Scarlett Johansson

Has a pleasant whiff of Capra about it, with its accessible story, good humor, and insinuating themes.

Qualifies, barely, as a guilty pleasure...with its generous scrapbook of literary wisdom and pleasantly overcooked performances.

Dimwitted, action-flailing mediocrity....Michael Bay...[said,] "I always say, '**** the critics'"...I'll tell you what I always say: "Michael Bay is a tool."

Amounts to little more than an austere and extremely prolonged episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Strained of much of its Englishness...A Good Woman earns most of its good will from those Wildean epigrams.

As the character drama bogs down in Hartnett and Johansson's maudlin mumbling, De Palma starts to focus on shoehorning in a punchy setpiece or stylistic outrage.

Nolan's supreme confidence, narrative skill, and taste for complexity make for unusually rich popular entertainment. Where was The Prestige this summer when we needed it most?

The film gets a full 'This is a work of fiction' disclaimer, even noting that any resemblance to any person living or dead is unintentional. That tells you something about how much trust to put in these historical CliffsNotes.

Perhaps the greatest compliment to be paid to Vicky Cristina Barcelona is that it serves as a spot-on emblem of Allen's own life philosophy: cling to the transient pleasures, as you're bound to be let down in the end.

Couples who want to stay happy might want to think twice before seeking out a movie about how the majority of relationships end up making people paranoid and miserable.

Let me begin by saying something nice about Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo: kids will probably like it. Okay, that’s all I’ve got.

It's quite possible that The Avengers has more action than any movie ever made...[but] for all its thrill-ride clutter, The Avengers is just about as simplistic as them fightin'-robot pictures...

Reenactment cinema...On balance, Hitchcock is about as entertaining and as trustworthy as a tabloid.

Captures the zeitgeist of a tech-centric world that may be too 'smart' for its own good...It's about the life of the mind and emotional dysfunction as much as it is a quirky romance, and every scene opens up new questions.

Though Captain America: The Winter Soldier never strays far from preposterousness, the picture's real-world implications give its high-flying action at least a tug of gravity.

Besson reminds us how limber he can be...The material is always cheeky in its sense of humor and stylistic and cultural allusions...and frequently, if not fundamentally, provocative...

Pure, uncut comic-book fantasy...Whedon tames the beast into something spectacularly epic, if a bit exhausting: bursting with destructive mayhem but grounded by interesting character beats, rife with dark implications but seasoned with good humor.

A direct sequel to Captain America: The Winter Soldier...a crazy-cool superhero team-up/smackdown movie to make Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice look like a tea party, and a franchise-launching introduction to the new Spider-Man...

In a way, the amusing, preposterous Hail, Caesar!, for all its arch postmodernism, becomes what it pastiches, resembling the kind of '50s film we can now watch and admire for a kind of cultural reflection without exactly considering it a success.

Favreau and Marks have obviously put some thought into the film’s visual approach and the messages...: the animal kingdom’s unexpected threats and opportunities...the work Mowgli puts in to come of age...his casual kindheartedness...

Sing is pleasant enough...but scrutinize it, and you'll find that it's neither very musically accomplished nor very funny. The tone is bright and colorful but still evinces a kind of joyless duty...

[Spoiler-free review:] Marvel’s superhero movies may not run the risk of being called 'elegant,' but they’re sure as hell sturdy, well-built popcorn flicks that send audiences out unequivocally satisfied.

Marvel tourists may surprise themselves how much they care...while fanatics will have a geekgasm of heretofore undiscovered proportions at what amounts to the biggest series finale ever. To put it more politely, they’ll love it “times 3000.&rd