Tom Keogh

What the film doesn't have, ironically, is a soul.

Achieves a kind of beauty through its overlaying enigmas, and Carrey.

Pours on some of the most ridiculous dialogue heard in a feature film in a long time.

Overpraised, intellectually soft, narratively unfocused, and thematically ambivalent.

A very moving and surprisingly funny experience.

Rounders is more involved with the insulated, arcane world of a gambler than it is with the things that actually make a movie work, such as characters and relationships and a script that connects all its dots.

Beyond the fantastic contrivances of Gods and Monsters, these performances are startlingly human.

A dark comedy that squanders its potential and never quite, as they say, suspends disbelief.

In all, this film is a major disappointment with a few powerful highlights.

The kind of minor work that may very well speak greater volumes about (Stone's) thoughts and feelings right now than another masterpiece would.

Lots of movies deal with friends and lovers of a certain age growing apart. But few can hear, as Thraves does, the sound of death chains rattling in the background.

The film's bemused but genuine respect for the ingenious obviousness of a bygone cinematic language is quite moving.

It is an ostensibly serious story about being young and struggling to wrest control over one's life from the hands of fools, yet it doesn't behave like a serious drama that wants to lead us anywhere.

If you don't ponder too much the script's muddled, self-serving influences, Arlington Road succeeds at discomforting a viewer and making one apt to look over one's shoulder for a day or two.

It's a complete drag.

It certainly has a place among the year's more accomplished productions.

Mercury Rising could have been a terrific movie with a little more gumption. [3 Apr 1998, p.G5]

Simply a case of severe overreaching and the illusion that an overstuffed movie is an epic movie.

As he did in "Run Lola Run," he has clearly patented an original combination of cinematic eye and ear candy and a profound, irresistible fascination for the role of chance in this world.

[Roos's] dialogue (including an on-and-off voiceover by Ricci's pregnant, runaway sociopath) has a ringing clarity, his satire is low-key but quite real, and his actors mesh so perfectly you'd swear they rehearsed for months before shooting.

All fleeting charm where it could have been one of the most memorable films of the decade.

This is pretty much a lazy film with a few lighthearted moments and no substance.

A careful, intelligent, and seamless design that makes room for a couple of unexpected twists.

Drama, swift action, and low-key, character-driven comedy.

Looks and moves like a film whose vital organs were yanked before shooting commenced.

One can be forgiven for leaving the theater feeling a modicum of hope, and for that we owe Warren Beatty something.

An excruciating misfire.

A wonderfully witty homage to the very king of disco movies -- "Saturday Night Fever."

A satisfying love story about two very different people with a common cause, people who endure trials of trust and faith in each other.

Don't be surprised if you exit Here On Earth feeling both moved and incredulous.

It is unusually but effectively organized as an almost unbroken chain of intimacies between the small and large players in this story.

It's possible that Ritchie's most important asset is the comic constant within his characters' existential dilemmas. To a man (and, indeed, they're all men), Ritchie's anti-heroes are at odds, in either large or small ways, with their own natures.

Miyazaki's films never stop at their brilliant surfaces. Spirited Away is a fairy tale in the classic tradition, a growing-up fantasy riding the rapids of the subconscious.

An authentically spirited popcorn movie.

An unusually clear, compassionate, and grownup satire about a rare subject: the true psychological underpinnings of young manhood.

Don't let Croupier go by without a look.

A painfully unfunny movie.

Finally, there's a female action hero for the summer of 2000, and she's a . . . chicken. But a chicken to believe in.

Quite smart, sensitive, and relatively sophisticated.

As with Bill Clinton himself, Primary Colors forces one to take the disappointing with the good, the letdown with the promise, the compromises with the hope.

A very pleasant experience in watching life unfold in its own direction and time.

As with most non-Disney animated features, Trumpet of the Swan does make the Mouse look like a genius.

An accessible but savvy political satire.

A wondrous honesty.

What we have here is a small story in an oversized setting.

Ross might have been better served by dismissing verisimilitude altogether and going for a real fable-fable to make what is essentially a very simple point about the dangers and rewards of accepting life's beautiful risks.

The film's very premise, while initially promising, doesn't hold up to lengthy scrutiny.

I don't like Say It Isn't So, but I understand its karmic inevitability.

The filmmakers went for cheap laughs as well as for some a little harder-earned. The only thing pure about this film is the dog, and he's magnificent.

Let your children have their childhood while you have a rare, grown-up experience at the multi-plex for a change.

Jim Carrey is magnificent as Kaufman.

Puts the Bond film series (this one makes number 19)-- back on track by stressing the fundamentals and applying a bit of authentic drama for a change.

God-awful.

This is vintage Allen, his powers intact after a string of increasingly cranky, creaky films in the last few years.

The story, ultimately, is about the classic conflict between a desire to cherish and protect one's unique gifts from a brutal world and a more practical instinct to compromise beauty.

A film so driven by pure style that a script barely seems necessary in its first half, Boogie Nights becomes bogged down in a predictable aftermath of drug deals, post-stardom decay, cocaine-fueled nuttiness, and self-loathing.

This much-anticipated but terribly underwhelming black comedy represents a seriously squandered opportunity.

The true star of this film, funny and often breathtakingly lovely, Zellweger carries virtually every scene in which she appears -- which aren't nearly as plentiful as one might like.

If you like a little action with your war movies, or maybe some butt-kicking Resistance types and a Mission: Impossible-like finale, you won't be disappointed.

Will eventually be remembered as a disposable farce, but one that leaves a happy memory.

Whether or not Breaking the Waves succeeds as a profound work is something that's hard to say after one viewing, but it is certainly a wholly original piece of work.

It's sporadically funny but often unfunny, the latter worse than not being funny enough.

Dreadful suspense piece that has "Mystery Science Theater" appeal written all over it.

Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, the film not only gets up on wobbly legs but learns to dance by the closing credits.

Custom-made for an audience of mouth-breathers.

Fascinating noir, which will long be remembered for its extraordinary lead performance by Catherine Deneuve.

It's not just bad, it's ugly. Not just stupid but really aesthetically displeasing. The sooner this movie disappears from sight, the better.

Director Gary Winick ("Sweet Nothing") ingeniously complements Draper's layered approach by modulating the film's energy in fascinating ways.

Once at sea, The Perfect Storm collapses in a heap of spectacle and a dubious piling-on of scary incidents.

It's very effective.

It is Foster who presents the biggest single problem, delivering a monochromatic performance that finds her character not much more than flinty and strained.

Could have afforded to be a little loftier and still be quite funny. Instead, it's a waste.

A mixed bag, all in all (casting Huey Lewis was not the best idea), but worth seeing.

Rob Schneider's stab at an "Ace Ventura"-like gamble for stardom.

Streep delivers another of her chameleon-like transformations in appearance, accent, and manner.

While we may like what we see, it's impossible to comprehend what much of it means or why we should care.

The film is simplicity itself.

The extent to which Black and Louiso help make this film terribly witty and caustic and worth every minute of its almost two-hour running time is immeasurable.

We don't even have Joe Eszterhas to blame for this one.

A pulsing, wooshing, visceral experience that amounts to great fun and an entirely disposable movie.

Heckerling fails to crack the outer shell of the story and its key relationships.

The collapse of Office Space's second half is so egregious that one can't help but suspect Judge's Achilles heel may be his writing. It's not that he can't write -- it's just that his ideas tend to shine better within a pool of fellow scribes, as proven in his television career.

Lawrence's style is purely will-it-stick-the-wall-or-not, and when it doesn't he looks pretty puny up there on the big screen.

By creating characters from emotional wellsprings rather than concepts, Leigh thrills us with the possibilities that emerge when people are merely in the same room.

Captivating an audience from the get-go and drawing our attention and emotions ever deeper into the layered mysteries of a dreamy fable.