David Sterritt

Slow, beautifully filmed, Nolte's Jefferson implausible.

Add a lot of dull acting -- except Sir Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis -- and you have an uneven movie with yawns aplenty.

Too much repetition and an unconvincing finale take a toll on the film's overall effectiveness.

The movie keeps up for a while, then falls into a slump, dwelling too long on the tangled emotions in the heroin's tangled marriage. Since the musical numbers aren't especially lively, either, the energy level sags dangerously low. In its best scenes, though, Yentl entertains with its crisp performances and invigorates with its sturdy feminist perspective. [22 Dec 1983, p.19]

The overall effect is about the same -- slow start, then escalating suspense and violence. Today's shock-movie fans will enjoy shrieking at it, and others should skip it. In space, no one can hear you ask for your money back.

This romantic farce has a talented cast and energy to spare, but somehow the ingredients don't burn as brightly as one would expect from such promising ingredients.

The first half is full of verbal and visual surprises, but the later scenes are talky and dull, as if filmmaker Steven Soderbergh had lost interest in his subject and his characters. Which would be understandable, since the story often seems more calculated than heartfelt. [4 Aug 1989, Arts, p.10]

Is this misogyny, as some insist, or a critique of misogyny, as others say? Many moviegoers, grossed out by the film's gothic approach to medical matters, won't watch long enough to find out which is the answer. [30 Sept 1988]

Heavily influenced by Quentin Tarantino's brand of quirky sensationalism, this high-energy saga by Paul Thomas Anderson goes a long way toward exposing the greed and stupidity of the pornography trade, then loses its moral compass and steers toward a sadly superficial ending.

The acting is capable and the suspense is effective at times, but the gore is grisly and the climax is surprisingly hokey.

Judged by the standards of ordinary filmmaking, it's as strange, suggestive, and surreal as other Lynch pictures have been. Judged by the standards of Lynch's own career, however, it's amazingly stale and second-hand… [and] contains not a single moment of genuinely felt emotion. [1 Sept 1992]

Much of the action seems more like warmed-over Quentin Tarantino than first-rate Steven Soderbergh.

The meandering story doesn't gather much momentum and Vittorio Storaro's camera work is less awesome than usual.

Like O'Connor's other novel, The Violent Bear It Away, and some of her best short stories, Wise blood has a fierce momentum and a savage wit that stand alone in contemporary literature. The movie makes a good try at capturing these elusive elements. But ultimately it loses its balance, and many viewers may wonder whether its rewards are worth all its perversities. [07 Mar 1980, p.19]

The picture has more charm than credibility, and its conquistador-like attitude toward women is mighty questionable; but the story becomes resonant if you see it as a fable about Brando vicariously regaining his youth by teaming with Depp in this all-stops-out movie fantasy.

In both its original 1973 version and its expanded 2000 edition, this hugely popular horror yarn is less a cleverly spun story than a disjointed collection of shockeroos, surrounding a few ghoulishly effective moments with overcooked plot twists and in-your-face vulgarity. [2000 re-release]

Well acted and ably directed, if not very probing about its subject of underclass youth.

It's regrettable that director Costa-Gavras puts more of his storytelling energy into simplistic psychology and suspense-movie action than historical depth and philosophical insight. This prevents Amen. from becoming a Holocaust drama for the ages.

The story has more violence than brains, but Hong Kong action star Chow makes an interestingly moody impression in his first Hollywood role.

The acting is passionate, but the film would be more effective if it presented a more thoroughgoing lesson in the raging horrors that swept through European culture during the era of the French Revolution.

Broderick and Witherspoon give perfectly matched performances at the head of a first-rate cast.

The filmmakers can't decide what sort of picture they're trying to cook up, so they keep oscillating among shallow psychological drama, high-tech action sequences, and comedy scenes that are themselves an uneasy mixture of sitcom-style dialogue and self-mocking campiness.

As gorgeous as it is to watch, Winged Migration suffers from a lack of organization.

The story soon lapses into familiar private-eye formulas, though, and the characters aren't interesting enough to hold much attention on their own.

This is the ultimate Woo movie, but while his fans will enjoy every minute, others will find it too long, repetitive, and violent.

The first half is a well-acted psychological drama, but the second half is standard thriller fare with more action than insight.

Russell's stylish and imaginative filmmaking wages its own war against lunkheaded and sometimes offensive material.

This violent Hong Kong thriller has more psychological depth than most of its kind, but ultimately seems like a pointless exercise in style.