As strikingly original in form as Oliver Stone’s JFK...infotaining Hollywood history that’s equal parts funny and horrifying in its high-stakes political gamesmanship...

Roberts’ role as an intense mama bear cleverly corrupts her famous smile to an “everything’s okay” mask. Ultimately, Ben is Back is about the lies addicts tell their loved ones, and those their loved ones tell th

McCarthy clearly feels a connection to Israel’s outsider artistry, her utter commitment to become someone else for a few stolen moments, and her pride in a job well done...

Though breezily entertaining, this cinematic vehicle also lurches into and out of the usual racial potholes, making its song of the South--and North--catch in the throat.

Productively acknowledges real-life dangers, with stellar animation and designs shoring up the storytelling of Johnston and Pamela Ribon's witty script...a useful all-ages fable for our time.

Humor is subjective, of course, but the film offers this litmus test: do you laugh when a sane adult finally slaps Ellie ('You listen to me, you crazy woman!') and when another slaps cuffs on Pete? Or do you cheer?

On the side of truth, social justice, and human dignity...despite all that, Boy Erased never quite coalesces into the deeply moving and insightful film its pedigree seems to promise.

First-time director Dano, who co-scripted with partner Zoe Kazan, has a knack for capturing quotidian daily struggles as well as moments of discovery that hearten or, more often, horrify.

Makes a good case for itself as the addiction movie America needs right now...[offers] a primal 'you are not alone' catharsis for sufferers under the powerful grip of addiction or with a front-row seat to it.

Takes a cogent look at the issues, making comprehensible the complex history of American higher education, the government's shifting role in supporting it, and the increasingly corporate exploitation of the American-Dreaming underclass.

Because Green loves the material enough to have some good, old-fashioned fun in this playground, he’s able to bring the audience along with him.

By focusing on Armstrong’s human perspective, First Man gives us a new window into the costs and benefits of taking 'one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.'

Unabashed melodrama...the film’s strongest moments are acoustic, not plugged-in...intimate, truth-telling exchanges between lovers who want the best for each other. 

Bland... something of a thinker, even a subversive one, but it’s dubious that kids will pick up on the provocation between the pratfalls and the pop songs.

[A] dire accounting of the corruption of the Republican Party, the sell-out centrism of the Democratic Party, and the victimization of working-class Americans...[and] an urgent call to action.

Informs and entertains in equal measure...not only proves thoroughly family friendly, but it’s that rare moviegoing option likely to please everyone in any group.

A functional spy thriller and, more importantly, an intriguing character study of two men shaped by hatred.

Twisty thrills also result in a climactic pileup, a resolution that strains credibility...with a dynamic leading performance by Cho, Chaganty manages an engaging popcorn suspense picture that also speaks to technology enabling and frustrating...

The ultimate secret of the Castlemans’ marriage isn’t entirely convincing in Joan’s every rationale, but Close’s sheer force of acting makes it possible to believe in the character, at minimum in the emotional broad strokes.

By the film’s climax, a $40 million wedding, conspicuous consumerism has been glamorized beyond the point of no return, and the difference between romance and showmanship becomes, at least momentarily, irrelevant.

Can be overtly funny in its absurdity. For the most part, however, BlacKkKlansman isn’t a comedy at all, but an earnest, vintage Spike Lee joint recounting history and projecting it onto our present.

With Fisher’s endearingly open face projecting every insecurity along the way, Kayla’s journey of baby-steps self-empowerment resonates.

Fallout proves deliberately dizzying, not just with its oft-vertiginous action, but in its outrageous plotting, its deliriously absurd entanglements of double agents, double crosses, and just plain doubles...

Suggests intriguing questions about the moral and ethical imperatives of justice...answers these questions with an Old Testament zeal: evil must be smitten by self-appointed good men.

This is the kind of lackluster animated movie at which you’ll lose count of how many times the characters randomly break into dance--and that’s in addition to the...not one but two dance parties incorporated into the plot.

A good time at the movies... If the first film felt more carefully laid out, the sequel succeeds in stoking some Pixar-style emotion in its family dynamics...

A straight procedural, consumed by its plot at the expense of thematic nuance. Nevertheless...a darkly compelling reminder of the multifaceted folly of our War on Drugs.

In what starts to feel like a 'meta' running joke (or admission of creative exhaustion), the characters keep stumbling upon the leftovers of the earlier films...

Plays it safe...another issue of the Incredibles comic book, another big-scale adventure with full-throttle action sequences, a bit of mystery, and career complications testing the structural integrity of this nuclear family of superheroes.

Ross brings a reasonably sure hand and plenty of eye candy to this slick, glitzy fantasy, which is no more or less than an amiable, star-powered trifle.

It’s Schrader’s on-point filmmaking--a nouveau spin on the spiritual films, character studies, and transcendental style of cinematic Old Masters like Bergman and Bresson--that functions as what Toller calls 'another form of prayer.'

Like estimations of how many parsecs it takes to make the Kessel Run, your mileage may vary when it comes to Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Since Life of the Party shows little interest in investigating the satiric possibilities of the two-decade cultural gap in play, or a weirdly one-sided May-December romance, the movie wafts into disposable irrelevance long before the credits roll

The Rider acknowledges the tender side of masculinity, of brotherly love and supportive friendship, but also recognizes the damage men can inflict on themselves and others just by trying to be men.

[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.

The animal holds a mirror up to the human protagonist...how prone youth can be on the cusp of adulthood, how reckless when desperate or threatened, how vulnerably pure of heart.

Ramsay’s limber direction and another phenomenal leading performance by Joaquin Phoenix lend the material an aching sensitivity and an arrhythmic but persistent heartbeat.

There’s plenty...that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and even more that feels conspicuously derivative. But tell that to your pants as you pee them.

Conjures plenty of empty spectacle...but doesn’t underpin it with characters that move beyond the generic or, more crucially, the productively sharp satire that just maybe could have saved this ain’t-it-cool story from itself. 

Tales of the venal, the selfish, and the desperate, lurking--when not preening--in the halls of power.

One can see the wheels turning, literally and figuratively...

Galumphing narrative and flatfooted whimsy...a downright awkward kiddie blockbuster.  

A guy’s fantasy of an empowered woman’s story. She’s smart! She’s capable! She’s sexy! She’s nude! She’s degraded! Wait...

Just manages to sustain its 'is it real or is it a game?' tension through to its climactic twists.

Boilerplate Marvel, with a sleek, colorful look, cheeky humor, and familiar action beats...But Coogler brings enough to the table for a fresh vision, broadly appealing as well as inspirational in its representation for black audiences and women.

This Peter is...the Ferris Bueller of rabbits. As such, many will love him, and many will find his zany wisecracks, blatant selfishness, and borderline amorality repulsive.

McDonagh’s admirable shading of ostensible heroes and villains backfires as character inconsistency...Nevertheless, Three Billboards wickedly entertains and provokes...

A contrived but effective parable of the American West, its painful legacy, and small measures of redemption...But our focus frustratingly remains on the white people and Blocker’s struggle to reach empathy...

Work[s] out some timely issues of the runaway male ego, the dubious excuse of great art for grotesque personality, and the shock and awe attendant to the select few who can see through genius and, for better or for worse, cut to the quick.

The heroic journalism depicted in The Post could hardly be more timely, it’s true, but Spielberg’s take rarely achieves dramatic traction.