Jonathan Foreman

It tries to be an update of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" crossed with "Pygmalion," but while it has some funny and even original moments, it's too predictable to be "all that."

After a dreadfully clunky start, Left Luggage picks up and becomes quite moving.

A surprisingly nasty fable about a particularly silly, very English brand of animal-rights extremism.

The originality and intelligence that made Smith's "Clerks" and "Chasing Amy" such refreshing pleasures are all but absent.

Turns out to be a choppily written, unevenly acted exercise, no less shlocky and predictable than any of Hollywood's average second-string heterosexual comedies.

While Star Trek: Nemesis isn't nearly as good as the best Nicholas Meyer-written movies like "The Undiscovered Country," it is far from the worst, thanks to the topical issues it raises, the performances of Stewart and Hardy, and that essential feature -- a decent full-on space battle.

It reeks of contempt for the audience. This is not just a "B-movie" -- it's a B-movie that fails to entertain on any level.

The girl you see stabbing and shooting prisoners and fellow trainees makes the killer from "La Femme Nikita" look like a wuss.

Despite some genuinely funny scenes, American Desi turns out to be inferior to the as yet unreleased "ABCD" and even last year's "Chutney Popcorn."

Shaft is what summer action flicks should be... thanks to superior writing, acting and direction.

The marvelous Burtonic gothic/nightmare production design -- scenery, weaponry, costumes, etc. constantly pleases the eye without ever distracting you from the plot.

Looks and feels like a bad imitation of "Trainspotting" without any of that film's wit or charm.

Two things make this film slightly more interesting than its American B-movie equivalents. There's the artless way it shows the French state exercising its power and the charisma of French stars.

Staggers between flaccid satire and what is supposed to be madcap farce.

Begins exceptionally well. Indeed, for at least its first half it's an unusually thoughtful, admirably underplayed piece of work of disorienting, rather harsh realism that builds its mysteries in pleasurably oblique and unpredictable ways.

This otherwise undistinguished thriller about cloning is the most entertaining movie from the aging action star for some time.

What makes Final Fantasy a final failure is a predictable, nonsensical plot, laughably lame dialogue and a surfeit of cloying environmentalist piety.

Cheerful, slightly cheesy entertainment that uses the latest special-effects techniques to breathe life into a venerable film tradition.

Undeniably powerful, grimly fascinating.

Quickly morphs into a messy double message movie with motifs and clichés lifted from military courtroom films like "A Soldier's Story" and "A Few Good Men."

The first half-hour of Jeepers Creepers is so frightening that it's almost a relief when the movie subsequently collapses into silliness.

Although Scary Movie 3 boasts the same relaxed attitude to racial and sexual humor, some of the same eye for movieland ridiculousness, along with the usual cameos (Pamela Anderson and Simon Cowell), it lacks a single explosive, roll-on-the-floor gag, and too often repeats and belabors jokes that are merely OK.

Despite many flaws...Romance is unquestionably an important film.

By far the best thing about Pitch Black is the cool-looking lighting and photography.

In the end, it is inadequate, juiceless storytelling that deprives Titan A.E. of any dramatic force.

For the most part, it's both sitcomishly predictable and cloying in its attempts to be poignant.

The characters are tired stereotypes, the sentimentality nauseating and the situation comedy way below the standards of the very worst WB or UPN shows.

Greengrass' direction is uninspired, but there is powerful chemistry between a workmanlike Branagh and (real-life girlfriend) Bonham Carter. And her original, seductive and always believable turn as the difficult-but-lovable Jane raises the movie above all its flaws. [23 Dec. 1998, p.44]