Desmond Ryan

If Emmerich had any sense, he would have ceded the direction of the battle scenes to his star.

Baird is a highly regarded editor of action films, and his debut as a director shows a sharp eye for the tensions and angles in individual scenes. But his grasp of pace is less certain, and it exposes the movie's more outlandish developments. [15 Mar 1996, p.03]

Triumphs by taking an elliptical approach that still reaches directly into the very core of genius.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer contrasts the mundane and the domestic with the appalling. The tone doesn't vary at all, and it's not a pretty picture, but movies that burn their images into your consciousness like this one are very, very rare. It is admittedly hard to look, but this is a portrait that demands to be seen.

Whatever its flaws, however, this gorgeously colored and darkly hued Hunchback remains a towering and bold addition to the Disney canon. [21 June 1996, p.03]

The pleasure of The Limey lies in watching what actors who have aged like fine wine can do in that world.

The definitive movie of the genre - a scathing satire of the warped logic of atomic confrontation with a brilliant cast led by Peter Sellers, George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden. [14 July 2001, p.E01]

The Magnificent Seven has a secure niche among the great westerns. Its action is brilliantly staged. [12 May 2001, p.E01]

Aronofsky has fashioned a chilling vision that lives up to the caustic irony of its title and gives us a nightmare that is not lightly forgotten.

It's a stunning Roman triumph.

Fans of the original should relish going back to Back to the Future, as long as they keep in mind that in movies - as in life - you can't go home again. And if you do, things aren't likely to be the same. [22 Nov 1989, p.E1]

Honest, sensitive and keenly observant.

It works beautifully and illuminates aspects of Freud that you might think beyond the reach of the the camera.

It is a gorgeous triumph - one lion in which the studio can take justified pride. [24 June 1994, p.03]

If you can accept Dennis Quaid as a post-Arthurian knight and a dragon who looks like Sean Connery as well as talking like him, there is a certain loopy charm to their adventures. But the rest of Dragonheart, with evil kings and distressed damsels, is such a warmed-over borrowing from better fantasies that it undermines the film's modest strength. [31 May 1996, p.05]

Mulholland Falls deserves more a tip of the hat than an enthusiastic greeting. [26 Apr 1996, p.03]

You might be occasionally dumbfounded by The Messenger, but you won't be bored.

The obstacles are many, most notably Rookery, a local vampire hunter who looks like a rejected extra from "Mad Max."

The Road Home takes a path few movies choose to travel these days, but it's a very affecting journey.

Attenborough's underrated 1977 epic A Bridge Too Far fashioned an antiwar statement from the foolhardiness that stranded 35,000 paratroopers behind German lines in an attempt to take key bridges. [02 Feb 2002, p.C01]

A profound and deeply moving exploration of facing death with dignity.

Instead of the usual contrast of black and white, The Yards offers a vivid palette of grays, and it's a far more rewarding color scheme for a movie.

Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life is a minimalist, mesmerizing allegory set in a limbo. It is not a memorial to the dead but an extraordinary consideration of what memories mean to the living. [11 June 1999, p.12]

A rewarding exploration of the knotty and often contentious relationship between teacher and protege.

Davis, with a nicely turned and witty screenplay from Bucatinsky, freshens up the familiar predicament by having her two lovers recount the affair to a stranger.

As an exploration of a man who really did take the road less traveled, the film is fascinating.

There is one scene in The Legend of 1900 that is easily worth the price of admission. It finds the ship heeling in an Atlantic storm. In the ballroom Roth plays the piano as it moves and slides in an eerie waltz around the floor.

Hill, Redford and Goldman reteamed for 1975's The Great Waldo Pepper, which is set in the barnstorming days of aviation, but never really takes off. [04 Jan 2003, p.C01]

Faces, torsos and other parts of the human anatomy go into gory meltdown in Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers. But his remake of of a sci-fi classic that already has been brilliantly remade leaves you wondering why he wasn't willing to go out on a limb. [18 Feb 1994, p.04]

Gunnarsson crams his movie with subplots from the novel and then abandons them for lack of room but Seth calibrates the stages of Gustad's journey with infallible judgement and conviction.

The triumphant masterpiece of Akira Kurosawa's fertile twilight.

It's a work that preaches to the choir, and the song has been more subtly sung in better movies.

In theme and technique, it pushes the boundaries of animation and opens up new and imaginative possibilities.

The Ghost and the Darkness is beautifuly photographed and produced with an immaculate sense of period. Stephen Hopkins directs the action with a sure hand, but he is understandably at a loss in the film's subtext, which is as dense and often as impenetrable as jungle undergrowth. [11 Oct 1996, p.14]

Cats Don't Dance is pleasant middle-tier animation that will not cause anyone to lose sleep over at Disney. [26 Mar 1997, p.D07]

A comedy of the old school. Depending on your view of the current state of screen humor, that's either a promise or a warning.

When it comes to the realistic portrayal of the complex process of grief, most actresses are at a loss. Sissy Spacek is decidedly not most actresses.

La Promesse is a compelling look at issues that - in a world where ethnic frictions grow more tense, even as national boundaries disappear - really are universal.

Little gem of a movie.

Some movie-goers will be more annoyed than surprised by the finale.

Not up to the freshness and inventiveness of its predecessors.

As Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands reminded us, Burton always has been more absorbed by what his audience sees than by what his movies say. It's part of his unique talent as a filmmaker, but it leads him to ignore the flaws in the structure of what is, after all, supposed to be an exciting adventure film.

The humor of the script constantly confounds expectations, and yet Shrek still manages to say all the right things to children.

The way that power and wealth corrupt the spirit is a recurring theme in Huston's work, and it is served up here in a hugely entertaining fashion. [17 Mar 1995, p.11]

Arnold has a gem for the third millennium in End of Days.

Underlines the nightmare of entrapment so vividly captured in The Day I Became a Woman.

The film treats the ensuing issues of conscience and compromise with subtlety and warmth.

Greenwald's film is filled with an infectious love for the region's songs. It could hardly be otherwise, given the level of musical talent she recruited for Songcatcher.

It's an occasion for welcoming a restoration that transforms a flawed movie, one that was touched by greatness, into a masterpiece. [10 Aug 2001, p.W3]

If the arrival of The Crow - a visually dazzling and hyperkinetic action movie - is an occasion to mourn the loss of Lee, it is also ample reason to celebrate the protean gifts of its director, Alex Proyas.

In effect, The Client is a clever and pliant variation on the classic Hitchcock situation that puts a kid, instead of an adult, between the authorities and villainous criminals.

Forget the end and there is much to enjoy here.

Taste of Cherry takes its title from an anecdote that celebrates the things in life - such as the savoring of a delectable fresh fruit - that we take for granted. Kiarostami's film won the top prize at Cannes last year, an honor that has infamously gone to some overrated movies over the years. In this case, the award was less than a superb picture deserved. [12 June 1998, p.04]

If you enjoy visuals with substance as well as flash, look no further than this exuberant movie.

A little gem that's everything a fine independent film used to be.

Apted's movie puts flesh - and a considerable amount of blood - on problems that usually get lost in the winds of empty political rhetoric. [27 Sept 1996, p.03]

Fascinating and strangely involving piece.

The film, which is amiable, undemanding family holiday entertainment, is more a tribute to the astonishing skills of the dog trainers than anything else.

A solid double rather than a grand slam, The Sandlot remains a refreshing antidote to the daily round of contract squabbles on the sports page.

An undeniable and, indeed, unprecedented technical feat that's a feast for the eye, Dinosaur is less easy on the ear.

A turbocharged and pungently enjoyable take on the sport so many observers see - Stone, of course, included - as a reflection of the darker side of American life.

Picks up speed as it goes along and the finale is frenzied and, well, cartoonish.

The borrowings from other movies, going all the way back to the car chase in 1968's Bullitt, are heavy. But Bay has three leads to lend weight and dimension to characters who are hardly original and flatly written.

A powerful and moving contribution to the cinema of the Holocaust.

Winterbottom also has the insight to share the novelist's suggestion that landscape can reflect and, to a degree, even shape character.

If you've had enough of the loony tunes coming from Florida, this piece of absurdist serio-comedy is the perfect picture.

The small victories that people win in Down in the Delta are earned, and so is the praise that has greeted Angelou's long-overdue arrival behind the camera. [25 Dec 1998, p.05]

Glazer has a daring sense of story structure that ratchets up the suspense, and his sense for sardonic black comedy is unerring.

(Director Lionel Coleman) wisely opts for a straightforward approach with long takes that capture Cho's kinetic rhythm and rely on her talent and honed timing to carry the evening.

Has the incoherent look of a movie thrown together by a committee whose members weren't on the same page.

Defiantly different, a movie that carefully checks the pulse of its characters rather than trying to get the blood rushing.

A stalwart military inspirational.

It deserves to be more widely seen as a quite definitive exercise in mob psychology. [17 Apr 1998, p.16]

Zemeckis and Gale obviously paid attention to quality control in finishing the trilogy. They could not, however, hope to reach the quality of their first effort. [25 May 1990, p.5]

Directed by Fred Zinnemann with a feel for heartland values and belief in the need for community that Rodgers and Hammerstein urged so strongly, Oklahoma! is a hugely enjoyable film. [14 Sep 2002, p.D01]

Parker has honored the core of the work and in the process turned a great memoir into a memorable movie.

A standout.

Suave, witty and wonderfully acted ensemble piece.

Consist of little more than people arguing or clambering in and out of dusty Land Rovers.

Fry, Gilbert and scenarist Julian Mitchell make the most familiar details of Wilde's downfall fresh and new. [05 Jun 1998, p.04]

There are points, most notably and predictably in the action sequences and set numbers, where The Swan Princess comes within hailing distance of the Olympian standards that are now almost routine at Disney. What the film lacks is an equal sophistication in story-telling that talks to children on an almost subliminal level about their fears and fantasies while royally entertaining them. It is that quality, as much as technical skill, that sets Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King in a class by themselves as the finest achievements of the Disney renaissance. [18 Nov 1994, p.06]

This is very much Anderson's film. The publication of the novel made Wharton's reputation. The release of The House of Mirth should do the same for Anderson.

Modernizing the play with resource and ingenuity, Richard III holds a mirror to our blighted age. McKellen's Richard, a master of statecraft and cunning blackmail and manipulation, is a very contemporary tyrant. [19 Jan 1996, p.03]

The troupe deserves every bit of its worldwide renown, and it makes this Imax trip one well worth taking.

Stands apart from the trite conventions of most coming-of-age drama chiefly through the originality of Pool's approach and the honesty and conviction of Karine Vanasse's portrait of Hanna.

In Little Odessa, Gray proves that you can go down what looks like a familiar road and make it seem much less traveled. [30 June 1995, p.06]

Remarkable movie.

His (Mamet) direction is unobtrusive, unflashy, and always willing to allow the hilarious cast all the room it needs.

Transports us to a world that still had a capacity for awe, and that's the core of its charm.

Nolte, reinforced by the bleak discretion of Schrader's direction and a wonderful supporting cast, makes the most of the opportunity.

Who would have imagined that the galactic Gonzo would turn out to be a more entertaining space trip this summer than you-know-what? [14 July 1999, p.D01]

A defiantly offbeat and accomplished piece with a dream ensemble acting out one man's nightmare, it deserves not to fall through the cracks.

He (Irving) has been able to capture the quirky tone of the popular novel.

Unfortunately for Disney, the real obstacle confronting the submarine isn't the giant lobster. It's a foul-smelling ogre, and it's no contest.

What Rock fans will sorely miss in Down to Earth is the earthiness and outrageous hilarity of his stand-up act.

Even though the soap employed is Irish Spring, this is still a soap opera.

Modestly entertaining when it is engaged in such a celebration onstage, but it trips up when the action moves backstage, where bad dialogue ... lurks in the shadows.

Beneath the predictable serving of sex, lies and, yes, videotape - as his characters betray each other in and out of bed - is a satire of tabloid trashiness that is truly withering.