"Guardians” stands apart because it’s somehow truer to a comic book’s essence than any Marvel or DC-derived picture you can name. Which is to say it’s pulpy, kind of cheesy and giddily exaggerated (and aware of it) in a way that, say, the “Thors,” the “Captain Americas” and Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies are not.

It’s a sly little film, playing with our expectations, keeping us guessing — and wondering if Krieps’ name might be as familiar as Streep’s, one day.

Older audiences braced for tragedy may be drawn to its imaginative visuals — the stories told by the monster are rendered in delicate, painterly animation — and to the achingly vulnerable, growing-up-too-fast boy at its center.

Screen chemistry is an odd thing; often you only notice it when it isn’t there. (See: far too many Hollywood romantic comedies.) But Their Finest, an utterly charming film set in World War II-era London, contains a textbook example.

Outside In is about connection, and about two remarkable actors telling us a story.

This smooth-as-silk comedy could not be more timely, or connect more hopefully with our current national consciousness.

By the time the real Tina Turner is seen performing the title hit at film's end, director Brian Gibson has achieved his overall goal: What's Love Got To Do With It may not bring anything new to the biopic genre, but it inspires renewed respect and appreciation for a woman who has earned every break in her amazing career.

Talk To Me isn’t just a splashy debut for the Philippou brothers, who prove their filmmaking chops in making the leap from the small screen to the big. It’s also an incredible introduction to a remarkable actress in a role that will undoubtedly prove to be an instant classic horror movie heroine.

The picture is a long tease, artfully constructed. Mood is all-important, and it’s a mood designed to keep the audience off balance and on edge until the very end.

Engaging and constantly surprising.

Diana’s a superhero without a chip on her shoulder; she was raised in love, and Gadot lets that belief shine through her eyes. You’re both drawn to this woman and in awe of her.

Glander’s debut has vibes to spare, but he never coasts on them even as Billy coasts around the Florida landscapes. In the end, he delivers a full meal of a film that, like the giant hot dog we see in one shot in the middle, is a mesmerizing work of art worth taking a big bite out of. It will never be to all tastes, but to those who find themselves on its wavelength, it couldn’t be sweeter.

You watch wishing this story, in the real world, could have had a different ending; and marveling at how Stewart finds new, close-to-the-bone layers in a character we thought we already knew.

DiCaprio’s performance is an astonishing testament to his commitment to a role.

Stronger, ultimately, leaves its audience feeling a little stronger; we fall with Jeff, and we stand with him.

Unfolding like a thriller but uncomfortably real, September 5 is a haunting portrait of a time when seeing terrorism live on television was something new and strange — and a reminder that, sadly, things may not have changed all that much. But it’s also a stirring depiction of people simply doing their jobs, making decisions in the moment as best they can, trying to do things right when there’s no playbook and hundreds of millions of people watching.

Walter Matthau has a field day with the title character: a crop duster/bank robber who bills himself as "the last of the independents" - and runs circles around a Mafia killer (Joe Don Baker). [07 Mar 1996, p.F3]

Alpha-male sparring is the name of the game in Chevalier, the new deadpan comedy by Greek filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari. And it has rarely looked this deliciously goofy.

Eric Clapton, who wrote the blues-heavy score, told Oldman that the film was "like you throwing up over everyone." He meant that as a compliment. Whether you respond to this gritty, punishingly long and plotless film will depend largely on whether you agree. [13 Mar 1998]

King Richard, though perhaps a tad overlong, is as irresistible as the young legends at its center; you watch with pleasure, thinking of the many future champions it might inspire.

mother!, for this viewer, felt long and punishing; artful yet self-sabotaging, eventually crumbling. I never looked away — but I never want to see it again.

Buscemi gets such fine ensemble work out of his actors that you never doubt that Tommy and his friends, family and ex-friends are united by one thing. They've spent far too much time together. [25 Oct 1996, p.F6]

Board games, threats from Howard and desperate escape planning by Michelle take up most the picture. And then, first-time feature director Dan Trachtenberg and the screenwriters, apparently realizing that not much has been going on so far, ramp up to a full-bore CG explosion extravaganza finale...Too little. Too late.

The young hero of the marvelous "Kirikou and the Sorceress" is back and displaying his lifesaving wits against both supernatural and environmental foes. Four stories derived from traditional African folk tales have been strikingly animated, with just enough scares to keep small eyes glued to the screen. [11 May 2006, p.H16]

Simultaneously smart and myopic, sneaky and forgetful, the mother Debbie Reynolds plays in Albert Brooks' Mother always keeps you guessing. [10 Jan 1997, p.F1]

At the center, the true general, Prince-Bythewood, marshals every aspect of The Woman King in concert, conducting action, thrills and emotion beautifully. It is a remarkable, powerful film, and not to be missed.

This is Anderson soaring a bit, playing with the very nature of storytelling and performing, unafraid to let us get a little lost in the process. What’s real, and what’s the play? I wasn’t always sure, but I look forward to watching it again, to get lost one more time.

Frot’s performance, as a woman so caught up in the joy of music that she doesn’t quite understand how bad she is, is particularly delightful, and often quite moving.

Watching “The Tales of Hoffmann... feels like walking through a Technicolor field of poppies; you’re happily immersed in it and often a bit lost within, eventually emerging a bit dazed and dazzled by the experience.

Letts has some fine moments, but it’s Winger who really brings the color to this movie, creating a woman filled with disappointment and passion and wit, taking a small-scale comedy of manners to a darker, richer place.

While it ticks all the expected boxes for a sports drama, it’s also something more.

Gere, who somehow seems to make himself physically smaller here, creates a character both infuriating and endearing.

Brilliant, biting, bitterly funny epic about a Jewish teenager's stranger-than-fiction adventures during World War II. [28 June 1991, p.22]

Its evocation of a specific place, California’s Coachella Valley, is indelible.

This “Naked Gun” tries hard, but the magic simply isn’t there.

Director Justin Kurzel keeps the action taut and lean, letting the story unfold on the faces of his leading men as they slowly move toward their final confrontation.

Capernaum is a searing, unforgettable work.

Its primary tone is wistful; a slow, reluctant goodbye, not just to an act but to an era. By its end, all you want is to see that dance, just one more time.

Darkly comic and submerged in irony, events unfold with the inevitability of a slow-motion car wreck. When the emotional and physical carnage finally recedes, Sigurðsson leaves us with one haunting image that proves the universe has a sick sense of humor indeed.

The British documentary Dark Horse is a delightful story well told — and, like so many good stories, it begins with a dream.

Reiner's direction and William Goldman's script succeed on their own cartoonish level, and Kathy Bates, who plays the fan as if she were a close relative of Norman Bates, rips into the role with undisguised relish. [30 Nov 1990, p.24]

In the end, the movie reaffirms the importance of standing up for truth, and not betraying one's friends - the two most obvious morals at hand, though behavior no one could take for granted during the Communist-baiting "witch hunts" of the 1950s that Miller lived through. Too bad, though, that The Crucible fails to probe deeper into the sexual, religious, and political conditions that can give false accusations so much power - even today.

Time to Choose tells us all is not lost — yet. But the hour is late.

The French Dispatch is an elegant ode to good writing, and to those who quietly stand behind the words.

The pleasure of this movie is in Cody’s sly barbs (the rich brother-in-law’s wife has a dog named Prosecco, and a kid whose talent-show skill is Pilates) and in Theron’s soulful, lived-in performance.

Darkest Hour is a handsome, old-fashioned film, filled with stirring music, dusty light and thoughtful performances — with one whopper of a star turn at its core.

It’s a movie that, by its serene final scene, changes its viewer. You leave happier, honored to have been, for two hours, part of this family.

It’s all kind of funny, actually, and deliberately so. Director Chad Stahelskii, a former stunt man, stages a flailing fight down a seemingly endless flight of stairs that is like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Raimi can’t resist letting things get wildly over the top at times (there’s a lot of blood and vomit in this movie), but ultimately Send Help is a fascinating study of what happens when a power dynamic suddenly shifts — and when a skilled and charismatic actor is given space to try something entirely new.

Shot in soft black-and-white, with color occasionally peering in at the movie houses where Buddy spends rapt hours, Belfast is brief, tidy and lovely; a heartfelt story of family and home, and how where the former is, the latter resides.

If Civil War wasn’t so utterly horrifying, it could be a superhero movie, with journalists wearing the capes.

Both inviting and confrontational, Blindspotting shakes viewers in their seats and announces Diggs as a star-in-the-making leading man.

Pike shows us both the strength and the quietly growing fear, as Marie becomes a jittery shadow, her voice getting thicker, more desperate.

There is fragility in the beauty we see. The picture drives home the need to safeguard it. It is, after all, our home.

It’s disarmingly spirited, especially when its teen star, Markees Christmas, is sharing the screen with Craig Robinson.

For vast swaths of this movie, despite excellent, unsettlingly comic performances from Brie and Franco, all I could see was the Big Idea, rather than two people on a horrifying journey. But the more gruesome the story gets . . . the stronger it is, as the over-the-top ick kept my brain present.

Who emerges as the winner of this “Civil War”? The audience. The picture delivers in a big, big way.

It’s hard to watch young Whitney, knowing what lies ahead, but it seems important to do as the film does: take a moment, and just listen to her sing.

Zandvliet is a relatively young and inexperienced director, but his spare use of music and widescreen images is assured and even inspired.

Thoroughbreds often feels like a very, very expensive B-movie, but it’s all reasonably watchable, thanks to the elegant cinematography and Cooke’s amusing way of playing teenage amorality.

It’s not overtly radical, but the way it showcases how weird each member of the family can be — from Tina’s pseudosexual love of zombies to Gene’s obsession with performing bad music in terrible costumes — and how the rest love them anyway is quietly revolutionary.

It’s a remarkable personal-is-political drama, set in barely postcolonial Senegal and France.

You sense that a lot of the funniest stuff is flying by too quickly to land.

Dear ol' auntie is not what she seems, and "House" turns into a horror-fantasy comedy that grows increasingly absurd as the body-count rises, provoking more laughs than fear with over-the-top scenes involving severed limbs, a ravenous piano, attacking mattresses and a cat with telekinetic powers. [27 Nov 2009, p.E16]

The laughs are sometimes bigger than expected, and so are the emotions stirred by the bittersweet finale.

This Emily is indeed unworldly, uncomfortable around strangers, struggling to comply with what society expects of her. And yet the artist bubbles up inside her, emerging at moments both inconvenient (there’s a harrowing sequence at a party in which Emily dons a mask and takes on a ghostly persona) and poetic.

Bjorkman emphasizes the connection between Ingrid’s private and public lives, most movingly in her last film for theaters, “Autumn Sonata,” in which she and Ullmann played mother and daughter.

There’s plenty here to enjoy.

Definitely not a documentary. Still, just try not to get a little choked up when Custer, leaving to his death, tells his wife, "Walking through life with you ma'am has been a very gracious thing." [19 Apr 2005, p.E1]

Luca Guadagnino’s moody drama A Bigger Splash is, unexpectedly, a study in charisma, with two wildly different performances at its center.

It’s a sweet-natured, gentle film that might remind more than a few watchers of a special date in their own life, long ago.

Parts of that story may be hard to watch, but, anchored by Venter’s extraordinary performance, it’s not hard to enjoy.

Catherine Called Birdy is Dunham’s best writing and directing work yet; it’s an easy breezy, emotional good time, and an instant teen classic.

Mary and the Witch’s Flower isn’t quite a masterpiece.... But it’s a joy to look at: a visual adventure, and a continuation of a remarkable legacy

It’s a small film that touches on large issues: the world of work, and how it defines us. You leave it feeling you’ve met someone, and wishing him well.

Canadian filmmaker Megan Park’s comedy is a touching charmer about growing up, and about that gradual, heartbreaking realization that everything has a last time. If all this sounds a little gooey, let’s remember that this movie features Aubrey Plaza, a wonderfully sardonic performer apparently incapable of goo.

The Hunchback marks a return to the Gothic stories Walt Disney used to tell in his most vivid early features, and for the most part it's a welcome one. [21 June 1996, p.F5]

It’s remarkable.

The horror is all the more effective for having sneaked up on us quietly.

It’s chilly in Oslo, and in this movie; the better to sneak up on you quietly, like an unexpected shiver.

Here, the focus is on Knightley, who delivers some of her best work.

A fast-moving, clever and funny picture.

Disobedience unfolds quietly but passionately, with a generosity of spirit toward its three central characters.

One is left with a director’s reverence for an artist’s point of view — not a terrible thing, to be sure.

There’s no happy ending to this story, but it’s a pleasure to spend just a bit of time with Radner again.

Feels utterly fresh for our times.

The spell Miss Hokusai casts is a powerful one that lingers long after the lights go up in the theater.

Eastwood and screenwriter Todd Komarnicki deftly create tension by twisting time around.

Along the way, we learn that all four actors are not only charmingly believable as friends but also brilliant at physical comedy.

Is it as good as the book? No. Did it make me happy? Oh yes, and how nice to be reminded what a gift a joyful rom-com can be.

While Holland may not have imbued the garden with the enchantment so evident in the book, she has sublimely captured the beauty of the garden itself. It offers a simple but overwhelming connection to the kind of paradise we must look harder to find.

It's light and fizzy and fun without once calling attention to the fact that a lot of hard work went into it (Gerald Scarfe's sharp production design keeps it from looking quite like any other Disney cartoon). [27 June 1997, p.F1]

A classy thriller with a notable period atmosphere and intelligent use of the macabre. [07 May 1992, p.3]

Hock handles that perennial sports question — what is the athletic limit of a human? — with interesting sidebars about the brain and physics. Such mysteries mingle with irresistible lore in this satisfying work.

It’s a quick, funny movie.

Both star and director are at the top of their game here, and that’s as good as movies get.

The first-time director, Cesar Augusto Acevida, composes his frames carefully, using closing doorways to suggest alienation, as John Ford did in “The Searchers.” The harvesting and crop fire scenes recall Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven.”

It’s a moving and engaging film about finding truth, told through the perspective of two people who are very, very good at their jobs.