Brannigan is terrific as Robbie, and the entire supporting cast is superb.

The movie Weaver has to carry has so many nagging imperfections that Academy Award attention looks like a long shot.

Inventive action sequences, deft stunt work and breathtaking cinematography make for revved-up fun.

Even so, the film's incest theme seems more symbolic than literal in what is, at heart, a comedy about escaping the womb; throwaway gags are wicked enough throughout to keep the taboo plot twist from knocking this hit-and-miss black comedy off the track. [26 Jul 1994 Pg. 08.D]

Men in movies are often just overgrown boys, and Seven Psychopaths is out to prove it - in the most twisted, hilarious way possible.

Sweet, family-friendly and philosophically complex, Tuck Everlasting is an unexpected delight.

The Bling Ring is the cinematic equivalent of the vapid, superficial kids it features — all visual panache and minimal substance.

Lumet remains a great director of actors, one of several reasons why this very iffy movie grabs you - up to a point. [27 Apr 1990, p.9D]

Soderbergh takes a deadly serious news story and amplifies and colors it to the point of outrageousness. The results aren't always consistent, but they are undeniably compelling.

John Williams composes a sprawling, effervescent score that, while not his best, certainly captures the musical magic that makes his partnership with Spielberg so special.

Director Joe Cornish grounded the alien-invasion genre with clever plotting and entertaining English youngsters with 2011's “Attack the Block” and does the same with epic fantasy with this clever “Kid.”

Flaws are outweighed by Crash's intricate construction and intelligent.

Johansson gives one of her best performances as the bossy, gum-chewing Jersey girl determined to change Jon into her image of a romantic hero. Tony Danza and Glenne Headly are hilarious as Jon's parents. Gordon-Levitt proves he can act, write and direct with equal dexterity.

White Palace, ultimately conventional, doesn't play like any spring chicken, either. [19 Oct 1990, p.4D]

At 120 minutes, Colors is one of the longest cop dramas in movie history, and all the clichés are packed into the second hour. It fades in the stretch - and so may too many moviegoers. [15 Apr 1988]

The juxtaposition between the fast-paced plays on the soccer field and the color-drenched, music-infused wedding party is a highlight of this captivating film.

A visually stunning, startlingly clever sleight of hand that will have audiences pondering well after the lights go up.

Spurlock comes off like a new and improved Everyman, familiar but smarter and funnier than the average Joe.

Without Zellweger’s remarkable Oscar-worthy performance, it’s standard-issue biopic fare – with her, the cultural icon comes to life again, warts and all.

I.Q. is a limp period comedy essentially distinguished by two of its haircuts, with Meg Ryan sporting a pert peroxided trim and Walter Matthau decked out in a free-form Albert Einstein coiffure. Fortunately, in the latter case, Matthau is actually playing Albert Einstein. [22 Dec 1994, p.3D]

Wilder remains the gold standard of Wonka-dom. Yet there’s little connective tissue between his mad genius ― which featured a snarky edge and a hint of darkness ― and Chalamet’s version, who likely would never let a child blow up into a ginormous blueberry.

At just 82 minutes, the film's welcome doesn't have time to wear out; especially amusing is the use of '50s pop ballads and some droll elementary-school classroom scenes. Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt are as ''right'' as the indoor production design. [30 June 1989, p.3D]

True to its title, Elegy is a spare, meditative and melancholy film. It is a deeply affecting and profoundly observed saga about love, art, beauty and, especially, mortality.

A surprisingly savory treat, though it doesn't bear much resemblance to the charming classic children's book on which it's based.

There is nothing flashy about these performances, but Gyllenhaal, Dillon and Gosling fully inhabit their characters, giving haunting portrayals. Watch for these names to emerge on the short list for Academy Award consideration.

Fascinating, visionary filmmaking. With its amber-tinged palette and its distinctively dystopian view of life, it may be the most unique-looking film we've seen in ages...[but] defies logic and makes frightening and unexpected leaps.

Stardust lights up the screen with a splendid tale of heroism and romance.

Like "Anchorman," the secret to the inspired absurdity of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is in the improv.

A revelation. One rarely sees American-made movies that are so unafraid to explore emotional cruelty and portray the consequences without positing easy answers or attaching happy endings.

It wallows queasily in its high-tech violence and is woefully anti-climactic; if you think director Kathryn Bigelow doesn't know when to quit, just think back to her sky-diving folly Point Break. The audio-visual ka-boom here befits James Cameron's producing-writing co-credits, but little else justifies Days' prime Saturday-Sunday slot in the New York Film Festival. [6 Oct 1995, p.4D]

Though it could work as effectively as a television vehicle, American Teen is revealing, funny and involving.

Nothing better than boys with really big toys. Especially when the boys are men like Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, top talents who duke it out among the nukes in the propulsively pulse-pounding undersea thriller Crimson Tide. [12May1995 Pg.01.D]

Watching this movie feels a bit like being trapped on a weekend holiday with an unpredictable and seriously unhappy group of people.

Has its moments - but far too many of them. It runs two hours and seems to end five times.

While Scream has its frights, it feels more like one of those solve-the-mystery jigsaw puzzles than a real movie.

It's irreverently entertaining.

This movie has a little something, and part of it is subtext. Walken, who wants to use drug money to build hospitals, is embraced as a New York celebrity; this rings true. Plus, King reunites director Abel Ferrara and screenwriter Nicholas St. John of Fear City/Ms. .45 cultdom. [1 Oct 1990, p.5D]

The movie grows on you, lingers in the mind and may pick up a cult. Take away Heat and Dust, Howards End and The Remains of the Day, and it's as satisfying as any movie the filmmaking team's ever made. [18 Sep 1998, Pg.03.E]

Mean Girls has the same fancifully dead-on tone as the 1995 high-school comedy "Clueless" without the sweetness because, hey, these snits are mean.

Huffman is a woman playing a man playing a woman, which is easily the year's most complicated turn. She does a fine, nuanced job in bringing to life a character that could have become a caricature.

Brosnan and Rush are a smooth fit, playing off each other like a snappy shirt and tie.

May be a spectacularly awful movie, but it's also spectacularly drenched in color, décor and other visual oh-la-la.

Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia labors ambitiously on two socially conscious fronts - relating the story of an AIDS-afflicted lawyer while exploring a much broader issue. Unlike almost any other Demme movie - it's a film where you feel the gears struggling to mesh. [22 Dec 1993, p.1D]

In its own terms, Dumb Money probably should sell off sooner – nothing kills storytelling momentum like congressional Zoom hearings – but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better big-screen combo of rising stock prices and rousing joy.

A sense of family, the one you have and the one you make, strongly pervades every inch of the world that The Good Dinosaur inhabits.

All this movie has in common with its ancestor are speedboats, shotguns and drug-dealing Colombians.

It's only a mild Disney package, despite a dose of Donald Duck dyspepsia. [18 July 1997, p.3D]

The stories run a gamut of emotions: melancholy, bittersweet, provocative, witty, poignant, silly and fanciful.

There's a riveting tale within this awkward litany of pivotal moments. Still, despite the film's uneven nature, Cotillard's extraordinary performance is worth experiencing.

When it's not stalled on silly, it falls into slog territory.

Another Earth proves compellingly that science, intellect and emotion can coexist in mesmerizing synchronicity on the big screen.

As a new chapter in the superpowered arachnid saga, it stands on its own quite nicely, focusing more on human emotions than on a panoply of special effects.

Oliver Stone's Nixon humanizes a reviled but respected subject for over three hours - dynamically at times, but finally so solemnly that it becomes a grind-you-down dirge. The maker of Natural Born Killers actually concludes with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Shenandoah - without irony. [20 Dec 1995, p.1D]

Despite far-fetched plot points - such as a flash mob of bike messengers ready to rumble and thwart evil - it's easy to get caught up in this life-or-death two-wheeled slalom.

It's good to see Polley back on screen, after her successful turn behind the camera directing 2006's "Away From Her." She brings a measure of intelligence to the one-dimensional role.

Where the highly likable actress (Zellweger) proves most valuable is in making us adore this insecure, clumsy, contradictory creature.

Genial but largely predictable ensemble comedy.

Though slightly lacking in the warmth of the first, should no doubt please audiences.

Passable but never exciting, Heist is on a level with those minor Burt Lancaster action pics the actor's name helped bankroll in the '70s.

Its message is unobjectionable, and there are a few laughs to be had, but too much of Elf is like Buddy's favorite meals: syrupy sweet.

The Way Back, with its epic story and spectacularly bleak setting, invites comparisons with "Laurence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago." It's awash in vast, unforgiving terrain. So it got the setting right, but not necessarily the substance.

As easy to enjoy as picking up a spare, and we don't mean a tire around the waist.

A junior chick flick. But unlike many of its more mature counterparts, it is emotionally affecting, avoiding the manipulation and formulaic camaraderie that often spoil the genre.

“Kingdom” aims to bring big ideas into a sprawling blockbuster atmosphere, though that gambit winds up weighed down by its own ambitions.

This very brave bio is an imposing disappointment, just like Cobb. [02 Dec 1994, p.2D]

Director David Yates’ entertaining introduction of awkward hero and magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is a confident and surprisingly funny adventure that’s more charming than most of the eight Harry Potter films.

With cartoon colors, loony tunes and a kitschy-coo sensibility, Earth Girls Are Easy finally lands in theaters after having distributor trouble. This close encounter under the California sun is fun, fun, fun - until its Beach Party-meets-Splash plot unravels. [12 May 1989, p.6D]

Time has marched on for the second ''best-picture'' Oscar winner, but this is still a seamy story about two Midwestern sisters (Bessie Love and Anita Page) singing, hoofing and (in Page's case) teasing their way to success. [24 Feb 1989, p.3D]

Against sizable odds -- a sense that the franchise is played out and its star over-exposed -- Mission: Impossible III delivers.

Last time, director Garry Marshall gave us the fairy tale with Pretty Woman. This time, he gets the story right. [11 Oct 1991, p.1D]

co-directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro know their craft; of the films here, only Othello has a more trenchant visual style. [30 Apr 1992]

Director Alan Rudolph has certainly done his part, leading a colorful parade of Jazz Age editors, essayists and playwrights in arguably one too many directions - easily surpassing The Moderns, his '20s-expatriate companion piece. [25 Nov 1994, p.4D]

Deadpool 2 is chock-full of all the cartoonish ultraviolence, meta commentary and pop-culture references you’d expect. Where it surprises — and why it works so well — is how it balances an actually touching undercurrent alongside superhero subversiveness.

The best thing O’Connor does here, as he also did with the underrated “The Accountant,” is let Affleck remind us once again that he’s a first-class actor – just in case anyone forgot after his brief stint in an infamous cape and cowl.

On one hand, the core conceit – about elderly people suffering thanks to crooks and legal loopholes – is upsetting and infuriating on the surface. But Blakeson puts such a colorful, over-the-top sheen on it, plus lets Pike and Dinklage loose on each other, that you can’t help but be entertained by the criminal carnage and extreme shenanigans.

The spirited a cappella singing in Pitch Perfect makes a predictable, feather-light coming-of-age film irresistibly fun.

Neither Price nor director Harold Becker can decide whether they're after a conventional mystery or a trenchant sexual-psychological study a la Last Tango in Paris. Like so many current movies, Love falters in the pay-off; despite lots of bull's-eye moments in the early going, it seems vaguely silly. [15 Sep 1989, p.4D]

Whether together or solo, Blunt and Miranda are endlessly charming.

A film of repetition, a bloody dance consisting of three steps: stab, scream, repeat.

Star Trek was never about gizmos, but about relationships - both among its crew members and with its audience. Star Trek VI more than upholds the tradition, making it a satisfying send-off for a mighty ship of foils. [6 Dec. 1991, p.1D]

It's about as uncomfortable as sitting through an interminable counseling session - involving two people you hardly know and don't much care about.

To avoid revealing too much and spoiling a fresh and intriguing experience, let's just say this: Catch Catfish.

A little more than halfway in, Legend, based on the book by Richard Matheson (which also spawned 1971's Omega Man and 1964's TheLast Man on Earth), deteriorates into a schlocky zombie horror flick and loses its steam.

After "Monsters, Inc.," this movie may be a bit of a letdown, but there are some scenes that will delight elementary-school-age children and older preschoolers -- notably the gross-out moments.

Too slight and pointless.

Handsomely mounted, strikingly photographed in wide screen and exquisitely acted, director Bille August's new version of Les Miserables is at least the 21st adaptation for the movies or television. [01 May 1998]

The movie meanders without a rudimentary sense of the dramatic, yet it remains intermittently interesting thanks to a surprisingly voluminous cast of usual suspects from the world of independent cinema. [14 Aug 1996 Pg.09.D]

Rogue One is often undermined by its close ties to George Lucas’ original trilogy, and more emphasis is put on its central mission than its fresh-faced characters.

The special effects are scream-worthy, the gore is minimal and the humor has a folksy zing to it. [19 Jan 1990, p.1D]

Knowing and original, Men's comedy never quite soars. Yet jump it does, and high enough. [27 Mar 1992, p.1D]

Those drawn to unusual, unflinching feats of filmmaking and rare acting turns as well as sustained suspense will be captivated by Buried.

As subtle and shattering as its title.

What might have made Bless Me, Ultima more powerful would have been additional scenes with its mystical title character.

Anwar is reasonably spunky, but she's not given much. The script fatally fumbles the exposition, serving up characters of zero rooting-interest. [09 Feb 1994, p.8D]

Authentic emotion competes with manufactured sentiment for the heart of Lee Daniels' The Butler.

Though the film will undoubtedly please the young viewers who flock to it, ultimately many of the book's readers may wish for a more magical incarnation.

There've been few screen moments more moving this year than Cruise's initial reaction to his brother's almost superhuman math prowess. [16 Dec 1988]

Offers a bleak though thought-provoking take on relationships. The challenge for the viewer is in caring enough to become invested in characters who seem hellbent on hurting one another.