It is pristinely acted; and its range and heart dwarf other summer films, so cogent is it about our common aches and dreams.

Ramsey's film has its own strengths. We Need To Talk About Kevin doesn't just bring you to the outskirts of a parent's worst nightmare; this fever dream of guilt and loss takes you straight inside.

Fetching little monument to the bard of rapturous bereavement.

Batman Returns could mark a happy beginning for Hollywood -- not because it might make a mint but because it dispenses with realism and aspires to animation, to the freedom of idea and image found in the best feature-length cartoons.

The Wave, with the exception of a few overwrought moments, is low on sadism and high on humbling. We’re all at the mercy of nature’s power. It’s the Whatever we can never outrun.

A romantic comedy so smart and sweetly mature, it's liberating.

Its glorious, snow-capped visuals aside, The Hateful Eight comes off as haggard and atrophied. It’s bloodless even in the midst of all its bloodiness; its characters are devoid of nobility, even the horrible kind. These are uglies not even a mother could love.

By the end, the canniest viewers may not be fooled, but--and you can believe this--they may be mesmerized.

At its shambling best, Office Space is like a bracing break at the coffee machine. Some horrible Monday, why not cut work to see it?

A smart, tough, yet curiously moving film.

Richard Jewell is one of those expertly crafted pictures that reminded me how little I care for craftsmanship when a filmmaker’s ugliest impulses are thrumming in the background.

The result is an escapist fantasy that is -- Damon's and Potente's persuasive performances aside -- as weightless and inconsequential as a musical. And at the moment every bit as welcome.

Hall strives to carry The Night House on her more-than-capable shoulders, but she can’t quite compensate for the moments when the movie is outright silly or, worse, boring.

Hill wants the viewer to read his frames, not his dialogue; lighting, angles and cut ting carry the weight of meaning. Perhaps he sends too many people to meet their maker in balletic slow-motion. But that is only a small reservation. Hill is very much in the American grain, the inheritor of the Ford-Hawks-Walsh tradition of artful, understated action film making.

Together, the three wheel through absurd gags that shouldn’t work and somehow make them sing, giving the movie a loose, joyous energy.

Everybody Knows — which is billed as a psychological thriller, though it’s really more of a family melodrama — feels meandering and indistinct.

It’s a fun, open-hearted picture, and even if it lacks the wistful subtlety of the original, it ends up on the same landing note: the people we love best are always worth fighting for.

Hustle works its smooth moves scene after scene and ends with a satisfying whoosh, something like the sound of a ball sweeping through the net after circling the hoop for a suspenseful second or two.

Kubrick’s masterpiece moved so slowly that it was something of an endurance test, even for avid sci-fi fans. Europa Report, by contrast, is brisk, thrilling and ultimately terrifying. And unlike 2001, it’s (mostly) grounded firmly in one of the most exciting areas in modern science.

There’s no pacing in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s all sensation and no pulse. Everything is big, all of the time.

Friedkin's pretensions do not entirely defeat the film, and his craftsmanship often rescues him from self-betrayal. But Sorcerer lacks the kind of low cunning — the sorcery — that is Friedkin's strong suit.

Even the car chase in Fletch is witty and believable and something an adult can attend without flinching. As the adolescent revels of summer wear on, that alone could make it a movie to cherish.

So why does the movie version, with Robert Duvall as Tom and Robert De Niro as Des, proceed at the sluggish pace of a Sodality novena? Perhaps because Dunne's collaborator on the screenplay was his wife, the Empress of Angst, Novelist Joan Didion. Onscreen, characters who should percolate with rage simply simmer. Two exciting, dangerous actors have little to do: Duvall spends too much time pacing and waiting; De Niro's big scene has him hanging up his vestments.

It all boils down to the actor, and how good he is at vibing with universal aging-guy feelings, including the realization that your grandest achievements may be behind you. Brad Pitt, at 61, has finally aged into roles like these. And sometimes, as F1 proves, they’re the best thing that can happen to a guy.

Quibbles aside, John Wick is the smartest display of the implacable but somehow ethical Reeves character since the "2008 Street Kings."

It is derivative and too deliberately zany, but still a heartfelt charmer.

Emotionally On Golden Pond is no less valid for being something of a cliche. Anyway, the characters are so strong that the piece does not play as a cliché. Hepburn, for example may have a less chewy part than has Fonda, but the briskness of her manner, her well-justified image as a no-nonsense individualist who is nevertheless a good sport, serve her wonderfully. There is a vivifying touch of tension between an actress who was a liberated woman before the movement was born and her role as traditional wife and mother.

As both a simian simile and a wonder of technology, Rise of the Planet of the Apes deserves to be in the company of the great original "Kong." This year's sixth "origins" story of a fantasy franchise (after The Green Hornet, Thor, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern and Captain America: The First Avenger) is also the year's finest action movie.