Charles Solomon

Talky, relentlessly affirming and as predictable as a paint-by-number.

Kirkland manages to rise above the soap opera script with its improbable twists, stilted dialogue and internal contradictions to give a believable and often-sympathetic performance.

Disjointed and unfocused.

"Riviera" suffers from a weak story with an obvious ending.

Hardcore “Hunter” devotees may enjoy “Last Mission,” but the film lacks much of the good cheer and frisky élan of the broadcast series.

MFKZ is obviously modeled on Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s “Akira” and Taiyô Matsumoto’s “Tekkonkinkreet,” but it lacks the gritty brilliance of the former and the underdog poignancy of the latter.

The story and characterizations never get much deeper than "We're all special in our own way."

While individual sequences are genuinely entertaining, Monster Hunt remains considerably less than the sum of its many parts.

Directors Jean-François Pouliot and François Brisson fail to organize the material into a coherent story or strike a consistent emotional tone.

Much of the dialogue is too literal and undercut by its stolid earnestness, and many of the characters are left underdeveloped.

The flashy battle sequences will delight “Yu-Gi-Oh” fans. Viewers not familiar with the game will themselves be hopelessly lost.

Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but Argentine writer-director Damián Szifron allows it to sit until it congeals in the dreary six-part anthology Wild Tales.

Akira is a jumble of high-tech visuals that will appeal only to hard-core Japanese animation fans. Viewers in search of a coherent narrative or polished animation should look elsewhere. [14 Mar 1990, p.F3]

Writer Dennis Marks and producer/directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera can't seem to decide whether they're making a with-it musical for teen-agers or re-creating the ingenuous humor of a '60s TV show, and don't do either very well.

Although the filmmakers use the soldiers’ own words, they fail to create believable characters who can engage the audience.

The Book of Life juxtaposes overwrought visual imagery with an undernourished, familiar story.

The filmmakers seem to have been trying for the kind of animated film noir that has been done so skillfully in Japan, but Cinderella the Cat never approaches that level level.

The ineptly told story features the hollow menaces, uninteresting villains, bland heroes, predictable confrontations and static animation that have become standards of the genre. [21 Mar 1986, p.17]

But rarely has so much animated opulence been wasted on such a thin, badly told story.

Even the most sophisticated software can’t give characters a sense of weight or a way of moving that suggests their personality. Nor can it create an engaging story. Sadly, director Deane Taylor and his crew fail to provide those elements.

Unfortunately, the story, script, voice actors and animation all prove less flexible than the toys, and the film never turns into entertainment. GoBots are more fun to play with than they are to watch.

In an effort to generate some excitement (and disguise the limits of the animation) director Nelson Shin keeps the camera constantly in motion. The Transformers has so many cuts that it looks like the film was developed in a Veg-O-Matic. Because it features ineptly blended drawn animation and computer graphics, The Transformers is billed as state-of-the-art. It seems more like state-of-the-marketing. [08 Aug 1986, p.8]

Aside from an occasional reference to Carroll, The Care Bears' Adventure is just standard 1980s children's fare. The same kind of minimal plot, sappy songs, badly timed gags, limited animation and smarmy message have been used in so many recent cartoons that even small children must be tiring of the pattern. [07 Aug 1987, p.6]

The sugary cuteness of the Little Ponies masks a corporate greed as cold and sharp as a razor blade.

The film fails to generate even a shred of suspense or humor as the characters stumble from one forgettable song to the next.

A leaden-paced film that only followers of Okawa could enjoy.

A family film no member of the family will enjoy.