U.S. Release Date: 1988-12-16
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: Drama
Director: Barry Levinson
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino, Jerry Molen
An oddball buddy/road movie that nearly drowns in a tsunami of sentimentality and predictability.
U.S. Release Date: 1985-12-15
MPAA Rating: "PG" (Violence, Sexual Content)
Genre: Mystery/Comedy
Director: Jonathan Lynn
Cast: Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, Lesley Ann Warren, Colleen Camp, Lee Ving
Far better to play the game than watch someone else’s vision of it unfold on screen.
U.S. Release Date: 2020-01-31
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity, Drugs)
Genre: Thriller
Director: Reed Morano
Cast: Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown, Raza Jaffrey
Spy action-thrillers are supposed to be fun on some level but this one is too much of a chore to properly entertain.
U.S. Release Date: 2020-01-17
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity)
Genre: Action
Director: Adil El Arbi, Billal Fallah
Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe Pantoliano, Paola Nunez, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Kate del Castillo, Jacob Scipio
It’s more of the same: Violence-saturated eye candy used to buff Smith’s ego and inflate his bank account.
U.S. Release Date: 2019-12-25
MPAA Rating: "PG"
Genre: Animated
Director: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane
Cast: Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn, Karen Gillan, DJ Khaled, Reba McEntire
The filmmakers seem unconcerned about appealing to anyone who isn’t a 9-year old boy; aside from the occasional throw-away line, there’s little here to interest adults.
U.S. Release Date: 2019-12-20
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Sci-fi Violence)
Genre: Science Fiction/Adventure
Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Daisy Ridley, Richard E. Grant, Joonas Suotamo, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Anthony Daniels
The last "Star Wars" movie is the most bloated and least satisfying of all the main-line adventures.
U.S. Release Date: 2019-10-25
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence)
Genre: Drama
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Tom Holland, Matthew Macfadyen, Tuppence Middleton, Katherine Waterston
The subject matter is inherently non-cinematic and, regardless of how many swoops, tilts, and fast cuts the director employs, his sense of visual flair never overcomes the underplayed drabness of the narrative.
U.S. Release Date: 1984-07-20
MPAA Rating: "PG"
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Cast: Noah Hathaway, Barret Oliver, Thomas Hill, Tami Stronach, Alan Oppenheimer
The passage of time hasn’t been kind to the attempts at worldbuilding through image-oriented spectacle.
U.S. Release Date: 2019-10-18
MPAA Rating: "PG" (Violence)
Genre: Fantasy
Director: Joachim Ronning
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Harris Dickinson, Sam Riley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ed Skrein, Robert Lindsay
Makes a conscious decision to address a subject that not many family films would touch with a ten-foot pole…then bungles the implications and the message.
U.S. Release Date: 2019-10-11
MPAA Rating: "PG"
Genre: Animated
Director: Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Bette Midler, Snoop Dogg, Allison Janney, Elsie Fisher, Conrad Vernon
Lackluster and restrained, it employs a dull story to present a message about the importance of diversity and the evils of assimilation.