It’s ingenious and intriguing, right up to the silly finale, which should be forgiven if not ignored.

If a thriller can make you hold your breath for fear of being eaten by aliens while you’re sitting in the multiplex, it’s working pretty well, and “A Quiet Place: Day One” appropriately kept me in a frozen state, afraid to so much as crinkle a page in my notebook.

That “Crime 101” seeks to position itself as a successor to “Heat” is laughable. A more accurate title would have been “Lukewarmth.”

All the same, X2 and recent action adventures like it constitute a mutation in their own right: fast-paced, slow-witted movies in which the impact is the message; impersonal movies that deny any need for characterization; disjointed movies that make no apologies -- and pay no penalties -- for making no sense. Their special gift is giving little and getting a lot.

He may not be the most charismatic news anchor in the history of TV but Mr. Kumar has nerve, arguing with bellicose callers, singing to them while they rant (and promise to kill him) and sometimes getting them to sing along. As captured by Mr. Shukla, he also works tirelessly on behalf of something that you suspect wouldn’t be quite so despised if it weren’t also the truth.

The new installment is exciting for its energy and scale, despite its flaws and derivative themes, and makes a lovely valediction for its star.

Whatever the movie's failings, it had enough poignancy and beauty to make me want to find out what was missing. [08 Oct 1992]

Mr. Ayoade's new film, adapted from Dostoyevsky's novella "The Double," is at least as startling as "Submarine" in its visual design, eerie environments and unusual premise. But it's lifeless, for the most part, a drama suffocated by its schematic style.

Had anyone recognized the signs and done something about them, the picturesque fable would have gone up in smoke, or snow, and Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter would have become a different picture. I’d prefer that one, though, sight unseen. This one is a closed system about a closed system.

The pacing is good, the atmosphere authentic, and even the paperwork — which is where the real revolutions in law occur — has a certain kinetic quality to it. And while viewers might think they know where the film is going, and what the payoff is going to be, they’ll still be caught off guard emotionally.

One-third wonderful, The Place Beyond the Pines weakens as it unfolds for lack of what makes the early part so good.

Lethal Weapon is vulgar, violent and predictable. Yet, in some outbreak of id, I got caught up in the shenanigans of Danny Glover and Mel Gibson as a mismatched cop team. Mr. Glover is more than solid and Mr. Gibson has added a kind of raw humor to his repertoire that is extremely sexy. [5 Mar 1987, p.1]

The documentary’s director, Linus O’Brien (son of the show’s creator), interviews fans and outside experts to piece together the still-amazing story of how “Rocky Horror” caught on.

The scenery, effects and balletic, iconic combats are perfectly wonderful, but there's an emotional black hole where the hero should be.

As a whole, though, Paris pulses with a contemporary version of the energy that animated Balzac's novels, or Colette's accounts of the life she observed from the window of her apartment in the Palais Royal.

Superman can be a myth, a god, an American emblem or a symbol of the overachieving immigrant, but making him a schmo who’s so weak he’d be in deep trouble if it weren’t for his ridiculous dog feels like a dizzyingly dismissive choice.

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.

This hugely entertaining thriller is what's needed to banish a winter-long case of movie blues.

Beautiful moments abound. In Departures, the contemplation of death prepares the way for an appreciation of life.

An unusually engaging portrait of a legendary chef who can be insufferable, as his most ardent admirers acknowledge, but who is also a brighter-than-life charmer, raging perfectionist, world-class hedonist, self-styled dandy and all-too-human survivor of the highest-end restaurant wars.

Jacob Kornbluth's lively documentary is both a polemic and a teaching tool.

Fits nicely among the contemporary comedies that teeter at the brink of delivering messages of one sort or another, but are in fact, nothing more than lots of fun. Which is no small achievement.

An off-kilter romantic comedy in which everything turns out the way you might have hoped it would if you hadn’t been kept in a state of happy suspense along the way.

The best car commercial ever, an absolute triumph of product placement, and great fun as a movie in the bargain.

Never Look Away makes an eloquent case for art as an expression of hope, a way of searching for meaning in chaos.

Noah can be silly or sublime, but it's never less than fascinating. I was on board from start to finish.

The flashbacking narrative addresses, with surprising subtlety, buoyant wit and fearless theatricality, several matters that superhero sagas aren’t supposed to trouble themselves about.

The documentary gets by on its interviews, archival footage and fascinating subjects, who in some respects always seemed like stalwarts of a fusty tradition.