Jeff Baker

This time the talk was cheap, not witty or sharp. Tarantino the writer let his gift of gab get away from him and didn't give his script a close enough edit. Tarantino the director didn't do enough with the static setting; the flashbacks don't help and the big timeshift that's meant to explain everything that's happened feels incomplete.

Ultimately, it is nothing more than a souped-up, intermittently interesting take on some familiar material. [24 Oct 1997, p.22]

The movie isn't a complete disaster -- it's got a strong performance at its core from Dakota Johnson, and it looks sleek and modern, like a Beyonce video or a Calvin Klein commercial -- but it's an unpleasant experience with a sleazy stench that sticks in a way that E.L. James' novel doesn't.

Crowe is a commanding lead actor who could have made it into something special if he'd stayed out of his own way. Maybe he should have stayed home. You should.

It turns out bigger is not better. Bigger is louder, you bet your pounding eardrums it is, but it's not smarter. More teeth aren't sharper. They're dull, and so is Jurassic World.

Magic Mike XXL might be a good time on a summer evening, a one-night stand best forgotten before the sun rises, but it is not a good movie. It's boring, repetitive and lunk-headed.

Looks great, sounds great -- what's the problem? Everything else.

Bier's direction seems tentative, unsure whether to go all-in on the pulpier aspects of the story or play it straight. She gets mixed results from her leads: Cooper is game but not fierce or conflicted enough; Lawrence doesn't get deep enough to pull anyone along on her spiral into madness.

The Visit is not a head-scratcher, like so many of Shyamalan's movies. It's more of a shoulder-shrug. That's it? That's all you've got?

There's plenty of sweat but no blood or tears in Love. Without talented actors or a compelling story, it's not love. It's just sex.

Sorry. The sight of the 66-year-old Streep gyrating her way through "Wooly Bully" has a way of blocking out rational thought. It's frightening but temporary, like a bad dream. Or this movie.

It doesn't help that director Ken Kwapis stages everything like a sitcom, has no sense of pace, and buries the theme of late-life friendship under a haze of sentiment and trail dust.

If you think you've seen this movie, you have. Once it had a male protagonist and was called "Harry Potter." Then it starred Jennifer Lawrence and was called "The Hunger Games." Now it stars Shailene Woodley and goes by "The Divergent Series." Same thing, only worse.

The creators of Jupiter Ascending spent $175 million on special effects and 25 cents on a story. Audiences do not get their money's worth.

It's OK to rip off/pay homage to a better movie, but the idea is to improve on it, and ideas one thing that's completely missing from Get Hard.

Murray blusters and hams his way through the first two acts before turning all mushy in the third.

Peter Bogdanovich made a great screwball comedy. This isn't it.

There is nothing visually or thematically interesting about it. Nobody grows or changes. All the football coaches speak through clinched teeth, even when they're addressing 10-year-olds.

Run! Run for your lives! Get out of this theater now! Two hours is a terrible thing to waste!

Jason Schwartzman is upstaged by his dog in 7 Chinese Brothers.