Rene Rodriguez

A work of wonderfully sinister fantasy. Director Brad Silberling is always mindful of his kiddie audience -- the movie is never even remotely scary.

By the halfway mark, even the most devoted Gibson and Foster fans will start wondering when the movie will do something beyond superficially showing off its stars. It's not until the end that you realize that's all Maverick has to offer -- and it's not enough. [20 May 1994, p.G4]

This cold, generally soulless movie does feel like it was made by people who are taking themselves way too seriously. Remember the delicious anticipation you felt when The Empire Strikes Back was over? You won't feel that way when The Matrix Reloaded reaches its cliffhanger finale. You'll just feel relief.

Ted is more of an idea than a movie, a string of jokes and homages starring a cartoon and some game actors whose performances are destined to be enjoyed in chunks, rarely from start to finish, during momentary breaks of channel surfing on late-night TV.

Baghead will disappoint gore hounds or anyone looking for an extreme horror experience -- this is more of a comedy-drama than anything else.

In his first starring role post-Harry Potter, Radcliffe must carry the movie with little dialogue and practically nothing to play other than fear, constantly reacting to creepy toys that suddenly spring to life and reflections in windows that shriek unexpectedly at him.

It''s loud and flashy and fun to look at, but you''ll grow tired of it very quickly.

Certainly diverting and, in Thurman, it also has a knockout of a performance.

The problem with Saved!, which is often bright and likable, is that its central point -- extremism, religious or otherwise, is bad -- is too obvious for a satire.

A portrait of a family reeling with pain and resentment -- and rising to the challenge of dealing with it head-on.

Micmacs is a wan fizzle of a fantasy, a spirited, imaginative spectacle that never quite takes flight.

It's not that Fear of a Black Hat isn't funny: It is, on occasion. It's just that much of this rap music spoof, done in the style of a mock Spinal Tap documentary, feels woefully out of date. Two years ago, it might have been a hip, must-see comedy: Today, it plays like a warmed-over rerun. [24 Jun 1994, p.G6]

Suffers from an episodic script and an overly long running time plagued by too many dull, laugh-free patches.

In an effort to turn Brashear's life into a larger-than-life sermon, Men of Honor almost manages to make it all feel like an overbearing crock.

Bug has an uncompromising, anything-goes daring: Friedkin, 71, has nothing to lose at this point, and he has made this low-budget, brazenly over-the-top picture strictly on his own terms.

Dream Lover ends with a devious last-minute twist that will delight some and infuriate others into cries of "Is that all there is?" But the surprise ending fits the rest of Dream Lover perfectly, a movie that wholeheartedly embraces its genre's cliches -- yet still keeps you riveted. [20 May 1994, p.5]

As absorbing as much of it is, Unbreakable winds up as a mild disappointment. But it leaves no question the hype around Shyamalan is well-deserved: This guy has a huge career ahead of him.

The movie still feels strangely inert; it's an adventure in which nothing ever really seems to happen.

Openly embraces its noir roots, right down to the femme fatale (Connie Nielsen) who strikes a Lauren Bacall-ish pose in an open doorway and whose eyes are lit by a horizontal slant of light.

Watching these coolly precise, methodical actors spar with each other at the top of their game is half the show.

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.

A lightweight, formulaic piece of fluff, but you wouldn't know that by Meryl Streep's performance.

Corbijn makes the familiar strange, focusing on details other filmmakers would gloss over.

A hit-and-miss affair, but it's smart and good-natured enough to guarantee Stiller an open invitation to host VH1's annual Fashion Awards.

An earnest and well-meaning but disappointing failure.

The Good Shepherd, for all its noble intentions, manages to make even espionage boring.

Fast, wacky and bubbling with passion or dark, troubled and doomed. In the unusually titled crazy/beautiful, it's all those things at once.

Grisham is an expert at hooking the audience, and he fills the edges with legal details that, realistic or not, are always fascinating. Runaway Jury is an adequate, unremarkable piece of work, but as they say in the book world, you won't be able to put it down.

Big Miracle even throws in an unexpected bonus, a surprise last-minute cameo that is funny without being the slightest bit mean, just like the rest of this hugely likable movie.

There are several cameos in For a Good Time, Call… by famous actors portraying the girls' phone-sex clients, including Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen, but they've been clearly been left to improvise, and they don't put much effort into their routines.

Don’t expect Hitchcock or De Palma here — Reichardt is much too low-key and modest for such crowd-pleasing pyrotechnics — but one long, sustained shot near the end seems to suggest that people who are convinced they are doing the right thing are capable of great evil.

Self-indulgent and needlessly complicated for what it ultimately delivers.

The movie, however, is the sort of picture in which people run around doing everything except the most logical thing to do, because that’s the only way to keep the nonsensical plot spinning.

Madrid, 1987 operates on a dizzying number of levels - as a romantic comedy, a sex farce, a study of culture clash, ageism and idealism - and the highest compliment you can give this ridiculously talky movie (which plays better if you speak Spanish) is that you're a little sad to see the characters go on their way once they part, probably forever.

As filler for the long, dry winter movie season, the movie is more than passable, and its sense of humor has a wicked, unforgiving spin that is decidedly pro-rodent.

The first half of Oleanna, David Mamet's film of his own award-winning play about sexual harassment, is carefully calculated to annoy the hell out of you -- which it does. But after a tedious beginning, Oleanna begins to turn the screws. By the end, you find yourself taking pleasure from a brutal beating, and it leaves you rattled, downright disturbed. [11 Nov 1994, p.G4]

Depends on one's ability to accept Sandler in the part: For me, the casting felt too much like a stunt, a filmmaker's compromise to get his intimate, uncommercial script green-lit.

The lack of effort, right down to the unimaginative title, is dispiriting.

Unlike most pictures about people living on the fringe, The Motel Life is never drab or depressing.

If it had been a drama, The Wolf of Wall Street might have been unwatchable: There’s simply too much of everything. But Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire) hit on the genius idea to turn the story into a riotous comedy, one that keeps topping itself everytime you think it can’t possibly get crazier.

One of the problems with director Mike Flanagan’s occasionally involving but ultimately dull thriller is that the whole movie hinges on a reflective piece of glass.

The movie has a profound understanding of the back-and-forth nature of the bond between boys, and it ends on a silent note of forgiving looks and instant reconciliation that is the privilege of the young, whose lives aren’t yet complicated enough to put resentment before friendship

Wisely, Romper Stomper never preaches or moralizes: The subject matter does that well enough on its own. [03 Dec 1993, p.G4]

Looks exquisite, but don't bother digging deeper.

The best moments in Matchstick Men belong to Cage and Lohman, who, in "Paper Moon" fashion, prove that the family that cons together, laughs together.

Pfeiffer is the antithesis of the girl next door: You just have to look at her to know that she was born to be bad.

Written and directed by James Mottern with more attention to character than to plot, Trucker is a simple, unadorned study of a loner forced by circumstance to embrace the world again -- but only on her terms.

The plot lines all eventually fold into one another to form a well-rounded picture of a family struggling to gain a foothold in a foreign culture, though writer-director Miguel Arteta settles for a disappointingly conventional finale. Still, Star Maps has enough poetic grit and offbeat, unexpected humor to make Arteta a director worth watching. [22 Aug 1997, p.9G]

What's missing is originality and story and inventiveness.

Frida, the kaleidoscopic drama based on the life of the Mexican painter/feminist/icon Frida Kahlo, was directed by Julie Taymor, which is the movie's first blessing.

The movie ultimately turns out to be less about sex than it is about the point in a friendship where two people decide they will both be better off if they part ways.

Although there are several stretches in the movie in which Seidl seems to be repeating himself, the director is carefully building toward a knock-out final scene in which the inscrutable, often annoying Anna becomes beautifully, poignantly human in front of our eyes, like magic.

This is the sort of small, intimate movie that, if it had been made on a low budget by independent actors, would be celebrated to the skies.

Traitor is "Syriana" for dummies, a globe-hopping, multi-character look at the war between America and Islamic terrorists that keeps things as relatively simple as an episode of 24. Not that there's anything wrong with that: 24 is a really good show. But it doesn't pretend to be something it's not, either.

Worst of all is the movie's finale, a noble attempt to avoid an overly-pat conclusion that strays too far in the opposite direction.

Sunlight Jr. is what is often described as a slice-of-life drama, but this one is more of a tiny sliver, and it doesn’t leave you with much to chew on.

This lively, infuriating and occasionally moving film certainly leaves you thinking, and there isn't a dead spot in it. That's the mark of a real filmmaker, not just a muckraker.

Like a lot of the elder Cassavetes' work, She's So Lovely contains moments of truly fine acting, its characters are all sharply drawn, and its story never seems to go anywhere. [29 Aug 1997, p.5G]

Much like the first film, Nymphomaniac Vol.2 isn’t remotely erotic or a turn-on — it’s a curiously intellectual experience that doesn’t move you below the neck, including the heart.

This Must Be the Place is as emotionally zonked-out as its protagonist, and just as difficult to warm up to.

Although never boring and almost continually amusing, Extract doesn't work as a movie because you don't buy a minute of it, even as silly satire.

The casting is the key to the success of this absolutely hilarious crowd-pleaser.

The Kite Runner is earnest and sentimental and formulaic and obvious. Watching it, I could understand the fuss over Khaled Hosseini's bestselling novel, but the film didn't make me want to read it. That's not a slam against the book, but a way of illustrating just how literal and bland the film adaptation turned out.

Criminal is happy to reprise Fabian Bielinsky's original note for note, and it's a listless, dutiful affair -- a cover version played out of obligation, not inspiration.

A very engrossing movie, the kind that gives shameless manipulation a good name.

Closer in spirit and tone to the comic books that spawned it.

The entire point of Carnage is to poke fun at the fragile civility of the upper-middle class - they're all animals inside! - but how much more fun would this material have been if the story hadn't been about polite white people?

There's too much caution and not enough lust.

The most surprising thing about Michael Bay's much-anticipated, blockbuster-bound Transformers is how funny the movie is.

Even though Lower City ultimately leads nowhere (the movie doesn't end so much as simply stop), you won't mind having taken the trip.

Intentionally designed to rile as much as entertain.

At Any Price teaches you a lot about the business of corn seeds and genetic manipulation (the stuff is actually fascinating) but what interests director Ramin Bahrani most are the dynamics of this deeply dysfunctional family.

It looks fantastic, but it's also hard to sit through, because by that point The Bourne Legacy has repeatedly proven there are no surprises to be had here, no more fresh stories to be mined from this well. The stunts look exhausting, though. No wonder Damon bailed.

Elysium, the second movie from writer-director Neill Blomkamp, isn’t quite as inventive or fresh as his knockout debut, 2009’s "District 9." But the new picture is cut from the same cloth — furiously exciting sci-fi, carefully considered and loaded with allegories and social commentary.

Turns out to be something entirely different than it initially seemed, and while the conclusion brings everything to a logical close, it also renders the movie less interesting -- a stunt that didn't merit Bale's startling, and dangerous, transformation.

The post-conversion 3D is more distracting than anything else, but the rest of this surprisingly fun entertainment is as sharp as the hero’s claws.

The movie's power sneaks up on you, reminiscent of something screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond once famously described as "the Billy Wilder touch": A combination of the sweet and the sour, because even funny people, like you and I, aren't always being funny.

Familiarity is not without its pleasures. But Spectre is so confused and inert that Craig can’t even sell the signature “Bond. James Bond” and “Shaken, not stirred” lines.

Viewers who like their movies to adhere to some sort of reasonable logic, or to at least make sense, will not be pleased by Femme Fatale. For everyone else, it's playtime.

Irritating when it should be amusing, dumb when it should be zany, flat when it should be snappy.

The movie will disappoint basement-dwellers who worried a female-centric Ghostbusters would somehow ruin their childhoods, because it isn’t bad enough to hate. But the film is an even bigger letdown for fans of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, who are forced to play most of this material straight, with no room for comic improvisation.

The talented actors are game, but they are done in by the shallow nature of their characters, none of whom behaves in a manner remotely resembling real life (they don't really seem to be related, either).

Despite a last-minute attempt to bring poignancy to the tale, you don't walk away from Overnight feeling sorry for Duffy as much as you are glad you never met him.

A surprisingly sappy misfire from brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, a hug-it-out, touchy-feely movie that succumbs to the maudlin sentimentality they had avoided in all their previous pictures (The Puffy Chair, Baghead, Cyrus).

A high tolerance for syrupy melodrama is required in order to enjoy Together.

You don’t buy into their romance the way you buy into, say, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the upcoming “La La Land.” All you see are two big movie stars playing make-believe.

There's a startling moment 10 or 15 minutes into The Adjustment Bureau - the only time, really, when the film achieves any level of surprise. The dispiriting dullness of this dreary misfire hasn't had time to settle in and thicken: The movie hasn't yet revealed its utter and thorough ineptitude.

The wonderfully sad, exhilarating ending proves this filmmaker knew exactly where he was headed the entire time.

This movie demands that the viewer -- and even its own characters -- turn into thumb-sucking 3-year-olds with no need for plausibility or logic, as long as there are lots of flashing lights and whooshing noises emanating from the screen.

Notorious excels at showcasing Wallace's music and his magnetism as a performer: It fares less well at giving that music a proper context.

Does more than pay lip service to its subtexts.

Aside from its period New Zealand setting, there is little to distinguish Bride Flight from something you might watch briefly on Lifetime, then change the channel.

It's more interested in enlightening than entertaining, and Kidron seems to go out of her way to sap the life out of every scene. It's a horribly directed movie. [08 Sep 1995, p.5G]

It's an earnest, contemporary drama about adults -- OK, women -- that has no use for irony or cynicism, no room for cutting-edge, clever hipness.

Tomorrowland is a crazy, disjointed mess. But it’s the good sort of crazy, and it’s the sort of mess you want to lose yourself in.

Excels at bringing on the high-power pyrotechnics.

Last Man Standing is utterly bereft of humor -- Hill plays every scene perfectly straight -- and it's a drag. There's no cleverness to Smith's machinations, no joy in watching his plans come to fruition. [20 Sep 1996, p.6G]

Ratner is canny enough to close the movie with a devilish tease that will send the Lambs faithful out with a delirious smile. What Red Dragon won't do is haunt your nightmares. Who could have guessed Hannibal Lecter would ever become such a crack-up?

I respected The Beaver for having the conviction to treat mental illness seriously and without compromise. But did it have to be so maudlin, too?

A TV skit is a TV skit, and Wayne's World 2 is evidence of a neat idea stretched well beyond its means. [10 Dec 1993, p.G5]

Bandits isn't much more than a pleasant dawdle, one made extra-likable by Thornton and Blanchett, whose ace performances keep the film zipping along even at its most predictable.

If Treasure Planet falls short of "Lion King's" classic status, it still proves there is plenty of room in animation for movies that aren't geared exclusively to 8-year-olds.

I haven't watched "Fargo" in a few years, but I still remember almost every scene. I saw Thin Ice two nights ago and cannot in all honesty tell you how it ends.

Jodie Foster gives a bravura performance in Nell, but the film lets her down. If only the screenplay had been half as daring as Foster's portrayal of a backwoods recluse who's never ventured into the modern world. [24 Dec 1994, p.G1]

Instead of delivering a pointed statement, this timely and energetic crowd-pleaser aims for -- and accomplishes -- something much more difficult: It makes you fall in love with its characters.

By film’s end, everyone has been transformed for the worst. Heli is a troubling and upsetting picture, a portrait of a broken country that seems to be beyond repair and a depiction of how violence and corruption, when left unchecked, taints saints and sinners alike, sparing no one.

Doesn't break any new ground, but it doesn't leave you wishing you had stayed home, either. Considering the state of action movies today, that's something.

The movie is "Twister" on the high seas, a spectacular-looking, spectacularly hollow tale about foolhardy men vs. imperious nature.

Beowulf is many things, but boring isn't one of them.

Despite the movie's bouncy ebullience (courtesy of a terrific period soundtrack) and dashes of fantasy, the film quickly becomes an endurance test.

This is a wonderfully imagined, heartfelt piece of pop entertainment that soars not only for its spectacular eye candy, but also during the moments when its protagonists simply stand still and talk to each other. How many comic-book movies can you say that about?

Suggests that Cruise the actor may have outgrown this kind of stuff.

The best parts of It Might Get Loud, though, occur when Guggenheim visits with the musicians one on one.

It's almost startling to see a film that believes in itself and its characters so deeply.

The themes of A Home at the End of the World are all of the greeting-card variety -- home is where the heart is, family is what we make it, etc. -- and while they've been presented with great warmth and sincerity, they still come off as more than a little banal.

A stiff, unconvincing epic.

The best thing about this mildly diverting but instantly forgettable comedy is that it seems to have awakened something in Murphy that had laid dormant for much of the past two decades.

Untamed Heart veers into the contrived and the schmaltzy too often to really work the way it wants to. But Tomei and Slater rise above the material. It's their characters, and their unique, touching relationship, that you'll remember. [15 Feb 1993, p.C3]

Unlike most films about the Holocaust, which has provided artists with an infinite array of heartrending stories and tragedies, Sarah's Key doesn't spend much time recounting the horrors that Jews suffered during World War II.

OK, Mr. Jackson, you proved your point by landing the finish. Now please, no more Middle-earth, ever.

With its tongue planted so firmly in its cheek it threatens to poke through at any moment, Army of Darkness marches onto the screen, a whirlwind of madcap humor, gee-whiz special effects and nonstop action. This is the kind of movie a hyperactive 13-year-old with a $12-million budget would make...It's overdone, yes, but also irresistible. [22 Feb 1993, p.E4]

Light on plot but heavy on observation: Wang concentrates on exploring the unseen ways in which mother and daughter rely on each other.

Miller has crafted some intriguing, complex characters and stranded them in a muddled story that doesn't know quite what to do with them.

Go for Sisters is minor Sayles, and the movie occasionally meanders. But the characters stay with you, particularly Bernice and Fontayne, whose relationship is beautifully transformed over the course of the film.

Heavy-handed and manipulative, it also proves formidably engrossing.

This is Eastwood's "Brokeback Mountain," chased by a healthy serving of "J.F.K."- style paranoia and conspiracies (Oliver Stone is going to love this movie.) But because so much of what the film says about Hoover remains speculative and unproven, J. Edgar can't fully cross all its Ts.

As Seeking a Friend for the End of the World crawls toward its sentimental finale, you're rooting for that asteroid to get here, quick.

Deja Vu becomes increasingly sillier.

Buoyed by strong performances from Perez and Miami-resident Milian, Washington Heights overcomes the familiarity of its premise through its passion and conviction.

Although the movie doesn't exactly romanticize the period, the film still generates a twinge of pride in viewers who lived in South Florida during that time -- and lived to tell about it.

Mr. Holland's Opus is compulsively watchable: Eager to please and never very challenging, it's the kind of movie you might stumble across while channel surfing and watch to the end. Almost despite itself, the movie also manages to celebrate the heroism of the teaching profession with surprisingly moving power. If only it had done it with more grace and less schmaltz. [19 Jan 1996, p.4G]

Despite the lack of substance, Run All Night is far better than those clunky "Taken" movies with their timid PG-13 ratings. If you’re gonna cut Neeson loose against the mob, a bloody R is the way to go.

Ultimately done in not just by its familiarity -- anyone who can't figure out where the story is heading hasn't watched enough Scorsese -- but also by the convenient coincidences and contrivances Gray relies on in order to pump the story into something greater than it needs to be.

Depending on your personal tastes, Intacto will either be an ambitious concoction of cerebral science-fiction or a towering pile of nonsense. The truth lies somewhere in between.

If "The Sixth Sense" was Shyamalan's take on ghost stories and "Unbreakable" his ode to comic books, then Signs is the evil cousin to Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Self-indulgent, overwrought, shallow and ridiculous. It is also brilliant, a blast of cinematic lunacy and as much of a guilty pleasure as the schlocky movies Tarantino adores, which was probably the point. Sometimes, only a Big Mac will do.

A movie about grief for people who don't want to be upset too badly. It's a half-a-hankie tearjerker, a meek, polite weepie.

Aggressively, defiantly stupid.

Mission: Impossible is full of red herrings and MacGuffins, but even if you can't keep track of who's doing what to whom, it's hugely enjoyable for its sheer kinetic power. It's a soulless trinket, and it never really grabs you the way good action films do. But it moves like a demon, and it's consistently dazzling. [22 May 1996, p.1D]

A stale pastiche of crime-caper dramas that goes through all the usual reversals, betrayals and triple-crosses with a sense of weary obligation.

Faster, leaner and more compact than the original. Dumber, too, but that's almost always the case with remakes.

For all its peripatetic energy, Limitless still winds up with the same-old blazing guns and wanton destruction of property. No matter how smart you may be, Hollywood will figure out a way to dumb you down.

Jurassic World gives you exactly what Howard’s character promises at the beginning — More! Bigger! Faster! — but you know there’s something deeply wrong with a film that expects you to shed tears over digitally created prehistoric creatures and rubber brontosaurus heads instead of rooting for, you know, people.

The movie never approaches the level of screwball fun its cast seems capable of. But the curiosity of seeing Arnie grunt and groan with labor pains is hard to resist. [23 Nov 1994, p.E2]

The result leaves the movie feeling like a one-note take on a complex subject.

In The Shape of Things, love doesn't just hurt: It bites, and bites deep.

The movie, elegantly shot by Rodrigo Prieto, is sleek and brisk, using split-screens and graphics to help uninformed viewers grasp the basics of the corporate shenanigans the characters pull on each other.

The film is just a procession of increasingly grim and ugly scenarios and discoveries, capped off by a wildly frustrating ending.

The Dance of Reality, which deserves a place along Amarcord as a fantastical take on coming of age, is the work of a wise and experienced old soul with the heart and curiosity of a young man in love with life.

Handsome Harry has some shakily staged scenes and erratic acting, but it also has wonderful moments.

If its dark heart had won out to the very end, The Ref could have been a minor classic. But it's a hilarious antidote to heartwarming holiday films -- and has some of the cruelest humor of any comedy in quite some time. [11 Mar 1994, p.G5]

Nostalgia is part of the modest charm of this disposable but inoffensive picture. Old Dogs makes old dogs out of all of us.

Even the most forgiving moviegoer will recognize this movie as the blatant cash-grab that it is.

Drowns in its own noxious fumes. Who knew being bad could be so dull?

The movie is intentionally elusive, like a memory you can’t quite fully recall, but the result has all the depth and weight of a greeting card.

It's a B-movie with A-list aspirations, and it's at its best when it's not trying to be something it isn't.

After an hour of being stranded among these restless soldiers and their increasingly aggressive locker-room antics, you, too, will be longing for combat -- for anything -- to happen.

Cosmopolis may be a cerebral mood piece, but it is loaded with strong performances that connect on an emotional level.

The result is that rare breed of big-studio pictures: A remake that makes sense.

It's an obviously personal work, and that's both its primary strength and weakness: The movie has a distinct, carefully detailed sense of place and time, but it's also not as involving as Altman seems to think it is. It's thick on atmosphere, but short on plot. [16 Aug 1996, p.6G]

Vol. 2 isn't exactly disappointing, and like all of Tarantino's movies, I suspect it will improve with repeated viewings. But for now, Vol. 2 leaves you pondering what could have been.

For this last chapter, the filmmakers play things relatively straight, resulting in the best Shrek movie to date.

The movie is unwieldy and overstuffed with subplots - and, at 2 1/2 hours, probably too much misery and sorrow for most viewers.

The latest collaboration between Cohen and director Larry Charles proves the formula they created with "Borat" and then started to milk dry with "Brüno" has finally run out of juice. Time to move on, guys.

The film feels more like an extended epilogue than a stand-alone adventure, which may be because it is the shortest (105 minutes) entry in the series.

Neither as good nor as bad as you'd hoped it would be: It's just a mediocre exploitation picture with an inspired premise (succinctly spelled out by its title), loads of gratuitous gore, a dash of equally gratuitous nudity and enough inanities to make you wonder if Ed Wood rose from the grave to serve as a creative consultant on the project.

It plunges so deep, in fact, that the film winds up bordering on the unwatchable.

Eclipse, like its two predecessors, is ham-fisted and obvious, a mass-market entertainment with a frustrating lack of imagination.

The movie - which caused walkouts and an uproar at Sundance - rewards your endurance with an utterly insane 30-minute climax of violence, audacious gore and all-around bad behavior (how this picture got an R rating is baffling).

Although (Untitled) makes a spirited effort to mine comedy from its outre characters and the orbits they inhabit, the picture feels thin and wan, like a joke you've heard 100 times too many.

Carrey's amazing transformation in Man on the Moon does justice to Kaufman's undefinable talents and his peculiar outlook on entertainment.

Men in Black 3 is so dull and empty, it's the first movie that has ever made me think "Thank God this is in 3D."

This is a theme tailor-made for Burton, although there are times in the movie when it feels like he's not taking enough advantage of it.

Brothers is a collection of strong moments that don't add up to anything. The movie is all build-up.

Jam-packed with plot and characters, Thunderheart nonetheless drags along from scene to scene, never building any momentum or cumulative dramatic effect. It's a dull, muddled whodunit, an exploration of the relationship between Native Americans and white Americans and a tale of soul-searching by an uninteresting character. And none of it works. [3 Apr 1992, p.G13]

Geronimo: An American Legend is noble but hopelessly bland. [10 Dec 1993, p.G4]

The story falters only at the end, but it's the ride, not the destination, that you remember and savor the most.

There will be opportunities to see the picture in regular 24 frames per second, but I recommend going the whole hog and sampling what Jackson has come up with - a new way to watch movies and a new take on a universe that seemed to have exhausted its narrative possibilities.

The movie is an exceedingly slight tale whose entire second half consists primarily of special effects and wonderful set designs.

Isn't exactly memorable, and as far as its prison setting goes, it has nothing on HBO's infinitely more brutal "Oz." But as late-summer time killers go, you could do worse.

Guaranteed to beguile anyone who can remember the joy -- and agony -- of anticipating the first time.

Even frothier and more frivolous than the first movie: It's a heist picture so laid-back and unconcerned, even the heist feels like an afterthought.

A brisk and lively cinematic Cliff's Notes of the 2005 nonfiction bestseller that made the lofty promise to reveal "the hidden side of everything."

Some episodes are funnier than others, but they're all underscored by a pervasive melancholy.

In Fading Gigolo, writer-director John Turturro turns what could have easily been a crass and unpleasant comedy into something soulful and substantial — with a lot of laughs, too.

Escape from Tomorrow is more of an experimental film than a traditional narrative, but intrepid viewers — or anyone who has ever visited a Disney park — will enjoy getting lost in this dark house of happy horrors.

We Bought a Zoo is the most formulaic movie Cameron Crowe has ever made: It is so generic, you could review it with a flow chart.

Unlike Omri's plastic toys, The Indian in the Cupboard never comes to life. [14 July 1995, p.5G]

Stone isn't the straightforward thriller it appears to be, but the alternative turns out to be dull and lifeless. At least the title is apt: Like a rock, Stone has no pulse.

The only thing the movie lacks is a pulse.

You watch it in stunned disbelief, wondering how a movie that started so strongly devolved into something so absurd.

Director Scott Marshall and screenwriter Mark Zakarin pander to Jewish viewers the way Andy Garcia's "The Lost City" panders to Cuban Americans.

The heist in Flawless comes at the film's midpoint, but although Radford wrings some nice suspense from the sequence, the theft isn't his primary focus here. It's what happens next.

British satire loses something when it's handled by Americans: You miss the perspective that a foreign culture brings, so instead of wit and humor, you end up trafficking in self-congratulatory clichés and sentiment.

It's an understatement to say that The Ring is not your ordinary horror film. And never forget to rewind.

You never really get the sense Zhang is taking the movie seriously, so you can't either. A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop proves that American filmmakers aren't the only ones who can bungle remakes of foreign movies.

Easily the slightest and most frenetic entry in the trilogy. But it might also turn out to be the fan favorite, because the movie is nothing but eye candy and visual sensation.

There is nothing in this surprisingly funny, exciting film that feels like homework, and Branagh even dares to end the film on, if not quite a cliffhanger, then a daring "To Be Continued" note.

It's a generic, clunky title. The movie isn't quite as disposable, but it's not exactly memorable, either.

The movie puts Jasira -- and the audience -- through the wringer, but it also makes the ride worth it.

The saddest part about this whole affair is that it took Bugs and Co. 60 years to make their feature debut -- and this is what they get. At one point, Daffy Duck is discussing merchandising royalties and says, "We gotta get new agents -- we're getting screwed." In Space Jam , even the cartoons are in it only for the money. [15 Nov 1996, p.5G]

The Forbidden Kingdom may be nothing but disposable fun, but it is a great, heaping, overflowing helping of fun. If you're 10, it may also seem like "Citizen Kane."

Lives or dies by your ability to buy the sight of Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman snuggling in bed and enjoying hot, torrid sex. This may seem like a superficial approach to such a lofty, serious movie, but it is an insurmountable problem.

Writer-director Stephane Robelin's frothy comedy is much more "Golden Girls" hijinks than "On Golden Pond."

Emotes mightily but says precious little.

Depending on your age, Limelight could make you nostalgic for those bad old days - and sort of glad you'll never be able to relive them.

The movie has been smartly built to satisfy hardcore fashionistas and red-carpet gawkers in equal measure.

Evil Dead is just a well-made gross-out, and it's kind of a bummer.

Often feels like a cartoon that wishes it were live action.

Sweet and moving, and occasionally irritating, but it's never embarrassing.

It's best to just enjoy Hannibal for what it is: A decadent, elegant waltz about evil's seductive bloom. As sequels go, you could do a lot worse.

This is more of an exercise in experiential cinema, as well as a blistering critique of a society that drives its poorest to unimaginable acts for mere survival.

The main problem with Iron Man 2 lies in the script.

A blatant sell-out, a wink-nudge pander to Hollywood, disguised as satire.

A brisk, undemanding adventure aimed squarely at the family market, Journey is completely passable in 2-D. But viewing it through 3-D glasses not only quadruples the movie's entertainment value, it also explains why characters are constantly thrusting things at the camera.

In Snow White and the Huntsman, this talented but woefully miscast actress (Stewart) is expected to rally an entire army of soldiers, even though she usually looks like she forgot the combination to her locker.

Someone apparently forgot to tell Harrison Ford he was starring in a comedy when he was cast in Morning Glory.

So beautifully directed, so pleasurable to watch and so thoughtfully put together, it's a disappointment when you realize, halfway through, that the movie is going to fall way short of a masterpiece.

It's a strange kind of spiritual movie -- one that aims for the gut more often than the heart.

Stories about scientists doubting what they know to be true — "Contact," for example — can be provocative and engaging, on an intellectual and emotional level. But I Origins challenges too little and ties up things too neatly for it to register as anything more than well-made, well-intentioned hogwash.

Phillips keeps the movie funny and riotous without glamorizing his characters’ misdeeds. The film is a comedy, but it’s never trivial, and the filmmakers don’t let the government’s participation in what transpired slip by unnoticed.

Not even Sherlock Holmes could make much sense out of the overplotted, murky mess that is "Sherlock Holmes," although Arthur Conan Doyle's legendarily brainy detective would probably never buy a ticket to a movie as elephant-footed as this one.

Lacks the one element that the filmmakers were most desperately aiming for: A genuine sense of fun.

Shrill and sloppy film.

Patronizing, dull and offensive, this drama about a knight in shining white skin out to serve justice in the name of po' black folk is Hollywood at its sanctimonious, bleeding-heart worst: A movie made by people who are sitting so high up on their hills, they long ago stopped realizing they're looking down at the world. [03 Jan 1997, p.5G]

When it was first shown at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival just days before Sept. 11, this movie seemed darkly, grimly comic. Today, though, it often just seems grim.

All this has nothing to do with the movie's dragged-out and contrived plot, which unfolds predictably and much too slowly. Still, the performances are quite good, except for Jeanne Tripplehorn (Basic Instinct ) as Sam's girlfriend, an eccentric performance artist; she grates on your nerves the minute she's onscreen and grows more aggravating from there. [4 May 1993, p.E5]

It is to director Tykwer's credit that, although you never come close to understanding Jean-Baptiste, you don't turn your nose up at him, either.

Just isn't very scary.

Fever Pitch is surprisingly devoid of jokes, or romance, or any of the other basic elements you'd expect to find in a romantic comedy. The only thing the Farrellys get right is the obsession.

Across the Universe can't achieve the transcendence and exhilaration musicals strive for, but it often generates a singular kind of magic you've never experienced before.

A Middle Ages "Rocky" that spares no cliche in its unduly long, 2 1/4 hours.

The best stuff in Human Nature comes early, while the movie is still spry and daring --Then the film runs out of ideas, repetition sets in and so does boredom.

Fabulously perverted comedy.

The bulk of Religulous is a passionate but misguided attempt by Maher to stimulate the 16 percent of the American population who deem themselves non-religious into standing up and being counted.

You may not remember The Crazies in a month, but you'll have a grand time watching it.

The most daring thing about Adam, the story of a young man with Asperger's syndrome, is that there isn't a scene in which someone stops to explain exactly what Asperger's IS.

A ferociously entertaining and mean little horror movie that achieves the kind of outrageous vibe best enjoyed in a crowded, noisy theater.

In I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, the night grows long while your eyelids grow heavy.

Race never delves under the skins of its characters, because they’re intended to be used only as symbols — reminders of an important chapter in history rendered quaint by this noble but patronizing movie.

The movie takes a completely apolitical look at the lives of its three main characters, focusing not on their differences but on how, in a way, they are trapped by their cultures.

There's very little in The Chorus you haven't seen before, but the movie's depth of sentiment -- especially its profound humanism -- makes it worth experiencing again.

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

A passable adaptation of Kinney's novel, but no replacement for the real thing. Read the book, then see the movie.

Unlike last year's "Coco Before Chanel," in which Audrey Tautou played a warmer, kinder spirit, Mouglais presents her character as steely and unbending, a woman who has built her empire on her terms and refuses to abdicate the slightest control on her life.

Leatherheads goes on a good 20 minutes too long, and there's very little in it that makes a lasting impression, but it's easy to watch while it's unspooling -- much like, you know, a lot of Cary Grant comedies.

Spacey, whose precise command of enunciation and diction, along with his wicked, reptilian charm, are strong enough to carry the show.

If not exactly epic, the movie is certainly the biggest and most complex of Rodriguez's Mariachi trilogy, which began in "El Mariachi" and continued in "Desperado."

Extreme Measures is a medical thriller with two personalities. At times, it's a drama about doctors with God complexes and a moral debate on questions such as, "If you had to kill one person to cure cancer, would you?"...Other times, it's a mystery about nefarious scientists, missing corpses and foot chases in the bowels of New York's subways...Neither side really works, though for a while the movie engrosses anyway. Even when you know you're being manipulated, Extreme Measures intrigues you in a Coma kind of way, because it initially preys on the same fears as that earlier thriller: vulnerability in hospitals at the hands of evil doctors...Then the mystery starts to unravel, and so does the movie. [27 Sept 1996, p.5G]

A big part of the problem comes in the casting. Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes - the kind of odd pairing of actors that comes only after your first and second choices have passed - are unconvincing and curiously unsympathetic as the architect Alex and his girlfriend.

Once the guns come out, and the car crashes begin, Date Night loses the funny.

Chow Yun-Fat is the only reason to see Anna and the King -- the only thing you'll remember from this lavish, tastefully dull movie.

As far as its plot mechanics go, The Brave One belongs to the hallowed (if less-than-respectable) genre of exploitative revenge pictures.

What makes Wolf Creek so effective is not its originality (which, let's face it, is practically non-existent), or even its amount of gore (the violence is implied more often than it's shown), but the ways in which McLean tweaks the usual formulas, so what you think is going to happen next almost never does.

Angry, potentially offensive movie.

Starts out feeling formidable in scope and theme but ends up awfully small and precious.

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.

If nothing else, the movie proves even the rich and famous make boring home videos.

For a movie whose characters are so preoccupied with immortality, Troy is curiously forgettable.

The result is a rare live-action Disney movie that merits comparison to its beloved feature-length cartoons.

Bottle Shock often feels out of place on the big screen, but it would probably play a lot better as a weekly half-hour TV show.

The hands-down funniest elements in Dinner for Schmucks turn out to be the mice dioramas, which become increasingly clever - even touching - as the film unfolds, then laugh-out-loud hilarious over the end credits. But you know you're in trouble when the best thing in your movie is a bunch of dead rodents.

Unfortunately, disappointingly dull, a lumbering Bore-us-saurus of a movie.

The Cable Guy might not please fans looking only for Carrey's usual shtick, but from here, it looks like a step toward adulthood. [14 June 1996, p.5G]

Laughable, contrived banality. You won't believe a second of it. [17 Sept 1996, p.25G]

Kline salvages the picture with his dynamic, utterly unpredictable performance -- the work of a highly skilled comedian thrilled by the opportunity to go nuts once again.

Passably interesting, occasionally riveting and largely superfluous. But it's certainly a worthwhile curiosity, and it's not what anyone expected. At the movies these days, that alone is worth something.

Smith's funniest, sharpest and most polished movie to date. It also is his most mature and emotionally engaging picture, even if it happens to contain one of the grossest sight gags I've ever encountered in a mainstream Hollywood film.

The lack of cynicism is refreshing, but someone needed to tell Redford pixie dust and a nine-iron will only get you so far.

A thriller boasting Mel Gibson's first starring role in eight years, elicits a gigantic wow -- as in ``Wow, does this movie suck!''

Dom Hemingway is often viciously funny in unexpected ways, and every time you think the movie has run out of steam, Shepard spins things in a new direction, keeping the energy from flagging (including one of the most startling car crashes I’ve ever seen in a film).

The times have caught up with Almodóvar, who is now 63: He thinks he’s still pushing the envelope, but he comes off as old-fashioned and outdated.

What went wrong with Man of Steel? The early teasers promised Terrence Malick. The finished film is more Michael Bay.

Could there possibly be anything left to gain from yet another adaptation of Charles Dickens' tale about crabby old Ebenezer Scrooge and his life-changing encounter with three ghosts on Christmas Eve? In the case of Disney's A Christmas Carol, the answer is a surprising, resounding yes -- at least so far as the IMAX 3D version goes.

Awfully amiable and dull. Instead of honoring musical gods, the film seems to think Pat Boone was headlining.

Aside from the thin characterizations, The Eagle never manages to convey the importance of the heroes' quest.

Even after the plot has left you behind, you still watch The Brothers Bloom with a smile, because the actors are so engaging.

If you're interested in the sheer craft of filmmaking, Cloud Atlas is required viewing - a rare example of a movie getting by entirely on technique and creative bravado.

A shrill and gaudy comedy about the quest for celebrity.

Hitchcock spends too much time off the set of Psycho, where the real story was, and focuses instead on incidental matters that feel like outtakes. Mother would not have been pleased.

The thoroughly unconvincing drama Resurrecting the Champ might be based on a true story, but that doesn't mean you're going to believe a single frame of it.

Depp and Burton are two gifted, like-minded artists whose affinity for oddball characters and humor makes them natural creative partners. But they also enable each other's laziest, most indulgent habits: Too often, they seem to be making movies to entertain themselves instead of the audience.

Just plain silly.

Corben has done an impressive amount of journalistic research that will be of particular interest to South Florida audiences. Every time you think Miami couldn't possibly get any weirder, it does.

The picture may feel more than a little familiar, but Ayer knows how to cook up intense setpieces, and Reeves keeps getting better at the weary hero role he continually gravitates toward.

This tale of teenage witches run amok is silly, juvenile stuff, and it doesn't even have the decency to stick to its own ridiculous logic. [03 May 1996, p.6G]

Even though it unfolds almost entirely through a child's eyes, and contains no onscreen violence, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas packs as devastating a punch as an adult-oriented drama about the subject. Its concluding five minutes are almost impossible to watch.

Think of The Truth About Charlie as a Parisian getaway that happens to have a movie percolating in the background.

The phrase “casting is everything” has never felt truer than it does with 2 Guns, an unremarkable, standard-issue shoot-em-up that rests entirely on the charisma of its two stars.

After a funny, highly promising start, Don't Come Knocking starts to fall apart, displaying all of Wenders' weaknesses, too.

It's a perfect role for Jolie, whose seductive looks always seem to be concealing something dangerous, even predatory, and she brings out a looseness in Pitt, who fares much better in comedic roles than when playing things straight and stoic (i.e. Troy).

What ultimately sinks The Visit is that Shyamalan, who had previously come up with new and ingenious ways to frighten us, resorts to familiar jump-scare tactics in which things suddenly pop into the frame, accompanied by loud sound effects. There’s no real sense of danger, no menace.