Benicio Del Toro

[5] Benicio Del Toro plays the cursed title character in this remake of Universal Pictures’ famous 1941 monster movie. After his brother is discovered mutilated, Del Toro returns home to his father’s estate to find out who killed him. Anthony Hopkins brings gravitas as the father, and Emily Blunt pours her heart out in the role of the dead brother’s fiancée. In searching for the …

[8] I’ve been hard on Marvel movies for being cookie-cutter and devoid of surprises, but Avengers: Infinity War stops that trend dead in its tracks. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War) are downright masterful at keeping Infinity War going strong from beginning to end, with never a dull moment, all the action you’d expect, far more laughs than …

[8] Writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) picks up the reigns and steers the franchise into bold, new waters with an entry that summons Star Wars fans to let go of the past and wipe the slate clean, so that something new can begin to grow. After the fan-pandering Episode VII, something new and unpredictable was exactly what I craved in a Star Wars movie. Johnson …

[7] Robert Rodriquez and Frank Miller join forces, with a little help from guest director Quentin Tarantino, to bring Miller’s much-loved Sin City to the screen. The result is less a film adaptation than a graphic novel come to life. The color palette is restrained, usually resorting to faithful recreations of Miller’s black and white panel work. The hyper-stylized approach works well for a movie …

[5] Licence to Kill is the anti-Bond. Timothy Dalton is out for revenge in this one (his second and final outing in the role), and the performance is desperately missing the character’s trademark nonchalance. Without it, it just isn’t Bond. It’s one of a number of generic 80s action flicks fueled by revenge, centered around the drug trade, full of explosions, and scored by Michael Kamen …

[8] Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro give terrific, Oscar-caliber performances in this film about a widowed mother who invites her late husband’s friend, a recovering drug addict, to stay with her. I was moved by the struggle of two deeply wounded people trying to help each other. Berry’s character tries to help Del Toro’s come clean, and he tries to help her bring her family …

[8] James Gunn (Slither) co-writes and directs one of the best Marvel movies ever. The plot is simple, nothing new or groundbreaking. Good guys gotta stop bad guys from literally destroying the world. Been there, done that, right? And like most Marvel movies, the bad guys are pretty generic and forgettable. And there are, like, what? Three or four bad guys here? Anyway, it doesn’t …