Coogler isn't after much more than what naturally comes with his approach: a memorial in dramatic prose, an occasion for cathartic outrage and empathetic grief.

Handled with care and patience by McGowan, proves mightily compelling, and deftly sidesteps sentimentality and cliche.

'Blackout comedy' for the Comic-Con set, the nerd's Laugh-In...all in good fun.

The kind of movie you root for to get its act together..Take the great Kristen Wiig out...and it would be unbearable.

Kids...will probably ho-hum their way through Turbo happily enough and forget it moments later. But they deserve better, too, than this lackluster, generic kiddie flick.

Culminates in a double-music video finish designed to see audiences out in a pop-narcotic laughing-gas daze. As a tactic, it’s a poor substitute for a satisfying story.

A perverted comedy of manners, with the characters spilling drinks, secrets, and sperm...but coming more from a place of 'I'm going to make my dolls kiss. Won't that be naughty?' than one of productive social satire.

The meeting of McCarthy's stinging zingers and Bullock's practiced exasperation almost justifies The Heat, but it's more of a lob than a fastball.

If you're an inveterate softie looking to hydrate your eyes, yes...can't bear the thought of missing good work by Redgrave and Stamp, maybe...low tolerance for having your intelligence insulted (or dreadful renditions of "Love Shack"), it's a definite no.

True crime with a dash of social satire...Coppola remains mesmerizingly stylish, but...The Bling Ring winds up being skin deep: superficial characters portrayed superficially in a shallow-pool reflection of shallowness.

The film is undeniably a celebration of community, but on Shira, one gets the disturbing whiff of Stockholm Syndrome.

On balance, this new cinematic take on a 75-year-old icon constitutes a worthy Superman movie and a modest improvement for a franchise that had creatively stalled.

The show continues to grow in dimension and in scope, a reality that's also meaningful within its fictional universe.

On video, Safety Last! is a certified treat, but in packed movie houses, with audiences invariably gasping and giggling on every cue, it's a near-religious experience.

This type of thing has already been diluted by...Funny or Die...The main difference...is that This is The End is profane in the extreme, an R-rated stoner comedy gleefully grafted onto a 'splatstick' horror picture...

The first major Western in sound...One can occasionally feel the filmmakers showing off the technology, with close-ups of a crying baby or sizzling ham and eggs.

Oz the Great and Powerful gets saved from the junk heap by Franco and especially by director Sam Raimi, who happily treats the enterprise as a sandbox.

By setting the show in the recent past, Sorkin can productively remind or inform a broad audience of the pith of important news we've lived through...a subplot about [NSA] wiretapping...[even] gets ahead of the curve...

Once blithely acceptable as American id, McClane's become the archetypal American idiot.

Cannily plays in equal measure to the sci-fi TV crowd and families, to red states and blue states, and it's a formula—refined in Season Two—that seems to be working.

Although Vaughn's riffing skills remain in fine form, as do Wilson's, the story makes every obvious and conventional choice.

So preposterous in its particulars, so ludicrous in its lowdown, that you're liable to kick yourself silly for having bothered to play along.

What remains most striking about Philadelphia may be the...conspicuous emphasis on intense close-ups. They force an inescapable emotional intimacy in relation to issues the mainstream, at least at the time, would rather have looked away from.

Distinguished by its thoughtfulness regarding the nature of Western heroism, as defined not only by dead-eye gunplay, but by family, community, and moral rectitude.

Nothing new, but given its solidly built kids' adventure, I'm not going to, y'know, look down on it.

Less like a movie and more like a contractual obligation.

The awfulness of the narrative is plain to see, and yet...no one can say Stand Up Guys lacks personality.

Smart or...dumb? Yes, and...fun to hang around with for a couple of hours.

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.

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.

As good as, if not better than, any of the feature films that would later star the Next Generation cast.

Luhrmann approaches the story and directs his actors in ways that hold them at a distance from us: the overkill plays less as bold art and more as lack of trust in the source material.

Inviting photography and a relentless pace complement Claude's unfolding narrative, but the big thrills are in the deftly drawn characters...and the incisive satire...

Works best when it sticks close to Henry, whose broad grin fails to mask a growing desperation. Quaid not only makes a believably corn-fed patriarch, but he captures the mien of one who is slowly ceding his soul...

Perhaps it's damning Renoir with faint praise to call it agreeable, but Gilles Bourdos' film...shows an admirable restraint, quiet simplicity, and lush pictorial beauty.

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.

The most satisfying cinematic experience we've had at the multiplex thus far this year, and largely through its disinterest in playing along with movie trends.

There are two types of people in the world. Those who should under no circumstances see the horror sequel/reboot Evil Dead and those who just gotta see it.

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.

Do not consume The Host before operating heavy machinery. Side effects may include spontaneous coma or fits of giggling.

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.

Appears to have been market-tested to within an inch of its life, so despite a theme of finding the capacity to evolve, the picture remains mired in the tar pit of formula.

This pretty period-pictorial companion piece to the novel fatally misses out on the brain-firing raw buzz that Kerouac felt and passed on to his readers...

Park’s skills for surreal subjectivity and the mischievously weird certainly don’t hurt, but they can’t quite banish Stoker’s narrative speed bumps and draughts of cold air...

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.

Swims upstream against high-definition with a defiantly lo-fi approach that's also ingeniously evocative of the historical period.

The film isn't a worldbeater as either old-school journalism of rigorous reportage or dazzling showmanship...will be of most use as a time capsule of sorts...