Paula Nechak

A perfect example of form without content.

Often unsettlingly funny, though it ultimately recedes into a dark womb of despair.

Would be totally unexceptional if not for its visual telling of the Apollo 11 flight and the fact that the movie is impressively shot - the first animated feature film in 3-D.

The Village goes up in smoke (and mirrors). It wants to find a profoundness that hints at something deep and dimensional, but it hasn't the courage of conviction to stay on course as an unabashed ode to innocence.

The film strains to achieve the comedic gait of "Wag the Dog" or the improvised, overlapping style that so defined Robert Altman's Hollywood movie, "The Player."

Jordan unites his favorite actors -- Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart and Brendan Gleeson -- with the swoony presence of the talented 29-year-old Cillian Murphy.

It works because it never tries to be more than the very personal memory piece it is.

Lacks the cohesive flow of "Fantasia" and suffers from an attention deficit that seems to mark and flaw our current fast-paced technological era.

A delight and a surprise.

At times, the self-congratulatory tone makes for smug viewing and slow going. In spots, the pace is so all-exclusive that not every viewer will be able to get up and dance to it.

It's epic, sweeping, and genuinely engrossing for awhile, but then it stumbles. [07 Nov 1998]

Gorgeous in its gore and, for all its destruction, despair and death, concludes on an optimistic and vibrantly alive note.

There are two reasons Ramsay succeeds with a story that might at best be called morbid: She visually transforms the dreary expanse of dead-end distaste the characters inhabit into a poem of art, music and metaphor -- and she has the perfect actress to embody Morvern.

The actors are all well-cast, thoughtful and sometimes funny. Tabu was apparently not Nair's first choice, but after watching her in the role it's hard to imagine anyone else -- she's heartbreakingly good.

An edgy comedy with heart.

It's a taut, unexpected study that asks many questions about retribution and redemption.

While there are maybe two moments of genuinely clever humor, Storytelling is the work of a previously promising filmmaker who, having no new ideas, has morphed into a sniggering schoolboy intent upon being mean.

Fascinating, visually gorgeous cinematic study that will frustrate some viewers by its ambiguity.

A low-maintenance crowd-pleaser, but we've seen the entire film, in thematic snippets, before.

It's the chemistry between Vardalos and Collette that gives the film its magical dazzle. Despite Vardalos' ingratiating, big and breathy presence, Collette, as the pulse and conscience of these two dreamers, very nearly steals the film.

We leave hungry for more of the film's substantial, if less physically perfect, subjects.

Witherspoon is terrific.

Tainted by cliches, painful improbability and murky points.

The film, despite the occasional gross-out joke, can't disguise the fact that it's a sweet old sappy -- even dated -- love story. Only Molly Ringwald is missing.

Belongs to its trio of "bovine" voice talent -- Roseanne Barr, Dame Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly -- who play with such tongue-in-cheek delight upon their public personas that it's hard to separate cow character from the celebrities.

This is simply another in a long line of utterly unnecessary remakes that, having nothing new to say, clutch at crassness and dumbness.

A sloppily scripted film that contains a silly and superfluous subplot about a crooked cop.

(Arteta's) yanked an eerily accomplished performance out of his lead actor.