Mike Clark

A movie this diminutive can be easily oversold, but we might see it on some year-end best lists. It eats at you, just like renewed love.

SpongeBob barely rates as OK when compared with "The Incredibles."

A worthy companion to Towne's underrated 1982 portrait of female runners (Personal Best), Limits may face a similar challenge attracting mass moviegoers, which was certainly the case of the barely released Prefontaine. [11 Sep 1998]

But purely as an exercise in style, this movie has its moments.

Isn't tough to take as long as you've paid a matinee price.

Welcome to the summer's first pleasant surprise. [20 July 1990, p.1D]

At least this movie has flashes of humor, thought nearly all come courtesy of Newman. [12 February 1999, Life, p.8E]

Spielberg's must-see is so wondrous at depicting things that go crunch in the night that its human characterizations and pokey exposition seem astonishingly halfhearted… On a "people" level, Park isn't “Jaws,” but on a jolt level - oh, yes, it is. [11 June 1993, Life, p.1D]

It does survive its 40-minute test drive before turning into a lemon.

Clumsy, miscast thriller.

With heavy HIV subtext and a couple of actors who have scored in other films, this La Bohème spinoff about fatal illness, drug addiction and eviction ought to be less of a slog than it is.

At its best, hard-hitting grown-up cinema (rare these days) and a movie blessed with a villain (Big Tobacco) for which all gloves can be removed and heaved into the next county.

Though Robocop is too well-crafted to be entirely loathsome, it's at best an amoral goof. Yet like the comparably silly Lethal Weapon, it cynically pushes all the right action-audience buttons. Better duck - here comes a monster hit. [17 Jul 1987]

Underdrawn and overheated, Cool World will leave you cold. [13 Jul 1992]

You still get Tim Curry in drag, young Susan Sarandon in her skimpies and an enthusiastic score. [16 Nov 1990, p.3D]

Spike Lee deserved a vacation after putting himself through the grueling emotions of Clockers, but Girl 6 is too flimsy to excuse even as cinematic R&R. Frenetic but lazily conceived, it's like one of those puny low-budget toss-offs Brian De Palma used to spring on us when he thought nobody was looking. [22 Mar 1996, p.4D]

co-directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro know their craft; of the films here, only Othello has a more trenchant visual style. [30 Apr 1992]

Predictably, the derivative title here is a jumping-off point for another derivative slasher-revenge pic. [17 October 1997, p.5D]

It's fairly solid fun, though, without breaking any new ground, just as January's remake of "Assault on Precinct 13" was.

This critical smash was graphic, yet laced with macabre humor. [30 Oct 2007, p.2D]

It saves its clunkiest scene for the finale. No fair telling, but the key words are "political," "propaganda," "outdoors" and "orphans."

Preposterous to the extreme.

Becomes exceedingly disgusting when it wallows in the psychological torture of a child, a no-no under any circumstances.

This unbearable cross-generational fantasy, with Coreys Haim and Feldman, has one bit that sums up its overall ineptitude. It's a romantic interlude featuring the great Sinatra standard Young at Heart; instead of the 1954 hit version on Capitol, the filmmakers use the 1962 Reprise remake - photographed on a revolving turntable (and with the wrong label) as a 78! A 78 in the era of Gene Pitney? - what preschool did the filmmakers graduate from, anyway? [8 Sept 1989, p.3D]

Though admittedly a minor delight, this is the only movie whose end credits identify the film's grip, then credit Martha Raye for Poli-grip, then define ''grip'' for millions who want to know just what a grip does. For such small favors, Gun 21/2 has the smell of box office. [28 June 1991, p.5D]

Director Richard Rush's unique moviemaking saga is one of the consummate screen treats of its day, though its offbeat subject matter and tone caused it some problems. [23 Nov 2001, p.8E]

At its weakest, Miss Firecracker seems as calculated as Henley's co-scripted True Stories; laughs, though, are a great equalizer. Director Thomas Schlamme's outdoor location work gives an extra boost in the final (and superior) third - enough to give this oddity snap, crackle and pop, if not quite the ultimate ka-bam. [28 Apr 1989, p.4D]

At least the horror premise here has a hook - a house can spread its curse like a plague to adversely affect all who enter.