Stephen Hunter

A few minutes of inspired lunacy aside, The Yes Men is largely a case of the same old preachers preaching to the same old choir.

The much ballyhooed movie, far from great and far from short (2 1/2 hours!), is still great fun.

First Knight is sublime summer entertainment, from the passion and beauty and grace of its stars to the thrust of its drama to the awe of its spectacle. [07 Jul 1995]

In this movie, the sense of charm has been obliterated.

It's like a "Saturday Night Live" sketch on a $60 million budget.

Tried hard to honor the spirit of the franchise, not exploit it, and take it to a new level and a surprising destination.

The movie is powerful, if numbing. What movie about a massacre isn't?

Give Woody Allen credit for ambition. Failing at one movie wasn't enough. Nearly anyone can do that; it happens all the time. He's chosen to fail at two simultaneously.

Janet McTeer doesn't imitate Mary Jo Walker, and she doesn't act her. She becomes her. It's almost spooky.

It's such a great story, you have to ask two questions: Why didn't they make this movie before? And why did they make it this way?

It's not a great movie by any means, but it grips tighter than a chokehold and it cuts as deep as a knife.

It pulps you, but it doesn't enlighten you.

Short is a professional choreographer, and his dancing seems unstuck in time. How he can break his movements down to such small elements, keep them so precise and in such rigorous rhythm, yet keep the whole thing on track and moving forward with Nureyev's beauty and discipline is something to see.

A big, fat, gorgeous, mesmerizing mess.

The film turns out to have nothing going for it at all, except a small charge for soul-deep Madonna haters.

Awake is a pleasing if negligible diversion.

Until that sugar coating at the end, Out of Time is clever, believable and gripping, and seems to be headed to a wondrous, bad place as it carefully modulates classic '40s themes.

The movie is untainted by surprise or originality. It seems built from a blueprint, not a script. Anyone who listens to sports talk radio could write just as good a movie, no kidding. [29 Jun 1994]

Sahara is a mediocrity wrapped inside a banality, toasted in a nice, fresh cliche.

Its pleasures aren't so much in the inevitable plot complications, but in the passion of the performances and the spare beauty of the elegant framing and photography.

Big, dull and empty -- nobody associated with this production appears to have thought hard about storytelling.

It's a long and relatively underdramatized film, but it's powerfully true.

When a burning rat is the funniest thing in your movie, I think you're in big trouble, even in Miami.

Poor Roberts, pretty and perky as the day is long, hasn't a hoot in hell of bringing Julianne off. She's simply not actress enough, she doesn't have that suppleness that would enable her to sell the complexity of emotion, the jealousy, the irrationality, the meanness and the intelligence.

A well-acted first effort written and directed by Jamie Thraves.

Nothing is real, but at the same time, nothing is fake. Nothing is, period. You don't believe a second of it for a second, so banal and predictable is it.

The movie has trouble getting beyond the winking stage and is always letting you know that these are the soon-to-be famous Beatles. [22 Apr 1994]

A sturdily entertaining vehicle, easily the little guy's best American-made film.