Ray Conlogue

For those who have been waiting for movies to catch up with the graphic possibilities of comic books, wait no longer: The Matrix is among us.

So energized by the subject that it overflows with inventiveness.

Perhaps too much energy was spent on being stylish rather than simply low-rent horrifying. The upshot is not very stylish and not very scary.

Clever and confident use of limited resources in an unfamiliar medium. Kenneth Branagh has made the right choice nine out of 10 times, and the tenth is easily forgiven because of the youthful ardor of that bright face and that bright talent. [10 Nov 1989]

This engaging documentary is an excursion into the immense "art" form of hip-hop.

The best thing the film does is to show us not only what that mind looks like, but how the creative process itself operates: messily, erratically, outside of most people's morality, but with a force and purposiveness that makes the machinations of the rest of us look irresolute by comparison.

A beguiling, slow-moving parable.

It's a long time since I've heard a press screening audience applaud a foreign film, but then it's a long time since a French movie has been as funny as The Dinner Game.

Surprisingly entertaining.

What a graceful movie this is.

This is a great film for those who share the disabused French view of grownup life, but more particularly for those who want to see one of the great actresses of her generation at the height of her powers.

There's a lot to like in this film. As in the original, it has more than a few echoes of Animal Farm in its portrayal of humanity as the exploiter species. It respects both its child audience, by permitting Babe and his sunny decency to win out, and its adult audience, by generating more wit than the average dozen Hollywood films.

There's an alchemy that can transform personal experience into a great film, but it was nowhere nearby when Tamara Jenkins wrote and directed this lacklustre first feature.

One of Stephen Chow's extravagant and very funny martial-arts spoof movies.

Like many of his (young) generation, Villeneuve is front and centre with the visual and musical language. He doesn't always hit the mark, but he is already trying for a symbolic allusiveness that is entirely beyond the reach of many filmmakers.

Comes as a pleasure. It's a comic drama set in a Chicago hair salon where the characters are engaging and the story has a bustling richness.

It's a turning-the-tables story a five-year-old could appreciate -- except for the confusing crowd scenes and haphazard camera work. Technically speaking, Waters' skills haven't improved much over the years.

It's an enjoyable film, carried along by the perennial strength of the story... But it won't have the staying power of the original.

It is, alas, très twee. A muchness of silliness. Beautifully filmed silliness, and fetchingly acted tweeness. But give me Cruella de Vil any time.

So it's a pretty faded experience. I suggest you get out the books, which for once can truly be said to be more spectacular than the movie.

It's a good film. But its exotic allure may lead some to mistake it for a great one.

Director Carl Reiner has put it together so that the character (hardly) ever becomes boring, and the Martin-Carl Gottlieb-Michael Elias screenplay has just enough genuinely witty moments to keep the story rolling past its flat parts. What more can anyone say? If you like Steve Martin, you'll love this movie. If you don't, you'll laugh sometimes but wish you'd gone elsewhere. [17 Dec 1979]

If you're in the mood for tears and triumph, with a dash of exoticism, Together may well be the film for you.

Spartan is all good. Then it isn't. Then it isn't at all good. Not at all.

This concoction, so bizarre to the adult mind, is actually a charming triumph where its intended under-12 audience is concerned.

This is a grimly thrilling movie that falls somewhere between clear-eyed realism and the improbabilities of an action flick.

What always feels genuine, movingly so, are the faces of the school children caught up in their account of the unforgotten past.

It's a movie located in an interesting place, but without quite enough self-confidence really to inhabit it.