John Hartl

Better Than Chocolate is essentially a 101-minute sitcom that runs out of energy (but not vulgarity) long before it reaches its predictable finale. [27 Aug 1999]

While it may have seemed revolutionary in its time, it now suffers from the disadvantage of looking like one more Asian movie about alienated youth. [18 Feb 2005, p.I20]

For me, the biggest problem with the script is a mid-film plot twist that takes place almost immediately after we've been told the characters are in danger. The introduction of this possibility is too neat, too fast. [04 Jun 1999]

Their performances lend the movie a touch of class, even if they can't make up for the superficial writing and Schumacher's anything-for-a-jolt direction.

What gives Betsy's Wedding distinction is the writing and casting of an initially peripheral figure, an unnervingly polite young gangster played by Anthony LaPaglia, a television and off-Broadway veteran making his big-screen debut. [22 Jun 1990, p.25]

Anyone who's been starved for Albert Brooks' brand of anxiety-ridden humor will not be completely disappointed. [24 Oct 1991, p.D3]

Despite all the nudity, it's less erotic than Duigan's charming schoolkids romance "Flirting." If only "Sirens" could have been a little livelier, if only Duigan, Grant and Neill had gone too far. [11 March 1994, p.D26]

Love Potion No. 9 is no great shakes, but far worse comedies are routinely released without a second thought. [13 Nov 1992, p.28]

While La Sentinelle is often a lively shaggy-dog story, it ultimately isn't much more than that. [01 Jan 1999]

Down in the Delta is Woodard's movie, and she deftly sidesteps most of the traps in her way. Instead of trying to make sense of the character's sudden transformation, she looks for the bit of truth in each of Loretta's apparent contradictions and works on it. Scene by scene, she builds a character who almost adds up. [25 Dec 1998, p.18]

How do you turn a collection of New Yorker cartoons into a feature-length movie? And avoid the one-joke nature of the early-1960s television series that first tried to put it into dramatic form? The answer to both questions: you can't. [22 Nov 1991, p.3]

Lithgow's opening narration tries to throw you off the scent of the cliches, and director Michael Caton-Jones (Scandal) does his best to avoid them or make them seem charmingly dated. But they're still there. [12 Oct 1990, p.22]

For all its contagious energy and surface authenticity, this early-Beatles docudrama comes off as the kind of biographical movie in which a group of unknowns appear to be all too aware that they're on the verge of international superstardom. [22 Apr 1994, p.D3]

Jungle 2 Jungle is better than expected, yet not quite good enough. [07 Mar 1997, p.F1]

Helms and Wilson are sometimes a stretch as brothers, especially in the more emotional scenes. But Close is majestic as the mother, a supporting role that feels bigger than it is.

Stephen Herek, who directed Critters and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, nevertheless keeps the story spinning along as if he believed it, and he works well with the actors, especially Cassidy, who plays her dotty career woman with a mixture of brassiness and resilience that's quite engaging; Coogan, a natural young comic who is becoming indispensable in movies like this; and Applegate, who looks very much like a movie star in her major-studio, big-screen debut. [07 June 1991, p.29]

Like Lee's last film, "Mo' Better Blues," this one seems to disintegrate before your eyes. Both movies lack the drive and assurance of his masterpiece, "Do the Right Thing." Yet so much of the first half of Jungle Fever is first-rate that you wish Lee could go back, rewrite and reshoot the rest.

The movie ends up playing like a series of skits and one-liners, some of them pointed and funny, that strain to achieve structure, substance and a workable ending. Fortunately, Judy Davis and Peter Weller are Tolkin's stars, and they're capable of providing a center for almost anything. [23 Sept 1994, p.H3]

The script may be a fantasy about late-19th-century American poverty, derived more from old movies than fresh observations. But at least Brooks doesn't sweep the subject under the rug, and just enough of his jokes sting. [26 July 1991, p.20]

Although it too often succumbs to the kind of whimsical sentimentality about the mentally ill that has afflicted movies from King of Hearts to The Fisher King, this filmed-in-Spokane comedy-drama is almost salvaged by its excellent cast. [16 Apr 1993, p.3]

Earnest, well-acted and occasionally compelling, School Ties gets an A for effort and a C-plus for achievement. At best, it's like a well-mounted, feature-length afterschool special about prep-school anti-Semitism in the mid-1950s. With hate crimes on the rise, it's unfortunately timely now, and its heart is always in the right place. At worst, it's a single-minded exploration of the subject, with too many aspects left untouched. [18 Sept 1992, p.26]

Crowded, cornball and too busy for its short running time, The Hollars nevertheless generates a few moments of grace and reflection.

The script by sports-movie veteran Ron Shelton is an understandable but rather monotonous attempt to deal with the differences between hard truth and media-created mirages.

Fascinating at certain moments, especially when Lewis is exploring his character’s grief and bitterness, it still feels like a work in progress.

It’s disarmingly spirited, especially when its teen star, Markees Christmas, is sharing the screen with Craig Robinson.

Although Stella is intelligently made and generally well-acted, there were plenty of dry eyes at a packed preview screening earlier this week. [2 Feb 1990, p.25]

Sommers is so busy spinning his camera, crowding the soundtrack with animal noises and piling on the cheesy visual effects that he can't stop for a reflective moment or a character-revealing touch.

Some of this is fun, some of it is extraneous, and by the end of Muppets From Space it's hard to tell the difference. [14 July 1999, p.E3]