It’s been nearly 30 years since “Ender’s Game” etched itself into the canon of important science-fiction novels, and like so many important science-fiction novels, a film adaptation has toiled in movie development hell, with the “unfilmable” label frequently cast upon it. Gavin Hood (“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) has taken a stab at adapting and directing Orson […]

We waited long enough to see what Alfonso Cuarón had in store for us next, but no one expected a visual effects game-changer. “Gravity” is an experience, something you might expect to see at a science museum in IMAX but with an intense plot. And even though its minuscule cast and real-time feel expose it to […]

A two-headed thriller, “Prisoners” is one part conventional kidnapping mystery and one part psychological drama. While the mystery of who abducted two little girls haunts the entirety of the 153-minute runtime and will keep audiences glued for every minute, the film also serves as a portrait of a desperate parent willing to cross any line […]

When the credits roll, Joe Swanberg’s “Drinking Buddies” will at least leave you thirsty. Whether you’ll be drinking to toast or drinking to forget is another matter.

Eagerly we have awaited Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to “District 9,” which gave audiences an almost unrivaled combination of entertainment, mystery, emotion and intelligence. The bar was understandably high for “Elysium,” an even glossier film with bigger stars and a higher concept with higher stakes.

The most effective comedies tend to be the ones you swear you’ve seen before yet you can’t name any other just like it. “We’re the Millers” has lots of familiar pieces but puts them together in a new-ish package. Often funny, sometimes hilarious and always amusing, “Millers” doesn’t raise the bar for R-rated comedy, but […]

If two dudes quarrel in the woods … do they make a sound? Director David Gordon Green has graciously stepped back from making underachieving R-rated comedies to give us what could end up amounting to an underachieving R-rated comedy, but in truth offers a good deal more.

Throughout the course of the modern superhero era, one thing has stayed true: Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. After being a successful piece of the “X-Men” franchise for three films, Wolverine got his own solo gig in 2009’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which turned out to be a chaotic smear of superhero film with a cliché-ridden script. […]

James Wan must feel like he’s got something to prove. The filmmaker has had success more than once (“Saw” and “Insidious”) in a horror genre that has been obnoxiously stagnant in recent years (everything is either a haunted house or exorcism film). “The Conjuring” is both, so more of the same for Wan.

Movies don’t get much more straightforward than giant robots battling giant monsters from another dimension. The giant monster movie is a classic genre, so in this age of all Hollywood blockbusters feeling pressured to earn their stripes by leveling a major world city, a return to these roots was inevitable. “Pacific Rim” delivers that old-school […]

In this superhero-obsessed culture/Hollywood world we live in, it’s a wonder that the grand-daddy of them all, Superman, hasn’t had a successful debut in the 21st Century. Obviously I’ve just implicitly bashed 2006’s “Superman Returns,” which I will not be taking the time to discuss beyond this sentence, but I don’t think anyone disagrees that […]

Having inherited the keys to “Star Wars,” J.J Abrams has seen a rash of outbursts from skeptics in the last few months, picking up steam with this, the release of his second adventure with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Surely one man cannot control both nerd worlds, right? Well, “Star Trek Into Darkness” offers […]

How will Marvel’s universe ever be the same after “The Avengers”? There’s bound to be a vocal percentage of viewers who walk out of “Iron Man 3” thinking, “why didn’t he just call his superfriends in the end?” It’s a good question, one that Drew Pearce and Shane Black’s script doesn’t ignore, but never satisfyingly […]

The incredible visual quality of CGI-animated films these days has been hiding from no one. With a blank canvas, Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky Studios and others have been able to spark the imagination in ways live action films have yet to manage (outside of “Avatar”). “The Croods” is the latest DreamWorks offering to impose its […]

“The Wizard of Oz” is one of the oldest films in existence that can be described as truly magical. L. Frank Baum’s story has sparked the imaginations of countless, young and old, thanks to the 1939 film. Disney and Sam Raimi have teamed up for “Oz the Great and Powerful” in hopes of recreating some […]