Kenneth Turan

Sometimes sweet, sometimes scary, sometimes sour, Oz the Great and Powerful is a film that doesn't know its own mind. A partially effective jumble whose elements clash rather than cohere, this solid but not spectacular effort stubbornly refuses to catch fire until it's almost too late.

With its capacity to surprise, the film comes to life when you don't expect it to, in tiny but wonderfully off-center moments.

Lacking noticeable energy or drive, its almost visceral distaste for dramatic momentum is puzzling, especially in a film about the black arts.

Constrained by the plot of the novel, the film keeps the two lovers apart for quite a spell, robbing the project of the crazy-in-love energy that made "Twilight," the first entry in the series, such a guilty pleasure.

As written by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer, The Legend of Tarzan alternates between a brazenly contemporary sensibility and quietly time-honored events. Unfortunately, almost all of the former are awkward while the latter still ring true.

What results is an intimate, chatty film, both cheeky and thorough, the kind of high-class historical gossip you might get if an eminent Soviet historian like Robert Conquest or Richard Pipes went to work for the National Enquirer.

This Walking Tall does have the Rock, and that, both physically and metaphorically, is no small thing.

Last Action Hero does have occasional moments of humor, but overall it is lacking in fun or magic. [18 Jun 1993, p.1]

Mortal Engines is bursting with everything you’d want except compelling emotional intelligence.

Drags its uninspiring action out too long for anyone's good.

Its story line and performances are no more than serviceable, but those terrible twisters are state of the art.

Too slight to be taken seriously and too off-putting (especially when the phone callers get hostile and the work demeaning) to be funny, Girl 6 feels like the first draft of a potentially interesting project. It just hasn't been made good on here.

On paper it has every advantage, from gifted stars Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston to an established comedy writer-director with a promising idea about a romance between a carefree woman and a worried man. But instead of maximizing those pluses, Along Came Polly so completely fritters them away that even its brief 90 minutes feels unhappily long.

There is nothing to be embarrassed about here, neither is there much to relish, for Mary Reilly has more of the sheen of art than its essence.

Watching it is like being in a room with a couple locked in a torrid embrace. It might be fun for them, but what's in it for everyone else?

The director, a strong technician whose slam-bang emphatic, occasionally operatic style seems made for comic book adaptations, has been well-served by an adept script co-written by Chris Terrio (an Oscar winner for Ben Affleck's "Argo") and David S. Goyer, which raises a number of interesting issues.

A trying experience. As we watch Rochester fall apart in spectacular fashion, it's clear that a major lure for the venturesome Depp was the chance to play a grotesque, to become a pestilent physical wreck with an artificial silver nose. There's more in that role for the actor, however, than there is for us.

Has to fight to hold our attention and it doesn't always succeed.

As enjoyable as this film is in parts, it's not nearly as successful as a whole. Enormously engaging in its opening segments, it's unable to sustain that good feeling over the long haul.

Tiresome, inept farce that's not even a fraction as clever or entertaining as it likes to imagine it is -- a complete waste of time.

Even by the non-Olympian standards of the disaster genre, San Andreas is chock-full of cliché characters, staggering coincidences and wild improbabilities.

If The Mexican proves anything, it's that eccentric features need a particularly delicate touch to be successful. With a film like this, how close you come doesn't matter: Off by a little is as debilitating as off by a lot.

Despite that frisson of naughtiness and the occasional smile, Jersey Girl is overall too bland to hold our interest.

Yet for all its ballyhooed candor about sexual matters, it's a surprisingly baffling and opaque film, too artistic to be standard pornography and too zealously focused on being graphic to the exclusion of all else to succeed as drama.

It's a copy all the way, a disheartening attempt to capitalize on the success of the original.

As (DiCaprio's) character heads for The Beach's predictable heart of darkness denouement, only die-hard fans will have the heart to tag along.

Like a drug that starts with a rush and ends with a headache, Total Recall is too much of a good thing.

Buried under the miscalculations, the shamelessness, the off-putting and inappropriate broadness are sporadically visible souvenirs of a good project gone bad, hints of the unusual, bittersweet story that got away.

It's not objectionable (which is saying something these days) but neither does it have any compelling reason to be seen.

So even at 96 minutes (and padded out with pointless, uncredited cameos by Garry and Penny Marshall) “Hocus” feels thin and undernourished from an adult point of view.

This effects-loaded extravaganza has more trouble finding its dramatic bearings than the Space Family Robinson has in figuring out where the heck in the universe they are.

Dante's Peak is customary for the genre, with convincing special effects sharing screen time with standard-issue characters and situations.

Clocking in at a self-important two hours and 59 minutes, this elongated romantic fable is impossible to sustain at a running time better suited to the fall of the Roman empire.

Those who have even a small soft spot for baseball's soothing rhythms will be hard-pressed to resist it.

A reminder of the difference between exhilaration and exhaustion, between tension and hysteria, between eroticism and exhibitionism. The line may be fine, but it is real enough to separate the great thrillers from the also-rans. And Basic Instinct is not a great thriller.

The characters in this somber film have the glum look of individuals delivering a Very Important Message to the world. And though this film in fact does have something crucial to convey, this is not the way to go about it.

After sitting through M. Butterfly, you'll wonder why they even bothered to try. [01 Oct 1993]

What The Peacemaker doesn't do well, though it tries, is bring much in the way of emotion or character development to the table.

Yet, there is also little doubt that when it comes to extreme physical humor, Carrey is remarkably gifted, a throwback to the vintage antics of Jerry Lewis or even the slapstick gang of silent comedy.

By turns warmly sentimental, serial-killer sinister and science-fiction fantastical, The Lovely Bones was an unlikely book to achieve worldwide success. In the film version, those mismatched elements come back to haunt the story, so to speak, making the final product more hit-and-miss than unblemished triumph.

If Welles was unhappy at the prospect of the human race splitting in two, he probably wouldn't be too crazy with his great-grandson's movie splitting up in pretty much the same way.

A more effective, adult-friendly film than its predecessor.

De Palma clearly did not want to do a conventional thriller, and so his considerable prowess in that area is only occasionally brought to bear. As a result, despite a few finely creepy moments that remind us of his talent, the shocking parts of Raising Cain feel lethargic and lacking in purpose.

This poor film is so shamelessly manipulative and hopelessly bogus it will make you bite your tongue in regret and despair.

Unfortunately, Garner doesn't have as much screen time as her prominence in the advertising would indicate: Daredevil has a hard time staying alive when she's not on the scene.

An ambitious and provocative piece of work that is intriguingly balanced between being a warning and a celebration.

It's not that "Inferno" as it stands doesn't provide hints of better things. The plot has its share of unexpected twists, peripheral characters hold our attention, wide-screen vistas of tourist destinations Florence, Venice and Istanbul are easy to take, and stories involving the end of the world have a certain built-in interest. But as presented on screen, none of this gels as it should.

Well-meaning and convinced it has something of value to say, its "Reach Out and Touch Someone" sensibility ensures that all its satisfactions will prove hollow, and so they do.

Burnt is mildly diverting.

The sheer physical presence of these creatures is much more believable and convincing than what can be generously characterized as the film's plot.

Scattered, phlegmatic and an all-around weak effort, Celebrity turns out instead to be one of Allen's periodic misfires.

Director Michael Bay's filmmaking style is so frantic and frenetic that it's often impossible to figure out exactly what is happening.

If ever a film was made with more money than sense, this is it.

Not the kind of unwatchable mess you might assume a film withheld from reviewers' scrutiny would be. It is, however, something equally unfortunate: a mess you'd rather not be watching.

Haunting almost serves as a reverse image of a successful film, demonstrating by what it lacks exactly what is needed to do things right. [23 July 1999, p.F15]

A reasonably diverting albeit frequently improbable thriller.

Given the subject matter, an exercise in delicacy and restraint was unlikely, but it's too bad that the film's concept is way more entertaining than what has ended up on-screen.

There's no doubt Sandler is talented, but if he persists in believing that, like Elvis, his presence alone covers a multitude of omissions and inconsistencies, he will squander his gift and make a series of forgettable films in the process.

Larry Crowne is an inside-out movie, acceptable around the edges but hollow and shockingly unconvincing at its core. When that core is two of the biggest movie stars around - Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts - it's an especially dispiriting situation.

Another traditional Japanese production, weakly plotted, woodenly acted and indifferently dubbed.

A numbing and dispiriting experience aimed at the least discriminating parts of the teen-age audience.

This may sound thrilling, but it's not. Battleship plays ordinary and pedestrian because it's always been a job for hire, never anyone's passion.

His is a triumph of pure filmmaking, a pitiless, unrelenting, no-excuses war movie so thoroughly convincing it's frequently difficult to believe it is a staged re-creation.

Problematic but involving, Child 44 offers a picture of what individuals did to survive in a world turned upside down. The film's singular premise allows it to survive its various shortcomings, but it is a near-thing.

Turns out to be a film that's interesting in spite of itself. It's less an impartial investigation than an advocacy film, having been hijacked by the members of the "inner sanctum."

If Penélope Cruz were any less attractive, maybe someone would have noticed how dull this mild, would-be romantic fairy tale has turned out.

If there is one moment in The Language of Music that will thrill old rock fans, it's watching Dowd, his fluid hands moving with a surgeon's grace, remix for the film's benefit the 24-track sub-master of "Layla."

Sporadically funny, often strange and almost never poignant.

The most disheartening line in 187 is its last, written in bold type across the screen just before the credits roll: "A teacher wrote this movie." It's enough to make you weep, and not just because it's painful to think that this muddled and manipulative film was penned by someone in a position to mold impressionable minds. [30 Jul 1997, p.F1]

Part outer-space romantic comedy, part science-fiction thriller, Passengers leave us feeling we’ve been taken for a ride.

Taking issue with efforts like The Salton Sea, cold and unemotional films that couldn't be more pleased at the opportunity to enthusiastically drag audiences through unhappy material, is as futile as getting mad at the wind.

Though audiences will leave theaters with an increased appreciation of this pair's talents, they will also leave pondering the perennial Hollywood question: How come so little of interest could be found for performers who are capable of so much more?

Chappie is a movie about the evolution of artificial intelligence that's as dumb as a post. It also marks the continuing devolution of the work of director and co-writer Neill Blomkamp.

The latest in what feels like an endless string of movies ... in which the actor's parts have ruinously overdosed on sentimentality and schmaltz at the expense of humor and even sanity.

The truth is that two other films with Greengrass' name on them, "The Bourne Supremacy" and "The Bourne Ultimatum," have spoiled us for this kind of thriller filmmaking, and stacked against that, Vantage Point doesn't have a chance.

Marvelously colorful, casually inventive and completely wacky, The King and the Mockingbird just might be the best animated film of the year.

Seeing a movie that doesn’t know the meaning of shameless, that refuses to worry about plausibility, that acts as if subtlety hadn’t been invented yet, does have a very basic kind of intrinsically cinematic pull.

This intriguing hybrid is dramatically involving only when the shooting - with real bullets, naturally - gets underway.

The plotting is so leaden and the fire fights so pro forma that not even the sight of the three Shafts in action can keep this film from sinking under its own weight. Yes, the great Isaac Hayes music makes an appearance, but the old days are gone and they are not coming back.

Suicide Squad is a concept in search of a story worth telling. Both energized and betrayed by its “Worst.Heroes.Ever” theme and writer-director David Ayer’s trademark visceral filmmaking, it ends up in a kind of limbo, not as strong as partisans will insist or as worthless as its weakest elements would have you believe.

Ought to be disreputable fun. Instead it ends up, all its explosions and exposed flesh notwithstanding, rather inert.

While the result is not flawless, this is a polished, impressive attempt that pays off in the end. It may take awhile to get there, but its themes of loss, longing, heartache and betrayal, not to mention the nature and value of beautiful objects, do ultimately move us.

The result is exposition overkill and a dragged-out finale that turns what should have been a Tear Duct Special into a deflating experience, making what worked in the book unacceptable on the screen.

Salerno, as if he's unsure of what he's got, goes to great lengths to heighten the drama with crisp editing, a strong score, frequent sound effects and snappy visuals.

If, as the Virgil quote that starts the film claims, fortune favors the bold, Alexander has not been nearly bold enough.

Began life as a comic book, and screenwriters Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, ever respectful of that lineage, have not allowed the film's dialogue or plot points to rise above their cartoonish origins.

The combination of restrained writing and direction and top-of-the-line acting is enough to make even confirmed agnostics want to believe in this unashamed fairy tale.

Jupiter Ascending is best during its purely visual moments, of which there are many... All of which makes it a shame that the only sense the Wachowskis can count on is their visual one.

The latest in Hollywood's almost biblical procession of disaster films, Deep Impact tries with moderate success to be more than just the sum of its special effects.

The film sacrifices playfulness and humor to concentrate on a relentless display of elaborate but ho-hum gadgets and gizmos.

This contemporary remake of the science-fiction classic knew what it was doing when it cast Keanu Reeves, the movies' greatest stone face since Buster Keaton.

By the time Duets faces the music, hardly anyone is going to care.

Some movies make you sorry you've seen them, and The Cell is one of those. Creepy and horrific, it's a torture chamber film.

It's a solid, efficient comic book movie that is content to provide comic book satisfactions of the action and violence variety.

More science-fiction space opera than superhero epic, it works in fits and starts as its disparate parts go in and out of effectiveness, but the professionalism of the production make it watchable in a comic book kind of way.

The result is a calculated, cynical piece of business that epitomizes the creative bankruptcy and contempt for the audience that infects so much of the blockbuster side of Hollywood.

A somewhat diverting but finally disappointing thriller, it is characterized by a premise even Pat Buchanan could love: If you so much as think about straying from the marital straight and narrow, all heck is sure to break loose.

It's doubtful that records are kept about this sort of thing, but consider the possibility that Clash of the Titans is the first film to actually be made worse by being in 3-D.

May not be the most tedious superhero movie ever - the competition is admittedly tough - but it is certainly in the running.

Though the cast ends up looking good, the film's unwillingness or inability to have things add up hurts everyone's efforts.

The visual allure of this production is undeniable, but having the nerve to be simple and nice all the way through is, even for Disney, verging on being a lost art.

Sometimes glossy, sometimes hard-edged, the film alternates between glitz and unpleasantness and ends as a kind of glum soap opera, too glam to be bleak and too bleak to be so glam.

An audacious, brilliantly twisted movie, infused with touches of genius and of madness. A disturbing meditation on the interconnected nature of love and obsession disguised as a penny dreadful shocker. [13 Oct 1996, p.C5]

Runaway Bride's Josann McGibbon & Sara Parriott script is so muddled and contrived, raising issues only to ignore them or throw them away, you wonder why so many people embraced it.

Though Reign of Fire's concept of a humans-versus-dragons smackdown is a good one, the way it's worked out on screen is more silly than compelling.

Even by sequel standards, a minimal amount of creativity has gone into Sister Act 2, and not even the talents of its cast, including several likable young people, can compensate for this thrown-together feeling.

Like "The Addams Family" before it, this is one of those clever, lively and ultimately wearying pieces of showy Hollywood machinery where a glut of creativity has gone into the visuals with only scraps left over for the plot and the dialogue. [27 May 1994 Pg.F1]

It's clever, amusing, clever, visually inventive, clever, well-cast .

The thrill is definitely gone, leaving a disappointing and unpleasant mess in its place.

Forced, heavy-handed and overdone, it's a pretend serious film that offers crass manipulation in the place where honesty is supposed to be.

As directed by Timur Bekmambetov, this 21st century Ben-Hur is more phlegmatic than awful, a by and large dull and lethargic piece of work that is not bad enough to get mad at. What it lacks most of all is a convincing reason to exist.

Emotional and analytical by turn, The Case Against 8 is a thoroughly engaging documentary.

With moments of odd, dark humor sprinkled among the violence, this traditional study of psycho kittens in love breaks just enough new ground to be an impressive piece of work.

The film's underlying concept is so irredeemably screwy and far-fetched that no amount of fine work can hope to make it convincing.

The kindest thing that can be said about Sandler's sense of humor is that it's unapologetically juvenile.

If you're in the mood for seeing a Lothario humbled by true love, you're in luck. You may wish, however, that Made of Honor had given its stars something more of interest to occupy their time. And ours.

Its twisty film noir world of down-on-their-luck men and unfathomable women is vintage B-picture material, but, in the grand B tradition, the games it plays are more ambitious than successful.

Striptease isn't in the kind of shape Demi Moore is. While her role as exotic dancer Erin Grant has the actress buffed and toned enough for the cover of Muscle & Fitness, the film itself could use a lot more definition. [28 Jun 1996, p.F1]

Such a classic combination of feckless dramaturgy and rampant excess that giving way to giggles is the only sane response.

There is a moment in The Tourist when Johnny Depp turns to Angelina Jolie and asks "Why is all this happening?" It's a question moviegoers will be asking themselves as well.

So over-plotted that it's borderline incomprehensible.

The Lone Ranger exists without a convincing sense of jeopardy or, more critically, any place for audiences to emotionally connect.

Pedestrian and awkward, this film is a disappointment not only in comparison with Lee's earlier epic, the underrated " Malcolm X," but also in comparison with another film with similar aims, Rachid Bouchareb's "Days of Glory."

Zaillian (an Oscar winner for his "Schindler's List" screenplay) has given us an intricate, subtly rewarding narrative whose uncompromising nature and undeniable moral seriousness make it far from business as usual, even in the ever-decreasing world of quality Hollywood filmmaking.

But the result is no more than a forced fable, a self-consciously smarty-pants concoction that is too clever by half and too pleased with itself in the bargain.

If you're in the mood for a hip-hop film with more happy faces than "The Partridge Family," Honey will divert you.

Wants to be an honest look at the problems that can beset a modern marriage, and be funny at the same time, but it doesn't have the skills or the temperament to pull all that off.

Cutthroat Island is a bloated, jokey production whose motto, no doubt tattooed on the back of some poor assistant director's neck, could well be, When in doubt, blow something up.

Does go on too long, leading to inevitable dead spots.

It is sad, truly sad, to have to report that Color of Night is a disappointment in almost every respect.

If they had to make things up, couldn't they have made up something smarter?

Though it wasn't planned this way, it's an amusing exercise to view A Man Apart as an allegory for the war in Iraq.

The Canyons is a bad accident everyone saw coming, and now it is here.

Half science-fiction tale, half espionage thriller, it's a pleasantly far-fetched endeavor that moves along so briskly that it leaves no time to consider its implausibilities, which are many.

Sporadically effective, it appears not to have particularly excited the people who made it, and that lackadaisical quality is a drawback.

This is Short's picture, and though he can do no wrong in it, he is not in a position to carry the whole thing. His fans will dutifully trek to it, laughing at his skill and wondering when Hollywood will finally do him justice. It's a hell of a good question.

Given the polyglot nature of the cast, with actors from at least five countries taking their best shots at the English language, it's unclear why Cage felt he needed an accent or, stranger still, why it took him a reported seven months to come up with this one.

How feeble a movie is Stolen Summer? So feeble they've just about buried the title on the film's own poster.

Though the photographs are memorable, the photographer is not.

It ought to be delightful, but it isn't.

It may be standard-issue stuff, but it looks great and it almost makes you nostalgic for the days when stuntmen reigned supreme and mayhem and computers never knew how much they had in common.

A slick piece of summer entertainment that is counting on elaborate special effects to make its derivative, convoluted story line all but irrelevant.

It has a tendency to run ragged and spends an unhealthy amount of time idling pointlessly at intersections.

Director Paul Anderson, whose last film was "Mortal Kombat," well knows how to build suspense and increase tension. But counterbalancing all of that is Event Horizon's position as a sci-fi splatter film, intent on drenching the screen in blood and gore whenever possible. [15Aug1997 Pg 16]

Kind of like a basketball team of all-stars -- no names, please -- that has difficulty jelling into one smooth and efficient unit.

Simultaneously jokey and scary, sentimental and ruthless, tediously everyday and grotesquely out of the ordinary.

Expendables 3 is a kind of ho-hum experience, wherein a lot of bullets are expended and a lot of structures exploded to minimal dramatic effect.

As forgettable as the humor is the film's predictable portrayal of adults as clueless, overbearing cretins.

The script is muddled and unsatisfying, as ponderous on its feet as its protagonists are in their heavy diving suits.

Mostly I Spy, with more dead spots than a Jerry Lewis telethon, is content to mark time. That gives us, and perhaps the cast as well, the opportunity to reflect on how satisfying this film could have been if anyone had thought it worth their while to provide real material for the talent to work with.

It's a wonderful piece of filmmaking, but once any mouth is opened the magic is immediately tarnished.

Both audacious and unwieldy, exciting and excessive, this dark thriller is too long, too violent and not always convincing. But at the same time, there's no denying that it's onto something, that its savage indictment of the nexus involving media, crime and a voracious public is a cinematic statement difficult to ignore.

Despite its pro-forma nature, the setup for Siberia — a lone hero in over his head in an unfamiliar world — actually starts out well but refuses to play out in satisfying ways.

So unashamedly confusing, so intent on piling twist upon twist upon twist, it makes your head hurt just trying to figure out what's happened.

10,000 BC is as crazy as it wants to be, plundering the past and other movies with that peculiar Hollywood combination of the earnest and the preposterous that can result in the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.

Zoolander 2 defines haphazard. You may smile at times, but not as often as you'd like.

Seems merely tired and stale, the opposite of fresh, marked by ideas for jokes rather than things that are actually funny. Then, without warning, it goes from inept to complete disaster, sinking from indifferent to fiasco in the blink of an eye.

The Mummy does have elements that are effective, especially Sofia Boutella in the title role, but with all the hurly-burly on screen the virtues get lost in the shuffle.

The film's political philosophy, as much as it has one, is of the "a plague on both your houses" variety, painting the rebels and the CIA as equally fixated on killing innocent civilians for their own nefarious ideological ends. We've seen it all before, and we'll likely see it all again.

Almost completely lacking in genuine thrills. Even the attractive presence of star Angelina Jolie can't keep this leaden, plodding, completely underwhelming film from playing like "Lara Croft: Yawn Inducer."

The result inevitably pushes too hard at times and can't help but stray into melodrama, yet the film does an admirable job of transplanting the novel's thoughtful concerns into a fast-moving suspense context.

Because the series' plot reveal turns out to be more confusing than compelling, and because turning a novel into two films invariably leads to inflated productions, only the most devoted fans of the book will pledge allegiance to what's on the screen.

This aggressively stupid film is merely business as usual, a compendium of all the current obsessions and fixations that make so many of these films such unhappy experiences.

The problem overall is not so much that the humor, especially in the parent-tryout situations, is forced, but that it simply is not there at all. So little is going on in this mildest of fantasies that it is hard to even guess what kinds of emotional effects were aimed at in the first place.

The best thing that can be said about this lethargic coming-of-age tale, noticeably undernourished at 78 minutes, is that it's better than the even more pathetic "Stolen Summer."

This is a surprisingly dull and tedious affair where nothing is even remotely plausible, the romance and the sex least of all.

Hollow, simple-minded and about as profound an experience as stepping in a pile of road kill.

With no plot, character or dialogue worth experiencing, let alone remembering, the film merely occupies space on the screen and hopes for the best.

Watching Jade is such a hollow experience it’s hard to work up the energy to dismiss it. A movie where the car chases have more personality than the people, its monotone acting and recycled plot make one wonder, not for the first time, how something this tired ever got made.

This is a Laura Ashley on Safari meditation on bored rich people searching for fulfillment and a new life among the photogenic wildlife of Kenya. Just wake me when it's over.

Decadence has rarely looked so pathetic, lethargic and dispiriting as it does in this listless film.

Misconceived, misguided and a completely miserable viewing experience, this is one to avoid at all costs and for all time. [06 May 1994]

The four actors are very good, and it's a shame they aren't working from a more focused and original concept. Written by Fusco and Michael Garrity, there's nothing awful about Stealing Time except that it mixes familiar ingredients with pretty bland results.

That rare comic book movie that actually feels like a comic book. Which turns out to be mostly, but not entirely, a good thing.

The laugh lines are mostly crude and the prevalent slapstick is weak and uneventful.

Even in thriller terms, nothing rings remotely true here, with even the baseball action--including a game that is not called despite enough rain to unnerve Noah--laced with a heavy dose of preposterousness.

Rock is undisputably gifted and charismatic, but when Down to Earth takes his edge away, the film's energy goes with it. And without energy, no comedy can survive.

Both impossible to take seriously or seriously dislike.

Steve Jobs is a smart, hugely entertaining film that all but bristles with crackling creative energy. What it is not is a standard biopic.

The hard truth is that the line between being deadly earnest and unintentionally silly is thinner than these people think, and Beyond Borders turns out to be an unreal film about a real situation, unavoidably cartoonish, as was the earlier "Tears of the Sun," in its attempt to join crucial issues to ridiculous melodrama.

A kind of dirty fairy tale in which people with nasty attitudes inhabit a trash-talking, macho world of fast cars and complaisant women.

A painfully contrived and artificial exercise in futility.

It is an acceptable enough thriller, neither the worst you've seen nor the opposite.

A striking new documentary that shows the war in a way it's not been seen before: from the ground up.

While the new film is certainly serviceable, it's noticeably lacking in warmth and humor, and though its visual strengths are real and considerable, from a dramatic point of view it's ponderous and plodding.

The Road is a road you'll wish hadn't been taken. Not because anything's been badly done, but because there's a serious imbalance in the complicated equation between what the film forces us to endure and what we end up receiving in return.

Though the new film has some good things, it does not have enough of them to make the third time the charm.

Because it is fearlessly sincere and not totally successful, Winter's Tale is easy to mock. But it is also hard not to admire its willingness to go all out in its quest for the grandest of romantic gestures.

Jack is more depressing than the weight of its demerits because of the quality of the work both these men have done before.

This is a film that almost is not there.

Turns out to be a muddled limp biscuit of a movie, a vampire soap opera that doesn't make much sense even on its own terms.

Not bad in the aggressive, ambitious, over-the-top way that “Showgirls” epitomized. “Two If by Sea” is more like a zero, an inert lump of a movie with so little going on that fidgety viewers can sneak out for a hot dog or some popcorn and return without fear of having missed anything significant.

Chan is still able to project the boyishness and insecurity of the new kid on the block. But even those aren't enough to make Tuxedo a black-tie affair.

A haphazard film about half as sophisticated as the average beer commercial.

Like many other overprepared athletes, the players in Body of Evidence left their best game in the locker room. [15 Jan 1993, p.F1]

Harlin's skill compensates for a lot of narrative preposterousness, even it is overmatched this time around.

Goofy and gee-whiz when it isn't being post-apocalyptic glum, it is such an earnest hodgepodge that only by imagining "Mad Max" directed by Frank Capra can you get even an inkling of what it's like.

Lacking most kinds of inspiration and geared to undemanding minds, this project is so overloaded with hardware and stunts, it's a relief to have it over.

Essentially a late-'90s MTV version of "The Exorcist," a half-serious, half-silly piece of business that keeps us involved despite (or maybe because of) being more than a little overdone.

By coddling viewers and micromanaging our responses, The Other Sister shows almost as little respect for the audience as Elizabeth does for her feisty, underappreciated daughter.

A Good Day to Die Hard plays like an extended victory lap for star Bruce Willis and the entire "Die Hard" franchise. Not surprising, but not overwhelmingly entertaining either.

Loaded as it is with undeveloped notions about feminism and individuality, nothing about it is really memorable except the appealing musicality of the fine k.d. lang/Ben Mink score, which deserves better. [20 May 1994]

Main lure is what feels like a very authentic visual sense of the nontourist side of Kingston, where the ambience of zinc-walled shacks wallpapered with old newspapers is captured by cinematographer Richard Lannaman.

Landais has made a version of Aspern that is too often uncertain and unconvincing despite the good work of his female stars. And when the actresses leave the screen and the film ventures into ill-advised flashback territory, things get shakier still.

Any movie whose computer-generated effects are more believable than its actors is asking for trouble. A frustrating combination of the magical and the mundane, Dragonheart has less difficulty creating a creditable dragon than a recognizable human being. [31 May 1996, p.F1]

The Majestic isn't. Rather it's "The Film That Wasn't There," a derivative, self-satisfied fable that couldn't be more treacly and simple-minded if it tried. And it tries, oh, how it tries.

A bad movie for connoisseurs of the genre.

Becomes unfocused as it stumbles over all the points it wants to make.

A clever and outrageous piece of whimsical fantasy that is unique, unpredictable and more than a little strange.

If Fantastic Four is pleasantly different in its introductory segment, once those super powers kick in, the whole film goes into a more standard gear.

While part of the film offers the expected, unsparingly violent action tropes typical of the series, there’s another aspect to the story, a surprisingly brooding examination of a warrior in winter, a dark story of a berserker who can’t let go, that’s in its own way bleaker and more despairing than we may be expecting.

A misguided romantic serio-comedy aimed at women and gay men that ends up caricaturing both.

Lacking the combustible Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas in leading roles, Showgirls descends into incoherent tedium. Though the filmmakers' incessant talk about vision, artistry and honest self-expression lead one to expect a sexually explicit biopic about the Dalai Lama, what is in fact provided is depressing and disappointing as well as dehumanizing.

Not only have bothersome plot changes been made, but the entire tone of the book has been transformed from tension to tongue-in-cheek with dismal results.

What's most interesting about this new film is how lacking it is in any of the things, from humor to emotion to halfway decent acting, we might go to a movie for. There's not even enough here to get mad at.

Though it displays enough perils to put a dent in future cruise ship sales, the film has a makeshift, slapdash quality that is the opposite of its predecessor.

Despite a wealth of special effects...this movie is surprisingly inert, more dull than anything else, with little to recommend it on any level.

Those foolhardy enough to place themselves at the mercy of 8MM can expect the following emotions: disgust and revulsion, then anger, followed by a profound and disheartening sadness. There are some films whose existence makes the world a worse place to live, and this is one of them.

One of those movies that makes you want to throw up your hands in despair, disgust, or maybe both.

Airbender, whether intentionally or not, is pegged almost exclusively to a small-fry state of mind.

Even Willis seems a bit bewildered at times, as if asking himself how he managed to get into such a mess. [24 May 1991]

Doomed to be inconsequential and forgettable.

Don't imagine there is any reason to see Fair Game.

Amiable and upbeat though it is, the documentary Hollywood to Dollywood lacks a compelling reason to see it. Unless you are a Dolly Parton zealot, which its two protagonists definitely are.

[An] engrossing, unexpectedly moving documentary.

By detailing the enormous pride in who they are and what they do that lacrosse instills in the Iroquois, it provides the kind of window into another culture’s belief system that sports films rarely attempt.

Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman is an involving film that tells a more complicated story than its unexciting title would indicate.

Experiencing Beast of Burden's inept dialogue and uninspiring direction on screen is a continual trial.

While the film's masterful imagery — this might be the coldest, snowiest western ever — and inventive Ennio Morricone score are spectacular, less audience friendly is a nihilistic, revisionist denouement that apocalyptically subverts the genre's norms.

When you add in the tip-top tension created by the legendary break itself, not to mention the verisimilitude of shooting in a recently decommissioned prison, you end up with a small film with an impressive impact. Those who take a chance on Maze will not be disappointed.

An intimate, intensely dramatic film that holds us in its grip like a page-turning novel. Except it’s all true.

This coolly passionate film mostly deals with Stevenson’s thoughts rather than his life, providing an involving examination and analysis of the ideas (and ideals) that consume the man’s every waking moment.