John Hartl

While writer-director Frank Darabont often fails to make King's story plausible, that's no fault of the actors. The performances are the movie's strong suit.

Is there an audience left that really wants to see these games played one more time? Kaplan doesn't have his heart in these scenes. They lack the playful ambiguity of the movie's early episodes, which indicate that Pete might have reasons for his defensive brutality, that the wife just might be encouraging Pete's infatuation, and that her husband might be less heroic than he pretends to be. [26 June 1992, p.20]

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]

While Mo' Better Blues is quite tolerable entertainment, it's skin-deep stuff, and not much of a stretch for the actors. [03 Aug 1990, p.3]

The finale to this uneven movie makes the most of Hart’s gift for physical comedy.

Stone Cold may be the morally bankrupt nadir of what is so far one of Hollywood's worst years. [17 May 1991, p.3]

Eisenstein in Guanajuato is an outrageous comic-erotic extravaganza that has more of a narrative arc than most Greenaway movies.

Too long, too predictable.

Its pretensions eventually undo it.

Haneke carefully and ingeniously presents the boy's point of view without sympathizing with him. He then does the same with his horrified but protective parents. [18 Nov 1994, p.G35]

For all its flaws, Fantasia 2000 is certainly something to see.

Big effects; threadbare story.

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]

The ride in this road movie isn't always as smooth as it could be, but even the bumps have some charm.

Neither the sophisticated teen comedy it wants to be nor the routine Disney slapstick number it sometimes becomes, it doesn't know what it is. [14 Feb 1997]

A sophomore writing-directing effort from former film critic Rod Lurie.

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]

There's too much feedback and some of the numbers are allowed to go on, Grateful Dead style, but the movie means to invoke a trance, and often it succeeds. [29 Oct 1997, p.C1]

The story moves beyond the limitations of its setting, transforming itself into an affecting parable about the lengths to which parents will go to protect their children from trauma, cruelty and knowledge of evil.

The pace is swift, archival clips are well-chosen and conspiracy theories pile up in a way that seems intentionally funny.

Carrey's performance, and Forman's lively attempts to ask serious questions about the nature of comedy, keep it interesting. Certainly it's never dull.

The format couldn't be slighter or more familiar, yet this Australian film-festival favorite is one of the freshest romantic comedies of the season. [11 Apr 1997, p.F5]

There's an anger and rawness here that fit hand-in-glove with Bruce Springsteen's "Badlands," which serves as the opening song. [3 Apr 1992, p.28]

Patric gives the character dignity and righteousness, but he and the narrator end up drowning the finale in noble speeches. [10 Dec 1993, p.G30]

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]

The biggest problem with "Going All the Way" is that, despite the genuine eccentricity of Davies' performance and the charismatic smoothness of Affleck's work, the material lacks the freshness it must have had when the book was first published. [10 Oct 1997]

The problem with most movies about junkies is that they're really not about anything but getting high, crashing and screwing up. The problem with most movies about writers is that they can't demonstrate a writer's talent. Put the two together and you've got Permanent Midnight. [18 Sep 1998, p.H6]

Maybe there's a serious movie to be made about professional soldiers who can't thaw out now that the Cold War is melting. But The Fourth War plays like Laurel and Hardy's Tit For Tat in slow motion. [23 Mar 1990, p.24]