Rene Rodriguez

Full Grown Men marks the feature debut of director David Munro, who was born and raised in Miami and shoots Florida like a native.

A surprisingly straightforward romp in slasher-flick cliches, Friday the 13th is replete with gee-whiz gore, gratuitous sex and nudity and party-loving teens with a penchant for ending up on the wrong end of a pick ax.

All is Lost is more fun to think about than it is to actually watch: It’s a testament to a great actor, an experimental piece of cinema and a bit of a bore.

Like the type of music it celebrates, Rock Star is just a lot of posing, adding up to very little.

The Master has become a contest between two gifted actors trying to shout each other down. The commitment to their roles is impressive, but it's tethered to a weightless, airless movie, a film so enamored of itself, the audience gets shut out.

What The Long Day Closes lacks is a narrative thread, however slim, to match the perfectly realized setting and wonderful visuals Davies has crafted. The whole thing feels like a chapter of a much larger work, one that, if finished, would doubtless prove more intriguing than what we get here. [7 Aug 1993, p.G5]

An artsy bore.

Inadvertently does with the civil rights movement exactly what Banderas set out not to do: trivializes it.

Loud and frantic and filled with all sorts of business, but it's also empty and inert, a creative exercise that would have played better as a 30-minute short.

While the scope of the movie is bigger, its impact is smaller. "Blue Valentine" was a precise, heartrending portrait of a marriage coming apart at the seams. The theme of his new movie is a lot harder to discern.

As intriguing as Hardy is to watch, the picture can’t overcome its cinematic-stunt vibe.

The movie is practically incomprehensible.

You end up feeling sorry for all the actors forced to humiliate themselves, except for McConaughey, whose portrayal of sadistic, manipulative evil is mesmerizing, in part because it was so unexpected. He continues to surprise. Friedkin, sadly, continues to coast.

By the time the end credits roll, you're still not sure what kind of movie The Hunting Party is supposed to be, other than just queasy.

Although it deals with some monumental themes, Mademoiselle Chambon also feels wispy and inconsequential.

Does the movie bear any relation to the video game? Not much. Do the dinosaur effects steal Jurassic Park's thunder? Keep dreaming. Will kids want to see it? Depends on how big Nintendo fans they are. Super Mario Bros. is like watching somebody else play a video game: It's flashy, colorful and wholly uninvolving. [29 May 1993, p.5]

The best science fiction leaves you with questions and ideas to ponder. Arrival is the sort of superficially profound movie that initially seems deep and weighty but stops making sense the moment you put down the bong.

Charlie St. Cloud is primarily a vehicle to prove the actor can do more than dance and sing. It's more of a demo reel for Efron than a movie. His predominant fan base, though, won't mind a bit.

Despite the great care and research that went into the movie, Frost/Nixon pales in comparison to Oliver Stone's "Nixon" when it comes to humanizing the infamous leader.

Watching an army of apes riding horses heading into battle is undeniably cool, but that’s the only thing the movie gives you: Neat eye candy. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is written at a level so low, even 8- year-olds will find it lacking.

Unfortunately, The Island grows dumber as it goes along, gradually disintegrating into a generic good-versus-evil spectacular that not only defies all known laws of gravity and physics, but also suffers from the lack of morality that plagues Bay's films.

Ardor is never boring, but it’s never all that engaging, either. Here is a movie that ends with a can’t-miss scenario — a siege on a farmhouse in which the heroes are vastly outnumbered and outgunned — yet still fails to ever quicken your pulse.

Ichaso demonstrates he's ready for the big leagues: His movie is noble and slick, technically accomplished. But it never touches the heart. [26 Feb 1994, p.G3]

The Jungle Book has its moments — the panther Bagheera voiced by Ben Kingsley, the python Kaa voiced by Scarlett Johansson and a funny porcupine voiced by the late Garry Shandling are all memorable creations — but the overall film feels cold and mechanical, befitting a movie that was made primarily because technology made it possible.

While We’re Young starts off as an empathetic, funny look at middle age and winds up as profound and schematic as a Neil Simon play — or, for the younger set, an episode of "The New Girl."

Bad Milo! directly envokes a number of earlier pictures Vaughan clearly adores, including "Basket Case," "It’s Alive" and even the workplace satire "Office Space." But the movie fails to ground its promising (if preposterous) scenario in any kind of recognizable reality.

Too much of Lords of Dogtown still feels conventional and sugar-coated.

One question in particular hangs heavily over the entire film, a plot hole so distracting it becomes the only thing you can think about.