Mark Caro

Just say no.

If you like Redford, Spy Game will be a real treat: a fast electric thriller full of the old Sundance charm and pizzazz.

As Cruel Intentions progresses, you may come to realize that if a bomb suddenly blew up everyone on screen, you wouldn't particularly miss anyone.

The tweaking here feels affectionate, yet you soon suspect that these subjects make for awfully easy pickings.

At its best moments, Romeo Is Bleeding actually is the wickedly funny, violent black comedy it purports to be. [4 Feb 1994, p.C2]

The upside is that they're likable and play well together...The downside is that they're all still communicating roughly the same message, which lies somewhere between a wink and a nudge.

A small movie about big emotions, with Green capturing the rush of love and sting of heartbreak with great vividness.

The movie is never more than the sum of its scattershot jokes; it's sloppily put together, with scenes seemingly cut mid-dialogue.

Never Been Kissed features a fierce tug of war between the charm of Drew Barrymore and the stupidity of the script.

More flat-out funny than "Rushmore," but in neither film is the humor joke-based. What you're laughing at is the behavior of characters who are so fixed in their idiosyncratic worldviews that they can't help but careen into each other like out-of-control bumper cars.

It's not particularly funny or trenchant, and its portrayal of noxious high school cliques never amounts to more than was shown in "Heathers." [19 Feb 1999]

The movie Gray's Anatomy demonstrates that fully stimulating the senses isn't the same as fully engaging them. Gray still begins talking in his trademark plaid shirt with a notebook and glass of water at his table, but soon Soderbergh is sending him on a Disney ride of scenery changes, lighting effects and moody music. [1 August 1997]

Doesn't really work when examined in the daylight outside the theater doors.

The characters may be speaking Chinese, but such rousing entertainment needs no translation.

An offhanded, dizzy tale of uncompromising love in a wobbly world. Its main characters often can't see or stand up straight, but they never lose sight of that one person who occupies their hearts. [29 Aug 1997, p.A]

Smart and well-crafted, and it boasts complex characters, effective star turns and evocative photography of a small Alaskan town in summertime, when the sun never sets. It's a solid Hollywood thriller.

The movie suffers from various technical difficulties - like choppy editing and songs that get cut off mid-groove - and in the end everything collapses in a heap. [05 Nov 1990, p.4C]

You can take the director out of television, but sometimes you can't take television out of the director. Although Garry Marshall has been making movies for longer than he spent creating such series as "The Odd Couple," "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley," his work retains the scent of the small screen.

The biggest surprise may be what the filmmaker doesn't show; he withholds a big dramatic payoff, so the audience must fill in the blanks.

Never quite transcends its movie-of-the-week trappings. But either you're glad to have spent time with these three generations or you aren't. Bottom line: I was.

Looks sleek and moves efficiently, but there's nothing too distinctive under the hood.

Family life rarely is portrayed with such warmth, clarity and vibrancy as in In America.

Alternately sweet and mean, sophisticated and vulgar, witty and base, dazzling and ugly, charming and charmless.

The movie seems so convinced of its own entertainment value that it has neglected to factor in the elements that make a comedic thriller more than just a facile exercise -- i.e., suspense, tension, heart. Being amused by plot turns is not the same as caring, and Clay Pigeons never inspires you to grab your armrest or catch your breath. [25 Sept 1998]

It's refreshing that a family movie dares to be as emotionally charged as this one, but you wish Miller had paused before he piled everything on and said to himself, "That'll do."

When a loving son makes a documentary about his father, you can forgive him for laying it on a bit thick - especially when his love for his subject, Ron Santo, is shared by an entire city.

Demme gets a lot of flavor and spice into his "Charade" remake, but he can't disguise that he's spiffing up leftovers that aren't so substantial or fresh.

A lean, mean tension machine, setting up its premise, executing it with smarts, throwing in enough twists to keep things interesting, and wrapping it up before anyone can get fatigued or reflective. It's on the money.