Mike Clark

The payoff isn't worth the time invested, but at least the actor-turned-filmmaker underplays an inherently queasy project that could have been over the top.

Dramatically, even a persuasive supporting cast gets Heaven only so far.

Anwar is reasonably spunky, but she's not given much. The script fatally fumbles the exposition, serving up characters of zero rooting-interest. [09 Feb 1994, p.8D]

The movie has a couple of surprises, including a major plot turn at the end that leads to a memorable resolution somewhere between happy and wistful.

Leisen's direction here is more than smooth. [02 May 2008, p.6E]

At least this movie seems more aware of its trashiness than "National Treasure" was. It's therefore freer to have some off-the-cuff fun the way Steven Seagal's more tolerable vehicles once did.

A few crude verbal exchanges nearly got Clerks an NC-17 rating; some (not all) of these provide some of the funniest moments in a film that's funny about 30% of the time. [24 Oct 1994]

Goo oozes without mercy in A Walk to Remember.

Superficially gritty yet soullessly slick melodrama.

Little Buddha is strange in the way that only Bernardo Bertolucci movies can be strange, and the strangest thing about it is the fact that Keanu Reeves isn't the strangest thing about it. [25 May 1994, p.5D]

Beauty is about two-thirds the serious-edged romp it would like to be, which still leaves a lot of room for tony fun.

Indeed, Eve's milieu is fresh and specific enough to make even Jackson subordinate to Kasi Lemmons, the writer (and sometimes actress) who dreamed up this story for her directorial debut. [07Nov1997 Pg08.D]

Despite one of Eastwood's more respectable directing jobs, we never sense the method to his madness - or even if it is madness. Nor can Jeff Fahey lick his own character's novelistic origins: the first-person narrator (and Trader script doctor) who by himself isn't too compelling. [14 Sep 1990, p.4D]

This time, he (Ang Lee) has Kevin Kline, Joan Allen and Sigourney Weaver trudging through ice both emotional and literal -- an omnipresent metaphor but not one unduly sledgehammered. [26 September 1997, pg. 1 D}

One of the rare sports films that devotes extensive screen time to heartbreaking losses is full of other surprises as well. [13 Oct 1994, p.1D]

Forget Lassie and Flicka. Two years before Richard Zanuck and David Brown gave us a new kind of animal picture with Jaws, they produced a ssssssickie that gave character actor Strother Martin a rare lead. [22 Aug 2006, p.4D]

Alas, what you've heard about Sofia Coppola (as Michael's daughter) is true; she swallows words and speaks “valley girl.'' What a difference Winona Ryder would have made. [24 Dec 1990, Life, p.1D]

Martin, Keaton and cinematographer William A. Fraker put this retro fluff over better than expected early on, but hour 2 is only for those who don't want their equilibriums rattled by surprises. [8 Dec 1995, p.1D]

Prince blows it here by alternately reaching beyond his abilities and sabotaging what he does well. [06 Nov 1990, p.5D]

To its credit, the ravenously awaited film version of Presumed Innocent should engross and reward two distinct audiences: Those who've read Scott Turow's 1987 best seller, and those who haven't. But remember: Engross and reward isn't quite synonymous with a cinematic trip to the moon. [27 July 1990]

Despite many uproarious bits, it also must be called disappointing - but I'm still obliged to, uh, treat it tender. [28 Aug 1992, p.5D]

At 65, Boorman flawlessly handles his actors and expertly orchestrates action in one of the widest-looking black-and-white Panavision frames since 1967's In Cold Blood. [18 Dec 1998, p.13E]

Girls isn't fabulous, but you do feel its characters really have connected.

Mike Nichols may never direct another ground-breaking movie, but even with bit performers he is still Mike Midas. Leads and lesser players alike have pointed things to say in this solid, not great, entertainment; if you think this is a movie for you - it probably is. [12 Sep 1990, p.1D]

A contender for the year's best film.

Between Jackson's opining and De Niro's hopeless alibis when he messes up, Jackie is good for a bundle of bloody ho-ho-hos.

Despite the film's sporadic lulls, both director and star are on full beam. The first and third hours of this 20th-century epic are as dazzling as big-scale movies get.

Lots of sand but no day at the beach for its characters -- and not, from all appearances, the actors, either. Among the best of director Sidney Lumet's movies not set in New York. [08 Jun 2007, p.8E]

The milieu here is unforgiving, which makes fighting for basic rights important. You get a sense of why Bob Dylan -- who performs on this soundtrack -- wanted to bolt this frigid part of the map.

The old seems old - but the result isn't unpleasant, and moviegoers just might go for it. [22 May 1992]

Anyone who pays to see it will certainly feel as if he has been clipped.

Burdened with so many poky scenes that it approaches the level of the distributor's "Drowning Mona" and "Whipped," both candidates for the year's worst.

It's amusing, but also rather silly - offering still more evidence that Wenders seems to have seen a few hundred Hollywood genre pics too many. [30 Dec 1993, p.4D]

Williams is only adequate, but nearly everyone else here is great, including Jerry Orbach (Ciello mentor) and Bob Balaban (hardball Justice Department creep). [25 May 2007, p.4E]

Despite pockmarking racial humor, this is an appealing Fred MacMurray-Barbara Stanwyck companion piece to Double Indemnity and Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow. [29 Sep 1995, p.3D]

An odd mix of seediness, sideburns and even scorpions, the movie nearly matches the Lisa Marie-Michael Jackson marriage for weirdness.

An air of self-congratulation hangs over the empty tank of gas called Jawbreaker, as if writer-director Darren Stein just can't wait to dazzle us with the gaudy visuals he's soldered onto a standard-issue black-comedy script.

A movie that only a father could love -- father being the late John Cassavetes, credited with Lovely's script. [29 Aug 1997]

Visually impressive but woefully dumbed-down.

Uniformly robust acting puts still more feathers in the caps of Rush, Winslet and Caine.

Allen's connective scenes are slack and barely functional, and even his asides lack bite.

The Long Walk Home sounds as if it's going to be one of those primers in contemporary social history with made-for-TV written all over it. This is much, much better - even worthy of the big screen. [21 Dec 1990, p.5D]

Gere has never seemed more squirrelly.

[Olivier's] greatest Shakespearean movie. [27 Feb 2004]

Dead-carcass spinoff of Jay Ward's animated TV favorite.

Point Break points up inherent limitations in the "star" rating system. Its purely visceral material (surf sounds, skydiving stunt work, a tough indoor shootout midway through) are first-rate. As for the tangibles that matter even more (script, acting, directorial control, credible relationships between characters), Break defies belief. Dramatically, it rivals the lowest surf yet this year. [12 July 1991, p.4D]

Almost nothing about Raising Helen rings very true, other than the camera's crush on Kate Hudson.

The movie goes wrong from the start.

The middling result, diverting while it lasts but too silly to recommend, is merely this week's funhouse action pic. [21 Jun 1996 Pg.01.D]

Both female roles are unexpectedly meaty, so much so that the film loses something once the far more lively Stone is dispatched. Hour one (more satirical) is better all around, though the falloff isn't fatal. [1 June 1990, Life, p.2D]

A long-on-video 1993 release now restored to its original Cantonese with different music and more audio pop.

Stylish, brisk but lacking in human dimension despite an attractive cast. [22 May 1996, p. D1]

It isn't an unabashed movie-movie like the chest-thumping "Braveheart" or a cool, clinical semi-documentary like "The Battle of Algiers". There are elements of both here and they just don't dance. [11 Oct 1996, Pg.03.D]

Recalls the pumped-up energy of "Pump Up the Volume," as well as its casting prowess.

Bulletproof is both offensive and depressing, from its sociopathic mix of graphic violence and slapstick to its severe career blighting of the once-formidable Ernest Dickerson. [6 Sept 1996, p.3D]

That sound you hear is from jet engines gassing up, about to zoom Underclassman to DVD-ville.

With so much covered superficially here, little is covered well. But the film moves fast, with the cafe becoming a viable - even vital - character. [30 Dec 1991, p.4D]

Albert Finney and Susannah York look impossibly young and attractive, and it's easy to see how Oscar nominations went to four supporting performers; Richardson's chosen style, a self-conscious amalgam of silent films and the French New Wave, somehow worked when it shouldn't have - and still does, to my amazement. [13 Mar 1992, p.3D]

The word on Rollerball is "troubled," though troubled is what you call a high school junior with 50 snakes under his bed. Catastrophe is more like it.

This is a very bloody fantasy (reds do eke their way into the black-and-blues), but it's hard to think of another film with as many severed heads whose overall tone is so sweet.

Vanilla Ice was fairly amusing striking terror into Debbie Gibson when they were perversely cast as co-presenters on the last Grammy telecast. On the big screen, though, he all but exudes irreversible brain damage, as if he's taken too many noggin spills off a motorcycle. [25 Oct 1991, p.4D]