Mick LaSalle

It doesn’t help matters that the movie seems to end three times before it ends, and none of those ends are satisfying.

It's a gallant battle against flawed material, and Hirschbiegel fights it to a draw.

A boxing movie that exists in that gray area between prototypical and typical, the quintessential and run-of-the-mill.

30 Minutes or Less is a strange case. Either it goes for a particular tone and doesn't achieve it. Or it does achieve a tone that's not really worth striving for.

Entrapment is an adventure movie without two brain cells to rub together.

A nice idea for a movie, but has a mostly silly script and some of the craziest and most laughable casting imaginable. But the movie's main challenge is a simple one: It is very difficult, next to impossible, to build a movie around an inert, inactive character.

There’s a mystery at the heart of The Song of Names, but it isn’t much of a mystery, and once it’s solved, the movie loses what little interest it has. Though not exactly a Holocaust drama, the film is one in which the Holocaust figures tangentially, but crucially. Yet the movie’s overall effect is strangely inert.

The musical numbers are the only real drag on this otherwise odd and appealing picture.

As for Williams, he's a warm actor in an oddly cold movie, and his presence certainly doesn't make things worse. But Toys doesn't call for anything new from him. [18 Dec 1992, p.C1]

The main appeal of Summerland, a considerable one, is that it allows Gemma Arterton to hold the screen for a nearly unbroken 90 minutes. It showcases her in a variety of modes and moods and provide some huge acting moments that make us recognize that, somewhere along the line, Arterton has become a powerhouse.

As it stands, Wakanda Forever feels as lost and forlorn as the Wakandan people.

The film is bleak, not particularly compelling, and the characters are frustrating, the enemies of their own happiness.

It’s all rather enjoyable, and O’Connor, having starred in “Mansfield Park” (1999), certainly knows her way around 19th century romance. Yet the question remains: What is the point of all this?

The result is a reminder that, with weak material, it’s often worse to have a really good actor. The weaknesses just stands out in sharper relief.

Admiring The Singing Detective is easy, and so is appreciating the originality of the story's conceit, the artistry of the actors and the directorial intelligence of Keith Gordon. But loving it would take an act of will.

A weird mix of the refreshing and the dispiriting, Kick-Ass 2 is appealing in its brutal honesty and repellent in its honest brutality.

Most viewers will have no more fun watching this story than the characters do living it.

The kind of horror movie that's not a bit scary and quite a bit gross.

While Showgirls was funny the whole way through, Striptease has long, dreary stretches, where you're forced to watch Demi Moore undressing.

Senior Year is a just-OK movie, but it’s a very good Rebel Wilson movie, in that she has been funny in supporting roles, but this is the first time she has excelled as the name above the title.

The result is a movie that's kinetic yet slow, whose joys are architectural more than spiritual.

Feels forgettable, even though, in the moment, it's often very funny.

At its best, it's a good picture, and at its worst, it's almost good.

Open Range veers wildly. It's a movie of beauty and sensitivity, and tedium and absurdity.

Not entirely successful or appealing - not exactly a delightful evening in the company of scintillating characters - but interesting all the same.

Stanley Donen's spouse-swapping comedy is not as naughty as it might have been, but it showcases Mitchum in a good comic role. [11 Jul 1997, p.D1]

For the first 20 minutes or so, Crazy People is lightweight but fun. Then the movie defies its own logic and falls apart. [11 Apr 1990, p.E1]

Estevez further undermines the film by casting himself in the lead role. He gives an odd performance, in which he consistently seems to be going for enigmatic, but he ends up just inexpressive.