Michael Wilmington

Just as Zhao uses his comic gifts to create an affecting human, so Dong's performance as Wu is a triumph of honesty and tact.

A picture about America with the blinders off, a film about heroism that makes you chuckle and feel sad - and a film about childhood that lets us reenter that lost world and see the grass, sky and sunlight the way they once looked, in the golden hours.

iIt's a film for art- and foreign-movie devotees. But it's also a movie for audiences who simply want to get turned on.

This is a film precisely constructed, brilliantly imagined.

A ridiculous but exciting action movie.

The sense of the unknown that "Padgett" created are largely absent. And the movie fails to supply us with an antagonist to work up some dramatic conflict. Nor are the toys themselves very interesting and Mimzy is a toy bunny of no distinction.

One of the most remarkable and moving love stories the movies have recently given us.

One of the best-loved of all the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation special effects extravaganzas, this kitschy version of the mythic tale of Jason's quest for the golden fleece stars Todd Armstrong as Medea's eventual betrayer and is graced with a nerve-rending Bernard Herrmann score, plus such classic visual tricks as the dueling skeletons. [01 Oct 1999, p.J]

Less a movie than a loud, heavy, money machine, a think tank where nobody thinks. The movie seems intended to extract maximum profit with minimum artistry -- and if you like having your pockets picked by experts, this is probably the show to see. [15 Mar 1996, p.C]

Downfall, whatever its shortcomings, bears strong witness to great evil. That is its triumph as a film.

A beautiful, almost defiant film on an unusual subject: love among the elderly.

Has heart, but lacks bite.

It's a genteel film with a gun in its pocket, but it's also a film with a universal chord of feeling that keeps welling up from the dark surfaces and violent byways of the plot-and a final confession that both warms the heart and chills the blood.

In the remarkable, ferociously intelligent new film No Man's Land, Bosnian writer-director Danis Tanovic gives us a movie portrait of the Bosnian War, a conflict that has devastated his country, friends and neighbors -- and found in it both shocking humor and searing, relentless tragedy.

Witherspoon goes further, pouring so much humor and pizzazz into Elle that she lifts up the whole movie.

I don't see how you can get away from calling Cage’s performance a great one. [10 November 1995, Friday, p.C]

A beautifully acted and deeply compassionate study of ordinary people coping with the vicissitudes of life.

The film tries to mix the two 1930s movie comedy strains: screwball romance and populist fable. But there's something nerveless and thin about it. Hawn and Russell are good, but their scenes together have a calculated spontaneity--overcute, obvious. Director Garry Marshall keeps the lines slamming off each other briskly but with a shallow, hectoring energy. And he doesn't have much visual flair.

This film has so many good ideas, it tends to seem better after you've left the theater. But the mock TV stuff is just too faux to be funny.

A big, hearty fantasy-adventure with spectacular fire-breathing effects and a fizzling story. [31 May 1996, p.C]

Frederick is the key to the movie and she's definitely an impressive new talent, someone who can really hold the screen and who delivers something striking or memorable in every scene.

By creating a kind of politically correct version of Andy Griffith's "Mayberry," director Bezucha has drained the movie not only of bigotry but also of dramatic conflict.

Has the unfortunate effect of overtipping the dramatic scales in favor of the Southern generals and turning almost everybody into waxen idols who spout flowery rhetoric.

One of the most gorgeous science-fiction movies ever - and probably also one of the most realistic in detail and scientific extrapolation

The trajectory of the film -- despite its excellent cast and intelligent mounting -- is too preordained.

A wildly expensive movie full of computers, nonsense and violence, a film where wit, romance, elegance -- everything -- is sacrificed on the altar of giganticism, cliche and over-the-top action.

Most of Frailty is so good -- done in a low-key, realistic mood of genuine creepiness and dread -- that it doesn't need formula shocks.

Boyle's new movie is mostly a zombie fiasco, closer to the vacuities of "The Beach" than the scintillating social satire of "Trainspotting."