Review: Pain & Gain

An outrageous true-life tale that’s perfectly suited to director Michael Bay’s insanely overblown stylistic and thematic temperament.

Review: Snitch

A certain tendency of the American cinema is to confuse dramatic seriousness with moral seriousness.

Review: Faster

Faster is what would happen if Michael Bay channeled one of Donald Westlake’s Parker novels.

Review: Planet 51

Planet 51 never soars to the boundless heights, and skies, that its animation so fantastically illustrates.

Review: Get Smart

Most of the action-movie stuff, particularly an endless plane-and-car chase climax, is astoundingly played straight.

Review: The Game Plan

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a likeable enough actor, but a clichéd family film like The Game Plan puts that charm to the test.

Review: Doom

The predictably heavy metal-scored film’s primary directive is to recreate the mindless mayhem of its joystick-controlled roots.

Review: Be Cool

This bumbling exercise in redundant replication is as disagreeably lukewarm as a heavily trafficked municipal baby pool.