Rick Groen

What we see is admirable, but what we feel is minimal.

In short, Batman is terrific - funny, smart and sensitive too, the perfect cinematic date.

Surprisingly funny yarn about a drug-addled cop in the Big Easy.

Strange and beautiful and transfixing and confusing, it's quite the sight - martial-arts fans may find themselves disappointed, but Wong Kar-wai addicts will be delighted.

In the moments at his disposal, Smith almost steals the flick. He's so wittily government-phobic that I found myself hoping for a climax that would blow Bruce Willis away and promote Kevin Smith to saviour-of-the-free-world. Now that might be a sequel worth rooting for.

Although the subject, school bullying, is as fresh as today's headlines, the treatment isn't. Despite the efforts of an impressive cast, the film starts out stale and then just gets tedious.

It's a comedy, it's a romance, it's a gangster flick. The Cooler is all of that and much, much less. This is a movie without a compass, switching pace and direction as haphazardly as a caffeinated SUV driver on a cellphone.

Apparently, the faith that can move mountains is detectable in the microscopes that can track electrons. If so, the metaphoric is real and, to me, that thought is as scary as it is thrilling -- but what the bleep do I know?

En route, despite some clumsy exposition and the reduction of heavyweights like Mary McCarthy and William Shawn to fifth-business caricatures, the film does manage one impressive intellectual achievement of its own: rescuing that “banality of evil” phrase from the banal cliché it’s become and, by providing the full and daring context, giving it real meaning again.

So this is a light/bright movie that actually illuminates our dull grey lives, reminding us that intrigue can be, well, intriguing. And damn sexy too.

From the first stylized shot to the final comic resolution, Moonstruck is completely sui generis - hard to describe but easy to love.

A film where the cast neatly dovetails with the script which perfectly meshes with the direction. In short, a film that works. [5 Aug 1987]

Expected too is the result: a kind of sterile opulence or, if you prefer, a magnificent emptiness.

For Steven Spielberg, who confines his Midas touch here to the roles of co-writer and producer, has refreshingly set out to reverse the standard ratio of the standard scare flick - that is, to frighten us a little and charm us a lot. Even more refreshingly, he succeeds. [4 June 1982]

The wee mousie is fun, all right, yet like the occasionally ragged editing, the fun just gets haphazardly wedged in.

The result is a whodunit so nicely crafted that you're tempted to forgive the Byzantine plot -- hell, you're even tempted to pretend you actually understand its twisting obscurities.

It's odd, how these high-concept films, knowing that the central gimmick has a way of wearing out its welcome, are all so short – a mere 84 minutes in this case. Why odd? Because short always ends up feeling so damn long. This is no exception. Quick to start and painfully slow to finish, Chronicle is the same old chronicle.

For the kids, the action is always lively and, for the rest of us, the dialogue has a witty and even caustic edge.

These are valid ideas, but they don't always arise organically out of the script, and can seem clumsily expressed.

Solitary Man makes too good on its title – it’s a fascinating character study isolated within a mediocre film.

Semi-decent, somewhat okay, not-half-bad.

Ultimately, Little Voice comes to us from an indeterminate place that is no longer the theatre but not quite the movies. Let's call it music videoland -- best just to sit back and enjoy golden-oldie tunes belted out by a quicksilver mimic.

Arthur constantly flirts with the trite and dallies with the excessive. But it goes steady with neither, and so makes for a very pleasant companion on a warm summer eve. [17 July 1981]

It's all a bit too schematic, yet the ambition is admirable and the message powerful: Today, no less than yesterday, the weak must be strong to survive, and their strength is endlessly tested.

The whole caper loses its rhythm and its direction around the two-thirds mark. By the finish, the punch has left the lines, and the once-purposeful energy goes mindlessly manic - gone are both the point and the parody.

Too bad there's also a final 15 minutes that surely ranks among the worst endings an otherwise good movie has ever received.

Disappointingly unique.

The film itself struggles to do justice to each victim. Turns out three stories are two too many. The Company Men should have been downsized.