Rick Groen

While the initial sequence is glorious, the last is a shambles.

The embodiment of the very message it so modestly conveys -- it's the accomplished little guy we fervently root for.

Dial your expectations to moderate, burrow in for the duration, and you won't be disappointed - it ain't exactly springtime, but there are worse things than an amiable outing on a winter's night.

The film manages the extraordinary feat of forcing us to empathize simultaneously with both the potential victim and the potential villain.

This is an affecting picture that leaves the viewer as wrung out as the protagonist. No doubt you'll be seduced but, in the end, you may also feel abandoned.

Normally, such saccharine inspiration only manages to clog the heart, not warm it. But there's a true original in this den of clichés and her name is Keke Palmer.

Mainly, it's a clever gimmick, cleverly wrought, offering further evidence that you can dress up the student body in all manner of garb for all types of genres.

Take a funny, touching, complex play that moves at a breakneck pace, filter it through the huge (if often underrated) talents of director Fred Schepisi, and you've got Six Degrees of Separation. Such a rare gift - a film that treats language with infinite respect and ideas with cultivated precision, a film that challenges us to keep up and rewards our efforts with a bittersweet comedy of manners. [24 Dec 1993]

It's silly, it's serious, it's outrageous, it's mundane, it's blowsy, it's lovely. Yet this fickle film has a constant heart - warm and very likeable.

If the cinematography lacks the up-close-and-personal drama of "Blue Crush," it's still adequate to the occasion -- after all, like any star worth her salt, the ocean has yet to meet a camera she doesn't like.

The effect is Chaplinesque if Chaplin had the latest in gadgetry, because the entire picture is also shot in 3-D that, for once, puts all 3 of the Ds to imaginative use.

Although director Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female, Reversal of Fortune, Barfly) does a workmanlike job of stirring in the grimy New York atmosphere, the picture only surges to life when Cage strides on camera. [21 Apr 1995]

Yes, Mikhalkov has set himself quite the agenda, but in the end the film is too much of a piece with its topic, intensely fascinating yet seriously flawed. The verdict? Guilty, with extenuating circumstances.

This remarkable analysis of a decade when American society lost its moral compass is both brutally honest and lyrically compassionate.

Is there an admired British thespian who hasn't toiled in Potter's field?

Always engaging and often compelling.

The wonder is that the cast -- a terrific ensemble with talents honed on such hallowed stages as the Abbey Theatre -- brings it off with far more verve than the slight tale deserves.

There's fun to be had in watching these losers drift without a compass.

It's adapted with charming dispatch from the Dick King-Smith story, and served up by the same CGI wizards who animated the critters in "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Narnia Chronicles."

The verdict? Green passes with flying colours -- his is a huge and hugely impressive talent.

It's a pinball arcade of a flick -- the Coens invent a bunch of wonderfully flaky characters, stick them into a Plexiglas narrative, and let them bounce off each other.

This is Romero at his best - a set-piece of sustained chills all precisely shot and rhythmically cut, good enough to make us forgive (if not forget) the cast that is merely competent, and an ending that is downright tepid. But even at half-throttle, Romero can quicken the pulse. Worse than it could have been, Monkey Shines is still better than most. [29 July 1988]

Embracing such depths, Bukowski somehow made his art. Simulating them, Factotum just makes us queasy.

The Good Girl isn't really the title of this movie at all. Instead, it's now widely known as The Movie That Proves Jennifer Can Act.

Tropic Thunder is an assault in the guise of a comedy – watching it is like getting mugged by a clown.

Both smart and shrewd -- it wraps that same comforting message in a thoroughly entertaining package.

Not quite a comedy, not really a drama, Mad Dog and Glory throws your equilibrium but keeps your interest high. [5 Mar 1993, p.C3]

Sitting through Red Eye is like watching a master carpenter at work on a custom bookcase. No one would call the result art, but you're sure bound to admire the sheer craft of the thing, the clean lines and seamless joints and meticulous attention to detail.