**“Guardians of the Galaxy”** may have its connections — however slight — to the Marvel cinematic superhero universe that has been building for years, but it’s not a superhero movie at all. It has way more in common with George Lucas’ original 1977 space opera “Star Wars.” ...

There is a stigma associated with foreign films, especially ones that are shot in black and white and set in a historical period that most Americans are unfamiliar with: That they are long and boring and nothing ever happens. I’ll be the first to admit it: It’s hard to get psyched about ...

The new documentary **“Life Itself”** opens with a quote from beloved late film critic **Roger Ebert:** “The movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the ...

When a new technological breakthrough happens in the realm of motion-picture visual effects, it’s often the best thing about the movie. Sometimes it’s the only thing worth remembering. How many times have you walked away from a mediocre film and said, “Well, the special effects were ...

The really great action movies are all about urgency — that life-and-death situation where the stakes couldn’t be any higher and the main character doesn’t have any other choice but to forge ahead. The new multinational co-production **“Snowpiercer”** has urgency in spades, but it ...

**“Transformers: Age of Extinction”** isn’t so much a movie as it is a 165-minute propaganda film made to appeal to the widest demographic possible (it's full of gorgeous people running from gorgeous explosions set to the new single by Imagine Dragons) — but mainly for China. And when ...