Andy Klein

The pacing is slow, but the film is entrancing and earns a permanent place in the viewer's mind.

It's a strange, entertaining little film that derives its weird tension from a blend of comic and serious tones.

Casting is perfect all down the line.

First, the good news: Unlike most action film sequels, Speed 2: Cruise Control is not a mere retread of the original. Now the bad news: Better it had been.

Cube is essentially a glossy, beautifully designed 90-minute Twilight Zone episode.

Rea hits just the right balance of sympathy and self-interest.

On one level, Together is a countercultural soap opera, though played more as bittersweet comedy than as drama.

All the new plot stuff is way old hat, as though straight from a textbook chapter called "Conflict Drives Your Narrative!" And at times the motivations are either unclear or senseless.

The over-the-top sincerity that is so rewarding in "Face/Off" (1998), Woo's best American film, feels too clichéd in this more conventional context.

The underlying theme constantly changes shape, not in a way that seems rich in ambiguity, but in a way that seems poorly worked out.

Once the action kicks in -- starting with an extraordinary balletic fight in the rain featuring the two masters and a flying wooden beam -- you can't take your eyes off the screen.

More than just a disappointment. It is also a spoiler, possibly weakening the impact of "Silence" for its fans.

Pecker is a satire, but an incredibly good-natured one, which is not quite the contradiction in terms it might seem.

It's sweet and well intentioned, with occasional amusing moments.

I still think the first is the best in the series, but I'm in the minority: Number two has a stronger following among the legions of Hong Kong movie buffs.

Star Jeremy Renner seems shorter than Dahmer, but is otherwise a look-alike and gives a convincingly intense and weird performance. Bruce Davison (as Papa Dahmer) and the rest of the cast also do nice work.

It doesn't have enough power in the first place to make a strong claim on our attentions.

Brosnan proved his worth last time around; but, sad to say, the rest of Tomorrow Never Dies lacks the wit and inventiveness of GoldenEye, let alone of Goldfinger.

As satisfying as much of the film is, there are a few missteps, large and small, that may require indulgence on the part of viewers.

This is a dark, often funny walk through Ingmar Bergman turf.

For all of the heroine's shockingly "modern" lifestyle choices, the thrust of the film is remarkably old-fashioned. It embraces the notion that you can have only a single great love in a lifetime...and that's if you're lucky.

We become so absorbed in the ramifications of the techniques involved that a more challenging plot might have resulted in sensory overload.

There is nothing particularly interesting about either the people or the situations. Barrial might as well have filmed ANY body.

Two minor drawbacks: Onscreen IDs of speakers are sometimes omitted. And Kissinger's crimes seem almost paltry in comparison to current American policies.

Allen produces a lovable, relaxed--although not uproarious--comedy.

The fractured structure, which moves from one species to another while following a generally chronological overall arc, can occasionally leave your mind to wandering, but for a film with no plot or characters to focus on it is remarkably gripping.

A political film in the form of a thriller, rather than a garden-variety potboiler gleefully helping itself to stock political tropes from the genre's grab bag.

Slips by quickly enough, but it never engages our interest more than passingly.

Les Destinées has a leisurely, contemplative pace without ever growing boring. Still, at the end, we are left somehow empty. For all the time we spend with these people, we never really get inside of them.

Zemeckis is more interested here in getting us thinking (and feeling) than in telling us what to think.

With no aspects of the personalities represented outside of their music, Grateful Dawg ends up feeling dry and incomplete; its two subjects are stripped of all other characteristics and come across as not very interesting.

Eureka is, quite extraordinarily, never dull.

A mostly well-constructed action flick with a number of flashy, well-choreographed fight and chase scenes.

Doesn't show us much of anything we haven't seen better already.

Office Space's pleasures don't really depend on plot. It's pretty much what a Dilbert feature should look like.

It's an amazing story, but, in addition to its intrinsic interest, the Shackleton expedition has another remarkable draw: Crewman Frank Hurley had brought along not only still cameras, but a movie camera as well, providing us with an extraordinary record of the ship's voyage.

While the idea may be good, its execution is awful.

O'Connor as Fanny is irresistibly appealing.

Comes across as artificial.

Nobody can convey more while doing nothing than Thornton. And while his minimalist style is appropriate for the ironically named Levity, what is conveyed never quite generates the emotional charge of "Monster's Ball."

I found myself roaring at the grotesque way some of the characters talk to their pets, pausing only briefly when I realized that I do precisely the same thing.

Goes by relatively swiftly and painlessly, despite the completely ragtag nature of its construction, but there is not an inspired moment in it.

The film is often moving and explores the discomfort inherent in the contacts between the American "hosts" and their "guests," but its effect is diluted by slow pacing and lengthiness.

At best, second-rate pulp, hampered by excessive length, a thematically meandering screenplay, and a general lack of excitement.

Whatever its faults -- and it has more than a few -- it is unquestionably different. It at least takes a stab at interpolating cerebral ideas into the format of a thriller.

An amusing trifle. There are few comic staples less convincing or more timeworn than charming lunatics in love, and the only thing that lifts this film beyond TV-movie quality is Jones' performance.

Washington creates an indelibly charming and terrifying character whose volatile blend of dedication and horrible expediency keeps us off balance.

Dench is wholly extraordinary in a characterization that is frequently muted, literally and necessarily.

Released in 1962, it was pretty clearly the most intelligent spectacular within living memory. On its 40th anniversary, it's even better.

The film could be subtitled "Six Characters in Search of an Ending:" When they find that ending, it is gently, delightfully uplifting.