There are really two movies here. The first is about a 5-year-old who gets separated from his impoverished family in India, has no idea how to get home, and is forced to navigate the lower rungs of life in Calcutta without even being able to speak the same language. It's visually striking and contains a lot of strong, dialogue-light storytelling. The second mostly involves Dev Patel mopily staring into the distance and playing with Google Earth has the grown-up version of that kid trying to find his way home. I like the first one.

I've got a deep, deep fondness for this movie so I'm giving it a star rating informed more than a little by nostalgia. But, man, it must have arrived at a time when we were so eager for a good superhero movie that we didn't notice that -- after a brilliant start -- it completely loses it in the last act. More in the next Next Picture Show episode.

Kind of thought of this as second-tier Scorsese—second tier being a still pretty high perch—until this recent rewatch. When I got to the monologue I felt like I was watching pretty much a perfect movie.

One of those movies where I found myself thinking, "This is the first of many viewings and it's probably just going to get better each time." Inspired silliness on just about every level.