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.

Fascinating at certain moments, especially when Lewis is exploring his character’s grief and bitterness, it still feels like a work in progress.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is reasonably clever and reasonably diverting.

The wedding of strong actors with a solid script is what makes Plus One worthy of saying “I do” to enjoying it.

In the end, Captain America: Brave New World is enjoyable enough for what it is: a proper introduction of Sam as Captain America. Unfortunately, it’s a rather bumpy flight along the way.

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

It all works quite well as glossy entertainment, but ultimately The Bodyguard satisfies only if you don't think about it too much. [25 Nov 1992, p.D3]

You know what you're in for, and you get what you want (especially those die-hards who read ALL of the end credits), but you'll also get the feeling that you've seen it all before. [18 Mar 1994, p.D3]

It has some great laughs and real screwball energy. It also has its heart in the right place, with Emilio Estevez's environmental concerns figuring prominently in the plot. [24 Aug 1990, p.28]

Although Stella is intelligently made and generally well-acted, there were plenty of dry eyes at a packed preview screening earlier this week. [2 Feb 1990, p.25]

Vikander doesn’t have much to play, script-wise, but she makes a tough, appealing action star.

Pali Road — an engrossing psychological thriller with a trapped damsel’s very sanity on the line — demonstrates how an enigmatic story can unabashedly overflow with disorienting puzzles and perverse twists, all for the sake of blurring the line between reality and illusion.

Brother Nature at least enjoys moments of deep-end mania from Killam and Moynihan.

Sommers is so busy spinning his camera, crowding the soundtrack with animal noises and piling on the cheesy visual effects that he can't stop for a reflective moment or a character-revealing touch.

Directed by Smoczynska, The Silent Twins feels like an art exhibit to be installed on a continuous loop on a TV inside a cage in a museum. There’s a barrier that holds the audience at a distance so that watching this film feels like studying an invasive social experiment that places the Gibbons twins on display — like caged parrots asked to sing.

It just feels like a pretty idea that didn’t get fully developed; an origin story that we didn’t need.

Cézanne et Moi sounds more fascinating than it actually is; essentially, it’s just under two hours of exquisitely art-directed conversation, little of which is especially compelling.

It’s odd that Guadagnino clearly wanted to make a movie that people would talk about, but doesn’t seem quite sure of what he wanted it to say.

Ultimately, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is never quite as much fun as you expect it to be, particularly when Pike isn’t on screen. Despite a character intoning that we all “need magic more than ever,” this movie didn’t have enough of it.

While Eddie the Eagle feels formulaic and overstuffed with weirdly random scenes...it’s still a charmer.

Some of this is fun, some of it is extraneous, and by the end of Muppets From Space it's hard to tell the difference. [14 July 1999, p.E3]

Snowtime! is by turns ribald (there’s a flatulent dog), boisterous (there’s charging through the snow with wooden swords wildly waved), tender (there’s a boy grieving quietly for a father killed in a real war) and, yes, tragic.

Rolling Papers is an instructive and fun film that will keep you giggling — high or straight.

So there’s not a single surprise along the way. But there is the comfort of familiarity operating in the movie’s favor. And it’s fun.

While Phoenix is always more than watchable (his scary-Fred-Astaire dance moves, born from Arthur’s habit of watching old movies with his mother, are both mesmerizing and disturbing), “Joker” really has nowhere to go. Its characters are one-note cartoony, but fun is the last thing on this movie’s mind; it’s all despair, from its opening scenes on downward.

Isle of Dogs is full of delightful touches, but it’s not Anderson’s best. Nice fur, though.

An enjoyably nutty more-is-more family holiday extravaganza.

The camera is fixated on the face of Alice, the lead character in The Girl in the Book. And no wonder. There’s a lot going on there.