Mick LaSalle

Now comes this American version, which turns out to be the exception, an American remake that's better than the European original.

Clearly, the goal was to make a visually opulent Christmas movie, but these visuals end up sucking up much of the film’s life and spirit. It de-emphasizes the human element, and it makes the movie too long.

The formula is tired, and it’s particularly sad to see Shazam! surrender so completely and pathetically to it, when it might have been DC Comics most human superhero franchise.

Director Mike Figgis (''Internal Affairs'') adorns ''Mr. Jones'' with some unconventional touches, abrupt fade-outs that give a touch of poetry to the endings of scenes -- and keeps the audience believing that ''Mr. Jones'' is a class act long after it's obvious it's not. [8 Oct 1993, p.C3]

The A-Team is a Joe Carnahan movie, i.e., an experiment in propulsion and personality over substance and story.

The Passion of the Christ should have left audiences in a state of exaltation. Instead it just leaves audiences exhausted.

Aims to do nothing but please, and it accomplishes its modest aim with charm and intelligence.

The performances are heavy-handed, except for that of Jon Hamm, who benefits not only from playing something of a wise guy (a sports memorabilia salesman), but also from his own unsentimental instincts.

Here is a culture in which female strength, having no outlet, must become distorted or lethal. In Therese and her aunt, we find two manifestations of the same disease.

Almost all of its screen time is taken up with explosions, chases, shootouts, heads coming off, folks getting sliced in half -- and the odd thing about it is that after 40 minutes, it's not disturbing anymore. Just dull. [21 Nov 1990, p.E1]

A so-so, OK, perfectably acceptable, nice, rather charming romantic comedy with two stars who are entirely watchable.

It's mostly entertaining, and has some strong moments, but it lacks the special magic that a musical needs, that sense of its inhabiting a parallel universe where any wonderful thing can happen at any moment, including music suddenly arising from nowhere. [10 Apr 1992]

The pleasures of Gringo are the pleasures of genre: It’s a fun type of movie, but it’s not a good version of the type.

In almost any other filmmaker’s oeuvre, this film would be considered a highlight. But for the director who made “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Match Point” and “Blue Jasmine”? It’s right up there with “Melinda and Melinda” and “Scoop.” Good, not great.

Payback has a completely different spirit from "L.A. Confidential'' -- more wild, more silly -- but it has the same attention to the fine points of plot and character.

Funny and disturbing in the best way, the comedy-drama Austin Found captures something beyond its story of a woman’s obsession with making her little daughter a beauty pageant winner.

[Hartley] changes the script enough so that the integrity of his experiment goes out the window. But he doesn't change enough so that the narrative can have any suspense.

There's something painful about watching Scarlett Johansson, who looks as if she never had an indecisive moment in her life, struggle to seem ineffectual.

The movie has a saving grace in that it breaks formula. Its concerns are not the usual movie concerns, and it takes what might have been a standard plot in some unexpected directions.

It's a far better thing to remember Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close than to watch it. Looking back, much of what is irritating, precious and tiresome about the movie recedes and drops away, while all the movie's virtues, which are considerable, rise to consciousness. There are good things here - just be prepared to blast for them.

I found the sensory bombardment of Tank Girl ultimately numbing and at times had to fight to stay awake. But let's be fair: This isn't a film for people over 25. Or over 20, for that matter. Tank Girl is for teenagers, who will find something exuberant in its anarchic spirit as well as in its barrages of image. Teenagers are also sure to appreciate, probably more than adults would, the film's off-color humor. [31 March 1995, p.C3]

Cleverness won't carry it. Nothing less than overarching vision is required; otherwise, the audience will laugh for 10 minutes and then start to check out. And that pretty much states the problem of Mirror Mirror.

Elusive and compelling.

Wry and sometime bitter movie about love.

Jaw-droppingly awful.

The laughs, including the big laughs, keep coming right up to the closing seconds.

It's just off, odd and joyless.

Rebecca has a couple of slow stretches, but James is always interesting and always sympathetic, if only because we see her struggling to do her best. After all, it’s much easier to not give up on a character when we see she hasn’t given up on herself. The movie further benefits from the absence of 1940s-style censorship, which suppressed a key plot detail that’s restored here.

It’s low-key in tone and not a splatter fest, even remotely. You Should Have Left is horror for a thinking audience.

The tone of “The Exorcism” is deadly serious, but one wonders if the premise might have worked better as a scary comedy rather than as a scary drama.

Has genuine life in it. It's an energetic comedy that consistently looks for and finds unexpected ways to be funny. [31 Mar 1995, p.C8]

The film is obvious, weak and scattered and seems more like a practical joke than a work of genuine passion. It is without exaggeration one of the most blindingly boring films I've seen in years.

Although the picture's title and promotion might lead you to expect another "Wayne's World," Airheads is something more substantial. It's a spoof of heavy-metal culture that at the same time respects the vitality and pent-up passion behind it.

Book Club was, at best, a pleasant diversion. But Book Club: The Next Chapter is something more. It’s a movie that proves that it’s possible to make an entertaining, full-length picture with practically no story.

By the end, everything that was initially serious about the film becomes silly and everything appealing about it turns sour.

In King Arthur, everything goes wrong. The film combines the plodding sincerity of a Ph.D. dissertation with the brains of a high-concept Jerry Bruckheimer- produced blockbuster (which it is), and no one benefits.

It's great to see cherished, longtime stars in big roles to which they can bring so much spontaneity and finesse; you wish only that this movie were sturdier and had aimed higher. Judging from the bloopers that unreel during Grumpier Old Men's end credits, the cast had lots of fun making this movie--more fun, it would seem, than it is to watch.

Half a good romantic comedy. Luke Wilson is the good half...The weak half is Natasha Henstridge.

Even if a certain glibness in the plotting deflates its impact somewhat at the finish, it remains an eerie, playful thriller and an all-around entertaining time at the movies.

An exciting thriller with good acting and a story that holds a lot of surprises and the interest of the viewer, even if it doesn't quite hold water. Or possibly because it doesn't hold water. [24 Apr 1992, p.C5]

The movie is ridiculous.

There’s one unalloyed good thing to be said for Damsel: It marks the end of Millie Bobby Brown’s apprenticeship. Her child actress years are over. She’s grown up and ready to star in movies that audiences can take as seriously as she does.

The enormous, make-or-break things are perfectly in place, and just that is enough for a reasonably enjoyable movie. But plot problems, some comically weak dialogue, repetitious scenes and a non-ending ending keep the experience a little more earthbound than it had to be.

The only thing wrong with “Shotgun Wedding” is that it isn’t any good. Aside from that, it’s a pleasant experience.

Take everything extraneous out of Undercover Blues and you're left with about 15 minutes of physical gags and banter, more than enough to make an amusing coming-attractions trailer but about 70 minutes short of a decent movie. [11 Sept 1993, p.F5]

The Ghost and the Darkness could have been an effective film about the virtues of courage for its own sake. But the picture is too lightweight, too posturing and too self-important to go in an introspective direction.

Capone is about as demented a movie as you can see right now, and that’s apart from the fact that it’s about a demented person. If Al Capone were ever put in an insane asylum (he wasn’t), this movie could have been made by the guy in the next room.

There are reversals of expectation, miraculous escapes from certain doom -- all the things that make thrillers thrilling. But The Da Vinci Code isn't thrilling.

This is an excellent comedy, and the fact that it's made by a filmmaker with even better movies on his resume is nothing to hold against it.

Even apart from the fact that it's not nearly funny enough, Bruce Almighty is a peculiar film.

The result is that a story with a couple of good ideas founders for lack of a third or fourth good idea. Still, any picture that features Radcliffe having a nervous breakdown for two hours has something to recommend it.

It’s a tired, inert sci-fi thriller featuring a succession of escalating action sequences that all, somehow, fail to ignite. The cliches mount.

As Barkin's nemesis, Moore is evil, and that's a good thing - she doesn't back off. Kate Bosworth plays Barkin's fragile daughter and is a pleasant surprise: Who knew she was an actress?

It's 90 minutes of flying, dismembered limbs and explosions of blood, but give the man credit. Stallone can do action. If you want action and nothing but, here it is.

Imagine watching Bergman's "Scenes From a Marriage," except without good scenes, without a marriage (legal or spiritual) and without people worthy of anybody's attention, even each other's. Now imagine something even worse.

In the end, Knight and Day isn't really about much of anything besides having a good time or perhaps the meaning of Tom Cruise-ness in the universe.

French cinema has a lot going for it, but the one thing Americans do best is story. And so “Intouchables,” now The Upside, has a story that finally works.

For about an hour of its running time, The Magic of Belle Isle seems like a tiresome, sentimental and slow-moving story about a grumpy old man redeemed by the sweet spirit of a rural town and by the nice family that lives next door. But no, it's even worse than that.

Emily Rose is the thinking person's demon possession movie, which presents a chilling case history that's hard to explain away.

Cusack should have been half the picture, but the screenplay keeps shoving him offstage for no good reason, and it's a mistake. One of many.

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.

Back in Action is no comedy classic, but it’s a better than average excuse for getting back on the Cameron Diaz train.

IF may have the sheen and aura of an expensive, important production, with a good cast and lots of famous names in voice roles (Steve Carell, George Clooney, Richard Jenkins), but the movie is a disordered wreck that confuses impulse for inspiration and dissipates any impossibility of impact by constantly switching focus.

Still, if you love this kind of movie, you will at least like Honest Thief.

Connery's charm and integrity make all his scenes worthwhile, and Lithgow's stiff-backed turn as the classic British imperialist is in good fun.

Relies on comic formula -- but does so with more than usual panache.

So, there you have it, a bad good movie, or a good bad movie, but a very decent Jennifer Lopez movie.

The film doesn't make a case for Lavoe as an important artist.

The comedy, to the extent there is any, consists mainly of Carrey's verbal asides and strained reactions to people. The script gives him very little to work with.

Only occasionally does the film fall into the trap of making the prisoners cute, but it never falters in important ways.

At heart this is a thoughtful, well-made movie about something serious.

What's immediately apparent -- and refreshing -- about Chasing Liberty is that it doesn't play cute with its premise.

An amazing film amazingly tasteless, tin-eared and awkward, but amazing all the same. Anyone with a predilection for bad movies might want to see it, if only in an inspecting-the-wreckage spirit, since because movies this misguided come but once or twice a year.

Life of the Party presents a situation more than a story, and in that it’s more like a sitcom than a conventional movie.

Not for a minute is Mad City anything less than entertaining. Yet it becomes frustrating nonetheless. Its ideas gradually seem to be at cross-purposes -- not complex, not tantalizingly ambiguous, but tangled and undefined.

Though Craven satirizes horror cliches, he also knows how to cut through them and do new things. Throughout, the action comes unexpectedly and quickly.

To put it simply, people may be right and people may be wrong, but there are no right races or wrong races. A writer-director who chooses to have characters representing race and not themselves alone paints himself into a corner in which everyone in the movie absolutely must come out all right.

Shanley tries to make something courageous and symbolic out of the notion of jumping into a volcano, but his philosophizing is sentimental, heavy-handed and forced. The idea of doing something reckless and adventurous even becomes a bit depressing when it dawns on you that Shanley may have been taking his own advice with this movie, for less than glorious results. [9 Mar 1990, p.E3]

It would probably be a mistake to emphasize the relationship aspect of The Tomorrow War too much. At its core, this is just a really good monster movie. All the same, there’s a touch of beauty to it.

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.

The important thing is that Clark has found a new way to be creepy, which isn't easy. In the process he has created something irresistibly watchable, the kind of original piece that might mean less but reveal more than its creator intended.

There's a spark missing, and where it's missing is in Roberts' conscientious but all too reserved performance.

The constant shifting between today and years ago is, in and of itself, powerful.

Even when it's hard to follow, it looks good. The undersea action is visually convincing, and Ramius' submarine, with all its rooms and compartments, is always believable. The moonlit photography in the picture's final scene is stunning. [2 Mar 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

This is a movie about power, and its spectacle is that of a woman losing all of it.

Though hardly anybody’s idea of a jolly time at the movies — and not nearly the equal of Florian Zeller’s previous film, “The Father” — “The Son” provides an arresting and unsettling experience. It’s an interesting movie, and different.

Only partly successful.

It's an observant and heartfelt film, with turns of dialogue that show that writer-director Josh Radnor really can write.

The result is Allen's weakest film in years.

Uncharted isn’t a classic, but for an action movie coming out in the doldrums of February, it’s practically Citizen Kane.

The Chamber has nowhere to go and it goes there slowly, flirting in all directions.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be there - to actually be there, man - this movie gets it.

Yet there's no getting around one awkward fact. The picture, which turns on a cataclysmic act of terrorism within U.S. borders, was made for a different audience from the one that's about to see it.

Murphy seems committed to pushing his hostile vision, and that in itself is interesting. [01 Jul 1992]

Connects on a gut level in two ways, political and existential.

DogMan won’t appeal to everybody, but there’s something to be said for a movie that makes you wonder if the filmmaker has gone crazy.

Brosnan has never been so opened up, so emotional and yet so precise in his work. It's a lovely performance in a film that only sometimes deserves him.

One of the most enjoyable pictures of the season.

The worst action movies, and this is one of them, are all about stretching out the action.

Missing a purpose.

I like it for the thing it is, a reasonably solid B movie, and I like it as one in the continuum of bizarre Ford vehicles that combine high-stakes action with household horror.

The appeal of Mr. Brooks is as obvious as it is hard to resist: Kevin Costner as a serial killer.

The results are predictable and only mildly entertaining.

A Cinderella story with star appeal going for it and everything else against it.

The rare case of a movie that gets better as it goes along.

This isn't absurdity. This is nonsense - and it's as boring as nonsense.

In this her third feature as a director, Jolie once again shows a marked talent for the visual aspects of storytelling. Her shot selection is impeccable and her compositions are artful without being self-consciousness.

There’s the sense here that living in a tiny community can either make you bigger or smaller, and in 23 Blast we see both types, from the petty to the stoic and self-reliant.

Has that title going for it, which might annoy or provoke you. It makes me suspicious. It's the kind of flashy, meaningless title that's usually given to drab, pointless films.

Sniper is the Tom Berenger film that'll be forgotten by this time next week. [30 Jan 1993, p.C3]

One of the best American films of the year so far.

At times almost unbearably ugly, but by the time you walk out of the theater, you know you've seen something.

There’s beauty here — Virzi is too humane to make a movie without beautiful moments. But a scattered eight or 10 minutes of splendor just isn’t worth an almost two-hour investment of time.

A single 125-minute monstrosity of a cop movie.

All Upside Down has is its love story, which despite the undeniable appeal of Sturgess and Dunst, never ignites. So the movie is like a huge package, wrapped in gold leaf, but containing a 10-dollar toaster. Fine. It's a toaster. It works. It's not garbage. But who can pretend it's not a disappointment?

Taken 2 is like a textbook on how to make beautiful, successful and highly satisfying junk-food cinema. When it's just a plot point, the information gets tossed out as fast and as forcefully as possible. Time is lavished only on the things that matter.

Hall Pass attempts to take the Farrellys' harsh humor and bring it into harmony with what has become the modern comic style, which is to be coarse but not absurd, to be brutally honest but real.

Lucas Black, who looks as much like a high school kid as George Bernard Shaw, speaks in a thick Southern accent that hasn't been heard on any leading man since the second act of "Our American Cousin."

That gift doesn't desert him [Crowe] in Elizabethtown, but he clutters his movie with plot elements that confuse the focus, the central character and, ultimately, I suspect, Crowe himself.

One of those comedies in which almost everything good about it is extraneous. There are funny lines and quirky bits, but in terms of story and character, the movie is empty and pointless.

As depicted here, the political story becomes convoluted and dramatically inert.

As for the story, it's in some ways inevitable, but it has enough barbs and curves to keep it new. The smartest touch is that the young lawyer is, as a moral entity, a work in progress.

A delightful, witty picture that's short and sweet and presents one of the most accurate depictions of the behavior of teenage boys you're ever going to see on screen. [22 Mar 1991, p.E1]

Two Night Stand has its moments. But moments are all this movie has — and all its characters are likely to get.

Compared with other Jane Austen movies, it isn’t much, but compared with other zombie apocalypse movies, it’s an intelligent, literate effort.

Showcasing three individuals whose spiritual and physical journeys are both repellent and mundane, the film is just a long and pointless slog.

But to be fair, Stone doesn't seem even to think he's offering the last word here. Rather, he's trying to offer the first word, or at least a first opportunity to hear the other side, unfiltered by television media.

It’s Lively’s movie, and it’s she who kicks this superior thriller up an extra notch, to the point that it’s not only worth seeing for the excitement and thrills, but for her.

She-Devil is a witty picture that's not afraid to stoop for a punch line. [8 Dec 1989, p.E1]

It’s a funny movie, but it’s also one in which Schumer becomes truly legible, as someone who could be headlining comedies for the next decade or more.

Spins an unconvincing, miscast noir tale.

Viewers need only a willingness to have fun and not mind when they realize the movie was never intended to be profound. Full Frontal is merely human, funny and unusual -- and that's enough.

The film follows its own winding path and covers a lot of emotional ground in 96 minutes, with Michaela Watkins lovely in a key role as Carl’s former lover and colleague. Some movies are more than just a story, they’re a world — and Paint is a world worth visiting.

Not only not funny, it's unfunny. It kills humor. Sit in a room by yourself, look at a blank screen for 90 minutes, and you'll have more of a chance of laughing at your own thoughts than you will at this movie.

Hesher is about as awful as independent films get, a mix of ugliness and unearned sentiment, with a flat story, repellent and pathetic characters and dialogue that consists of lots of stammering and cursing.

Even more nihilistic and confused than "Narc," and yet a lot better. It's better for some specific and interesting reasons.

What we’re left with is a movie that has good moments for all the actors, but which, through a series of tonal imprecisions, ends up seeming sour and pointless.

It’s rather amazing that Sophie Cookson, who has most of the screen time as young Joan, isn’t detestable in the role. It tells you that she’d be perfectly charming in another movie. Actually, Dench is more off-putting here, if only because destructive naivete is more forgivable in the young.

In fact, none of the performances here are phoned in. Freeman shows great aptitude for the presidency and should consider running — then he could play the president onscreen and off. And as the vice president, Tim Blake Nelson finally gets a role worthy of his depth.

Lacking the velocity and excitement of an action movie and the reality of good drama, The Mother is the worst of both worlds.

The picture is in the same sappy, soapy, maudlin vein as last year's ''Beaches,'' but I didn't hate it as much as ''Beaches,'' which might mean that everybody who loved ''Beaches'' will think Stella isn't quite as good. [2 Feb 1990, p.E1]

What makes Rampage especially enjoyable is the way it sneaks up on the audience. Before casting off every shred of dignity and abandoning itself to good-humored excess, the movie passes itself off as a reasonably serious science-fiction movie.

And give credit to Stallone: He just leaves the camera on Rourke, in the tightest of close-ups, cutting only once, to himself, for a one-second reaction shot, but keeping the focus on his actor. A great actor.

SWAT is better than "Gigli," but so is most outpatient surgery.

It's about as close to French farce as romantic comedies get, and the closer the better.

It’s an elaborate and artificial concoction, without any discernible ambition behind it.

So at the very least, audiences will come away from Chasing Mavericks with a deeper understanding of surfing and an appreciation for surfers.

Like every other action movie, it's designed for a 14-year-old boy's mentality, but it's enjoyable enough to turn most people into 14-year-old boys.

Saddest, most hang-dog, most depressing movie possible.

The premise might sound gimmicky, but it's realized honestly and specifically. [27 Sept 1991, p.D6]

The movie is pleasant. It's reasonably funny. But the one who gets the real laughs here, the hard laughs, is Carrey, who plays the kind of role he should be playing - a complete lunatic.

Cherry is like three different movies in one: the teen years, the war experience, and then life as a drug addict. It’s held together by the smart writing, by the overarching tone of tragic absurdity, and by Holland, who hits every bump on Cherry’s way down.

Has an oddness and whimsicality about it that can, at first, be confused for authenticity.

The best we can hope to get from a movie of this kind is an interesting story, a hint of the artist’s work, some factual accuracy and surfaces that make sense. We get that from Mapplethorpe. And while Smith can’t show us Mapplethorpe’s depths, he can suggest them, enough so that, if anyone wants to know more, they can consult the ultimate source — Mapplethorpe’s own work.

That's why the more you like the Judy Garland film, the more you might appreciate Oz the Great and Powerful. Appreciate. Enjoy. Admire. Be glad to see. Have fun with ... But as for love - well, love will be harder to come by.

An inventive and caustic comedy that really does look like the thing it's mocking.

Hill and his cast, including Christopher Walken as a sadistic hood, struggle to score a victory of style over substance. But substance, or a lack thereof, wins.

It expertly capitalizes on the emotional associations Americans have with Pearl Harbor and renders the battle scenes with an excellence that goes beyond proficiency and into the realm of art.

They can’t make “The Union” better than a genre movie, but they can make it better than a decent genre movie. Also, considering the fact that Berry is one of the most misused and underused major stars of the last two decades, any role that shows her screen personality to good advantage is probably worth a look.

Let's just say it: It's great there's a movie that makes teenage girls scream. Half the movies Hollywood makes are designed to make teenage boys scream, and those boy movies are just as ridiculous and a lot nastier than New Moon.

Like the best Marx Brothers films, Brain Donors has gags for the sake of gags. There's no pretense to plausibility. It's just layers and layers of jokes; some work, some don't. [18 April 1992, p.C3]

In the end, what we have here is a Tarzan movie made by people who don’t understand the appeal of Tarzan. He’s about joy and abandon and the fantasy of living in harmony with creation. He’s not about the struggle in the Congo.

Genre movies like “The Fabulous Four” can only be so good, but it’s pleasing enough to do its job.

Stomp the Yard, at nearly two hours, has a decent story, a good subject and a horrible plot.

Unfortunately, as Pacific Rim Uprising wears on, the monsters and the machines take over — not the world, but the movie.

In this film, whenever Harper gets to do nothing but direct, as in the action scenes, Heart of Stone works. It’s in the convolutions of its flat script that the movie falls apart.

Hooking Up is a pretty good movie. I enjoyed it and could even imagine watching it again. But it’s also the movie that shows that Brittany Snow doesn’t have to be relegated to pretty good movies. She’s ready for better.

With Brightburn there’s not even the pretense of idealism. It’s a superhero movie with the soul of an ’80s slasher film.

The picture is a comedy. It's a drama. It's a romance. And it's a vampire movie -- it's definitely a vampire movie....But what it is most of all is a mess. A flat-out, flailing-in-all-directions mess. [26 Sept 1992, p.C3]

Cox does a better than average job — almost everybody bombs when playing Churchill — capturing the leader’s seriousness of purpose and the weight of his responsibility. He gives us Churchill’s irascibility, but he doesn’t convey Churchill’s twinkle, his charm or his wit.

Emily Blunt is so emotionally present that she almost redeems the movie. She doesn’t, but she at least makes the first half of Pain Hustlers watchable.

This is a half-hearted, derivative action film with not a single honest artistic impulse behind it.

The movie itself is just a routine showcase, modest in its aspiration and effective within its limits, entertaining in the moment but, in the end, faintly silly. On the plus side, it's only 86 minutes long.

Sharp and irresistible, and there's no other movie like it.

So, The King’s Man is a mess, purposeless, pointless, witless. However, it’s not obnoxious. At times, it can even be close to enjoyable watching it squirm and try to make sense of itself. It has a genial idiocy and one genuinely effective sequence, involving mountain climbing. So, to its credit, it’s never actively annoying. It’s just, from start to finish, a disappointment.

It would be easy to dismiss Foe as a lugubrious downer, except that the reality of its world feels palpable and that marriage seems real. I believed Ronan and Pescal as two people bound up in love, shared history and torment.

No matter how guilty our knucklehead-protagonist's victims supposedly are, it's difficult to maintain a rooting interest.

The script is weak and unrelenting. The stunts are unspectacular. The special effects are nothing you haven't seen before. But worst of all, there's the spectacle of Schwarzenegger glorying in the wonder of Schwarzenegger. [18 Jun 1993, p.C1]

A repellent, stupid film.

Achingly long and pointless, "Runs" is a movie about family that's dishonest in its presentation of every relationship.

One pities poor Molly Parker, a fine actress who was somehow persuaded to disrobe for this degrading and dispiriting Wayne Wang film.

Just because it's a conscious commentary on other vile, useless, pointless cinematic exercises doesn't make it any less vile, useless and pointless.

Some of that emotion inevitably makes its way into our perception of the film, which elevates it somewhat, but only to the level of mediocrity.

Pleasing and occasionally very funny movie that maintains a mild but consistent hold on its audience.

It's hard to imagine any movie ever topping this one's depiction of killer tornadoes laying waste to the Midwest.

Rodman can't act, but his outsized personality fits right in. Van Damme, as always, does his job and looks good doing it. As for Rourke, he's taken the first step. Now he just needs to rinse and repeat.

The story has its moments, and yet there is something about this tale of a serial killer's patterning his crimes on Poe's most gruesome works that doesn't completely satisfy.

Mel Brooks has made a movie that's completely free and spontaneous, which at the same time is not in any way lazy or sloppy. [28 July 1993, p.E1]

Get past the comedy and there's something almost weird at the movie's core - a deep cynicism about family and a longing for family, both at the same time.

Best of all is Winona Ryder, who gets to play a brilliant teenager, as she did in ''Heathers.'' It's almost automatically comical to hear such a clear, emphatic and intelligent voice coming out of a kid. But Ryder also works that oddness for dramatic advantage, creating with Dinky the sense of a great spirit temporarily stuck in a child's body. [12 Oct 1990, p.E3]

While the original was serious, Old Guard 2 is merely forlorn. Its story holds little interest and, to make matters worse, it doesn’t even end. Instead, it stops mid-story, promising a sequel that feels less like a promise than a threat.

Its story is paint-by- numbers...But it's funny, and funny covers a lot of sins.

Perfunctory, thrill- free sequel.

An appealing film with a hideous title.

To watch Rifkin’s Festival and Allen’s previous film, A Rainy Day in New York (2019), is to wonder whether this is a filmmaker who has ceased to understand the world.

“Batman v Superman” is an insanely long and convoluted action movie, made worse by an air of importance. It’s dispiriting and visually bland.

A perfect example of an Intelligent Bad Movie.

The Village seems poised to become as cheesy in its effects as a low-budget horror film. Shyamalan's gracefulness keeps his movie just out of that abyss.

A great role becomes an unenviable chore, in which a superb comic actress finds herself trying to sell a series of unfunny comic situations by mugging and pushing with all her might. It's an unflattering spectacle for all concerned.

For all its goofiness, director Widen has made a film with some genuinely creepy moments.

There’s a nude scene that comes out of nowhere that’s almost embarrassing. Why is it there? Like the movie itself, it’s almost daring, except it’s not.

The across-the-board strong performances indicate a sure directorial hand. Everyone is made vivid, down to the smallest roles.

A lively and amiably stupid action movie, given an extra dose of atmosphere by the presence of Vin Diesel. He is his own quality control, his own authentic center, so that even in a story like this — a kind of Philip K. Dick for dummies — there’s something onscreen that’s not ridiculous, that’s reliable and consistently cool.

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

The Losers is boring. It's predictable. It's so, so active, and yet so, so dead.

It's fresh, unexpected and goofy. It's not a smart career move, just a film that its director wanted to make for some crazy reason, and he made it.

The movie doesn't have three brain cells to rub together, but the premise carries it a long way.

There's no buildup and little shape. Scenes are strong, but the movie as a whole flags.

Director Le-Van Kiet and screenwriters Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton succeed by making the action look real, by coming up with intriguing plot twists and keeping our heroine in danger at all times.

A movie whose main virtue was its honesty ultimately lands in a place that feels canned and unsatisfying. But on the way there, Backwards isn't so bad.

Hunter Killer seems old-fashioned. It belongs to a genre that was pretty much exhausted before the Cold War was over. And it threatens us with a world that, from the standpoint of 2018, doesn’t look all that bad. The movie is overlong, at times confusing, and it’s self-important, with a soundtrack that keeps telling us we feel things that we don’t.

By turns frightening, exciting and ridiculous, San Andreas is, in the end, more impressive than anything else.

An earnest film, a well-acted film and, despite the presence of a star director, a generous film. As a director, McGregor is good to his co-stars and highlights them throughout. But the energy drops out of the last third of the picture, and takes with it much of its aura of importance.

Not a mediocre film. It is, by turns, a great and awful film.

The film's overall construction is faulty. Its dramatic situations ring consistently false, and the story is phony as anything off the Hollywood assembly line. And yet, it's sincere phony.

Unfortunately, there’s a gulf between a great idea and competent execution, and this first feature, from writer-directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, can’t bridge it.

Foy is anything but mysterious or feral. Rooney Mara and Noomi Rapace, who previously played this role, seemed appropriately weird, but weird depends on hiding something, and Foy hides nothing.

The saddest thing about Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is that it’s not bad, but typical, that this emptiness — this immersion in mass numbification — is the modern style.

At all times, the audience believes that it's watching something that really could happen.

No longer fresh -- though that's to be expected in a sequel -- it contains none of the virtues that made the first one anarchic and original.

This seemingly good idea results in disaster. Allen has no insight into the current generation of young people, and his film is just a jumbled rehash of themes and motifs that he's explored elsewhere.

It's a movie to feel. Even when the thinking isn't all there, the emotions are, all the way to the film's poignant last seconds.

The landscape shots are impressive, and it's fascinating just to look at the native people -- but after 10 minutes, you've had the experience. Connery is crusty, twinkling and attractive, but in reciting this ham-handed dialogue, the best he can do is be a good actor trapped in a bad film. [07 Feb 1992, p.D1]

A Family Affair never even makes the case as to why these people should be together.

The promise is double the fun, double the laughs, and the movie can’t quite deliver on that. But there are still big laughs to be had, and there’s the pleasure of watching these two gifted comedians sharing the same frame.

Not as simple as it looks, though its appeal is simple: Robert Redford goes to prison, and James Gandolfini ("The Sopranos") is the warden. That's a movie worth seeing right there.

Floats is corny and false, with a script by Steven Rogers that's almost 100 percent artificial sweetener.

Running mainly on adrenaline and a gimmick, it's different from other holiday movies in that it's not ambitious, earnest or overblown, and it obviously wasn't made with one eye on the Oscars.

Kingpin has nastiness going for it. There are prosthesis jokes, bad-teeth jokes, ugly-women jokes, sight gags involving vomiting, etc.

Lush and heartfelt, but compelling only in fits and starts.

The Lady is a portrait in moral and physical courage, a sort of analysis of what constitutes greatness.

The script is hopeless in both senses of the word, offering no hope and lacking in quality. But I enjoyed the two victims, at least until they started screaming, and appreciate the way director Renny Harlin creates a sense of menace by his choice of lenses and his placement of the camera.

At the finish, the filmmakers give us at least three different endings, probably because they have no idea what Freedomland is saying, probably because it's not saying much of anything. But a film with this many virtues can't be written off as just another average entry.

Approximately the last hour of Dante's Peak is made up of action scenes, and how well one likes computer-generated destruction will determine how well one likes the movie.

In every small way Heston succeeds, but Needful Things ultimately is hard to sit through. It should have been edited with a meat ax. [27 Aug 1993, p.C4]

Eventually arrives at a lovely place, but it arrives limping. Small but nagging problems drag it down, such as weird acting choices, bizarre casting and strange aging makeup.

It's not just that Pitt's performance is bad. It hurts.

Follows a predictable format.

The strain and desperation are apparent from the first scene.

Uninvolving. Even the sex is boring. Are these scenes supposed to be wildly erotic? If they are, they don't work. [20 Mar 1992, Daily Notebook, p.D1]

There’s nothing wrong with Aftermath, but for one strange and nagging thing: To watch it is to want to be faraway from its world and everyone in it. The movie draws a circle around itself that holds no attraction or appeal, though it’s in every other way competent, well-acted and reasonably intelligent.

Midnight Run has thrills, excellent performances, touching moments, slick plotting, lively dialogue, plenty of laughs, beautiful locations and finely detailed direction. It's an across-the-board success, the best new movie I've seen in years. [20 July 1988]

True Colors is obvious and heavy-handed, loaded with cliches, and never really seems to inhabit the world in which it is set -- Washington politics. But more than just being mediocre, there's something obnoxious about the movie. It's a look at the ethics of the generation that came of age in the 1980s, presented by an older generation that has no more insight, sympathy or understanding of its subject than Gramps had of Woodstock. [12 Apr 1991, p.E1]

Is he a hero or a lunatic? He's possibly neither, or possibly a little of both, but this is the problem with making a movie about a real person.

Neeson’s last few action flicks may have been just for fans, but Retribution is for everybody.

Back to Black holds back from wallowing in Winehouse’s dysfunction. Instead, like an authorized biography, Back to Black chooses to be kind to everybody. It’s not the flashiest choice, but the world is big enough for one kind biopic. Winehouse deserved to get lucky, at least once.

It's unpleasant where it should be pleasant, convoluted where it should be streamlined, anxiety provoking where it should be easy, and long, long, long - at least 20 minutes longer than it has a right to be.

To an extent, the movie waters down its moral complexity by introducing a flat-out villainess, who begins to guide Jean’s actions, thus absolving Jean of some moral responsibility. Still, it’s hard to complain when the villainess is played by Jessica Chastain, the best person in the world to play a cool, coiffed, composed entity of evil, looking for a new planet for her displaced people.

A melodrama about three cliches in search of a bloodbath.

The film is a methodical and loving examination of two people constructing a fantasy for themselves. [08 Oct 1993]

Snake Eyes collapses in a crosscurrent of conflicting character motives, joyless plot twists and who-cares violence.

The Circle is very much a plea for the preservation and sanctification of privacy, but it’s nicely constructed in that no one character expresses the film’s distinct point of view.

Unoriginal, except in the ways that it’s bad.

His (George Clooney) rugged good looks spell movie star, but his body language spells Don Knotts, without the wit.

A creditable genre entry, the rare action movie with a discernible story, an assured pace and a charismatic central character. It falls apart in the end.

So fascinating and has so many implications that it balances out some real flaws in the story.

One of the most original thrillers of the 1980s. It's a lurid, twisted film that brings you into its world and completely works you over.

This latest from director Wayne Wang, about the friendship of two young women, travels from 2011 to 1997 to 1829 to 1838, in search of a reason for the audience to keep watching and start caring. That reason is never found.

The Lovely Bones is difficult viewing, a meticulously crafted experiment that, it turns out, wasn't worth it.

Doesn't work at all. Even the structure is off.

A dreadful exercise, with a script full of contradictions and empty gestures and a leading lady who's such a novice it hurts to watch her.

There's something wrong with a time-travel movie that allows an audience's interest to drift so that we have time to worry over where he's parked, and whether he remembered to take his key.

Succeeds in its modest way because its stars, Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier, are pleasant to be around.

This film is like cynicism transformed into celluloid, a movie made without love and with no vision, except of dollar signs.

Insurgent would be a much worse movie if the good parts were all at the beginning. But they are saved for the end, and they leave the viewer with a feeling of, “Well, that was OK,” even though most of it wasn’t.

Sanctum is by no means a badly made movie, but it has the feel of one of those dramatic re-enactments made exclusively for Imax theaters.

The main event here is Swank, who was a plaintive and sentimental figure in her earliest movies and has only fully come into her strength in youthful middle age. This strength makes Fatale an entertaining diversion and holds out the promise for something deeper and more satisfying in the future.

Certainly, the actors seem to be having a good time, even if the people they’re playing are utterly miserable. Hathaway’s comic timing has become a marvel in recent years, but Ejiofor, too, exults in the chance to throw off his usual gravity.

For sure, this is a cause movie - sometimes it even feels that way - in favor of charter schools and against the teachers unions. Still, Won't Back Down is reasonably fair in its approach.

The only people to feel sorry for in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts are Anthony Ramos (“In the Heights”) and Dominique Fishback (“Swarm”) who play actual humans trying to save the planet, when in real life they’re just humans trying to save a movie. They’re fine, but they can’t make a dent in the awfulness.

Low-budget, oddly cast and strictly indie all the way.

An action blockbuster that's one of the biggest misfires in its genre since "Godzilla."

This vaguely funny film is also the saddest and most depressing movie of 2013.

Mafia Mamma is a one-joke movie, but it finds ways to keep that one joke funny for 100 minutes.

At 100 minutes, it feels about 80 minutes too long, and that’s not a good sign. Lazer Team might have made a fun and pleasant short.

The main thing to like about Stone Cold is that the movie is honest enough to have things go wrong -- so wrong, and in ways that are unexpected. [18 May 1991, p.C3]

It is a satisfying but thoroughly idiotic film, in which relationships make no sense, character motivations change on a dime, and Tom Hanks has weird hair. But brainless as it is, it’s artful. It is a well-made bit of silliness, a piece of construction optimally designed to maintain audience interest while garnering absolutely no one’s respect.

What a waste of a great comedian. What demented casting.

The real issue is that everything about Adam’s journey feels half digested and tossed back up. We’ve seen it before. It was better the first time.

Anyone who prefers Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock to Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez is bound to regard Two Weeks Notice and not "Maid in Manhattan" as the better candidate for romantic comedy of the season.

This is a monster movie -- 92 minutes, lots of action, lots of green legs stomping, get in, get out.

The gentle spirit of Wild Mountain Thyme envelops us early, to the extent that, midway through, even though there is very little left to resolve, we are in its spell.

Belushi is profoundly unfunny. Opportunities are provided for him to do shtick -- running amok in the jacuzzi, drooling over a pretty girl -- and it's like watching a form of communication from an alien civilization. What is he doing up there? [17 Aug 1990, p.E11]

Heartfelt but interminable movie.

Does what good horror movies do: It taps into the baser emotions.

Before it degenerates into a complete mess, it's an entertaining mess, and something about its willingness to please maintains the audience's goodwill throughout.

The pleasures are intermittent but can be located: Jennifer Coolidge, as Jane's travel companion, is funny even when the script isn't, and Feild is a nice stand-in for Colin Firth in the Austen hero department.

The narrative is clumsy, and the monster scenes are ridiculous, but not ridiculous enough to be funny, just ridiculous enough to be boring.

The film holds no surprises. It's strictly by the book, uninspired and only vaguely sincere. But Michael J. Fox is not by the book; he is always genuine. Fox's charm, his comic ease and his genuine good acting manage to keep this mediocre ''vehicle'' afloat, scene by scene, to the end. I believed he was in love with the girl, even though I couldn't figure out why. [1 Oct 1993, p.C3]

As a movie, Spinning Gold is a clumsy effort with a lot wrong with it, except for the real-life story, which never stops being interesting.

Emotionally false.

This is just plain bad - and it's a surprise.

Holes in the script, overwrought camera work, dialogue that's embarrassing, and a plot device that's obvious 10 minutes into the movie - all these are major problems.

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]

Mildly caustic, sentimental and slow.

If there’s a weakness to the movie, it’s that, despite its gut-level appeal, it doesn’t dazzle us with anything brilliant or unexpected. However, there are some nifty turns here and there, so it’s not entirely mediocre.

The only thing scary about the new version is realizing that someone keeps giving director Jan De Bont money to make movies.