The best thing Sam Mendes did for the history of James Bond was commit to making Skyfall a standalone story in virtually every way, from its plot to the bigger ideas surrounding it. If you worry that it tries to connect itself to the dismal Quantum of Solace, then I'm here to assuage you of that. I think we've always viewed Bond as an indestructible force of British intelligence who somehow avoids STDs while he's at it, but Skyfall tells a rich, self-contained story that chal

Bookended by Casino Royale on one side and Skyfall on the other, Quantum of Solace is already fighting a losing battle, one not helped by the infamous writer's strike of 2007 that forced star Daniel Craig and director Marc Foster to rewrite scenes on the fly. In fact, this movie went into production before it even had a finished screenplay. Yikes. I won't pretend that Quantum wasn't hurt by factors outside of its control, but that doesn't protect it from itself and what it is

For a movie about international espionage and a high-stakes poker game that will fund either the good guys or the bad, I find it so satisfying that the most interesting element of Casino Royale is something else entirely. This movie is less about what James Bond does and more about who he is, which is an arrogant womanizer who may discover that both he and others have a heart and maybe even a soul. The initial reaction to Daniel Craig's casting as Bond is widely considered to

One of the most startling things about Looper is how ordinary it looks. The cornfields are just normal cornfields, the alleyways are as dingy and run-down as they've always been, and the farmhouses and diners are exactly squat to write home about, as well. Sure, the inner city takes on a slight cyberpunk tone, but not like the overwhelming techno-noir of Blade Runner. This seeming normalcy is startling because it serves as an unassuming backdrop to what turns out to be some o

The Batman, Matt Reeves's rich and thrilling take on the classic character, is the shortest three-hour movie I have ever seen. It successfully bridges the gap between popcorn movies and arthouse sensibilities, turning an escapist flick into a meaningful meditation on fear, how we inflict it on others, and the ways in which we feel it for ourselves. Reeves's vision of Gotham is just as astonishing, a grounded yet somehow mythical version of the city seated right between Nolan'

All you grown-ups are probably going to have more fun with Planet 51 than your kids will. Kids aren't going to understand why an alien guard reading a girlie mag with their planet's green-skinned version of Marilyn Monroe is funny. Neither will they understand why it's funny that a xenomorph-styled, massive-mawed dog is named Ripley. However, the irony some of them may catch onto is a human from Planet Earth being treated as an alien on this one. This movie struggles with bot

The Until Dawn movie is an unfortunate reminder of a time when video game adaptations were expected to be bad. The game itself received reasonably strong reviews upon its 2015 release, praised for its time-loop premise, worldbuilding, and cast performances, and the last of those makes for an ironic distinction between the game and the movie based on it. The only thing flatter than the emotional depth of this film adaptation's characters is the performances of the actors who p

That you know exactly what to expect when you're walking into it is both the best and the worst thing about a pure-blooded genre film. These types of movies are made to sell tickets and give theatergoers exactly what they're paying to go see, and that's usually what you get, nothing less and irritatingly nothing more. Sometimes, genre films will try to clothe themselves in an importance designed to get you to disregard their unoriginality, and it's usually not hard to see the