Mick LaSalle

The movie gets bogged down in the formula conventions of romantic comedy, and in the process, it loses all honesty.

The experience of seeing this film is cumulative, sober and profound.

That rare thing, an American romantic film that's not a comedy and that's more about love than sex.

It's a coy, cautious film about a frank, fearless writer.

Of mild interest as a curiosity, but not as entertainment.

An awkward hybrid of Asian and American film techniques. It's also an uninvolving story that casts Chan in the role of a fish out of water and gives him little opportunity to show his exuberant personality.

The film is a failure in just about every way, save for its acting, which is adequate.

This is strictly formula stuff, made worse by an utterly careless depiction of the characters.

The early scenes are amusing and true to life.

A first-rate thriller about arrogance at the top.

Has some laughs - more than a few thanks to Michael Douglas as a dead swinger (the movie's Jacob Marley) - and some moments of tenderness, too.

Year One has one joke, but it's a good one, played for many variations over the course of an often very funny comedy.

A film of wisdom, emotional subtlety and power.

Considering that most movies, even today, don't present a woman's romantic or sexual behavior in anything other than a spirit of judgment, She's So Lovely has to be regarded as something unique.

Here's the tricky thing about The Strangers. Sure, it uses cinema to ends that are objectionable and vile ... but it does it well, with more than usual skill.

The energy of the play's best scenes is dissipated in the film version, but they still work. [02 Oct 1992, p.C1]

A satisfying combination of great songs and strong dramatic performances.

The film itself is wretched. A grueling, numbing black hole.

A generational spectacle that's fun to witness.

No classic, but neither was the original starring Burt Reynolds. Instead, it's an odd mix of amusing nonsense and nastiness that chugs along, hit and miss, until the last section, which is the best part of the movie and its real reason for being: the game.

Allen's most satisfying film since "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994) and his most compelling since "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989).

In terms of adrenaline, XXX is one of the most satisfying entries this summer.

The most refreshing thing about Summer of Sam is that it doesn't try to impose a moral or define the limits of its story.

By the end, it reveals itself as too pat, too absurd and -- as a polemic against capital punishment -- philosophically self- defeating.

By the finish, the movie is getting by on little but adrenaline and audience goodwill. Still, that goodwill runs fairly deep, because, taken all in all, 28 Days Later is a superior motion picture.

An ungainly masterpiece, but Chaplin's ungainliness is something one can grow fond of.

Funny People is a true brass ring effort, a reach for excellence that takes big risks. It's 146 minutes, with a story that's more European in feeling than American.

Aspires to the breezy esprit of a Richard Lester comedy from the '60s, but it's a deadly, leaden affair.

Feels like an extended skit stretched and stretched, maybe not to the breaking point, but to the sagging point.

The film is long, empty and bogus.

Spins an unconvincing, miscast noir tale.

It's the cinematic equivalent of an all-dessert meal: After the initial jolt, the lack of any real nourishment is apparent, and it becomes a struggle to stay awake.

Floats on the charm and the labors of its lead actress, Gretchen Mol, who single-handedly makes the picture worth seeing.

The real item under consideration here is the movie itself, and the bottom line is that it lands in a humane place. True, any viewer will go in with a certain curiosity, ghoulish or otherwise, about what it's like to jump off a bridge, and yet the overall effect of the film is broadening. To see it is to dread the bridge jumps and to come away with a feeling of compassion and empathy.

Married to the Mob picks up pace throughout and builds to an exciting finish. [19 Aug 1988]

Living in Oblivion is a rarity, a dark comedy that takes place almost entirely on a film set. Written and directed by Tom DiCillo, this is a very funny picture that presents the world of independent film making as a nightmare of conflicting egos, budgetary squalor and incompetence.

It depicts the world of a century ago in a way that comments on the anxieties facing the world today, and it does so, at least for a while, with cleverness and a sense of fun.

A strange almost-thriller.

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.

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]

A great movie.

A masterpiece.

Though the movie clocks in at just under three hours, it is -- aside from an occasional slow spot -- fascinating and exciting.

The movie has some clumsy dialogue and awkward turns, but the picture is brisk and likable.

Monster House was designed as a family movie and a scary movie. It may scare children, but it won't terrify them. So it's no scarier than it should be.

It's a beautiful machine, thought out and revved up to the last detail, with no other purpose but to delight - and it delights. [24 May 1989, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

At times, it actually hurts to watch.

There's great pleasure in watching a movie in which the director has thought out everything beforehand.

A sequel was called for, and so a sequel has arrived -- but it's a slightly zombie-like version, with the size, look and shape of the original movie, but without its lightness or spirit, its soul.

Represents his (Smith) first act of cinematic cynicism, his first crime against his own talent. With this action comedy, he has given us 110 worthless minutes, a bad formula movie like every other bad formula movie.

The first great Hitler movie.

After a month, no one will talk about this movie, ever again. Still, with a picture like this, there's really only one question: Is it any fun? Yes. Lots. Definitely.

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

Blanchett's performance is Soderbergh's biggest mistake. He either encourages or permits her to play Lena as a Greta Garbo caricature, which is mildly amusing if you're interested in Garbo, but if you're interested in Lena and The Good German, you're out of luck.

An overwrought drama.

Perfectly acceptable, perfectly bland, competently acted but by no means a scary horror movie, in which "they" are coming to get people.

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

The movie is funny, definitely funny. But underlying the humor is a vision so bleak, so despairing and so utterly hopeless as to make "No Country for Old Men" almost look cheerful.

The picture, written and directed by Francis Veber, the screenwriter of "La Cage Aux Folles,'' is a complete success.

It's screamingly, hysterically, laugh-through-the-next-joke, laugh-for-the-next-week funny. It's so inventive…This is a film by an original and significant comic intelligence.

It's a modest and mildly funny effort, with good scenes and touches of incisive satire, but it's not quite funny enough, and it's undermined by its camera technique.

The mix of comedy and drama is winning; Costner couldn't be better, and the little girl is a find.

The history itself is the main appeal here.

The series suddenly springs back to life. It's delightful and exciting, with good jokes and fun characters. While it might lack the freshness of the first installment, the formula isn't stale, just familiar. And familiar in a cozy and pleasant way. [25 May 1990, p.E1]

The film is neither fish nor fowl nor some arresting new entity, but a lumpish coagulation of conflicting impulses and unrealized gestures.

The fact that the movie has to entertain with digressions is an indication of more than looseness, but rather a shoddiness...Nothing connected with the job is of any interest at all.

Benefits enormously from smart casting across the board.

An extraordinary and heartfelt film.

If this isn't the single best performance ever by a preadolescent male (Osment) in a motion picture, then it's tied for whatever is first.

It turns out to be just as bad as any routine French romantic comedy - illogical, inconsistent and sloppily written, a charmless, tasteless, witless waste of time.

There's a case to be made for The Real Cancun as a document of the mating dance as well as an unintentionally poignant film about the brevity of youth.

It's warm, spontaneous and heartfelt. Zeffirelli cared about his memories, and he's done justice to them.

The Devil's Advocate is a sharp, suspenseful and completely satisfying movie.

An Irish drama that's a lot more sly and a lot less straightforward than it appears on the surface.

Curiously and unexpectedly, the movie brings on a suffocating feeling of constraint. It's a consequence of seeing characters with such terribly limited mobility.

A movie with lots of heart but no heartbeat.

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's a generous tale, told through big performances by a talented cast, presenting a range of colorful characters that only Dickens could have created.

The picture gently caricatures the folk music scene with dozens of delicate brush strokes, creating a picture that's increasingly, gloriously funny -- as in entire lines of dialogue are lost because the audience's laughing so hard.

Brought off with such skill and commitment that there isn't any time to snicker at its obviousness.

To its credit, the movie eschews cheap dramatics, but at times it eschews dramatics altogether.

Toy Story 3 is a better film than "Wall-E" and "Up" in that it succeeds completely in conventional terms. For 103 minutes, it never takes audience interest for granted. It has action, horror and vivid characters, and it always keeps moving forward.

The film is glossy, but awful. Frenetic, but awful. Expensive, but awful. ... And awful.

The action scenes are imaginative and elaborate without seeming fake. Nothing is belabored, and the stakes never stop escalating.

It is, simply, the alienation-invasion movie to beat all alien-invasion movies: meticulously detailed and expertly paced and photographed, with sights so spectacular and terrible that viewers will have to consciously remind themselves to close their mouths when their jaws drop open.

A balanced examination of the reasons for the electric car's disappearance, reasons that include corporate collusion and greed, governmental spinelessness and oil company propaganda -- but also consumer indifference and the limitations of the vehicles themselves.

Fatal Instinct isn't funny, which in a comedy is a slight problem. The movie isn't funny for several reasons, but the most important reason is that the jokes aren't any good. [29 Oct 1993, p.C3]

Buoyed by some sensitive performances and nearly tanked by insensitive filming.

It's precisely Seagal's incongruity that has made him a great absurdist hero -- and that makes Fire Down Below a kick.

One could criticize A Night at the Roxbury for being a comedy that provides not a single laugh. That would be too easy.

It has no ambition, little sense and false sentiment, but it does have velocity, high spirits and scale.

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.

The result is a film that's honest and tepid, intelligent and dull, worthy and forgettable.

Shrewd, highly controlled little film from Belgium that builds to an unexpected emotional climax.

It exudes goodwill and high spirits, occasionally makes you feel really good, and yet here and there and in some definite ways, it kinda sorta stinks.

Summer fluff that admits to being summer fluff, but it's no better off for admitting it...Intended as lightweight comedy, but if you think about it too much, it's not so funny.

It's a little of this, a little of that, and in the meantime there's not a single joke to crack a smile over. [20 Mar 1993, p.C3]

A dull, boring, poorly acted, limply written and thoroughly unappealing fantasy, featuring bland characters locked in a struggle of no interest.

Wildly imaginative, humane, playful and deflating of all pretense.

It's funny, easily the funniest and least self-conscious movie that director Nora Ephron has made.

It's a complex, satisfying piece of entertainment, a succession of unexpected, outrageous scenes.

Something is wrong with A Good Woman: The lightning never strikes. It's never quite alive.

A movie about serendipity and spontaneity.

Techine doesn't have much of a story to tell, so instead of moving the narrative forward, he expands it laterally.

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

It's a film with impressive elements, though taken as a whole it's pop entertainment that doesn't fully deliver on the entertainment end.

It bombs, but not for lack of trying. It bombs for too much trying. [17 Feb 1990, p.C3]

A caustic comedy of Hollywood manners.

The story is fluff, but it's mostly appealing.

There seems to be something about the story itself that's better suited to the stage than the screen.

Don't be fooled by the casual style. There is nothing casual about these emotions, or about the talent of these two filmmakers.

It's never cute for the sake of cute, never trivializes its characters; and even at its most ethereal, it keeps one foot grounded in the real passions of these men and women. Though smaller in scale and with its own unique spirit, it invites favorable comparison with the Merchant-Ivory adaptations of the Forster novels. It's a vivid and realized document of people in a particular time and place -- a nice time, a gorgeous place. [7 Aug 1992, p.C3]

Standing Ovation is an innovative film in the sense that every minute or so it comes up with a different way of being annoying. Moreover, it often goes for a layered effect, in which it's annoying in two or three ways simultaneously.

Has its awkward and rough edges, but there's a purity here, a goodness of intention and a commitment to justice.

Dull but sweet.

Elusive and compelling.

The result is mixed bag, an intermittently pleasing but mostly routine effort.

Red Heat, the new Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie, avoids most of the usual action-movie gimmicks and is better for it. It co-stars Jim Belushi and opens around town today. [17 Jun 1988, p.E1]

Doesn't hit its stride until the last 30 minutes, and by then, it's just a little too late.

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

The mixed report on La Mission is that writer-director Peter Bratt doesn't really know how to make pictures, but he does know the central character in his movie.

Shaft has everything --smart writing, shrewd direction and a handful of performances that are first-rate by any standard.

A light film, airy, likable and set in Venice.

Seeing it is a time-bending experience, a way of visiting the past and glimpsing the past's idea of the future. A masterpiece of art direction, the movie has influenced our vision of the future ever since, with its imposing white monoliths and starched facades.

Taken as a motion picture, the new "Harry" comes up short. But taken as a visual aid to the experience of reading a book, the new "Harry" does its job.

Ronin eventually becomes tiresome, but the pairing of De Niro and Reno never gets old.

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

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.

Funny and intelligently made, a film for kids and adults that's both sweet and sardonic...Elf stays perfectly in balance, a pleasure throughout.

Baadasssss! is the portrait of a visionary with a blind spot, a man starved for kindness who can no longer recognize the responsibility to be kind, even to his kids. But it's a portrait of a visionary nonetheless.

Taken a little too seriously, My Cousin Vinny can be seen as a celebration of the breadth and richness of the American landscape. Maybe the movie isn't exactly about that, but to enjoy it is, in a small way, to celebrate that richness. [13 Mar 1992, p.D3]

A graceless, embarrassing effort.

Gerry is ragingly bad art that contributes to a definition of independent film as something no one would want to sit through.

Bastian is a difficult kid to sit and watch for 90 minutes -- self- important and with a shrill voice. The story is all over the place, setting the audience up for things that never pan out and defying its own logic. [09 Feb 1991, p.C3]

One of the nicest things about Father of the Bride is that it's not ashamed to be old-fashioned and sweet. It's also not ashamed to get sappy and drippy and gooey, but you have to take the good with the bad. [20 Dec 1991, p.C1]

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

A sour romantic comedy that arrives in theaters just in time to spoil Valentine's Day. Its plot is a catalog of unpleasantness. Its characters are repellent.

Twenty minutes in, the movie is already operating at a deficit, and it never recovers.

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]

It's a movie, a goofy little movie. Not so bad, but as far as food and sensuality go, ``Like Water for Chocolate'' still has the edge.

Amateur gives the impression of a sloppy first draft. It begins with a splash, meanders until it reaches feature length, then ends abruptly.

The movie's one flaw is this: The whole movie hangs on the gradual unraveling of the central mystery and is made with the expectation that the audience is fascinated and hanging on every tidbit.

A fascinating look at a bizarre man and a brilliant talent. But a good deal of the movie is described by its subtitle -- "A Son's Journey'' -- and to the extent it is, the movie sags.

The strength and beauty of The Runaways are that it tells the truth.

Still, the goodwill lingers, even though Mother and Child falls down, dies and is beginning to look a little green and stiff about 15 minutes before the finish line.

The tone is balanced, reflective and reasonable. Avni is a major star in Israel, and he is an actor with world-class charm.

A nasty little picture with a lot of wit and impudence.

The film is exciting in two big ways: its simplicity of story (Tanovic does not get bogged down trying to give us an epic history) and the breadth of Tanovic's vision.

The results are predictable and only mildly entertaining.

Let It Ride has atmosphere, plus a good setting, appealing actors - and a bad script. [19 Aug 1989]

Like all Shelton's movies, Hollywood Homicide rambles and shambles, and like most of them, it ultimately settles into its own appealing rhythm.

In its own ridiculous way, The Butterfly Effect is an entertaining movie, despite mediocre acting, lackluster direction and a story that's sometimes frustrating. It has the integrity of camp, maintaining an odd earnestness in the face of its own absurdity.

By the end, it is clear just how much in control Sayles has been all along. The resolution, though typically restrained, forcefully puts over the movie's point, that we're all more connected than we think.

At times, State of Grace, which was written by the late playwright Dennis McIntyre and rewritten by David Rabe, is a little too writerly, a little too calculated to impress. Still the dialogue is good; the momentum builds, and some of the simplest scenes, such as a few between Penn and Wright, have real power. [05 Oct 1990, p.E1]

The three films are watchable but resolutely minor works, though each has something to recommend it.

An unflinching and historically rich rendering of an amazing story. He has made what is easily the best American film so far this year.

A goopy Gwyneth Paltrow movie.

A whimsical modern fairy tale.

Its take on the political scene is unsophisticated, and its humor heavy- handed. Like any satire, it exaggerates, but it exaggerates the wrong things. [11 Sep 1992, p.C1]

For about 115 minutes, State of Play tells an alarming, tightly constructed story, with serious things to say about journalism and the state of the country. The movie appears to be all but over - and likely to stand as one of the best films of 2009. And then the filmmakers add one last embellishment, and they blow it.

Has a gutsy premise, but no guts.

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez had their fun with From Dusk Till Dawn, and now they need to stay away from each other. For their own good. Forever.

As a screenwriter, Lemmons is able to keep all the plot elements in place. But as a director, she is unable to keep things moving.

Turns out to be the most unnerving film of the year. Easy.

Perrotta and Field succeed, not by guessing, but by knowing this world. They understand it enough to see it with cold precision -- and to approach it, at times, with disarming warmth. The characters aren't types, but people.

An ambitious political thriller, a multilingual film of mood and texture and the occasional haunting image.

Kevin Costner's Robin Hood is big, sometimes exciting, funny in places and occasionally stupid, but it doesn't disappoint. [14 June 1991, p.E1]

Unfortunately these characters are stuck in a picture that is little more than a gory mess, heavy on the smoke machines and thunderous sound track, but with no suspense and not much interest. Split Second is just a series of killings that come, one after the other, until the movie hits feature length, and then it's the bad guy's turn. Since these killings all consist of a heart being yanked out of a human body, Split Second isn't pretty. I've long since lost my weak stomach, but this movie is definitely not for the squeamish. [2 May 1992, p.C3]

At 2 1/2 hours, Gladiator is a long ride, but it doesn't drag.

As the record of a cultural event, Soul Power is a hit-and-miss affair.

A one-joke documentary stretched, with surprising success, to full length.

A tense, intelligent and sober film.

Gets most of the big things wrong and almost all the little things right. For two-thirds of its running time, it's a nasty little delight with an amusing and curmudgeonly central character.

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

The story is unbelievable and phenomenally silly, not a good combination.

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

The funniest movie so far this year.

Particularly impressive is the film's success at making an actor of average weight look emaciated. His cheekbones are built up so his cheeks appear to sink.

An old formula made fresh.

One of the most powerful romances of recent years, it is as generous as they come.

For all the characters butting heads, all the street fights and all the explosions (there are plenty of those), Street Fighter may very well put you to sleep. [24 Dec 1994, p.E1]

No more than a minute into this, and it becomes obvious that the next 98 are going to be trouble.

To make a movie about that team and those games requires more than an ability to depict personal dramas or re-enact game highlights. It requires the re- creation of a world and a mind-set, and Miracle accomplishes both brilliantly.

Never soars, but it never flags. It remains brisk, engaging and pleasant throughout, and face it: If a movie this well made had Spanish or French subtitles, we'd all be talking about it as a searing examination of sexual politics.

By avoiding the usual animation cliches, by keeping the story moving, the pictures pretty and the characters consistently amusing, director and co- writer Rob Letterman cobbles together an entertaining 90 minutes.

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.

There's something to be said for a formula picture done almost to perfection. In 2012, Emmerich gives you everything you expect, but gives it to you bigger.

The result is Allen's weakest film in years.

This screen version, directed by Lewis Milestone, is the one to see. Burgess Meredith is George and Lon Chaney Jr. is Lenny. Chaney never got to do much in movies, except rapidly grow hair as the Wolfman, but this movie proves that the younger Chaney inherited some of his father's genius. [24 Feb 2002]

Foxx's complex performance and the filmmaker's willingness to look at the dark side place Ray safely out of the realm of typical Hollywood hagiography.

Badly made, badly acted and badly written. [07 May 1994, p.E3]

It is possible to watch 90 minutes of this comedy without once cracking a smile. [12 Jan 1994]

A film with no theatrical core and no integrity in the writing, acting or storytelling.

As for Beowulf itself, it's all about the visuals, which means that as soon as the novelty of 3-D wears off, the experience has been had.

On Deadly Ground is in every way the equal of Seagal's Under Siege, his first mainstream hit from 1992, and in terms of scale it's even bigger. Everything blows up. Everybody blows up. [19 Feb 1994, p.E1]

When it's not awful, it's dull.

Romeo Is Bleeding -- not the best title -- takes chances, and although not all of them work, the film manages the difficult trick of swinging wild while holding together. Part of the credit has to go to the consistently well-pitched acting, by Oldman and Olin and also by the actors in smaller roles, including Annabella Sciorra's quiet but edgy turn as Jack's hard-to-read wife. [4 Feb 1994, p.C3]

The treatment of the subject isn't maudlin, thanks to a witty script and an enormously likable lead character, Remy (Remy Girard), who remains bullheaded and lusty to the finish.

An attempt at a beautiful film about renewal -- about past love, love lost, longing and rediscovery -- but it has no emotional truth.

It's no masterpiece, but it's real.

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.

Ill conceived and unworthy (and dull and ridiculous).

It tries to get by on charm. It doesn't.

The measure of this kind of movie is its seductiveness, not its logic, nor the ways in which it exploits the supernatural angle, and The Lake House is seductive.

A documentary in search of a story.

Anyone who appreciates Sylvester Stallone or enjoys the "Rocky" movies will find moments to enjoy in Rocky Balboa and will leave the theater reasonably satisfied. It's just good to see the guy, and it's good to revisit the character. And that's everything good to be said for the experience.

The film is certainly clever enough to hold an audience's interest throughout, though in the end it's a victim of its own ambition. As a moral investigation, it's shallow and ultimately ludicrous.

It's the most tension-producing movie out there right now -- in the best way, it's almost unbearable.

The film doesn't leave the audience with a moral. It just leaves a sense of having been in the stimulating company of passionate people -- all of them in the arts or on the fringes of that world, all of them struggling to make something intense and amazing out of their lives.

The movie has the simplicity and confidence of a Johnny Cash song.

This is a movie made by and for adults, and adults should consider seeing it.

Ugly. ..and unpleasant -- and clueless on a grand scale.

Freejack is the kind of picture that you watch and scoff at, and then when it's over, you leave the theater having had a good time, only mildly aware that the good time had something to do with the quality of the movie. Freejack is convoluted, a meeting of bad writing and bad science fiction. And yet, taken as a whole, it's really not bad. [18 Jan 1982, p.C3]

To mildly respect Japanese Story is easy. To enjoy it would require an act of will.

The production values are first rate. But you will wait in vain to hear a good reason for this movie's existence.

Hawke is the movie's revelation.

Despite its faults Rambo III has an undeniable momentum and, judged on its own terms, a certain comic-book appeal. [26 May 1988, p.E1]

It's a drama with elements of black comedy and suspense, European in feeling but American in attitude. Just for fun, it's set in 1949, an era of glamour, of Hitchcock and of husbands even more clueless than they are today.

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.

The result is that rare movie specimen, a completely intentional, expertly guided work of art that fails almost completely.

The smarter way to make this movie would have been to edit out everything extraneous to the story of Xavier and Wendy. They're the soul and heart of the movie, while everything else is pretty much dead weight.

Though it ultimately recovers, too much of The Good Thief forgets about Bob, and in the process the movie loses much of its allure and vividness.

The year's best romantic drama.

One of the great Holocaust films.

In addition to being extremely funny, the film has a warm spirit and respect for the characters.

This is what makes the distinctly unromantic Cold Mountain' such a breath of fresh air. Its battles are hideous bloodbaths.

In the end, it's really just a thriller, slower than most, with pockets of dead time but with a few extra flourishes, too, thanks to Norton.

This isn't pleasant to watch. Neither is it amusing, intellectually engaging, whimsically fascinating, coldly satirical or painfully poignant, though at any given moment in this erratic film director Tom Tykwer might be trying for one of these conflicting tones.

This is the picture the Belgian actor has been waiting for, the step up in class that has seemed inevitable since his breakthrough in ''Bloodsport'' six years ago. ''Nowhere to Run'' is not just a boy movie. Women can enjoy it, too, and Van Damme's boyish good looks and gentlemanly manner -- gentlemanly, except when he's smashing heads -- won't hurt. [16 Jan 1993, p.C3]

Burns presents two mildly amusing fellows wrestling with romance and expects the audience to see them as embodying universal dilemmas. At the very least, he wants us to take these guys as seriously as they take themselves.

Its virtues are velocity, energy, innovative storytelling - and something that seems even more the province of young directors: a certain heartlessness and ironic distance in the tone.

There's a lot to appreciate in Street Kings, a tight, propulsive action thriller, but there's one thing to marvel at, and that's James Ellroy's command of story.

The result is a movie that combines a seriousness of purpose with an impish delight in craft, in a way Hitchcock would have appreciated.

It's never less than worthy and entertaining, but the importance of Invictus doesn't broaden as it goes along. It narrows.

Sometimes it's unpleasant, sometimes it's insincere, and for long stretches it's boring.

With Body Snatchers you get a middling, respectable horror movie, one without any frightening unconscious echoes and with too much of a pedigree to try to scare you with something cheap, like gore. [18 Feb 1994, p.C3]

This is like any other Edward Burns film, except for one thing. It's unmistakably better. This is the movie I believe Burns has been trying to make since "The Brothers McMullen," 11 years ago.

Thus, we find ourselves watching an ice-cold movie about competition that contains not a shred of rooting interest.

An intelligent literary mystery story that holds interest and is intermittently affecting, but it never soars.

The subtlety is the beauty of it.

People take comedy for granted, but to step back and think about Stuck on You is to be impressed by the invention and sheer exuberance of the picture, which isn't great but sure is enjoyable.

The strange thing is that for all of Fonda's whining, Pullman's wary squinting and muttering, the bad dialogue, the cheesy effects, the severed toes, the severed heads, the severed bodies and the cliched directorial choices, Lake Placid adds up to a halfway enjoyable time at the movies.

It's the typical elements that make Eraser no more than a solid bit of fluff: This is one of those movies where good guys don't miss, and bad guys can't shoot to save their lives.

The movie moves. It has action sequences that are so enormous that they won't just wow audiences, but rock them back in their seats and make them laugh at the audacity of it all.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the best movie so far this year about a kung-fu fighting panda.

An exceptional example of Shakespeare on film.

A cut above most pictures of its type.

The world of this film is like nothing most Americans have seen. But we know what it's about. It's about greed and guilt and how inconvenient it can be to have a soul.

Extraordinary.

Black comedies are rare enough. Birthday Girl is a member of an even rarer species, the black romantic comedy.

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 a film that easily could have been cold or ironical, Ferrell provides the emotional thrust.

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

It's hard to sit all the way through Aeon Flux while fully awake.

Ford's bottled-up fierceness is perfectly in sync with the sustained atmosphere of quiet tension provided by director Alan J. Pakula (Sophie's Choice, All the President's Men). Presumed Innocent is more than two hours long and has a leisurely pace, yet maintains a high level of interest most of the way. [27 July 1990, p.E1]

Graffiti Bridge is a bad excuse for a movie but a very good excuse for a rock concert. [03 Nov 1990, p.C3]

A fable about women struggling to free themselves from that myth, and even at its most obvious, it's exhilarating.

As innocent as a Disney movie -- and a lot more entertaining.

A ponderous and dreadful film.

One of the smartest action thrillers to come along in the past few years. It's also one of the freshest.

Guy Ritchie is the worst screenwriter in the world, but, to be fair, he is not the worst director. He is only the worst director of the people who actually get to make movies.