Desson Thomson

Even by the low-low standards of cheap action flicks, this one's bad, boys.

The atmospherics are wonderfully dark and film-noirish, if overly violent.

It's not Christmas that's being stolen here. It's the spirit of Dr. Seuss.

This is a movie for people more interested in the subject matter than its dramatic presentation.

Williams has to break out of a second-rate "Tootsie" imitation, ankles clamped in pathos and face covered in latex. He pulls it off in the end, but it's not pretty.

Has its sinfully funny moments. Funny, that is, if you appreciate a certain cynical clamminess -- or Buck Henry seediness -- to your comedy.

More like a waking nightmare than a docudrama. A true story of murder and justice evidently miscarried, wrapped in the fictional haze of a surrealistic whodunit, it will leave you in a trance for days. [2 Sept 1988]

Just a few more tweaks and Crossover could have been something special -- a truly terrible movie to savor for the ages. But nooo, this street ball movie -- has to settle for middle-of-the-road badness.

Filmmakers John Hughes and Chris Columbus go for repetition over comedy.

With their inspired, absurdist taste for weird, peculiar Americana-but a sort of neo-Americana that is entirely invented-the Coens have defined and mastered their own bizarre subgenre.

Nonetheless, there's something life affirming in all of this. Even as most of us recoil with self-preservation at their feats, we also secretly applaud them pushing the envelope of mortality.

This heavy-hitting fist lands with calculated deliberation. Despite Spielberg's obviously genuine commitment, "Schindler's List" feels strangely controlled -- more than impassioned. It's officially artistic, an engineered project of pride, Little Stevie's growing-up project, rather than an organically brilliant masterpiece.

It's a thrill to listen to the seasoned survivors offering witty, evocative anecdotes about themselves and others.

Taking Lives would have to work nights to reach mediocrity.

It's a guaranteed must-see for its generation. Sin City has a long, long shelf life ahead.

Ejiofor was a revelation in "Dirty Pretty Things" as a Nigerian doctor forced to live illegally in London. Though he's charismatic as the husky-voiced Simon, he never transcends the movie's pandering agenda.

An action opera designed to elicit Beavis and Butt-head-level appreciation.

Taking a courageous cue from Drugstore Cowboy, in which drugs are actually acknowledged to be enjoyable, Rush intoxicates the head for a while. But it peaks way before the movie's over. You're caught in a slow but steady decline, an unwanted comedown.

Screenwriter Richad Curtis (writer of the English "Blackadder" series) and director Mike Newell (who made "Enchanted April") keep things lively and entertaining; each wedding is garnished with its own distinctive mood and dramatic significance.

Everything has a Chaplinesque feeling, from the largely silent scenes to the highly visual, tragicomic situations...But The Man Without a Past is entirely free of the tramp's cloying sentimentality.

There's another satisfying benefit to Everlasting Moments. It's gloriously absent of the hyper-speed anxiety that passes for storytelling on our multiplex screens.

Wickedly funny and devilishly subversive. It is satire at its most fearless.

If it were the last videotape available in the only video store in the remotest corner of Alaska, I'd take one last slug of Jack Daniels and start walking directly into the howling snows.

Never feels original, even though it's enjoyable to watch Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and newcomer Peter Facinelli going at it with snappy patter.

Take this trip with him and chances are, you'll find the journey increasingly funny and touching.

Your children are almost certain to have a great time.

As Juliet, Winslet is a bright-eyed ball of fire, lighting up every scene she’s in. She’s offset perfectly by Lynskey, whose quietly smoldering Pauline completes the delicate, dangerous partnership.

What makes director Roger Donaldson's movie greater than zany heist fare is that this particular robbery really happened and that this episode illuminated an almost moral clash between the haves and the have-nots of Great Britain.

To take Showgirls that seriously (as either trash-art or appalling pornography) wouldn't be worth the exertion.

Here was my question for most of this movie: Wha-? I was clueless. Did not understand. Count me among the stupid.

A thoroughly gratifying prestige thriller, thanks to riveting suspense and two brilliant stars.

Has a refreshingly keen ability to see everything from multiple angles.

Although the movie is set in the rock world and, therefore, should be a sort of extended music video, it's devoid of even MTV-caliber originality.

There's a deep, touching tale to relate about the man who went from Apache chieftain to circus has-been, selling his autographs for money. But don't look for stirring, touching or anything in "Geronimo: An American Legend." Look for the exit sign.

Adapted by Craig Lucas from his Broadway play, "Prelude" is worth watching for the human interaction, and for the pleasure of watching a love story with engaging partners.

Please circle the sentence that most closely reflects your feelings: 1. To me, this scene sounds precious, cute, madcap, zany, lovable, heart-warming, poignant and funny. 2. I find this scene nauseating, despicable, moronic, simpering, formulaic, tacky and culturally dangerous.

Dramatically lackluster.

At the risk of eternal damnation on the Internet, I admit to laughing at -- even feeling momentarily touched by -- Rush Hour 3.

Doesn't try to be more than what it is: a romantic fantasy caper.

Not only gives us a superb new cast of believable characters, it transcends its own genre. Only superficially a teen comedy, the movie redounds with postmodern -- but emotionally genuine -- gravitas.

In Milan Kundera's novel, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," the characters are pawns on a complex, philosophical chessboard with Kundera's didactic commentary accompanying every move. In his adaptation, director Phil Kaufman films the pawns, even many of the moves. But without Kundera's connecting presence and voice, the result is closer to Chinese checkers than chess...Very attractive and watchable checkers, sure

Director Itami has produced an engaging cinematic hybrid, brilliantly stir-frying Japanese food -- and other -- obsessions into cowboy themes. He calls Tampopo a noodle western.

Despite its fragmentary, seat-of-the-pants plot, Chungking Express abounds with staccato style and frenetic charm. It's the cinematic equivalent of popcorn on a hot stove. There are "jump-cut" shots, freeze frames, stirring (and often beautiful) images and a general sense of boundless energy, all of which capture perfectly the Zeitgeist of Hong Kong society. [15 Mar 1996, p.N43]

Retains (and in many cases, boosts) as much of the spirit [of the book] as you could reasonably expect. And it makes a worthy attempt to duplicate Rowling's engaging sense of humor.

Short but powerful drama.

Needs more than happy thoughts to get off the ground.

You may soon forget the specifics of the plot, but you'll always remember the world it came from.

There seem to be about a half-dozen spiraling subplots that go nowhere in particular. But it's oh so hiply done -- at least, that's the idea.

This is comic-book coverage. If the strength of the novel was the interplay between Wolfe's dry-white reportage and the sensational, tabloid-tacky humorous events he wrote about, "Vanities"-the-movie just goes for the tacky jugular.

Fans of bubbly romances can consider this a thumbs up. I call it a clenched-teeth concession at best.

A religious feel-good message, first and foremost. As for drama, well, it's a distant second. For the right audience, however, this reversal of priorities will work just fine.

Though the movie, made for $7,000, can claim the romantic mantle of "guerrilla filmmaking," its herky-jerky camcorder style, jump-cut editing and sustained takes soon wear out their welcome. And dramatically, it's not always convincing.

A classically polished drama about repressed emotions, self delusion and protracted heartbreak, this Merchant/Ivory movie is one of the most affecting experiences of the year.

Makes compelling, provocative and prescient viewing. You can draw your own conclusions.

This is wonderful stuff, as far as it goes.

The movie makes an over-long deal about Jody's immaturity and never seems to get beyond it.

This movie's "Flashdance" on blades, an unending series of rock videos posing as a story. It's so slick, so loveless, so efficient, you almost take your hat off to the filmmakers.

It's more than a detailed account of one man's petty vindictiveness in a bygone era. It's about how our hatred can consume us so deeply that we lose sight of everything.

Burke's face is impressively scaly, his head is adorned with shorn horns. He makes a great monster. If only he had a better movie to growl in!

Like President Kennedy, director Donaldson (who made "No Way Out," another pretty good Washington-seat-of-power thriller) has found a perfect balance of often-opposing forces: between recorded history and the demands of plain old entertainment.

Roundly entertaining.

Superbly conceived anti-biopic.

Intriguing, inspired, flawed, misbegotten and fascinating -- all of these qualities apply to the movie, at one point or another.

So unambiguously good-natured it feels like something fresh.

Although fictionalized, it feels depressingly real. It's a 90-minute newsreel with a broken heart.

If you're looking for satisfying junk food, Executive Decision is exactly the carryout you've been craving. This hijacking suspense drama steals shamelessly from Tom Clancy's kitchen, but it's tautly scripted, loaded with tension and interspersed with great comic relief.

Like Cheung's ethereally plaintive voice, the movie is a siren song that's appealing at first, but held too long. It becomes an increasing whine.

Enjoyable and reprises the same dyspeptic attitude that infused "Ghost World," but ultimately it lacks its predecessor's originality and humanity.

The trouble with Goal!, which -- horror of horrors -- is the first of a trilogy, is that it's neither a persuasive story nor a satisfying display of soccer.

Beautifully filmed and very atmospheric in terms of evoking the sights and sounds of modern-day Beijing, this Chinese movie suffers a flat tire about halfway through.

There is one reason, and one reason alone, to watch Cet Amour-La. It is Jeanne Moreau.

Frances McDormand enjoys the comedic role of her career.

This movie, set in the '60s and starring Cher, Winona Ryder and Bob Hoskins, doesn't come of age so much as die of it. It's awash in mediocrity, waterlogged with innocuousness and redeemed only occasionally by sweet-faced Ryder.

High on melodrama. But it's emotionally engrossing, too, thanks to strong, credible performances from the whole cast.

If you're looking for a picturesque romance -- with a little intrigue on the side -- you could do worse than "Sommersby."

Although the movie has its moments -- particularly when our hero finds himself surrounded by a gimlet-eyed circle of futuristic detectives -- it's never really successful.

Lee, who made the upbeat "Eat Drink Man Woman," plays this double love story as brightly as possible. There's peppy social satire in the smallest of gestures.

The road to stand-up Oz is littered with conventional, sentimental banana peel; writer/director David Seltzer avoids much, but not all, of it. His biggest slip-up is creating an unlikely relationship between Hanks and Field. Gold is a young, starving, responsibility-evading, med-school dropout who has psychic energy only for great comedy. As frumpy, mousey, older, married mother Lilah -- who thinks she just might be able to do that comedy thing -- Fields couldn't be more of a mismatch.

It won't be long before you feel the compulsion to watch again. There is too much to appreciate in one sitting.

But don't let a little gore, misogyny, factbusting, counterfeit hipness and screenwriter David ("Streamers") Rabe's public disassociation from the project get in your way. Enjoy Penn's actor imitations. Or Fox's raspy earnestness. Or scorer Ennio Morricone's sentimental mortars. Or a bafflingly anticlimactic final sequence in which veteran Fox appears to come to terms with himself with the help of an Asian woman and a dropped scarf. Is that what you call a wrap?

Playful as it is, Clare Peploe's adaptation of Pierre Marivaux's romantic comedy coughs and sputters on its own postmodern conceit.

With the exploitative brashness and twice the volume of his New Jack City, Van Peebles mixes rap with rawhide for a deliriously exaggerated entertainment.

Del Toro has made a ghost story that's not only evocative and original, it's a pleasure to watch.

It's not Fellini, by any means, but it's lively. Never stops moving, even though it crashes into cliches along the way.

All failed concept and misfired comedy.

The movie, based on the TV cartoon series, is exceptionally pleasant, and there's just enough humor to make it enjoyable for adults.

Tough guys snarl at each other or dive out of the way before some explosion reduces their biceps to gymboy tuna. Van Damme still talks like a Belgian choirboy. But he’s physically awesome, of course. He can do things with his body that it hurts to even contemplate. If nature intended for men to do the splits or high kicks, boxer shorts would not have been invented. As for Rourke, I am convinced he’s made entirely of leather. He is essentially a boxing glove with a heartbeat.

The movie's intense watchability can be traced directly to superb performances by Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley.

Settle into your seat for an enjoyable movie.

Crash doesn't extend beyond its most immediate sensationalism. When the movie does attempt to find a theme, it slams into a brick wall of mumbo-jumbo.

Think of this movie as a glorified home video rather than a bitingly insightful documentary. But for Garcia and Grisman, this soft-shoe approach couldn't be more appropriate.

Chabrol arranges his story with a subtle, almost clinical accumulation. And it takes close attention to the movie's seemingly innocuous details to understand his deeper purposes.

One fabulous Middle-earth show.

One electrifying performance becomes the only saving grace of The Kingdom, a goofy action movie that tries to marry the blitzkrieg entertainment of "Rambo" to the cultural consciousness of "Syriana."

In the end, we don't know what we're watching, an art-house superhero film or a computer-generated "King Kong." By trying to please both sensibilities, the filmmakers have pleased neither.

Works far better as an idea than its execution; this has to do with the difficulties of making profound statements with limited budgets and technology, and also grappling with the still-growing sensibilities of an emerging writer.

To enjoy it, however, you have to do the mental equivalent of squinting your eyes, so the credibility is only fuzzily ridiculous.

How great can an epic be, when it takes 30 years, including a whole sequence devoted to World War I, for Jean to realize he could be a little nicer to his wife? This is for diehard Francophiles and literate-movie fans only.

As Series 7 speeds toward its inevitable conclusion, at least the contenders make this downward spiral something to savor.

Its easygoing, disarming air will endear it to its target audience, who will appreciate this movie as much for the lifestyle it depicts as its actual story.

For all this potential, and the appealing presence of Nicolas Cage and newcomer Adam Beach, Windtalkers remains almost obstinately flat.

Too infuriatingly quirky and taken with its own style to get down to telling a story.

Absolutely refuse to make predictable patterns in the sand. Instead, they set their characters loose.

That cameraderie is bound to appeal to women looking for a howlingly trashy time.

As a child, I thought pure hell meant eternal agony in the flames of Satan. Now I know it's looking down at your watch and realizing Serving Sara isn't even halfway through.

The Pang brothers bring you into a surrealistically memorable ghost world of the beyond. It's also refreshing to have two forceful young women (Mun and Ling) at the center of the story.

Buscemi makes Seymour into a character you simply want to see again and again. He's the most appealing, amusing "loser" anyone could ever share old records with.

It's a warm, often funny reunion of the sassiest, chattiest characters ever to buzz a brother's head. You'll like this one more than you'd expect.

With its zany daily episodes, "Groundhog" gets stuck in a non-progressive repetition.

First-time filmmaker Jordan Roberts worked on this project for years, but merely ended up with dreary cliche.

This "Four" ain't so "Fantastic."

Fails as the big-screen romance it wants to be. The main problem: There's only one heart between the principals, and it beats solely in Chow's chest.

The story, which feels more like a sprawl of television episodes than a film, is a little tedious to sit through.

This movie is great in any version...I don't miss what has been cut from the new version. The overall effect is so beautifully wrought, a few details aren't going to bring things crashing down.

This movie is so wearying in its mediocrity, the inappropriate Ronica almost registers as dramatic relief.

It avoids the compulsively calibrated storytelling of big-studio moviemaking for a slower-moving but powerfully absorbing drama.

Between the movie's frenetic bursts of energy, however, there's more than enough to enjoy, assuming you're not a Dahl purist. The best thing about the movie is actress Mara Wilson (who many will recognize from her role in Mrs. Doubtfire). With sleep bags under her bright eyes, and an array of facial expressions that ranges from shocked to mischievous, she looks as though she belongs in a Dahl-like world. [02 Aug 1996, p.N29]

Williams is hardly at his comically inventive best. And the script (adapted by Chris Van Allsburg, and a string of others, from his book) pursues the least exciting avenues possible.

Presumably, there's a poignant story to be told about the love between 19th-century poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. But Agnieszka Holland's Total Eclipse, a pretentious, flat affair, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Rimbaud and David Thewlis as Verlaine, is not the film to pull it off.

From the get-go, the story remains bogged down in its rather limited morass.

As taut, sleek and guiltily comfortable as the classic Chrysler automobile we see at the beginning, "Quiz Show" is built for entertaining road performance. The facts (at least, the dramatically inconvenient ones) are left on the side of the road. Redford retains the emotional engine of the Van Doren affair and drives this baby all the way—presumably—to the bank.

The result: an empty comedy that takes hackneyed potshots at consumerism.

Maddin keeps what could have been a one-joke theme interesting for an admirably long time. But eventually, it becomes, well, hard to breathe. There's something wonderfully unique about the project but the reasons for doing it remain buried.

The film's first half is easily the best and brightest. As the movie moves into the more saddening sections, however, it loses most of its power.

A charming children's crusade -- a rewarding journey for all ages.

By its own deliriously rock-bottom standards, "Universal" ain't half bad. Of course, you have to be big on bloody slaughter, kickboxing, infrared gunning and impaired acting. But "Universal" executes its subtle-free mission with surprisingly watchable efficiency.

If the ultimate goal is entertainment, then Lady in the Water enthusiastically rises to the task. In a movie laden with enough symbolism, shamanism and mythic lore to make Joseph Campbell dance a tribal jig, Shyamalan never forgets to have fun.

Blaze turns out to be quite an amusing floor show, the kind of silly, factually irresponsible burlesque that makes you laugh in spite of yourself.

We're talking a thriller about property ownership. This is a yuppie conceit; this is not interesting to human beings. What's the moral behind "Pacific," anyway? Always Check Your References?

The great thing about Mystery Train is its open-endedness. It's a generously scripted ride that gives equal berth to all its characters, then cuts them loose with unfinished business, which also leaves them alive and drifting in your thoughts for a long time. That doesn't seem like a bad achievement at all.

There's nothing beyond the bloodshed and gallows humor, just intellectually secondhand implications about materialism, conformity and misogyny.

Ward has a mischievously good time. He makes this picture better than it deserves to be.

One artist's moving tribute to another.

Insipid, by-the-numbers romance.

The ultimate verdict on "City Hall" is easy: It's no good. The movie, a corruption-in-the-city saga starring Al Pacino, John Cusack and Bridget Fonda, ends on such a false, unsatisfying note, any faith you had built up in the movie is dashed. But that there's faith to lose in the first place is something of an achievement.

I would rather have a more interesting group of desperate people to spend my post-apocalyptic time with.

Tomorrow Never Dies isn't one of the great Bonds, by any means. But it's familiar, flashy and enjoyable in all the right places.

A violence-intoxicated, far-fetched, morally corrupt drama.

A brightly wrapped, ketchup-drenched mush-burger, it slides down the Zeitgeist esophagus like a slippery McPelican. You pay, you swallow, you drive home. You're left with nothing except, possibly, heartburn.

JOHN SAYLES has a filmmaking style that's often closer to leaden than lyrical. But his plodding manner works somewhat to advantage in "The Secret of Roan Inish," a modern-mythic drama set in Ireland that explores the special relationship between Irish seaside dwellers and Selkies -- seal-like creatures said to be part human.

Less-than-scintillating spin on "Life Is Beautiful."

Unabashed, streamlined entertainment, and you won't hate yourself in the morning for liking it.

I could love it only as far as it let me. Although the movie has hilarious moments throughout, its thematic thinness is writ fairly large on the big screen.

The movie, when it finally gets going, is funny. At times it's hysterical. The great discovery about Noises Off is how tried and tested Frayn's basic formula is. The physical, verbal and situation comedy is universal, no matter who the performers. What counts in this ensemble production is the collective choreography, the great farce machine. In the movie, everyone, Reeve included, more than plays his part.

I don't pretend to understand a darned thing about Jean-Luc Godard's In Praise of Love...But it's undeniably powerful and, if you're up for the experience, exhilarating.

Nair is not making a caricature out of Lalit or anyone else. She's inviting us into the inner recesses of her culture. And it's both pleasure and privilege to be one of her guests.

The Wachowski brothers have rendered their chronicles into banality, as if trying to imitate the qualitative tailspin of the "Star Wars" series.

It gets you below the emotional belt in a searing, delicate way. No movie this year approaches such magnificent imagery, such delectable poetry.

This is sweet-natured fun for the very young.

Strikes an unsatisfying balance between serious romantic texture and outright farce.

At what point in the movie is it too late to ask for your money back?

Ironically, Alien is not a bad movie. In fact -- here's the rub -- it's too interesting to make an exciting summer flick.

For the most part, this case, which includes a convenient last-minute taped confession and a lifeless Cher-Quaid romance, should have been thrown out of court.

Garrone's movie finds a disconcerting niche between edgy character thriller and black comedy.

The movie's much more than a castor-oil feminist message about self-realization, bad old Dad and all those awful men. The performances take care of that.

The driving drama of such a desperate situation is lost in the movie's casting silliness.

It is, however, a baby boomer's treat to see Faithfull, romancer of Mick Jagger back in the day and a pop siren in her own right, show her qualities as an actor. One is hopeful she'll find her way to other, better projects.

Isn't scintillating, but it's sort of embraceably funny.

Never better than fair to middling pleasant.

At first blush, there's something vicariously liberating about Brosnan strutting through a lobby dressed only in Speedos and cowboy boots. But it also feels false. The actor seems to be theatrically slumming before his return to suave form.

Although it contains many visually compelling passages and some provocative moments, the movie is strangely banal and simplistic.

It's brutal, horribly manipulative, and we've seen this stuff before in better pictures.

Its strength is the documentary-textured depiction of Native Americans in their social environment. Its weakness is a story that's a patchy combination of soap opera, low-tech magic realism and, at times, ploddingly sociological commentary.

It suffers from a dreary middle section. Great movie, mediocre script.

By Breillat's usually dire standards, this is practically a laff riot, and if you want to see her funniest, most accessible movie, this is the one to watch.

Chinese director Zhang Yimou understands perfectly that the small can be epic and awe-inspiring. And, by the way, he knows how to get big, too.

As an amalgam of drama and history, Reiner and scriptwriter Lewis Colick strike a surprisingly satisfying compromise.

Screenwriter Walters and director Hoffman superbly replay the mood of Tremain's lively, well-written novel.

Narratively club-footed but directorially assured.

As a Coen brothers fan I hate to say this, but the movie's a collection of great bits and pieces rather than a complete work.

For interested parties, it's entertaining to hear from, and meet, the people who live and breathe the politics of America.

Although the movie loses power in its final sections, the performances, writing and Richard Pearce's direction transform this shaky idea into something rewarding.

I wouldn't want you to consider even renting this thing. It would only encourage another prequel, this time featuring two dumb toddlers who keep walking into doors and become great pals. Call it "Duh and Duh."

Far too slick and manufactured to claim street credibility.

If you want to sample the sheer bouquet of great acting, you could get drunk on this movie.

Nothing like the sight of thousands of scuttling, hideous, practically indestructible insects crawling up the sides of a fortress, hellbent on destroying the human race. As they keep coming and coming, they’re the only things in this movie earning your money.

You want to know if The Running Man is a good-time macho show, right? Stay at home and watch professional wrestling. Or Miami Vice (same director -- Paul Michael Glaser). Sure there's blood spattering and bullets riddling and Big Boys Banging Biceps. But through the dry-ice haze, Running Man is surprisingly boring.

Compared to Escape From New York, the weapons are bigger and the violence is more extensive, although it’s toned down by today’s excessive standards. There are also greater special effects this time, involving holograms and nuclear-powered submarines. But Escape From L.A. is more enjoyable in a playful way.

A conceptual train wreck, with half an idea scattered like disaster debris all over the screen.

There's a collective scintillation about its rich, distinctive characters, narrative serendipity and ineffable magic.

As a movie, this is exciting stuff.

Here are some of Summer School's favorite things: idiocy, illiteracy, irresponsibility, drunkenness, dumbness and debauchery. Piqued? [24 July 1987]

Recycles the great surprises that made the first movie so powerful. And most significantly, it makes a big hoot of the whole business.

We are hooked into a low-tech but compelling dynamic -- between relatively static images and McElwee's sensitive, connective narrative.

The firefighting equivalent of an Army recruitment commercial.

A crazy, intentionally ludicrous movie that's a lot of film-noir fun.

If you go to this, anticipate neither an endearing Quaid-Ryan vehicle nor a fully satisfying art film. By trying to satisfy opposing demands, Kloves misses the spirit of both and is left only with flesh and bone.

Sure, this romance, starring Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg, follows a familiar boy-meets-girl scenario, but Younger turns the routine into combustible fun.

What isn't so fascinating is this movie's absurdity of motivation. No one does anything that makes sense. No one seems real. When the actual perpetrator is uncovered, there is no enlightenment as to why the killing occurred.

If Amazing Grace serves its most superficial purpose -- to educate the viewer -- it's hardly compelling viewing.

Davis, who won an Oscar for Best Documentary, may not have agreed with presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon on the war, but he heeded Johnson's call to fight for hearts and minds. His aim was dead on target.

Doesn't anyone get sick of this same old routine?

You are allowed to come up with a monster we haven't seen before.

Although the hallmarks of Rudolph movies can be found everywhere -- they don't add up to the usual magic this time.

For all its faults Lady in White is never dull.

A movie for aesthetically hungry moviegoers: wildly amusing, sometimes sardonic and always touching. There's so much here, and all of it delightful.

To watch Greendale is to understand everything about Neil Young. Like him, it's grungy, honest, disarming and unapologetically original.

It tries unsuccessfully to make a wry gumshoe noir out of an overarching, cross-sectional political diagram.

It's a fascinating story but not so fascinatingly told.

Delightful...a subtle and moving drama.

There's no doubt about the film's sheer power and taut originality.

The movie's great fun, particularly for kids used to that satirically hard-edged kind of kid show.

It's not the enormous undertaking that impresses so much as the sheer ecstasy of flight and the ability of Perrin's team to catch it.

Everything in the first movie is pretty much redone again. But in this case, the repetition isn't a bad thing. It's par for the coarse. The original had such effortless, classic-trashy appeal, there's little reason to buck the self-made system. It works. It can continue. It does continue.

Fabulous mental escape. It's fun and playful, rather than dark and foreboding. And there doesn't seem to be an original cyber-bone in the movie's body. But it's put together in a fabulous package.

Short but emotionally effective movie.

Slickers is also a white male's "Wizard of Oz." Stern will get his courage back and defeat the wicked witch. Crystal's heart will be restored and Kirby will get to roar for a while. But the film's strewn with enough amusing lines and situations to make the trail diverting.

Some of it is funny -- particularly the physical comedy. Most of it is not.

The projectors in the theater practically shut down with boredom.

Observed mostly from Remy's rat's-eye view, Gusteau's kitchen is a memorable world-in-miniature with its vivid old-fashioned stoves, bright, brassy pots and general air of frenzied industry; never did sliced red onions or simmering soup look so fresh and real.

Don't even consider this when it hits the Blockbuster shelves of shame.

So full of creativity, so subversive, so alive.

With the exception of the opening scene -- whose purpose is chiefly comic -- the movie is one, extended climax. Even with flashbacks and other time jumps, it never lets up. You have to go back to Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1952 "The Wages of Fear" to recall suspense this relentless.

It canters along, content to follow the Rules of Cute and Fuzzy Horse Movies.

This movie is a mixed repast: good food and wine laced with enough misanthropic poison to turn any stomach.

An extraordinary and brilliant (and almost wordless) film that takes us above ground and below it, up in the air and deep below water, to follow its conundrum of a story.

Unfortunately, it has no story. Toys is deader than a doornail.

The Jacket is doing nothing but sampling elements of "Jacob's Ladder," "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Memento" without offering more than hackneyed solutions, including a rather cheesy conclusion.

A sobering reflection on our culture's attitude toward violence.

The grimness of the movie becomes not only too unbearable, its point is clear about halfway through. After that, everything comes across as redundant retreading of the same perspective. But for atmosphere, great cinematography and eye-opening directness, this movie can't be beat.

Frantic is vintage Polanski, with its relentless paranoia, irony, diffident strangers and nutty cameos. And Polanski forgoes the mood-marshalling Hitchcock cellos for his own brand of good old quiet tension -- here made eerier by Witold Sobocinski's high and low camera angles.

Martin Scorsese brings honor back to the remake. He shines up this reprise of the original with original brilliance

The comic equivalent of microwaved leftover food -- and pretty stale at that.

There's every reason to watch Bread and Roses for what Loach really does best: He involves us directly in the desperate lives of his characters, who are forced to live without security and who have to compromise to make ends meet. And, above all, who feel as real as moviemaking allows.

You'll probably have some laughs along the way in spite of your better instincts.

It's painstakingly paced, but it's also entrancing.

Revenge was supposed to be the one that really socked it to us, about Anakin's almost biblical fall from grace. But the movie never rises to its powerful occasion.

After watching this movie, which stars Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Kathy Bates and Gabriel Byrne, I was moved only to find my own bridge to leap from.

Its heart is vaguely in the right place.

The film amounts to a harsh and perpetual assault on viewers' sensibilities -- not only because of its violence but because of its overall bleakness.

Reveals itself detail by searing detail.

It's tremendous fun. The movie -- directed by Rob Cohen -- switches pleasingly from exciting fights to moments of magic playfulness. It's doubly touching to experience Bruce Lee's fleeting life and, in the brief depictions of little son Brandon, to fatefully anticipate the tragedy to come.

A guaranteed pleasure for anyone who ever loved pop music, owned a record collection or suffered in love

If you like your movies with smooth skin, this might not be your cup of Neutrogena. But if you appreciate satire that reaches out and squeezes you where it hurts, you're going to enjoy yourself thoroughly.

But if "Reality" is full of twentysomething Esperanto, it's perfectly understandable -- and enjoyable -- to anyone who speaks humor. While its age ceiling seems a little low at times (at least, for this old man), the comedy constantly breaks through. There's a rousing, engaging spirit on the loose, more than emphasized by 32 songs on the soundtrack. This is an MTV-era movie: If you don't get it, as they say of a certain newspaper, you don't get it.

Flagging energy isn't the only issue here; Ford has become enslaved in his own cliches.

When you’re through watching The Daytrippers, you think about its minor imperfections, not because the film’s bad, but because it’s so good.

A good-natured but failed experiment in meeting cute -- indie-movie style.

Gets bogged down in sentimentality, while its wheels spin futilely in life-solving overdrive.

Makes for fascinating cinema.

Like the mysterious, bound package Goodman gives Turturro (the contents are never revealed), the Coens isolate a small area of interest, bind it with psycho-atmospheric finesse, then wait for something significant to emerge. Even after a second viewing of this movie, it doesn't.

One mediocre, ploddingly predictable film, loaded down with cheesy Hollywood tactics.

A peppy, satisfying comedy that could soon become a minor classic

This movie has all the same elements as other Grisham fare: raw young lawyer trying to make it in the South; helpless client treated badly; sleazy, star-chamber villains. Wake me up when the last-minute surprise witness comes out of her hidey hole to turn the case around.

An overextended, episodic disappointment.

Though Hard Candy clearly believes pedophiles should be chopped into little pieces and buried in an unmarked grave, its only purpose is exploitative. Sure, it's a cautionary tale for all those sicko wolves out there, but it's nothing more than an unabashed lurk-and-dread fest.

Hedge is built for laughter rather than artistry; jokes are packed into every pixel. But despite the movie's entertaining qualities, there is something a little unsettling.

Wickedly funny. In fact, Heathers may be the nastiest, cruelest fun you can have without actually having to study law or gird leather products. If movies were food, Heathers would be a cynic's chocolate binge.

In drama, and just about everything else, almost is never enough. Which is why Martian Child, about the growing bond between an adult and child, never reaches us.

They go about scaring you, but only in the most hackneyed and cheap-shock manner.

It is a well written, nicely acted and smoothly directed battle of the sexes.

In this final installment of a glorious trilogy (which includes the films “Blue” and “White”) he has saved his greatest for last.

If Southpaw leaves you hungry, this much is also true: The "food" was good in the first place.

Wins you over with its devastating simplicity.

If there's anyone who can make this ordeal -- and when you're plumb out of characters, it can be an ordeal -- tolerable, and even entertaining, it's Hanks.

The movie attempts to paint too large a canvas.

It doesn't matter how many times you see these images. They're always exciting.

[Zaillian] employs every trick and convention in the Hollywood book, but with such expertise, it feels original. Never were the emotions this roundly affected -- around a simple board game.

Overwritten, overextended and clunkily symbolic

Occasional clumsiness is easily coated over by the movie's overarching goodwill.

The movie has many of the elements that made the first "Dawn" so darkly entertaining.

The Devil's Own, which stars Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt, is so epically awful, it's practically homeric.

But the film, written and directed by fellow artist Julian Schnabel, is so tender in its affections, these omissions and poetic licenses seem like the embellishments of a good friend.

The movie wants to trade on atmosphere more than plot, but even the atmosphere rings false.

Sad, sobering film.

It's formula-packed business as usual. In fact, it's double-packed, triple-packed, more.

Hilarious, touching and wonderfully dyspeptic.

The movie's one-note broadness seems suited more to cable. And the story takes the wrong routes -- leaving Crystal's Larry nothing more than likable, and capitalizing callously on the irregular facial features of Anne Ramsey as the villainous Momma.

It's uninspired and insipid all the way.

In a movie in which time travel is used to rectify the past, it's too bad scriptwriters David and Janet Peoples didn't go through the time/space tunnel to work on that first draft again.

A pleasure because of zany developments like this, and a healthy dose of amusing characters.

Lathan, who was such a live wire as the aspiring basketballer in 2000's "Love & Basketball," gives this movie an alert, glamorous presence.