Lisa Alspector

Awful light drama.

Maya Angelou?s very deliberate blocking of the actors charges each movement and line of dialogue with emotion, and the expressive combinations of colors and textures in the settings convey a palpable sense of the environments in which the characters undergo big but believable changes.

Even the revelation of what the fifth element is at the end is disingenuous--in fact, the archness of this whole project is repellent.

Bruce Willis's marvelous performance as a contract killer only makes everything else about this comedy seem more pathetic.

With the devout collaboration of the cast, Williams blurs the boundary between experience and storytelling as if the distinction were not only irrelevant but presumptuous.

The humor is often predictable--minor characters are stereotyped only to be demeaned for easy laughs--but the movie impressively fulfills its larger purpose of making you look at your culture's conventions as such.

One problem leads to another, but because the children's points of view are so powerfully rendered, the plot of this elegant and lightly magical-realist 1997 drama never seems merely coincidental.

The elaborate climax set in a Paris bakery is the least boring part of this trained-animal movie.

A horror comedy with one shocking scene and one very funny one.

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.

Potential irony is everywhere in this movie's subtly surreal situations and candy-colored imagery.

Rodriguez's unironic directing brings out the complexity of characters painfully aware of the stereotypes they represent and allows this gripping, scary, and romantic movie to offer more than factoids about other movies the filmmakers have seen too many times.

This buddy movie grows on you.

Much of this fractured drama and dark fantasy takes place inside the mind of Charlie (Futterman),

This Farrelly brothers "hommage" replicates the mechanics of their work without echoing its spirit or complex tone, and many of the deliberate offenses fail to transcend mere exploitation.

Misguided attempts at political correctness make this serial-killer movie stupid instead of just dull.

The more pathetic the role, the more evident Robin Williams's conscientiousness--but his professionalism doesn't make this fantasy worthwhile.

Time and space are condensed by means both elegant and crafty, and rarely are any of the characters made to be more--or less--than allegorical.

Strives for comprehensive coverage of its theme of forbidden love.

This programmatic male-bonding comedy doesn't even borrow well.

This limp 1998 comedy tries hard to be both irreverent and ethical by suggesting that deceit motivated by self-interest is OK as long as no one gets hurt.

The imposing performances in this chess game between pointedly black and white criminals (Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne) and police detectives (Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, David Caruso) are as impressive as ever.

A story that holds little suspense; we know exactly how happily this animated musical will end--and the wait isn't very diverting.

The grasping novelty of the visuals doesn't rival the uncharismatic leads or the hopelessly, unironically banal plot.

This asthma-inducing adventure set on K2 starts out seeming as if its corny storytelling and phony-looking settings were designed to show that it's as much about genre-movie conventions as anything else.

Spheeris, who includes her offscreen questions, evidently sympathizes with her subjects, though this doesn't stop her from pointing out their hypocrisy.

All the movie's free-form horror phenomena might have been more interesting if the plot didn't keep insisting on a systematic explanation for them.

A straight exploitation story.

It's almost always night and almost always raining.

Somewhat depressive anecdote drawn out to feature length.

All I saw were unimpressive digital effects; artless, quick-cut abstracted gore; and a last-ditch attempt to evoke a visceral response by heaping the climactic scene with bat shit.

The fluidity with which the story frequently makes the transition between the different characters' perspectives is refreshing, even daring.

A persuasively feminine coming-of-age story.

Ludicrous revenge thriller.

By the time the manic camera slows down to reveal the back stories of the characters, everyone's motives are either moot or redundant.

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.

A graceful, understated sense of period allows the behavior of the characters in this love story to be unusually nuanced, making their experiences seem uncontrived as well as archetypal.

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

The conventional ghost-appeasement scenario isn't very suspenseful, which may be part of the reason it's so gripping.

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.

With a distinctively middle-aged zest, Carpenter retools even the hopeless cliche requiring action heroes to spout bad puns while dispatching bad guys; his eminently stylish movie proves that new blood can flow from an old vein.

Overwhelmingly grisly.

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.

Even the melodramatic score can't ruin the essentially serious tenor of this old-style non-self-referential horror story, whose characterizations are unassailable--stereotypical shtick you buy because the performers are working so hard and their faces are so skillfully lit.

A mildly psychological suspense thriller with military trappings.

The scenes set on earth--messy, predictable satire about the commercial exploitation of fevered genius. The unconscious/underworld scenes may be boring because neosurrealism is a cliche.

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.

The draggy narrative of this 1997 comedy is tough to sit through--there are even several overproduced musical numbers--but it does have an intriguing subversive element that I don't want to give away.

This desperately all-ages movie just emphasizes its banality by throwing money and effort into effects and production design at the expense of pacing.

At once self-conscious and generic, this smart monster movie about smart monsters -- supersharks cleverer than the scientist who created them -- repeatedly lulls you into thinking it's paint by numbers.

Many of the gags rely on the incongruity of Grant's nervous, cultured character posing as an Italian-American stereotype, but they're subverted by his earnest relationship with his fiancee, whose affection hardly seems worth the trouble.

The visuals are wild, the sound track has the audacity to underscore the subtext instead of just echoing the obvious, the comedy is irreverent and occasionally slapstick, and the metaphorical details are consistently strong.

As the characters behave with symbolic excess in situations designed to provoke their bigotry and self-interest, superficial black comedy periodically gives way to painful drama.

The actors' serious faces are out of place in this hopelessly silly action conspiracy.

Though the jokey lines seem out of place, the somber tone of this 1998 action movie makes the political subtext -- nearly obscured by the expected double crosses, extravagant destruction, and incongruous-buddies shtick -- more sincere and less grandiose than usual.

Though its startling shifts in tone sometimes seem unmotivated, this dark yet syrupy 1998 romance has an adolescent charm.

The movie's no roller-coaster ride, but there isn't a boring moment either.

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

Engagingly corny drama.

The acting--especially Dreyfuss's ability to roll with the mood swings--is impressive if not redemptive.

It's all very clever but not really provocative - though a layer of political subtext may make the scenario seem funnier and more meaningful.