Lisa Alspector

All of this comedy's jokes are old.

Despite the practical nature of the costars' bond, I spent most of the lukewarm actioner wondering when the hell they were going to start kissing.

For all the high-tech allusions and middle-tech illusions, the movie--the 23rd in an immortal series--draws its power from its grittiness and unresolved allegory.

Time-travel cliches, female characters who exert authority only so we'll laugh at the pussy-whipped males, dialogue that's neither self-mocking nor serious, and an ostentatious though not particularly exciting production design keep the movie from taking off.

The consistency with which the plot turns on characterization instead of contrivance makes this movie better than many of its supposedly grown-up competitors.

The material is powerful--one boxer has been accused of a crime and the trial conflicts with a crucial competition--but much of it feels predigested, the themes inadvertently one-dimensional.

The violence is suggested in a way that's neither overwhelming nor insulting to a child's intelligence as this crafty fairy tale ultimately finds a way for human and vampire characters to live and let live.

Against the lush backdrop of the Andes, Crowe and Caruso define on-screen cool: good guys in a match of wits and firepower who even talk about their emotions.

This bright noir, with gleaming cinematography by Jeffrey Jur, is as single-minded as a short story, but the premise is almost too clever.

A standard mix of performances, interviews, and gimmickry -- the image and sound sometimes loop or jump in a tiresomely literal attempt to translate the techniques of scratching and "beat juggling" into cinema.

The filmmakers show habitual thriller viewers some respect by condensing the background story into iconic sound and image bites during the opening-credits sequence, suggesting they know we get the drill; this and the other stylish elements make it all the more disappointing that the movie's mediocre.

Even though I appreciate this movie's craft, I wish I hadn't seen it. It's a heady, progressive -- or perhaps elaborately conservative? -- romance, but it's also a tale of terrible suffering.

Big laughs are few and far between in this 1998 movie, which is more successful as motivational anecdote than as comedy.

The twists and revelations of this rigorous noir reduce it to canned psychodrama.

The deliberately obvious equating of knife throwing with sex would be funnier if it weren't so serious, and the undercut eroticism is part of what makes the movie themeless, merely a conceptual exercise.

Whether the story's bald ironies are historical cliches or just dramatic ones, they convey only platitudes about gender, sexuality, and power.

As personal and political agendas mix, with deadly results, director Jim Sheridan parallels the moderated violence of boxing with the unchecked violence of terrorism.

Told from too many perspectives, the narrative puts suspense above substance, and its social consciousness seems contrived.

Has an adolescent energy and a tempered sexuality.

The force of the social criticism is diminished by contrivance and the inclusion of peripheral material.

The payoff matters at least as much as the setup, and this story's secret is way too easy to guess.

This concept comedy-drama would be even better if the intercutting among households had been timed to add dramatic content rather than simply advance the subplots.

Arch yet earnest.

Insights about romance are enhanced by the novel production design, which includes puppetry, but the story's reflexivity is smug and cloying.

A realist mode that strains credibility; it's tenuous and inflexible -- and easily ruptured by the contrived irony in Jimmy McGovern's screenplay.

Inspired, self-referential animated musical.

Writer-director Aiyana Elliott gives her father his due in this evenhanded yet impassioned documentary.

Though it strives for broad humor, pushing cuteness and light irony, this bland 1998 movie isn't exactly a comedy.

Antonio Banderas signs up for charisma lessons from Anthony Hopkins -- but they just don't take.

Unfortunately the allegory tends to overpower the characterizations even as it deepens them.

The movie, which leans too heavily on the metaphorical value of the two historic events, dives from heady romance into heavy moralizing.

The clunky plot is set in Santa Fe, and includes a foil character who might as well wear a sign on his forehead.

It's hard to tell whether these characters are meant to seem as staunchly symbolic as they do when they deliver some of the back-story-heavy dialogue.

Though I hate to ruin the complex experience of following a rather calm story about a lonely widower as it becomes something else, I feel obliged to point out that the hard-core gore and soft-core surrealism of this baroque morality play may not support any theme.

All the comedy, tragedy, and various obstacles to romance seem to have been contrived to divert the story from its tendency toward pulp erotica.

This 1998 movie is essentially a compilation of things-aren't-what-they-seem games played on the viewer; all its little tricks, including Ricci's snide and smart-alecky voice-overs about movie conventions, are really old--except one. But it's not worth the wait.

Takes too long to get its themes and characters out on the field.

Doesn't quite support the weight of its allegory.

The ultimately uncomplicated view of sexual and emotional violence in a family is only tragic, not insightful.

This brash shocker by John Sayles—who wrote, directed, and edited—is bound to annoy as many people as it intrigues.

The connection between his boasting about killing and killing so he can boast about it -- is made beautifully insidious.

Until the story diverges from a similar agenda, the gags about the daily grind and what happens when a drone forgets how to be submissive make for beautifully low-key satire, and the caricatures of office types seem clever.

An admirable if frequently soporific 1992 adaptation of Norman Maclean's account of life in Missoula, Montana.

It's marvelous or unwatchable.

This engrossing animated thriller (2000) somehow displays realist gore, nudity, and sexual violence in a tone not too far from that of a children’s adventure; its innocence stems in part from the convincing naivete of the heroine.

Partly because the seducer's technique is methodical--as a former conquest explains to the naive heroine--the movie's answers are too easy.

Blends extremes of violence and humor to create an irreverent tone that nullifies everything; the plot is so clever it crushes the characterization, making all the action seem perfunctory.

Not even supercool Robert De Niro can enliven this boring tale about a team of mercenary operatives.

Writer-director James Toback must believe his audience is hopelessly prudish if he thinks this pedantic story, which takes place over several hours in a Manhattan loft, is provocative.

This eerily dry drama bravely attempts to show, without resorting to the literal staging of contradictory scenarios, how much perceptions of the same situation can vary.

Tiresome, blood-filled comedy.

The idiosyncratic instrumentation and melodies in the score by Angelo Badalamenti ("Blue Velvet") and a masterful opening scene are wasted on this pathetic thriller.

Beautifully regenerates the Jay Ward TV show its characters were based on.

The narrative emphasizes coincidences, but they're nicely understated. If it didn't seem gimmicky and self-indulgent...the movie might be more affecting.

The lesson of this barely stylish crime thriller is that a dull story is not improved by withholding information about characters' motives from the audience as long as possible.

Though the questionable motives and bad planning of offscreen characters who far outrank Gibson make it difficult to take at face value one soldier's last words -- "I'm glad I could die for my country" -- some viewers will, which may be as the filmmakers intended.

Grisman presents, with a sense of humor, the apparent contradictions of a complex personality.

The vicarious catharsis offered by this adaptation of Anna Quindlen's novel is as efficient as that of any family-affected-by-illness drama.

This 1998 romantic comedy mostly bores with its cumbersome exposition and close-ups of trivial objects scattered throughout lackluster montage sequences.

Instead of a credible main character this 1999 button pusher has lots of showy cinematography and generic dread.

Its charm and humor will be overshadowed for some by the exploitation of gay stereotypes--which is ironic, since their arch usage ultimately allows the movie to be progressive, if only slightly.

Whedon and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen") bend over so far backward to make Weaver's and Ryder's roles beefy that they end up mocking the characters' bravura.

Lots of men cry lots of tears in this supremely self-indulgent, supremely moving documentary about making a documentary.

The ingenious if erratic slickness is disorienting and makes the movie more like drama than journalism.

The makers of this eclectically animated adventure, a follow-up to "The Rugrats Movie," know their audience, though all the "Godfather" references will be thoroughly puzzling to at least half of it.

Yet another unironic war movie.

This early-1900s costume drama surely differs from Henry James's source novel.

Engagingly corny drama.

The precredits sequence is exciting--it's the only part of the movie that even begins to use the idea of the vulnerability of a horror-movie audience reflexively. The rest of the story is a straightforward narrative that's threatening only to the ingenues in the cast.

With minimalist and universal fantasies as their points of departure, the superheroic deeds evolve only incrementally beyond the realistic -- a deeply satisfying process.

The contrast between Tucker's motormouth and Chan's man of few words should be funnier, but the plot -- which is cliched without quite becoming self-reflexive -- and the uneven pace dampen most of their moments.

Director Ron Howard makes too much of camera and editing tricks, as if momentarily confusing us about where a character is or which character's point of view the movie is taking will somehow deepen the narrative.

Much of the three-hour movie takes place in the prison, but the resonant characterization, expansive plotting, and judicious use of exterior locations and flashbacks remove any sense of claustrophobia or sluggishness.

The gangster-movie plot, themes, and allusions aren't nearly as intriguing as the earnestly kitschy black-and-white wide-screen images or the mesmerizing, minimalist sound effects.

Stodgy storytelling and a hyperbolic score reduce their experiences to melodrama.

Hokey.

Nicely toned.

Because so many female characters spend so much time trying to seduce Harrelson (usually successfully), the notion that multiplicity enhances intrigue is pretty worn out by the time any duplicity is revealed.

Sometimes come together exquisitely.

Mined for comedy and milked for drama, though what results is diminished by the very framing device contrived to punch it up.

The rest of these animated sequences...depend on gimmickry, cuteness, or facile ideology, and don't come close to demonstrating the complex relationship between sound and image found in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

Poor execution sometimes points up the difference between the telling of a story and the story itself--in this case, without diminishing the power of the latter.

Elmo's obsessive reaction is never examined, compromising the ability of this rambling minor spectacle to put across its obvious lesson about sharing.

The coincidences that make the destined lovers' paths cross aren't contrived with much finesse, but the characters get in some decidedly clever lines.

Though it suggests intriguing ideas about the nature of performance, humor, ambition, and the consumption of spectacle, the movie only superficially explores them.

In a lumbering way, this depressing feel-good drama about the impact of cancer on two children, their divorced parents, and the father's girlfriend offers some useful insights into how feelings of jealousy and betrayal can limit the potential of family relationships.

The script, which infantilizes one of the older siblings as much as the father does, undermines its own admonitions against parents and adult children meddling in one another's lives.

The new sexism -- the old sexism plus the idea that everything is ironic -- is getting old.

Cliched narrative, which isn't funny as often as seems intended.

The filmmakers have created a pretentious extended "Twilight Zone" episode with obscenely high production values.

This atmosphere-heavy drama, with its comfortably quirky characters, elegant performances, and ever shifting tone, is so innocuous it's not worth panning.

Nobody ever shuts up in this schmaltzy, mannered drama.

The plot is more convenient than intriguing, the characters more cartoonish than iconic--especially the heroine, who grapples with feminism in a way that should have been fascinating.

There's tenderness, humor, a gratuitous body double, and splashy lighting in this ho-hum action drama, which takes itself at times too seriously and at other times not seriously enough.

Slower, more earnest, and not as gory.

Would be sweeter if the fair maiden weren't such a pill and more exciting if the villain weren't quite so nasty.

DeVito's low-key midlife crisis is consistently moving, but Spacey, saddled with the role of provocateur, is demonically boring.

A musical number or two might have balanced the overdetermined politics and spectacle in this version.