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At least at first, a viewer can be forgiven some consternation understanding what director Jean-Jacques Annaud is attempting to achieve with Quest for Fire. With its Neanderthal-like characters leaping around like apes, the film sometimes feels mo...

Red Sparrow is a deliciously perverse, unflinchingly violent thriller – a modern-day espionage tale that breaks with the tradition of making the spy business the purview of suave and debonair characters. With a story that argues that the Col...

I wanted to like Red Tails. I really did. Largely financed by George Lucas (whose fingerprints are all over the final cut), this movie tells a story - that of the 332nd Fighter Group (a.k.a. "The Tuskegee Airmen") - that could combine dramatic powe...

Reno 911!: Miami represents an argument against taking 22-minute TV comedy shows and expanding them to 80-minute feature films. Something that entertains over a short period when watched from the vantage point of a couch or a recliner does not nece...

The Revenant, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning Birdman, plays like a cross between Terrence Malick and Sam Peckinpah. As unlikely as such a conflation might seem, the result works - sometimes to stunning effect. In a...

When one distills Rio to its essentials, it's all about a bird traveling several thousand miles for the express purpose of getting laid. However, since such a reduction of the plot would not go over well with the parents planning to send (or accomp...

Rise of the Planet of the Apes represents Fox's attempt to reinvigorate a dormant franchise. The new movie is technically a prequel to the 1968 Planet of the Apes; however, it ignores the various sequels and spin-offs (including a TV series) that d...

In an empty conference room on the forty-sixth floor of Los Angeles' Nakatomo Tower, the dead body of a beautiful young call girl has been found sprawled out on a table. When Lieutenant Tom Graham (Harvey Keitel), the racist cop in charge, has tro...

Anyone remotely familiar with the Robin Hood legend knows the basic story behind this parody. Robin (Cary Elwes) is the dashing hero who, along with his band of Merry Men (which includes members Will Scarlet O'Hara and Achoo the Moor), roams Sherw...

Robots is every bit as visually engaging as the best of the Pixar (or Dreamworks) digitally animated fare. The landscapes are stunning, the characters are intricately formed, there's plenty of break-neck action, and Robin Williams provides a helpi...