The shakedown cruise of Star Trek: The Next Generation—may have been a bumpy one, but it got the newest incarnation of the U.S.S. Enterprise into action while winning over the 'Trekker' fanbase at large.

The Nolans consider the issues of the day...explore the role of legendary heroes (from Robin Hood to Batman and Robin) in galvanizing the public, and labor mightily to ensure that how their Batman ends dovetails with 2005’s Batman Begins.

At its best delineating the absurdities of immigrant life lost in the London rat race.

The cast is impeccable from top to bottom, and the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat reliably go for the gut.

With its brash humor and emotional generosity, The Intouchables has crowd-pleaser written all over it, but there’s no mistaking the queasy racial implications.

Oliver Stone, bless ’im, still believes in red-meat cinema.

Polley’s fearlessness is one of many reasons I take no pleasure in saying that Take This Waltz stumbles.

This bouncy Western musical-comedy adventure is long enough on charm, but wisely short and sweet at 76 minutes. It's also totally bereft of innovation...

The awkward trappings of this Disney adventure mechanize and blunt the tale's humanity. It pops and squeaks and rumbles, but Treasure Planet lacks the strength to transport audiences.

Boorman's interpretation of the material resulted in an American cinematic classic built not only on shock and awe, but emotional subtlety.

A pretty much ideal big-screen adaptation of the material, which becomes convincingly cinematic.

Clearly inspired by 1960s Batmania, the hunka hunka burning camp that is Barbarella adapted French science-fiction comic books into gleefully oversexed cinematic pop art.

More distressing are Allen’s regressive treatment of women...and an off-putting solipsism.

If you yearn to be treated like an eight-year-old, this R-rated kids movie for adults—the very opposite of Judd Apatow’s wave of 'time to grow up' comedies— is all yours.

After a critically acclaimed first season, emboldened writer-director-star C.K. doesn't fix what ain't broke, and remains agreeably irreverent about his own creation.

For the apocalyptic circumstances to be more than cheap window dressing, Scafaria owes us more thought and insight and satiric zest than her film offers up.

Turns out not to be heady in theme and may not linger long after viewing, but it's still an enjoyable emotional wringer to be put through, in the company of a well-matched trio of actors.

Shankman's frappé of '80s rock is hideous, but weirdly fascinating...this is a movie you'll never be able to un-see, so think carefully...

The conflict between The Elite's way of doing things and Superman's sets up a 'might makes right' allegory wrestling with national and global politics as well as, on a more personal level, civilian tolerance of capital punishment.

With straits at least as dire as those in The Diary of Anne Frank (and moral dimensions far more murky), In Darkness deals with survival at whatever cost, including compromise of personal principles.

Just a cut above the typical, but it goes without saying: your mileage may vary.

Were it not for a horribly transparent bit of narration in those opening moments, Thin Ice would have a better shot at working on its audience the way the filmmakers obviously hoped it would.

Jake’s ever-present video camera notes the sign 'Woodstock 3 mi.'—but it should read 'Shameless Contrivances 3 mi.'...make tracks, not love.

If you can get past the naked exploitation of this mercenary sequel, U.S. Marshals is a sort of brain-rotting kind of fun (how's that for an endorsement?).

Tells the tale of an escaped convict and his eight-year-old hostage and, in the process, considers the cycles of disappointment wrought on sons by questionable fathers: abusive ones, absent ones, even a well-meaning 'daddy state.'

This vehicle—the cinematic equivalent of a supermarket paperback—plays like the best-ever episode of Matlock rather than a truly distinguished feature film.

Stands out as one of Wayne's best-remembered features, a smooth Western co-produced by Wayne and shot at the tail end of the '50s 3-D craze.

An undeniable disaster...of marketing. Join me on a tour of media headaches, and why they don't necessarily reflect the quality of the movie itself.

Considers what’s real between two people, and if it should bother us when reality becomes replaced with a copy.

No Deadwood. Still, AMC's drama series about the people surrounding the 1865 building of the transcontinental railroad proves surprisingly compelling on its own terms...

Be vewwy, vewwy quiet: add Eric and Snow to her boyhood pal Prince William...and you get another love Twi-angle.

Their spy-prying...and displays of lunkheaded brawn...aren't endearing; they're horrifying, in ways there's no coming back from.

Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss can claim the classiest post-millennial take on Arthur Conan Doyle's enduring hero...The series' good-natured irreverence excuses those occasional liberties that may send eyeballs rolling.

Opens with the legend 'This story is based on true events,' adding, 'Really.' Except that it isn’t. Not really.

Fun for the whole family, and—instead of the 2008 3-D version's Brendan Fraser—offers James freakin' Mason, who can pull off urbane and befuddled at the same time.

For those who take their film black...Moral rot gets full play in Lang's 1953 police drama.

Now the film can be more fully appreciated for what it is: an influential inspiration to Latino filmmakers and a powerful, non-politicized depiction of the wages of American immigration policy.

The work presses its consumer to share the struggle with the artist, to make the mysteries of time, human connection, life and death cohere.

Understands postpubescent psychology and even lightly traffics in philosophy...Here are newly born man and superman, both unprepared for the consequences of their sudden inheritance of the earth.

The strengths of these films are not so much laughs as sincerity and heart.

Its goal is humble: to walk the line between bubblegum pop that indulges trends, and a halfhearted critique of shallowness. I don't think this is what feminists mean by 'having it all'...

While The War at times leaves one yearning for more intellectually curious analysis, it remains a potent emotional montage...

That relaxed pace allows the story to breathe—forget the franticness of most American animation—and along with the gorgeously detailed art, lush color, and swoony music...the film is all but guaranteed to entrance children.

You'll empathize with Plowright's appropriation from Dorothy Parker: 'What fresh hell is this?'

By asking the audience to take far too much on faith, Dark Shadows can only be an interesting failure.

Currish...the film's niche audience is indiscriminate aging dog lovers; people lovers should look elsewhere.    

Plenty fun: as per the Jackie Chan standard, it's total nonsense, but unpretentiously entertaining and occasionally ingenious.

A mood piece, as abstract and engrossing as the many Bach piano selections laid on the soundtrack.

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...

Pessimism, sweetness, raunch and loopiness make for a pleasantly offbeat blend.