dash of “Rocky III.” Pound per pound, the sequel might even be better than its predecessor.

Hedges is as excellent as he was in “Manchester By the Sea,” but it’s fair to say the movie belongs to Roberts. It’s a career peak, and a performance that deserves to be seen no matter how crowded your holiday moviegoing schedule.

[Anderson] is still that open book, disarmingly funny and candid and uncynical, sitting there beautifully makeup free, letting the filmmakers and audience peer into her soul through many pages of journals going back to her childhood. It is a captivating watch, especially for those who never thought much about her at all.

There is more good than bad in Mulan, and we should be so lucky to get a gorgeous and inspiring war epic that is suitable for children to watch. Mulan might even inspire some kids to dip their toes into all that Asian cinema has to offer, which would be the best possible outcome. But something has to give in this blind fealty to the animated films, because it’s getting in the way of greatness.

A bewildering 90-minute, narrator-less and wordless experiment that’s as audacious as it is infuriating. It’s not clear if everyone was high making it or we should be while watching it.

Hopefully it will attract an audience either tired or turned off by the franchise’s past rigidity and addiction to spectacle. This is what we needed: Smaller, quieter, more human and sweeter.

The issues it addresses are, to say the least, crucial ones, and even though it trusts its audience to trudge through some dense material, the audience should repay that trust. Here’s hoping it will.

Causeway, directed by Lila Neugebauer with a straightforward honesty, sounds more manipulative and manufactured than it is. At its best, it’s a quietly affective portrait of unlikely friends hoping they can help each other make it to the shore.

The Pirates of Penzance is not for everyone. Gilbert and Sullivan purists, beware. Rock fans, watch out. But for those who like a rollicking good show, full of inspired silliness and performed in high style, by all means go. [07 Mar 1983]

Everyone knows this story and how it turns out. But “Cyrano” does a wonderful job of letting you cling to the hope that it might go differently, as agonizing as it might be.

A surprisingly delightful film full of action, heart, a crazy-haired Patrick Stewart (as “old” Merlin) and a few genuinely good gags.

A charismatic ensemble cast, a sharp script and a few well-placed twists make Game Night one of the more enjoyable big studio comedies in recent memory.

Zellweger’s voice might not be an exact match of Garland’s, but the soul and spirit that she brings along with her lovely approximation will certainly elicit more than a few goosebumps.

As in most sci-fi movies, the set up of “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is better than its follow through. But the movie has a kinetic kick, and you could argue that it’s obsessed with the right things. We could use more movies similarly engaged.

This is an eminently pleasant movie, propped up by its indefatigable good cheer and King’s immaculately tidy craftsmanship.

This movie will not be for everyone, but it is important not least because it continues to advance the discourse around miscarriages which is a trauma that couples, but mainly women, have been expected to shoulder in secret for far too long.

It's fitting that director Brian De Palma's latest effort, Carlito's Way, begins and ends inside a train station, because this is a movie that's seriously derailed. [09 Nov 1993]

In very ’80s environs, Baumbach’s film always remains — purposefully, I think — a self-conscious work of literature adaptation, juggling big themes and highly literate dialogue with a screwball touch. It makes for a heady concoction too constantly interesting to ever be boring.

The film succeeds in doing what it aimed for: Presenting a humane portrait of a guy who will be serving most of his life behind bars, in crowd-pleasing packaging. But what, ultimately, is the point of using the charming parts and ignoring the unsavory ones? For a filmmaker who has never shied away from the rough edges of reality, “Roofman” feels a bit dishonest.

If you must reboot an over 30-year-old Disney Channel cartoon like Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, you could do much worse than looking to “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” for inspiration. But it is a high bar and though Chip ‘n Dale might not reach the heights of that Robert Zemeckis film, it is still a pleasant surprise stuffed to the brim with pop culture references that children of the Chip ’n Dale era may enjoy.

The populist message here is clear — the longer Wall Street overlooks the value of people, the financial system will remain broken.

The Border is a well-made action-adventure film enhanced by authentic settings and a superlative performance by Jack Nicholson. [08 Feb 1982]

Breaking, Abi Damaris Corbin’s lean and heartfelt first feature, is a lackluster bank-robbery thriller with noble intentions enlivened by an impassioned performance by John Boyega and an elegiac final appearance by the late Michael K. Williams.

Master ultimately suffers the fate of many promising films with many good ideas and not enough time to develop them — some paring down would have improved the latter part of the film.

A pair of other recent films — “Minding the Gap,” ″Skate Kitchen” — better explored the camaraderie and freedom of skater culture. But there are glimpses here of a more radiant, lyrical film.

All of You is a sort of second stab at this story, which Goldstein and Bridges (“Black Mirror”) first explored in the canceled-too-soon AMC anthology series “Soulmates.” Fittingly for a story about second chances, this time it sticks.

Neither the divers nor kids, government officials nor families and volunteers really come into focus, staying as murky as the miles of submerged cave.

Memory is selective, memory is jumbled, memory travels in different directions. And so does “Mothering Sunday,” Eva Husson’s affecting and visually pleasing — if languorous — meditation on love and loss, based on a woman’s memory of an impactful day that reverberates through her long life.

At one point we get an action-flick style montage, which feels odd, as does the often overly obvious, swelling musical score. It’s hard to go too far wrong, though, with a story as compelling as Tubman’s and an actress as vivid as Erivo.

Starting with the potentially crippling proposition of a key death, this franchise has somehow found new vibrancy.

Hallgren weaves together a compelling narrative with these public and private interviews that builds chronologically to the present.

In playing it so safe and so familiar, “Elio” is missing a bit of that Pixar wonder, and mischief.

Mountainhead adheres to the tradition of the HBO movie; it’s lean, topical and a fine platform for its actors.

Reynolds is once again at his arch and nihilist best here, while acting and jumping in so much facial prosthetics that it makes him look like he’s inside melted cheese — or, as the first movie put it, an avocado that had relations with an older avocado.

It doesn’t all fit together, and I Care a Lot has ultimately no way of resolving its fairly ludicrous plot. But it’s strong, gripping, unpredictable pulp, and Pike pulls something off that few else could as a protagonist. She’s quite detestable and completely compelling.

It’s sweet news indeed that Mary Poppins Returns, a sequel 54 years in coming, provides just that spoonful of happiness in the form of Emily Blunt, practically perfect in every way as the heir to Julie Andrews.

Peter Hastings, director, screenwriter and animal voice of Dog Man, has had a hand in Pilkey’s much better adaption of “Captain Underpants,” but this time smashes together characters and plot lines from several of the books in a way that is hard to follow even for fans.

This final movie will give loyal Downton fans what they want: a satisfying bit of closure and the sense that the future, though a bit scary, may look kindly on Downton Abbey as long as Mary is in charge.

It might not be the best of the bunch, but the infectious childlike spirit (and intestinal fortitude) remains firmly intact.

While neither of their character’s gets enough depth, McKenzie and Taylor-Joy sustain Last Night in Soho, a movie filled with reflections to both past fiction horrors (Straight on Till Morning, Suspiria) and today’s #MeToo terrors.