It’s the best entry since 1982’s Rocky III, but aside from the character shift, there’s nothing here that’s especially original, and one’s enjoyment depends entirely on how charitable one is feeling in the nostalgia department.
Matt Brunson
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Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part Two
THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 2 *** As far as the cash-grabbing practice of splitting final books into two separate motion pictures goes, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part […]
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Review: The Peanuts Movie
The crispness of these visuals is matched by the smartness of the script, which includes all the relevant touchstones (the baseball mound, the Red Baron, the adults’ unintelligible gibberish, “It was a dark and stormy night”) while adding some delightful shout-outs to the franchise’s storied history.
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Review: Room
Room should not be missed, and for all the unease it stirs, it’s ultimately a powerful tale of that indestructible love that can exist between mother and child.
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Review: Spectre
A perfectly engaging 120 or so minutes is then run into the ground for a wince-inducing final half-hour of unfortunate developments.
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Review: Our Brand Is Crisis
Scripter Peter Straughan packs the proceedings with numerous moronic interludes, the sort more at home in a broad Will Ferrell comedy than an ostensibly hard-hitting political drama.
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Review: Steve Jobs
Ultimately, this feels like the middle episodes of a six-part miniseries. At 122 minutes on the big screen, it’s still a noteworthy achievement, even if it only partly gets Jobs done.
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Review: Bridge of Spies
A classy, highbrow, important picture, the sort designed to nab Oscar nominations by the fistful. It’s also Steven Spielberg continuing his march toward the status of elder statesman of the American cinema.
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Review: Crimson Peak
Del Toro clearly means for Crimson Peak to register as a throwback to classic films steeped in Gothic ambience, but he piles on the artifice to such an excessive degree that the entire project suffers from overbearing overkill.
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Review: Sicario
“Nothing will make sense to your American ears,” Alejandro tells Kate. “But in the end, you will understand.” That proves to be an opinion, not a guarantee, and Sicario excels in the manner in which it keeps its intentions close to its chest.
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Review: The Martian
Perhaps not since Ron Howard’s 1995 Apollo 13 has a movie paid such loving tribute to star-struck visionaries and their egghead enablers, those brainiacs who work tirelessly to send them soaring past the heavens and just as feverishly toil to return them safely to the fold.
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Review: The Intern
The occasional Silver Linings Playbook aside, the deterioration of De Niro’s career has been swift and brutal, the result of too many bald lunges at sizable paychecks. So it’s nice to see him underplaying rather than overacting, delivering a relaxed, sympathetic performance and matching up nicely with Anne Hathaway’s comparatively jittery character.