Shawn Levy

Malle, only 25 when the film was released, bounces confidently among several threads -- classic French policier, juvenile delinquent film, doomy tale of tragic love, clock-ticking thriller.

In a way, the film is a kind of experiment: Can you lop off the bulk of a classic work and still have something worth seeing? On this evidence, the answer is, despite the best intentions and some fine work, sadly no.

The stifling piety of this film -- which regards anything old and vaguely arty as next to sacred -- needs some serious airing out.

The film drags and lingers and goes more or less nowhere, imitating its protagonists' lives so exactly that you want to give them both a good smack.

The film has a spry quality, but the jokes are neither funny nor dark enough, the quirky roadside episodes aren't sufficiently outlandish or imaginative, the romantic sparks don't convince and the plotting becomes increasingly silly and tedious. Dukic conjures an air of play and naughtiness, but that's about as deep as he cuts.

It's not Allen's weakest work, not by far. But its impact is shockingly superficial.

Isn't profound or dazzling or groundbreaking. But it's a pleasant, clever and sincere little romp, proof that you don't need to harbor heroic ambitions to create something satisfying.

Price of Glory won't make anyone forget "Raging Bull" or "Rocky."

It's a justifiably G-rated film, but parents may have some 'splainin' to do.

The single most impressive thing about the film, in fact, is the taste that this shotgun technique gives of the mass simultaneity of the race.

The timing and cutting of the film are terrific, the build-up to an absurdly hilarious climax is just right, and the performances are near perfect.

Stardust in a nutshell: hardly great shakes, but better and more satisfying than it first seems.

Transcends politics and forces us to consider just what it is we ask of young people who answer the call to duty.

The film always teaches and entertains in equal, ample measure. It's a treat -- and it's good for you.

One of those should-I-laugh-or-cry satires.

The result is minor Gilliam: still more engaging than most moviemaking, but nonetheless a letdown after such a long wait.

It is affecting, accomplished, witty, poignant and memorable.... Unstrung Heroes is one of the year's best films. [22 Sep 1995]

Can a movie about such a fellow and such a fate be lovely? And can it uplift? Control is and, in its artfulness, does.

Fact is, Starting Out is pretty dry stuff as a movie, even as it's enlivened by vivid acting.

The opportunity to give Jolie the room to swagger like the "Charlie's Angels" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" ladies is utterly squandered, and a video game franchise that might've resulted in a hoot of a film -- has been blown to dust.

The film, bleeding its central character of all shades but black and darkest gray, fails as both biographical chronicle and filmed narrative.

You find yourself wishing that Apatow had managed a script that was either really funny or about real people instead of this half-baked pseudo-memoir that's neither.

One of those undeniably beautiful things. The film is, in fact, an encyclopedia of beauty -- the beauty of desire, the beauty of nostalgia, the beauty of music and clothing and smoke and pain, and, chiefly, the beauty of women.

You're likelier to shrink in astonished horror from it than laugh.

You wouldn't want to be Daniel Johnston, or even know him too well. But see this film and you won't forget him.

The stories don't resonate, the film has a drab look and feel, and it lacks the passionate zing with which the least of Almodovar's works teems.

When the picture's good, it's really something; when it's bad, you grit your teeth and pray it will end.

There's a wonderful chemistry between them -- though the film wisely allows Duplass and Delmore an equally intimate connection. Choices like that enable the modest Humpday to capture the lives of its protagonists more credibly than any Hollywood-manufactured comedy of recent vintage.