Even with Burns' smoothest performance yet as a lead, Confidence is on a level with Steven Soderbergh's blah remake of "Ocean's Eleven." But because no one is expecting much, it seems a little better.

The Drama is a moral thought experiment conducted amid a disaster-filled deconstruction of the romantic comedy. And given the plot's somewhat jaw-dropping twist, it’s also one of the boldest, brashest movies in some time.

Overall, this Dead is zippier than 1995's retake on "Village of the Damned" and somewhat less junky than the recent remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Briskly paced, suspenseful thriller.

Jurassic World gives us enough dino-mite action to stave off excitement extinction.

No need to say hasta la vista to this baby. It's a keeper. [23 Nov 1994, p.1D]

It isn't an unabashed movie-movie like the chest-thumping "Braveheart" or a cool, clinical semi-documentary like "The Battle of Algiers". There are elements of both here and they just don't dance. [11 Oct 1996, Pg.03.D]

Though the writing is often sharp, one is reminded repeatedly by the actors' theatrical delivery of some lines and by the confined settings that the movie's origins were on stage.

Just as sharply funny and as heartwarming, yet unsentimental, as the first.

Performances, plot and pacing are as mechanical as the hard-wired cast.

There are plenty of strong performances, and LaBeouf does a nice job of becoming the tough-skinned pragmatist. Mulligan is as earnest as ever, and Susan Sarandon and, particularly, Frank Langella make strong cameos.

Bouncy tunes such as "Nobody's Perfect" and "Girls' Night Out" are delivered with a glib flirtatiousness that offsets their generically sensitive and empowering messages.

While More Than a Game is a terrific exhibition of talent, exuberance and skill, it is above all a moving tribute to enduring friendship.

Memphis Belle (the title is the name of the plane) doesn't soar. But it does serve as an entertaining historical account similar to the baseball scandal of Eight Men Out or the Olympic glory of Chariots of Fire (no surprise, since co-producer David Puttnam also did Fire). [12 Oct 1990, p.4D]

[Jolie] does what she can with the throwback role, though it’s the least of the film’s problems, with an unfocused plot, painfully dull villains and far-fetched sequences. That said, for those who dig really cool fire sequences, you’ll definitely feel the burn.

While it focuses more on character moments than absolute Bayhem, Bad Boys for Life does feel a bit long and there is a late out-of-nowhere plot twist that feels a little far-fetched even for these movies. Thankfully, neither detracts from the delightful spectacle that comes with Smith and Lawrence fist-bumping and insult-slinging just like it was 1995 again.

There’s no need to yearn for a female 007 or a woman Wick anymore – just hope for another film that’s all about Eve.

Paranormal Activity 3 delivers similarly eerie moments, though long stretches go by where nothing truly ominous occurs.

It's generally enjoyable, amusing and more sophisticated than most films in this genre.

Joker is at times predictable and too familiar given the source material, yet it splendidly captures the essence of the iconic bad guy as a frighteningly unreliable narrator in the movie’s best moments.

Only a grouch wouldn't be a little tickled.

Forget Lassie and Flicka. Two years before Richard Zanuck and David Brown gave us a new kind of animal picture with Jaws, they produced a ssssssickie that gave character actor Strother Martin a rare lead. [22 Aug 2006, p.4D]

And while not everything goes swimmingly, Halle Bailey splendidly buoys this "Mermaid" as the naive underwater youngster with dreams of exploring the surface.

An intimate three-hour epic adapted less from Frank's diary than the Broadway version. [06 Feb 2004, p.6E]

Fanning and Russell make this watchable family entertainment, if not necessarily at today's prices.

This appealing romantic comedy undertakes the conventions of the formula without an inordinate amount of clichés. Music also infuses the overall plot with a satire of the music industry, and the pop tunes and lyrics are catchy.

Blowing this small-screen cyber horror tale out to the big screen makes for fresh and fearsome fun.

Give it plenty of points for brutal honesty. But This is 40 could have used more laughs.

After a tense, terrific, stomach-turning opening that may have moviegoing acrophobes recalling Vertigo, the film soon becomes the latest screen variation on cat-and-Mighty Mouse. [28May1993 Pg.04.D]

None of this works without Stone, though. She’s got the comic timing for the lighter scenes as well as the acting chops to pull off the character’s psychological transformation and personal reckoning.

The film's look, fashioned by production designer Michael Howells, is noteworthy for its vibrant colors and fantastical feel.

Bettany is the best thing about the movie. A wonderful dramatic actor, he also proves to be richly skilled at romantic comedy, playing Peter with an easy grace and a droll sense of humor.

Ant Bully, while not wildly fresh or inventive, is entertaining and energetic.

The side story about Muslim extremists is a little ham-handed for a film that otherwise exercises such restraint.

While Challenge makes for a pretty dull glimpse into the inner workings of the sea, it provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of Cameron, whose obsessive and demanding personality translated to movies that included "Titanic" and "Avatar."

Rather than being an entertaining trainwreck, the finale nihilistically undermines all the good and thoughtful stuff that came before, doing the couple dirtier than they ever could to each other.

The film's mythology is a bit dodgy, and the dialogue is standard issue, but the over-the-top action sequences are occasionally fun, if gory. Ultimately, it's a formulaic, predictable take on a Hollywood staple: the vampire horror film.

Though not exactly a valentine to the octogenarian Nobel Peace Prize winner, the film is a lovingly rendered, candid and intimate portrait.

The quirky film is simultaneously bizarre, humorous, disturbing and suspenseful.

In just three months, Wincer has gone from one of the worst IMAX movies ever (The Young Black Stallion) to one of the best. This time, and in all ways, he has more horsepower.

High-grade B flick about illegal street racing among gangs in Los Angeles applies the brakes only for the bare minimum of plot injection.

Never was a film so visually stunning and so intolerable as To the Wonder.

This is impressive on costuming and hunk fronts (with Billy Dee Williams the key factor in both), while Diana Ross is better than OK in a performance whose Oscar nomination was probably a fait accompli. Otherwise, this lumpy 2 1/2-hour biopic of Billie Holiday hasn't improved since it was critically drubbed -- four other nominations or not -- as one of the most ponderous of all showbiz chronicles. [11 Nov 2005]

Let Jason Statham wreck dudes with “The Beekeeper” and “A Working Man,” and let Affleck be a role model for empathetic masculinity – who can still wreck dudes if needed – with “The Accountant” movies.

For much of its length, the premise seems less wilted than you'd guess. This is because, for one thing, Mendes gives as good as she gets.

Philandering pilot Cliff Robertson overprotects sister Jane Fonda's virginity in a comedy as queasily dated as Ask Any Girl, Shirley MacLaine's 1959 office politics primer. It probably rates a few points for skewering the sexual double standard, and the era's New York locales are still as attractive as Mel Torme's title tune. [04 Oct 1996]

An engaging film bolstered by the stellar performance of Julianne Moore.

Director Ry Russo-Young’s drama does manage to smartly dig into the real-world consequences of bullying and arrive at a provocative conclusion by having its main character live her final day on Earth over and over until she gets it right.

Informative, morally complex and supremely well-intentioned, it generally sidesteps sentimentality for appealingly straightforward storytelling.

However solid the grown-ups are, the youngsters together – whether in the first film or the sequel – make “It” shine.

More thought-provoking than frightening. Its stubbornly cynical attitude makes it worth watching, more than the monsters or the impenetrable mist (which looks spewed from a fog machine) engulfing a small town in Maine.

These movies are best when marrying James Bond high jinks with their longtime emphasis on the strength of family, plus a serving of macho philosophy on the side. F9 tries to goose that template exponentially with soap opera and a greatest-hits package to craft the ultimate "Fast and Furious" movie, instead succeeding at making one that's merely fine.

Has a couple of emotionally resonant scenes that build on the first two story lines. But it lacks the intriguing moody quality of the previous films. The mutants are more pumped up and angry this time, rather than misunderstood and conflicted.

What we're left with is solid if not exceptional, though it's good to see Mendes expanding as a filmmaker.

Robert Pattinson must be hellbent on escaping the world of sparkly-skinned undead to take on the starring role in the leaden, obtuse and ultra-pretentious Cosmopolis.

There is cinematic art, and there's a good evening out; this is the latter. [15 Mar 1991]

Silly as it was, the first movie had a more innocent and campy spirit than this calculated, if faithful, redo.

The movie is a by-the-numbers action film that's not nearly as strong as its Damon-led predecessors.

Hoffman stores the plane fuel in his house and even enjoys sniffing it. The movie might be a lot more fun as a suspense pic were he to take on a roommate who chained-smoked.

Though the music is helping market the movie, it's really an omnipresent backdrop to the two intersecting stories. Audibly and visibly, Kansas City nearly equals Ed Wood for period verisimilitude. Yet it's also character-driven, in particular by the women stars. [16 Aug 1996, p.4D]

The focus is limited to Young's longtime Crazy Horse colleagues -- in other words, forget Buffalo Springfield or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young -- but even on this level, there's a lot of rambling and disinclination to answer questions. A substantial number of viewers will likely be ground down, and certainly there's nothing here to make Young's 1979 concert film, Rust Never Sleeps, an obsolete view. [07 Oct 1997, p.3D]

Disclosure should slickly satisfy people who like movies about advanced computers, topical themes, hardball attorney mind games, office politics, sex and sweet revenge. [9 Dec 1994, p.1D]

Classic rock enthusiasts will want to stick around through the end credit sequence, which features an array of album covers.

Though the effort is uneven, it's a well-acted romance that becomes a less compelling courtroom drama.

Now that we no longer expect the world from any of them, the movie is an amusing 88-minute trifle with Beatty in a gigolo mustache and Nicholson with Art Garfunkel curls. [05 Jun 1998]

To see someone even attempt bittersweet treatment of this subject is surprising, but to largely pull it off is a major feat.

Yet the film's most serious flaw (next to a newly concocted fizz-out ending) is that it's not sinister enough. [30 Jun 1993 Pg. 01.D]

A darkly disturbing melodrama anchored by some powerful performances.

Its title notwithstanding, there's nothing that remotely approaches a narrative curve ball in this tired saga of an aging baseball scout.

Hard Candy, a highly original psychological thriller/revenge fantasy, can be bitterly hard to take and uncomfortably intense, but it's well worth consuming.

Unwed John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell are living on what amounts to room-service charity in a posh London hotel, waiting for his cocoa crop investment to bankroll their spiralling bill. Neither lead plays a very bearable character, and the pathetic maid (destitute and hearing-impaired) is too obviously conceived as their counterpoint. It's good to see MacDowell loosening up (a little) after her alarmingly stilted dialogue delivery in deadly, dreadful Green Card. But that's all. Sleeping Beauty never awakens from its monotonal slumber. [12 Apr 1991, p.2D]

The tale of the resistance movement in Belorussia is undeniably inspiring and ideally suited for a cinematic rendering. But Defiance resists bold, passionate storytelling and delivers something rather conventional.

This is the best Seagal yet - written by J.F. Lawton, who also did Pretty Woman, oddly enough. But let's not go overboard. The convoluted plot treads water far too long as the good guys on land discuss strategy in a Dr. Strangelove-style conference room. The violence is way too graphic as Seagal treats the hijackers as if they were cheap cuts of beef. And Erika Eleniak's centerfold bimbo may be played for laughs, but it's no joke when she's the token woman. Then again, it's too much to expect an action top dog to learn too many new tricks. [09 Oct 1992, p.8D]

There are some scattered laughs but it's not particularly funny, and American Pickle is generally all over the place, aiming to be an abstract comedy about family and religion but losing its way trying to also poke fun at modern culture.

With Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, the raunchy college comedy is graduating to smart feminist commentary.

The latest undead-soldier story carries on the franchise tradition of graphic violence and bad acting.

Donkey continues to be lovable, and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) has one of the funnier character arcs.

Has some appealing characters, a few laughs and then devolves into a predictable Tortoise and the Hare spinoff.

Often a cinematic marvel and often the year's most pungent movie medicine, Beloved always feels as if it's carrying the world's weight, and maybe it is. [16 October 1998, p. 7E]

The humor, mainly of the raunchy and older-parents-having-sex variety, lands in hilarious fashion only some of the time.

Ultimately, the movie doesn't make it, but there's enough going on to make it more arf than barf.

Bardem's soulful turn lends this haunting meditation a sense of hope and saves it from the contrived missteps it teeters toward.

After laughing at crudely funny scenes in The Dictator, there's a cringing sensation of guilt.

The stunts are as muscular and the film as handsome to look at as the hero who so ably pulls them off. But the story linking it all together is thin and weak.

Like an uneven album, the movie has some harmonious, authentically lilting moments and other off-putting ones.

With its fanciful razzle-dazzle, Rise of the Guardians is appealing, if slightly hectic, family fare.

The Midnight Sky doesn’t always have the smoothest storytelling, yet in Clooney’s capable directing hands, the film’s emotional core and human touch are never a waste of space.

Cheesy, campy B-movie fun, thanks mostly to the cadre of cobras and their ilk and also to Jackson (probably the only actor alive who could pull off this save-the-day bad ass movie role).

Lean on Me is surprisingly subdued (and very coolly photographed, too, by Victor Hammer). It may be that Avildsen was feeling disciplined - Clark's influence, perhaps. And, then, school board politics and students' testing skills aren't exactly juicy dramatic themes. [3 March 1989, p.4D]

Grimly claustrophobic movies can make viewers put up a shield, yet Tim Blake Nelson (who directed O) invests this unusual Holocaust drama with dramatic intensity that in no way cheapens its subject matter.

Hunt is coldly clinical rather than emotionally resonant; so is the measured ensemble work of a super cast. [2 Mar 1990, Life, p.1D]

Though this saga would be terrific to read about, it is dicey screen material that only a genius should touch. With no genius in sight, K-19 might be headed for meltdown.

It's a pleasure to watch such top-notch actors deliver Coward's sparkling wit.

Peña is a standout, and Longoria is a revelation as the vulnerable, pregnant Paulina. Hers is a decidedly un-glamorous part and Longoria compellingly fleshes out an under-written role.

Jojo Rabbit succeeds even with a high degree of difficulty, given the sensitivities of the subject matter, the emotional undercurrent of a mother’s devotion to her son and the breaking down of artificial walls to let love in. As much as it makes you laugh, Waititi’s must-watch effort is a warm hug of a movie that just so happens to have a lot of important things to say.

Despite appealing performances and kinetic football scenes, the storytelling is mostly conventional.

The huge contingent of girls -- and women with girlish fantasies -- who liked the first two movies will doubtless enjoy Eclipse. But this third go-round won't make Twihard converts of the rest of us.

Put to the sequel litmus test, queasily spectacular Vengeance would only rate a footnote without a strong original to exploit - or a protracted telephone-terrorist subplot to steal from Dirty Harry 1. [19May1995 Pg.01.D]