Whichever side you come down on, Johns’ and Squires’ low-key performances are impressive (Johns won Best Actor at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival), and the technological/red-tape hurdles their characters face feel stingingly accurate.

The movie works for the reason that all the best rom-coms do: you fall in love, a little bit, with Kumail and Emily, and want them to stay together. Love, this movie reminds us, is often inconvenient; but it does ultimately conquer all.

What shines through is the beauty of Guy Godfree’s cinematography — the light has a lovely, soft stillness to it, like a painting — and a remarkable performance by Hawkins, whose impossibly wide smile seems to bring the sun.

Serkis again proves that in the highly specialized realm of performance-capture acting, he has no peer.

Inside Out movingly but casually plays with our emotions, like a baby walking her fingers across a parent’s face; it leaves you changed, entertained, nostalgic, dazzled.

The special-effects sequences are up to the usual high standards of Marvel excellence, but by far the best elements of “Homecoming” are the writing, which brims with humor, and the performances.

For a brilliant approximation of the man himself, watch Downey in this film. This is a performance created out of equal parts talent, hard work and love. It's uncanny. [08 Jan 1993, p.3]

Patriot Games doesn't set any new standards for its genre, but it delivers the goods, announcing a sequel with a hokey but wonderfully domestic cliffhanger. [5 June 1992, p.24]

It’s a compelling argument, in a film that may well change a few minds — or at least inspire some heartfelt post-screening arguing.

The only trouble with all these parodies is that Hot Shots begins to seem chaotic rather than clever. Too many of the send-ups turn out to be unnecessary detours. [31 July 1991, p.E5]

Bring patience — and a fondness for Malick-ish stillness — and perhaps find reward.

Timely, pressing, important.

Candles illuminate faces in the dark; a curving staircase looms like a shadow. And the actors pitch their roles perfectly: Kidman’s breathy calm; Farrell’s charm, just hinting at something dark within it; Fanning’s way of prettily arranging herself, showing off Alice’s newfound power; Dunst’s quiet melancholy.

Even with deep-seated problems that they may or may not be able to overcome, this is a couple worth rooting for. And — heartfelt, sarcastic and funny; tinged with love, loss and healing — Band Aid is, too.

It’s a standard kiddie cartoon: noisy, colorful and forgettable.

An all-star farce about backstage melodramatics at a long-running daytime soap opera, Soapdish has some hysterically funny moments. Unfortunately, its creators don't always sustain the big laughs, or make the most of such supporting players as Whoopi Goldberg and Robert Downey Jr., whose proven comic gifts are mostly hidden this time. [31 May 1991, p.25]

It’s uncannily choreographed, with gestures and movements timed precisely to the soundtrack’s beat.

It plants its gaze on Lee — and on Elliott, who takes The Hero in his hands and makes something quietly moving from it.

Like all of Kore-eda’s films, After the Storm ends with a jolt; not in the filmmaking, but in the way you realize that you were completely lost in the lives of these people and that, as the lights go up, you’ll miss them.

A profoundly brave film.

Ripped works best as a middling series of gags about being far too many tokes over the line.

The variety of inspirations (not to mention the visual quality of the film clips) is astonishing.

When words fail in The Last Knight, the crunching and crashing and KLANKing of the special-effects scenes take up the slack. Punishingly overwrought in every aspect, Last Knight is a KLANK! KLANK! KLUNKER.

The Book of Henry launches itself into cloud cuckooland and never returns to Earth.

The film starts off a bit rocky, as the story elements are established, but gets better and funnier as it builds, leaning into the craziness as the dominoes fall into place.

Hayek plays her role with such gentle conviction, the movie quickly becomes something else: a sort of tragedy of manners.

Moka is a lean, taut dramatic thriller that continually offers delicate surprises as it shifts and evolves, building toward an unexpected yet wholly satisfying conclusion.