Mike Clark

Woody Allen is good for his funniest screen romp in a while, thanks to a few evenly spaced standout scenes of laugh-out-loud intensity.

What the movie can't quite get over, no matter how hard the filmmakers try, is the story's built-in limitations.

Compellingly watchable horror-spectacle.

A faithful, technically brilliant, but also dramatically malnourished film of J.G. Ballard's popular World War II novel. [08 Dec 1987]

At least the models' avarice and teasing provide a chuckle or two, as their dates line up panting at the door. Purely by default, their contribution makes this a slightly better working-woman romance than "The Wedding Planner."

A ludicrous medical thriller operating on the supposition that readers and moviegoers have forgotten about "Coma". [27 Sept 1996]

Ron Howard's The Paper starts out as a seductively overstuffed edition with breezy stories, a diverting layout, color-packed supplements and a strong editorial viewpoint. Eventually, it becomes more like the Jumble Puzzle on page 64G. [18 March 1994, p.4D]

So fluidly visual that only a deathbed finale can flag its pace, it's the first Panavision music video to run 21/4 hours, the monotony finally sapping its staying power. [23 Dec 1996 Pg.01.D]

If you savor movies about sleazy plea bargains and other lawyer hardballing, Death has its moments. Otherwise the latest from director Barbet Shroder is only a movie of moments - much like his last: Single White Female. [21 Apr 1995, p.7D]

Crystal is such a panic - and normally uptight Patinkin is so attractively relaxed as a Spanish swordsman - that Bride's charms just can't be ignored. [25 Sept 1987]

Just going through the motions here (and mild ones at that), both Chan and the movie should have stayed at home.

A case of smart and talented people trying to jam a Cold War square into a Gulf War circle. You can feel the chafing, to say nothing of the burden this capably crafted shrug has taken on.

The only things missing from making this showdown worthy of a Western is Murrow's sheriff's badge, a dusty street and maybe a spittoon for McCarthy's infamous invectives.

Pocahontas catching us off-guard with an impromptu cartwheel isn't the knock-you-down brainstorm of Naomi Watts juggling for King Kong, but it's still deliciously inspired. Trouble is, the bit lasts two seconds, while the movie is a long "might have been" that's doomed to be buried in a flurry of strong late-year releases.

The film has its moments as a mood piece.

This grade-A sleeper sends you out with an unexpected smile. [25 Nov 1992]

The movies are so much fun that even detractors of Charlton Heston (Cardinal Richelieu) and Raquel Welch (taking pratfalls as "Constance") readily admit that both carry more than their load here. [01 May 1998]

A movie just good enough to keep nurturing rooting interest as you watch it.

Thanks to fuzzy motivation, snicker-bait melodramatics and craters in logic, Calm quickly disintegrates into a might-have-been. [07 Apr 1989, p.6D]

Dolly lost a fortune and helped to all but kill the genre, yet this famed musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker is more fun than its rep indicates. [15 Nov 2005, p.8D]

There's no real dazzle in Bedazzled.

Give Dozen a slight edge to the mournful "Yours, Mine & Ours" as a holiday season bottom-feeder, because Martin and Levy are better at slapstick than Dennis Quaid.

Irritates in the early going when many of the current-day interviews are so intentionally underlighted that we can't see what the group members look like.

His (Cameron) movie may not be perfect, but visually and viscerally, it pretty well is.

There may be no crying need for this movie, but we could use the laughs.

Mostly avoids being cloying but flirts with being precious. Yet Boyle is enough of a stylist to make it all passable. It's one of those films for which fans and detractors can see the others' viewpoint.

To crystallize its fundamental flaw, here's a movie about Manhattan that takes 75 minutes just to get to Manhattan - followed by another 15 that could just as easily have been shot (and possibly were) in some East Topeka alley. [31 July 1989, p.4D]

Modest yet pleasing musical pastiches that typified post-war Disney. [05 Jun 1998, p.6E]

Viscerally juicy....The movie is effectively cast. [25 July 1997, p.D2]

As far as acting goes, neither Olsen is ready for Euripides' Medea, yet each projects well enough in their shared big scene.

What we get is a tweaked variation on the litany of men-disguised-as-women comedies: "Some Like It Hot" and "Tootsie," just for starters. Obviously, this sassy farce sounds recycled and certainly appears to be in the coming attraction. Yet it's also funnier than expected in ways you wouldn't expect.

Paradis is a most striking subject, but the movie is a winner as well, starting with a story full of black-comic possibilities exploited fully by the great French director Patrice Leconte.

A timeless story. [07 Oct 2005, p.8E]

There is enough mirthful good will generated to justify even another sequel. May we suggest: "License to Shag," "You Only Shag Twice" or "Thundershag."

The sad truth is that Cadillac is still another of the amiably lazy efforts that Eastwood and his band of production regulars have been mass-producing for too many years. (And by now, it's decades.) [26 May 1989, p.4D]

Superstars usually avoid movies this spiritless, and it's tough to believe anyone could read this script and fail to realize the movie wouldn't end up going anywhere.

Let's just say that if you loved Dana Carvey in Opportunity Knocks, you'll thrill to Taking Care of Business. [17 Aug 1990]

This smashingly filmed and performed one-shot is (uh, so to speak) the year's best romantic comedy. [8 Dec 1989]

But when material is this fragile, virtually every scene is obligated to click for the result to become something special. Ultimately, this walking and talking comes perilously close to becoming a gab-fest treadmill. [26 Jul 1996, Pg.04.D]

Blue Steel is unpleasant and wearily predictable, a near-unbearable 103 minutes even for fanciers of urban cop films. Its one distinction, lead Jamie Lee Curtis aside, is its backhanded bone-toss to feminists: Now we know that women, too, can direct serial-killer crumminess. [16 Mar 1990, p.4D]

When it isn't funny, it's embarrassingly obvious - and it's almost never funny. [24 Dec 1990, p.1D]

Great cinema - and also a whopping good time. [19 September 1990, Life, p.1D]

This is intelligent grown-up entertainment on both a political and a humanistic level.

If Gooding can't get another "Boyz N the Hood" or "Jerry Maguire" soon, his career will need its own cork.

Bout No. 2 is among the best closed-quarters screen fights ever, as good as (and longer than) Frank Sinatra vs. Henry Silva in The Manchurian Candidate. And Hannah does more for an eyepatch than anyone since the late Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan.

On paper, this sounded like a winner. In reality? We have met the Enemy at the multiplex, and he's silly. [08 Feb 1991, p.4D]

A minimally tolerable excuse to splice one or two perfunctory scenes between song cues.

Spotty and uneven, Wedding shouldn't even have the embarrassed guffaws it has, and it probably wouldn't were it not for a robust cast.

The skating scenes are their own reward: It's hard to think of a movie since 1950's "Sunset Boulevard" that has gotten more dramatic impact out of a pool.

Those who teach public speaking sometimes advocate telling your audience what you're going to tell them, then actually telling them, then telling them what you've told them. Sidewalks reproves this isn't a wise path for movies.

Even surly moviegoers may discover how pleasant it can be to actually like movie characters.

This is one movie in which you don't feel the long-ish running time, in part because there always seems to be a surprise (as well as a new street guerrilla) around every corner.

Fans of the stars should be satisfied. Those allergic to car chases, casual killings and the phrase "Oh, s - - -!" may suffer hives. [7 April 1995, p.3D]

Is this a comedy, action pic or sensitive Belushi-Harris romance? Director Rod Daniel never establishes a definitive tone, though he comes close in the scene where James Brown's I Feel Good hits the sound track after some canine fornication. You don't need a dog to smell this. [28 Apr 1989, p.4D]

All three actors give it their all, but Monaghan stands out with a sexy yet oddly down-to-earth variation on the Midwest girl gone wrong, thanks partly to a dark dysfunctional family secret.

A flop in its day despite France's rhapsodic reaction, but a movie I've always loved even before its knockout finale, which even detractors admit redeems a lot. [29 Jun 2007, p.10E]

With a half-dozen characters sorting out life's woes, the pacing is a couple of beats faster than languorous — just enough to sustain one's interest.

Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. is half-a-good movie, three-quarters of a good debut, and an even better showcase for its live-wire lead performer. Even so, a protracted, then pat, wrap-up saps much of the goodwill reflected by these promising components. [23 Mar 1993, p.10D]

With enough plot to take in a mercy killing and massive train wreck, Cecil B. DeMille's extravaganza is often cited as the worst movie to have taken the Oscar, as if a lot of lackluster picks (from Cimarron to Crash) were half as entertaining. [07 Apr 2008, p.10A]

Sharon Stone rides into a Western dust hole bent on revenge. Gene Hackman, virtually reprising his Unforgiven heavy, gives this goofy genre-bender some authenticity. [17 Feb 1995, p.4D]

Even though Batman's Tim Burton is a better filmmaker than Beatty will ever be, Dick Tracy is the movie - of all screen attempts - that most convinces me I'm watching a live-action cartoon. [14 Jun 1990]

Inventing the Abbotts would be a lot more fun were it a trashy Troy Donahue-Diane McBain vehicle ground out by Warner Bros. in 1960, the year this hormonally motivated high school-college romance mercifully concludes. [4 April 1997, p. 4D]

Though there are helmets deeper than this movie, you do have to admire the level of screen showmanship .

Even with Burns' smoothest performance yet as a lead, Confidence is on a level with Steven Soderbergh's blah remake of "Ocean's Eleven." But because no one is expecting much, it seems a little better.

Frigid soul or not, it's the most unforgettable supernatural comedy since Brazil. Could be it's time for the Coens to drop the pretense, and embrace sci-fi head on. [11 Mar 1994, p.4D]

The warden implores the prisoners to relinquish their weapons, and out of the cells come flying a zillion blades of all sizes. In a Mel Brooks movie, this bit would be funny. Here, it sums up the chilling situation in five seconds.

Engrossing up to a point, the movie ends up being another mild disappointment from a filmmaker who last put it all together with Passion Fish -- seven years and four movies ago. [04 Jun 1999]

Neeson is earnest, but this is a Foster we haven't seen before, a transformation that extends to her appearance. There's a showy aspect to her performance that raises my eyebrows, but it's a pretty good show. Better, to be sure, than the movie. [14 Dec 1994, p.1D]

Michael Mann , directs with his standard prejudice toward the sheer physical. The result, almost musical, has only a couple recent movie precedents. [25 Sep 1992, p.1D]

Hunt is coldly clinical rather than emotionally resonant; so is the measured ensemble work of a super cast. [2 Mar 1990, Life, p.1D]

Cameron Crowe's Singles is such an unabashed joy that some viewers may find themselves blinking. Can a ''twentysomething'' comedy so modestly conceived offer up captivating memories for days? It can, it does, and it figures. [18 Sept 1992, p.5D]

Filmed during that great early period of his career when he played heels better than anyone ever had, Kirk Douglas is the morally tortured 21st Precinct New York cop who lets unbridled hatred for street scum poison his marriage. [28 Oct 2005]

Even if a lot of adults have problems following this picture 100%, look for computer-savvy teen-agers to guarantee this sometimes original but too often derivative time-killer a shelf life.

The chuckles here come from the leads' interplay, crying on each other's shoulders and cheering each other up.

One of those movies that goes for a jarringly new emotion every 30 seconds or so while the story's foundation is collapsing.

Valiant is voiced by Robots' Ewan McGregor, an actor apparently no longer in a "Trainspotting" mood.

Proves there are Holocaust stories still to be told.

This meaty Irish stew isn't arty or elliptical. It ought to connect with anyone who's survived sibling tension or romantic fence-sitting. [9 August 1995, Life, p.5D]

Action star Chow Yun-Fat's latest is as thin as the buzz cut he sports in Bulletproof Monk.

The granddaddy of prison pics opens with a lecture on overcrowding and ends with a high mortality rate, in which Chester Morris, a bald Wallace Beery and stoolie Robert Montgomery (Elizabeth's father) are players. [24 Jun 1994, p.3D]

Salvaged by its rally, Reloaded seems less tired than "X2," its current sequel rival. But since its creators have said it's only half of a movie, we won't really know until The Matrix Revolutions arrives Nov. 5 whether this chunk is fizzle or sizzle.

Thanks in part to McQueen, you can almost mention this in the same breath with director Don Siegel's best. [30 Mar 1990, p.3D]

Cult director Don Siegel bookended Dirty Harry with this esteemed toughie. [08 Mar 1996]

The movie is so silly I found myself snickering a couple of times, just before slumping down in my seat in mortified embarrassment.

Though there must be a dozen U.S. presidents who have never had a documentary made about them, the late Tupac Shakur could rate his own section in video stores, placed between "music" and "action."

One of the greatest mixes ever of gritty war drama and roll-on-the-floor hilarity. [29 Mar 2002, p.2A]

Usually, I'm as slow as the pacing of a movie in figuring out who's done it. If you can't solve this mystery with an hour to go (as I did), better call for a transfusion so a better type of blood will start flowing to your brain.

Life is a crock -- or something like it.

If Hairspray is clean and sweet, don't cry sellout. Taken as a pointed burlesque of a serious racial issue, this is what Spike Lee's School Daze should have been. It's also a PG (for "Pretty Darn Good'') simply on its own.

Bugsy is a gangster film around the edges, a '40s love song down the middle, and the year's breeziest live-actor movie through and through. [13 Dec 1991, p.1D]

A smooth mix of humanism and keen filmmaking instincts.

Marvin leavened his sociopathy with a hint of little boy naivete or innocence -- Gibson is merely a frequently funny thug. {5 February 1999, Life, p. 11E]

Director Joel Schumacher, whose pastel color schemes vitalized St. Elmo's Fire, gives this a sensual, at times even erotic, sheen. And a few subplot issues - single motherhood, runaway kids, midlife dating - hint that at least someone involved with this project intended to go after bigger game. [31 Jul 1987, p.4D]

Director Frank Sinatra (on screen, he's a medic) was probably going for Kurosawa-like profundity here. Unfortunately, the other actors include Clint Walker and Tommy Sands. [05 Apr 1991, p.3D]

The Crucible shrewdly saves its most potent ammo for the end, audience-friendly showmanship to further signify a bang-up movie. [27 Nov 1996]

An intimate three-hour epic adapted less from Frank's diary than the Broadway version. [06 Feb 2004, p.6E]

A comedy without much zing but with an occasional zing-er that enables the film to pick up . . . well, if not nine yards, maybe an inch or two on the gridiron.

Yet another Alan Alda unoriginal original. [22 Jun 1990, p.2D]