David Ansen

The superhero genre screams for a makeover, or at least a smart deconstruction, but Hancock isn't that movie. It just ups the foolishness ante.

Living Out Loud is far from seamless -- the last third of the movie has a choppy rhythm and an ending that doesn't quite work -- but it's alive in all the ways that count.

Mann vividly captures the nocturnal pulse of East L.A. in this taut, confined game of cat and mouse. In the homestretch the thrills get too generic and farfetched for their own good. But the first two thirds are a knockout.

Sweetness is not a quality one normally associates with Clint Eastwood, but true sweetness is precisely what Bronco Billy aspires to -- and occasionally achieves. At once sentimental, arch and harmlessly good-natured, Eastwood's latest is a romantic comedy in which Clint appears as the fast-drawing, trick-riding star of his own Wild West show. [23 June 1980, p.77]

The movie is, from start to finish, a hoot... Both a savvy satire of smalltown boosterism and an affectionate salute to the performing spirit. [10 Feb 1987, p.66]

Intelligent, deadly serious, made in a spirit of patriotism and protest, Redford's movie is more civics lesson than drama and doesn't pretend otherwise. It is what it is: a call to action.

A tired, confused romantic comedy/noir thriller with all the suspense of an infomercial. Buy the poster; skip the movie.

One can forgive the orangutan's participation - he couldn't read the script - but what is Eastwood's excuse? James Fargo directed, every which way but well. [08 Jan 1979, p.60]

This moving, engrossing work shows that Sayles is as valuable a chronicler of our past as he is of our present. [14 Sep 1987, p.82]

It's filled with Mann's signature macho verisimilitude, but essentially it's the stuff of what, in saner fiscal times, would have been a B movie. Miami Vice delivers the thrills, atmosphere and romance it promises, but it doesn't resonate like major Mann.

Visually, the Bluth effort is disappointingly drab and murky, and the story line may prove too thin to keep the little natives from restlessness. [28 Nov 1988, p.87]

Everything in Rounders is right there on the surface. Watching it is about as exciting as playing poker with all the cards face up. [14 Sept 1998]

A sweet and satisfying fantasy that reinvents the myth of the Fountain of Youth. [24 June 1985, p.70]

The creepy subtext of his (Sandler's) behavior is something this crude, mirthless comedy tries not to notice.

If you harbor any fond feelings for the original, stay far away from this mess.

Before it degenerates into Indiana Potter and the Chamber of Doom, the movie holds promise -- it hints at why the Harry Potter movies aren’t half as wonderful as they ought to be, why they feel created from the outside in. Magic isn’t made by committee.

This is humanism in drag: Almodovar's passionate redefinition of family values.

Sometimes stunning, ultimately stupefying epic .

The Chosen is slowly absorbing and ultimately powerful, because it takes the time to reveal its characters in all their quirky complexity. [27 May 1982, p.100]

Frost/Nixon works even better on screen. Director Ron Howard and Morgan, adapting his own play, have both opened up the tale and, with the power of close-ups, made this duel of wits even more intimate and suspenseful.

The indignities inflicted on the Chester family by writers Jeremy Stevens and Mark Reisman are barely clever enough to sustain a half-hour TV show. Carl Reiner directed this tepid farce, as if half asleep. [26 Aug 1985, p.62]

Gets too earnest for its own good. But Billy Ray and Terry George’s screenplay, taken from a John Katzenbach novel, is expertly plotted.

The comedy gets better, and more unpredictable, as it goes, and so do the performances.

Soft to the point of squishiness, Phenomenon is rescued from terminal bathos by Travolta's radiant conviction.

Hero unfolds with zest and confidence, yet as genuinely enjoyable as it is, it doesn't fully come together. For one thing, its satire of the heartless media is hardly novel anymore. [05 Oct 1992, p.73]

A delightful surprise... Jewison does his best work in decades. [21 Dec 1987]

Car-crazy John Stockwell stumbles upon a time-warp machine that unleashes forms from the past and future (dinosaurs, Nazis and mutants) upon his local high school. The principal pleasure in this last comic adventure is Dennis Hopper's science teacher, a tie-dyed-in-the-wool '60s activist who can't forget Woodstock. Forget the rest. [26 Aug 1985, p.62]

This movie is about giving us a privileged glimpse of the Stones in action. It's a record of an astonishing musical chemistry that has been evolving, with no signs of calcification, for nearly five decades. As a bonus, there are delicious guest appearances by Buddy Guy and Jack White.