The extraordinary thing about this film by Rodney Evans is how well it conveys the complexity. Vision is precious, it reminds us frequently. At the same time we’re brought to understand that blindness, far from being the end of the world, constitutes another mode of living in it.

To do rough justice to this special treat in not much space, let me first stipulate that it evokes any number of Woody Allen films, thanks to its therapy-centric characters and its Upper West Side milieu.

Crude as its build-up may be, the movie pays off with unexpected delicacy.

Lemon is all about this pull and push, toward and away from the characters and the movie itself. It’s also one of the more original films in recent memory.

The plot has an intriguing twist, and the production, in addition to Mr. McKellen’s commanding presence, has fine work by Laura Linney as Holmes’s housekeeper, Mrs. Munro, and by Milo Parker as Roger, Mrs. Munro’s son. The boy is vividly intelligent, ferociously angry and a force to be reckoned with.

There’s so much going on that one loses track of how inane so much of it is, but “A New Era” is also a pleasure, guilty or otherwise: Mr. Fellowes doesn’t go very deeply into any character, his frictionless repartee gliding by.

At a time when so many movies look alike, and studio productions sometimes look aggressively ugly, here's a quirky vision at the intersection of sci-fi and romance. Upside Down can be beguiling if you're willing to invert disbelief.

Ms. Clarkson is always fascinating; only on second viewing did I notice how much Ms. Mortimer was doing while Mr. Nighy was stealing a scene. In the end, though, it’s his movie. And likely wasn’t supposed to be.

When a feelgood formula is fleshed out artfully, going along with it can feel very good indeed.

Pays off in surprising ways, when love of music, and fame, plays second fiddle to love of family.

It’s a rare documentary portrait that doesn’t oversell its subject.

As directed by Menhaj Huda (“The Flash” TV series), Heist 88 is tidy, economical, forward-moving and not out to expand anyone’s visual vocabulary.

I’ll See You In My Dreams, has its shortcomings as drama, but she’s (Danner) the heroine, Carol Petersen, and she takes advantage of every resonant moment the role offers her.

The jokes fly fast and sometimes very funny. They are, more often, crude and homophobic. Still, a genuine sweetness lurks.

Mr. Morris is among the most intellectual of documentary makers, but on an artisanal level his trademark is the head-on confrontation, the face-to-face interview. In refining that process, he developed the Interrotron, which enables him to interview a subject eye-to-eye while still having that subject look directly into the camera.

A marvelously loopy and deeply serious film from Iceland.

It is fun: Watching Ms. Jolie do her own acrobatics, under the direction of her longtime stunt coordinator Simon Crane, is a kick, especially in an era when our knowledge of special effects have so diluted the vicarious thrills of high-wire moviemaking.

This screen adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s autobiographical best-seller is burdened, out of fidelity to the book, with life lessons and unneeded explanations that it dispenses, like CliffsNotes, at every opportunity.

Wildcat is not a fairy tale. The rigors endured by Mr. Turner’s principal sidekick, an ocelot named Keanu (the actor should be pleased), seem very basic compared to the human subject’s process of rehabilitation. But it does reconcile its realities with the elusive nature of happiness, which for both men and cats can mean what’s within their grasp.

Many things are possible in Midsommar, but the surest is that there’s nothing else like it at the movies.

Though the documentary is clearly meant as a fan letter, not an even-handed report, it does overlook some important matters.

Beowulf deserves to be taken semiseriously; its eye candy is mixed with narrative fiber and dramatic protein. But it begs to be taken frivolously. Effects have grown so exciting in the realm of the third dimension that you just sit there all agog behind your polarizing glasses.

Pulls us along in a state of pleasant expectation.

The movie, with some of the trappings of a murder mystery, makes its points with blunt force. Fun seldom figures in this adaptation, which is overlong and mysteriously unaffecting. Still, Mr. Fincher's film has many fascinations.

The language of its narrative, like that of its characters, may be elevated -- a literary Western version of Damon Runyon -- but the words are intriguing, challenging and, occasionally, very funny.

Uneven though it is . . . No Hard Feelings devises some smart new twists for the teen sex comedy while expertly counterbalancing Mr. Feldman’s doe-eyed innocence with Ms. Lawrence’s vamping.

Its terrific cast kept making me laugh out loud.

Ms. Bening is the only reason to see the movie, but a compelling reason. Just like Julia, she prevails over lesser mortals with unfailing zest.

All the same, strong performances, strikingly spare production design and somber cinematography convey a sense of something important going on. That’s no small achievement in what proves to be a creature feature with flair.

With a refreshing absence of earnestness, the movie mainly spins out many variations on a theme: Easy Street begins and ends on Capitol Hill. [03 Dec 1992]

A surfeit of spectacular images from top-of-the-line computer animation. And the love story branches out beyond a boy and his dragon into gladdening fulfillment on both sides of the species divide. That will certainly be sufficient for kids and families who’ve been waiting for the final chapter of the big-screen trilogy. Over much of the territory it covers, though, the film feels like it’s flying on empty.

Ambitious and uneven.

The children's real world, or what passes for real in a fantasy, could hardly be more inviting, for reasons that are hardly mysterious: the strong performances, under Mark Waters's accomplished direction; the smart, bright language, much of it taken from the books; the stylish cinematography, by Caleb Deschanel.

The sometimes hilarious Good on Paper is actually an anti-romantic comedy.

Once the plotters plunge into action, though, Valkyrie becomes both an exciting thriller and a useful history lesson.

A modest film about a modest man and benefits enormously from Mr. Wyman’s apparent obsessive-compulsive drive to collect, record and photograph.

It's easy to speculate that the loving Cleo and the frequently absent Johnny are stand-ins for Ms. Coppola and her own famous father, but Somewhere needn't be seen as a film à clef. The movie stands on its own terms as a slow-burning drama of life in a Hollywood purgatory where you can not only check out but leave.

Open Water, which was made for $130,000 -- and seemingly without special-effects assistance -- proves you don't have to have a big budget to have an audience on the edge of its seat.

Eye in the Sky is literally all over the map in its depiction of drone warfare, and right on target, if flagrantly contrived, in examining the ethics of killing by remote control.

Eleven years after An Inconvenient Truth Mr. Gore remains a prodigy of hope, with energy that seems endlessly renewable.

The film has a surprisingly sweet spirit, and its co-stars respect the human core in their garish material; Mr. Kinnear, especially, has never been more likable.

Plain-spoken and unpretentious, he’s a fount of surprising information and informed opinion.

Here, it is saying in effect, are old-fashioned conventions that still have life in them, but to appreciate them we need to approach them playfully. That worked for me, from the understated start to the overwrought finish.

Everything in The Light Between Oceans is deeply felt and dramatically precise, in a way that seems destined to become profoundly personal for each and every viewer.

An affecting story of punishment and crime, of betrayal and redemption marred by preachiness and a treacly ending, Catch a Fire is notable for its refusal to see things in terms of black and white.

As a love story, Fantasy Life isn’t particularly original, but the low-key way Mr. Shear realizes some familiar situations is warm and human, with comic aspects and sad ones kept in an appealing balance.

A freewheeling denunciation of the capitalist system that is often mordantly funny and, by lurching turns, scornful, rambling, repetitive, impassioned, mock-lofty, pseudo-lowbrow, faux-naïve, persuasive, tabloid-shameless and agit-prop-powerful.

The essence of the film is slapsticky, chopsocky action, rendered with great verve and accompanied by bromides having to do with the need to believe.

There's plenty of scary pleasure to be had from this clever, compact thriller.

Several startling depictions of the artist at work make you forget, if only temporarily, the serious shortcomings of the script.

This one is nowhere near as original -- it's a flawed remake of a fine first feature from Norway -- but "Insomnia" still stands on its own as a thriller with brains and scenic beauty.

A series of picaresque adventures in a notably picturesque land. Is it enough to sustain anything resembling dramatic momentum? For a while it isn't, but then, unexpectedly, it is.

There's the expected, though no less astounding, profusion of life forms on the way down — Mr. Cameron calls them "critters" when he isn't using their scientific names — but the essence of the drama is the explorer's deepening solitude.

The heart of the film is the emotional triangle of Petey, Li’l Petey and Dog Man, as the two erstwhile enemies both find something like love for the kitten (voiced by Lucas Hopkins Calderon and full of disarming innocence) and something like forgiveness for each other.

Horror and social value contend for equal honors in Must Read After My Death, a frightening -- and eerily edifying -- documentary that Morgan Dews created from a family trove of photos, Dictaphone letters, audiotapes, voluminous transcripts and home movies.

Wittily written and directed by Gerard Johnstone, who directed but did not write the first film, the follow-up is notably clever, amusing, ambitious and densely plotted. Unlike its predecessor and most works from the horror-thriller production company Blumhouse, it combines a high-concept premise with a highly complicated story.

The repetitions are meant as a sort of metajoke, and it works well enough, more often than not, though heightened levels of raunch and chaos seem not so much meta as frantic.

If Sorry, Baby isn’t exactly an assured debut, it nonetheless has a sincere purpose, thoughtfully expressed.

This fascinating film, which goes into national distribution this week, reconstructs the event with 16mm footage shot during the voyage, interviews with surviving crew members, and a narration taken from the anthropologist’s diary in which he reveals himself to be a spectacularly cockeyed judge of human nature.

The main attraction, so to speak, of “Road House” is ne’er-do-wells getting their comeuppance, to put it as gently as possible. The amount and degree of fighting defy most rules of physics, respiration and orthopedics. But it is a fantasy, mostly, which is a blessing.

Odd as it seems for a film built on such a grand scale, sweet is the operative word here, and that's not meant as an insult. [29 May 1992]

In Fyre, Mr. Smith tells a story of character, or lack thereof.

The production, which grew out of the filmmaker’s friendship with the two men, Iván and Gerardo, is so heartfelt, and the material so intrinsically powerful, that I Carry You With Me slowly catches up with itself, and lights a fire fueled by food and love. That’s a winning combination in this story, just as it is in real life.

The film is more illuminating in its depiction of a distinctly contemporary war, in which men are augmented at every step by advanced machines.

It’s a paradox, then, as well as a pity, that the film loses its way at precisely the point when the new story starts to merge with the old one, and the Little Girl meets a character called Mr. Prince.

A romance, a detective story, a comedy and a fable. Such a mishmash prevents it from being a standout in any of those categories. -- It's lovely to look at, though, and it's ultimately carried to success on the back of a strong story.

Watching the actors and gorgeous trappings is an adventure in cognitive dissonance. I didn't believe a single minute in almost three hours, but enjoyed being there all the same.

Mixes whiffs of Woody Allen and Federico Fellini with Mr. Farmanara's distinctive, mordant wit.

A P.T. Anderson film is, by definition, an event, even if this one doesn’t measure up to such absurdist landmarks as Howard Hawks’s “The Big Sleep,” the Coen brothers’ “The Big Lebowski” and Robert Altman’s peerless “The Long Goodbye.”

Joan Allen, for whom the role was written, combines severity, which she has often played before, with such levity and verve that she lifts the whole film on the wings of Terry's wrath.

This fine and welcome piece of family entertainment, directed by Boaz Yakin from a script he wrote with Sheldon Lettich, gets to a sweet spot by way of a smart premise, patriotic undertones and a coming-of-age story that’s downright stirring.

Roger Donaldson's film is endearing in its own right as a celebration of a strong-willed eccentric, and memorable as a showcase for a brilliant actor in a benign mode.

Much of the film is banal or pretentious, or both - vacuous vignettes about emptiness. Occasionally, though, those vignettes burst into life and burn with consuming fire.

It's a privilege to watch peerless actors at the peak of their powers.

Here’s a nice surprise, a zestful, slightly autobiographical debut feature from Israel, written and directed by a woman, Talya Lavie, that takes satirical aim at the passions, frustrations and sexual politics of women in the army.

A loopy, endearing documentary.

The music is shamelessly entertaining, and the warmth of Morgan Freeman's narration conveys the possibility that, for all the imminent peril, the lemurs of this enchanted forest still have a fighting chance.

If “Spinal Tap II” doesn’t quite earn an 11 on a scale of one to 10, I’d say it rates a strong 7.

Looks splendid and commands respect, but leaves you wondering what essential something you missed. It's a worthy film at war with itself.

The movie as a whole is clever, and conspicuously overwrought. But Mr. Downey's performance is elegantly wrought; he's as quick-witted as his legendary character, and blithely funny in the lovers' spats—all right, the mystery-lovers' spats—that Holmes keeps having with Jude Law's witty Dr. Watson.

Bizarre and belabored, yet grimly fascinating.

There are worlds within the startling world of Murderball.

This modest little fable from Israel, in English, Hebrew and Arabic, has spellbinding resonances, yet never breaks the spell by blowing its own horn.

Among the ironic lessons of MoviePass, MovieCrash is that the people who used the service the most helped ruin it, though it wasn’t really their fault—it was a great deal. One that seemed too good to be true. And was.

Shook has the requisite twists to make it much more than a straightforward horror-shocker, and the sharp turns are sufficient to have viewers profoundly dizzy about where it’s all going to go.

My advice to "Hobbit" fans is not only to see this one, but to see it as I did, in 3-D projected at the normal rate of 24 frames per second. The film will also be shown in what's called High Frame Rate 3-D, at 48 frames a second, but that made the last installment look more like video than a regular movie. Smaug is scary enough without a turbo boost.

Halle Berry is something else as Leticia Musgrove, the widow of an inmate who's just been executed by Hank and his crew, and that something else is commandingly passionate.

Hardcore horror fans will get their dose of mayhem from Humane, though in its modest, tidily organized fashion the film might also get under the skin.

If truth be told, the film is less than the sum of its parts; the main problem is the fragmented narrative structure, a legacy of the literary source. Still, it's a joy to see men and women with dense life stories played by powerful actors with long and distinguished careers.

Guaranteed to fan antigovernment sentiments among its audiences, Dinosaur 13 is less about paleontology than it is about prosecutorial overreach, political gamesmanship, dinosaur swindlers and true crime — if in fact crimes were even committed, and/or committed by the people accused.

Audiences will be rooting for him all the way to the end zone.

Mammoth manages to be as affecting as it is heartfelt.

Mr. Van Sant and his star, Michael Pitt, together with the cinematographer Harris Savides, set out to do a somber, rigorously distanced study of a man drained of all resources, and slowly though inexorably approaching his end. That they have done exactly what they meant to do is notable.

The Visitor tells of renewal through love. Its song is tinged with sadness, but stirring all the same.

Shows how a dedicated man ensured that great music could always be heard at its best.

When Kevin Spacey takes center stage, our planet really does seem bright.

Mr. Chu knows exactly how to bring this story emphatically home, and as we’ve heard before, there’s no place like it.

The Rip is a sturdily entertaining, hyper-kinetic avalanche of action propelled by equal parts bullets and f-bombs.