Carrie Rickey

In terms of character, McConaughey is the toxin and Garner the antitoxin. It's not exactly chemistry, but as pharmacology it's effective.

A bewildering but never boring yarn.

One thing Kidman is not is a clown. She thinks fizzy and dizzy and klutzy are funny. She is mistaken. To be a clown requires a kind of witchcraft.

Apart from its intriguing religious implications, the film is also a compelling look at the family, community and congregational pillars that support Lior.

While this charmer about a canine James Bond does not pack the emotional punch of "WALL-E," it's frisky fun to see the white shepherd get a new leash on life.

Six guys and a gal who flatline on arrival. Easily the lamest action-adventure fantasy since “Wild Wild West.”

What's a fish-lover to do? For starters, know where your fish comes from. Don't consume endangered species. After watching this film, you may never want to eat fish again.

Like its own hero - and so many recent films - The Shadow suffers from a split personality. At some moments, this can have a poetic impact. More often, though, it seems the result of sloppiness. [01 Jul 1994, p.05]

A rocking, rollicking crowd-pleaser.

Verhoeven's most deeply disturbing film yet.

Would I see it again? Not even for a Scooby snack.

Shakespearean but overlong, The Dark Knight is two hours of heady, involving action that devolves into a mind-numbing 32-minute epilogue.

Too much Good Friday and not enough Easter Sunday. Emphasizing Jesus' agony over His ecstasy, Gibson has delivered a blood-drenched epic more stunning for its brutal violence than for its depiction of the calvary.

Johnny Mnemonic may aspire to be Blade Runner. It succeeds only in being a parody of Flipper. [27 May 1995, p.D09]

This is a quiet, meticulously plotted chamber piece, not the booming, lightning-paced orchestral affair we know as the contemporary action film in the Age of Ludlum.

Unfortunately, this all proceeds at a supersonic tempo, with Shyamalan's directorial finger stuck on the fast-forward button. Significant plot points whiz by in this movie equivalent of speed-dating.

A human-scale comedy that reaches across generations to tickle, connect and embrace.

There is no shape or pacing to Daniel Petrie's movie. It's like a bottle of soda left uncapped. So thus a story that promised effervescence ends up being flat.

While the film starring Abigail Breslin as a resourceful 10-year-old is faithful to the Kit books, it's pokey where it should be perky.

Swing Vote is messy and its targets are relatively safe. But its aim is true. And Costner's performance hits the bull's-eye.

For the first 100 minutes of his 117-minute film Spielberg holds the audience in a grip of fear. When Ray and Rachel take refuge in the storm cellar of a survivalist (a miscast Tim Robbins), the director's grip relaxes only a bit, but the film never recovers from this excursion into the Gothic.

Callan McAuliffe, a handsome Australian youth, looks right as the perma-press Bryce.

Cinderella Man is not a movie about boxing, but about this boxer who personified the heart and hope of 1935.

While Gyllenhaal has playful puppy eyes and energy, his performance as Jack is a blur of mustaches, sideburns and spurs that never achieves the weight of Ledger's.

Despite good taste and good will, this romp through Victorian parlors frequently falls flat on its rump.

Stronger on character than on story, the film version of Janet Fitch's best-seller is shaped and propelled by the astonishing performance of Alison Lohman.

Great? No. But Bran Nue Dae is great good fun.

A scabrously funny look at the cutthroat game of statecraft.