Though the film nakedly seeks a wide audience through conventional plotting and characterization—and despite being (like most action movies) guy-centric—Shanghai Noon provides good, clean 'family' fun. 
This innocent, sixties-style, big-budget comedy-romance-action-adventure romp is solid family entertainment that would make any self-respecting kid's jaw drop for a good two hours. 
As good as, if not better than, any of the feature films that would later star the Next Generation cast. 
Not only did the third season mark a quantum leap in non-niche popularity for the series, but a greater consistency in the show's writing and execution that meant a precipitous drop in fan complaints. 
All the ingredients for a great evening at the movies: lively music, eye-catching scenery, larger-than-life comic set pieces, suave men and beautiful women, and odd-man-out Clouseau, played to perfection by the one and only Peter Sellers. 
Day-Lewis...wears well the weariness of the office and Lincoln's puckish yet subdued sense of humor, scaling the man closer to life-size than Mount Rushmore monumental. 
Supplements its palace intrigue with the good old-fashioned pull of romance and costume drama...Mikkelsen's magnetism and sly expressiveness hold the film's center with a quiet potency. 
Monsieur Verdoux can boast a screenplay with a highly unusual moral complexity and a deeply philosophical bent...Yes, Verdoux is a film that name-drops Schopenhauer, but it's also damn funny... 
By most cinematic measures, Zero Dark Thirty is one of the best-made films of 2012. It also probably shouldn't exist. 
In the hands of Ang Lee, a true film artist, Life of Pi elegantly walks Martel's philosophical line while also brilliantly using every modern cinematic tool to spin an epic yarn. 
Built for fun...in its dazzlingly elaborate production design and kinetic 3D action...perfect casting...Who Framed Roger Rabbit-esque video-game-character cameos, and a cramming of clever comic touches... 
The Master begs for a reorientation of the viewer, perhaps requiring more than one viewing...there's nothing easy or conventional about this account of a doomed search for external meaning, doubling as a meditative tone poem on human frailty. 
While in its romantic and romanticized particulars, this A Star Is Born can often seem silly, hoary, disjointed or meandering, the essence of the showbiz narrative still exerts a powerful pull... 
Tease[s] out the provocative and liberating properties of art. Add extraordinary, emotionally generous performances, and Blue Is the Warmest Color grasps enough moments of truth to justify its extensive reach. 
Gets it right, in the essence of its true story as well as the social discomforts surrounding disability and sane discussion of sexuality. 
To the extent that Our Man Flint works, it does so due to its tossed-off wit...and the sheer oddity of Coburn, the toothy, gangly character actor who nevertheless charms his way into stardom here with laid-back cool. 
From its jazzy main titles to its gentle fadeout, Monsters, Inc. has something that money can't buy. It's likeable. 
Observe the white, middle-class American Catholic teenager in his natural habitat...Though we have, perhaps, never flaunted the fetching eyelashes and perfect skin of these curious creatures...have we not, in a sense, been there? 
Written in four days and shot in fifteen, this homegrown indie shows its seams...in cinematic terms, it's pretty weak sauce. 
Like Anatomy of a Murder, The Graduate, and Daniels' own Precious rolled into one wacked-out bloody Southern Gothic that's considerably less than the sum of those parts... 
Flipping the cautionary themes of Mary Shelley’s original source material, Frankenweenie plays out as a primarily pro-science parable...goes out of its way to encourage free-thinking square pegs to avoid gaping round holes. 
Even for an episodic kiddie farce, Dog Days seems overly familiar in its comic premises (oh no! peeing in the municipal pool!) and conflicts...but it’ll all be new to its intended audience... 
Just remember, kids, you’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you…or your movie dollars. 
Trek became famous in large part for its (often corny) science-fiction morality plays...Few episodes of either series achieve this goal more elegantly than Melinda Snodgrass' 'The Measure of a Man.' 
Though some scary parts may make the very young fret unduly, the film also puts forward some thoughtful messages for both children and their parents. 
It's beginning to seem as if Pixar's delivery of one of the very best films of the year will be an unstoppable annual tradition. 
Has no MSG. I mention this because many will probably want to make a meal of it and, it should be said, it's both pretty tasty and will leave you feeling hungry an hour later... 
Even when it's not quite running on all cylinders, LeRoy's Gypsy is never less than cute, and sometimes, it's a good deal more. 
It would be criminal to reveal how the plot unfolds, other than to say it's impressive dramatic origami, manipulated deftly by an ideal cast and one of Hollywood's all-time top directors. 
According to an old showbiz saw, the key to comedy is timing. Well, the new big-budget sci-fi comedy The Watch has a problem there. 
'Be excellent to each other.' Out of the mouths of babehounds... 
One character innocently asks Peter, as he looks for an ID badge, 'Are you having trouble finding yourself?' Maybe just a little, but consider the franchise relaunched... 
This version...won't be remembered as a major one—it's too faithful and too wobbly for that—but it's an entertaining novelty version, largely justified by the casting and Gemignani's slavish devotion to the original Broadway orchestrations. 
Strikes just the right balance of irony and sincerity...genuinely heartwarming, from its opening dedication to Henson and Hunt to its joy-to-the-world finale. 
Maybe Prometheus is deep, after all, with Weyland Corporation standing in for 20th Century Fox in an allegory for Scott's artistic aspirations: funding and undermining his ambitions at the same time. 
Entirely larky...for Beatlefans, what's not to like? 
'Eat Gray Love'...the whole enterprise [is] too platitudinous, but with powerhouse actors like Dench, Nighy and Wilkinson, even a critic can agree it's better to be plucky than a sour stick-in-the-mud. 
Murphy and Falchuk don't go after anything deep...they just want the reflected glow of America's collective nightmares as they peddle their own ambitious, at times affecting, but generally klutzy serialized/recurring bad dream. 
With its deathless car chase, Friedkin's film became an instant American classic... 
What have I learned? High school movies can be duller—and more sour—than previously thought possible...The least generic element of General Education is its openly hostile attitude toward gay people. 